The stand-in demonstrations during the spring of 1990, in University Square, in downtown Bucharest were, above all else, the rebirth of the civil society in Romania.
Fifteen years passed since their abrupt end with the repression of 13-15 June 1990.
At that time I had recently came back to Romania and witnessed the strange course the events took, when the elected power - apparently in panic - decided to call in the miners as a repression force against democratic forces, opposition parties, independent media outlets and civil society organizations.
It is a well known fact that politicians, including Ion Iliescu and Petre Roman sthen President and PM, respectively, trans. notet are able of change and to learn the rules at play in a democracy.
At the same time I am convinced that one cannot accept for silence to make the recollection of those instances fade from memory.
I will remind here fragments of a previous interview I gave to "22" weekly, and published on 3 August 1990. It was recorded on 16 June, by Raluca Barac, in Bucharest, and conveys my analysis of the events. The whole interview may be found, for further reading, in the book titles "Ash guillotine" that I authored, published by Polirom Publishing House in 2002.
As stated in the book of interviews I conducted with Iliescu, I was a tough critic of the events then.
The legal obligation of democratic leaders would have been to call at the rescue of democratically elected institutions the legal repression forces, like the police and the army, and not the miners, led by party leaders and former Securitate members. My stance of 15 years ago stays the same now, as I recently stated in an interview with Ovidiu Simonca for the "Observator Cultural" review.
Revisiting and reconsidering past wounds is essential to a mature democracy. At no time do I stand for revenge but
