As of November 2006, the Appeal has been supported and signed by:
I. COMITATUS PRO LIBERTATIBUS / FREEDOM COMMITTEES, General President – Vladimir BUKOVSKY II. The Board of THE ASSOCIATION OF ROMANIAN FORMER POLITICAL PRISONERS, President
– Constantin TICU DUMITRESCU
——————————————————————————————————
1. Sorin ALEXANDRESCU, professor, University of Amsterdam, member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
2. Vlad ALEXANDRESCU, professor, University of Bucharest
3. Liviu ANTONESEI, writer, Iassy, Romania
4. Ioan Sorin APAN, physicist, writer, Brasov, Romania
5. Teodor BACONSKY, diplomat, writer, Romania
6. Cristian BADILITA, researcher, writer, Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin
7. Vasile BAGHIU, writer, Romania
8. Victor BIRSAN, researcher, president of “The Action for the Human Rights Defence”, Romania
9. Octavian BJOZA, engineer, former political prisoner, Romania
10. Ana BLANDIANA, poet, creator of the Memorial of the Victims of Communism and anticommunist Resistance – Sighet, president of Civic Academy Foundation, Romania
11. Alex P. BOTI, engineering manager, Louisiana, USA
12. Lidia BRADLEY, president, Aspera Foundation, Boston, USA
13. Cosmin BUMBUT, photographer, Romania
14. Constantin BURLACU, Ph.D., former political prisoner in Romania, president of The League of National Defense, New York, USA
15. Vladimir BUKOVSKY, writer, former Soviet dissident and political prisoner (“he spent a total of twelve years in Soviet prisons, labour camps and in psikhushkas, forced-treatment psychiatric hospitals used by the regime as special prisons”- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bukovsky)
16. Gheorghe CALCIU DUMITREASA, priest, former political prisoner – 21 years in Romanian prisons, USA
17. Magda CARNECI, writer, vice-president, Romanian Cultural Institute, Paris
18. Gary CARTWRIGHT, political scientist, journalist, Brussels, Belgium.
19. Ioana Bogdan CATANICIU, researcher, The Institute for Archaeology and History of the Arts, Cluj, Romania
20. Smaranda CAZAN-LIVESCU, professor, president – “Athenaeum” Romanian-American Cultural Centre, Atlanta, USA
21. Manuela CERNAT, professor – The National University for Theatre and Film, Romania
22. Rasvan CERNAT, conductor, Romania
23. Mircea CINTEZA, president of Romanian College of Physicians
24. Adrian CIOROIANU, historian, Euro-observer, Romania
25. Octavian CIUPITU, architect, Stockholm, Sweden
26. Nicolae COANDE, writer, Craiova, Romania
27. Daria Craita COMSA, medical physicist, Canada
28. Mihail CONSTANTINESCU, film director, former political prisoner, Romania
29. Nicolae CONSTANTINESCU, member of the Academy of Medicine, Romania
30. Silvia CONSTANTINESCU, journalist, Stockholm, Sweden
31. Andrei CORNEA, writer, philosopher, Romania
32. Doina CORNEA, writer, symbol of the Romanian anticommunist dissidence, Cluj, Romania
33. Gheorghe CRACIUN, writer, professor – Transylvania University, Brasov, Romania
34. Ovidiu CREANGA, writer, Toronto, Canada
35. Radu Calin CRISTEA, journalist, writer, Romania
36. Mircea A. DIACONU, writer, professor, University of Suceava, Romania
37. Dan DIMANCESCU, businessman, journalist, author, Boston, USA
38. Bernád DÉNES, engineer and author, Canada
39. Aurora-Silvia DUMITRESCU, professor, former political prisoner – 6 years, Romania
40. Constantin TICU DUMITRESCU, president of the Association of Romanian Former Political Prisoners, former political prisoner – 23 years
41. Cristinel DUMITRESCU, engineer, former political prisoner – 14 years, Romania
42. Florian DUMITRESCU, jurist, former political prisoner – 25 years, Romania
43. Paul DUMITRESCU, technician, former political prisoner – 2 years, Romania
44. Sisila DULDURESCU-IONESCU, vice-president – The World Union of Free Romanians, Paris, France.
45. Dan L. DUSLEAG, M.D., assistant professor, Indiana University, USA
46. Lucia DUSLEAG, paediatrician, Toronto, Canada
47. Eugenia DUTA, musician, France
48. Smaranda ENACHE, president, Liga ProEuropa, Targu-Mures, Romania
49. Yuri FEDOROV, former Soviet political prisoner, USA
50. Dario FERTILIO, journalist, writer, Italy
51. Radu FILIPESCU, former political prisoner, symbol of the Romanian anticommunist dissidence, president of the Group for Social Dialogue. Member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
52. Serban FOARTA, writer, Timisoara, Romania
53. Silvestru FOCIUC, engineer, former political prisoner – 3 years, Romania
54. Angela FURTUNA, writer, journalist, Suceava, Romania
55. Anneli Ute GABANYI, political analyst, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin
56. Tom GALLAGHER, professor of Ethnic Conflict and Peace, Bradford University, United Kingdom
57. Adelina GEORGESCU, professor of applied mathematics – University of Pitesti, Romania.
58. Gabriel GHERASIM, journalist, New York, USA
59. Andre GLUCKSMANN, philosopher, France
60. Andrew P. GRIGORENKO, president of General Petro Grigorenko Foundation
61. Peter GROSS, director, professor, The University of Tennessee, USA
62. Cristian HADJI-CULEA, director, general manager of the National Theatre, Jassy, Romania
63. Otto R. HOFFMANN, writer, France
64. Petre IANCU, journalist, Deutsche Welle, Bonn, Germany
65. Petru ILIESU, writer, president – ”Timisoara ’89” Foundation, Romania
66. Miltiade IONESCU, physician, former political prisoner – 15 years, Romania
67. Afrodita IORGULESCU, mathematician, professor – Academy of Economic Studies, Romania
68. Anastasia IORGULESCU, medical student, former political prisoner, forced work for all the life, Romania
69. George IPATE, former political prisoner – 3 years, Romania
70. Mircea IVANOIU, professor, University of Brasov, Romania
71. Doina JELA, writer, journalist, secretary – the Association of Independent Journalists, Romania
72. Count KALNOKY Tibor, physician, Sfantu-Gheorghe, Romania
73. Charles KERCEA, former political prisoner – 7 years, Romania
74. Eduard KUZNETSOV, writer, journalist, former political prisoner, Israel
75. Carol LEBORG, analyst, Canada
76. Michael LEDEEN, writer, USA
77. Dmitry LENKOV, scientist, USA
78. Gabriel LIICEANU, philosopher, writer, Romania
79. Alexander LITVINENKO, former KGB-FSB officer lieutenant-colonel, political prisoner, writer, United Kingdom
80. Lucian I. LIVESCU, president – “Youth For a Better World”, Atlanta, USA
81. Traian LUSCAN, office worker, former political prisoner – 10 years, Romania
82. Silviu LUPESCU, general manager – Polirom publishing house, Jassy, Romania
83. Giorgio LUPU, architect, vicepresident – Nadel Architects Inc., Los Angeles, USA
84. Nistor MAN, professor, former political prisoner, Romania
85. Sorin MARCULESCU, writer, Romania
86. Mihai MARIN, office worker, former political prisoner – 8 years, Romania
87. Mircea MARTIN, professor, University of Bucharest
88. Constantin MARTIAN, vicepresident of the Civic Alliance, Romania
89. Claude MATASA, professor, scientist, Chicago, USA
90. Serban MIHAILEANU, cardiologist, Paris
91. Emanoil MIHAILESCU, architect, former political prisoner – 5 years, Romania
92. Florian MIHALCEA, president – Societatea Timisoara, Romania
93. Christian MITITELU, president of the Civic Alliance, Romania
94. Dumitru MOSOIU, office worker, former political prisoner – 4 years, Romania
95. Alexandru MUNTEANU, professor, Transylvania University, Brasov, Romania
96. Carmen MUSAT, journalist, director – “Observator cultural” review, Romania
97. John NANDRIS, archaeologist, Oxford, United Kingdom
98. Ana Maria NARTI, member of Swedish Parliament (Liberal Party)
99. Radu NICOARA, film director, dean of the National University for Theatre and Film, Romania
100. Ecaterina NICULESCU, former political prisoner – 2 years
101. Andrei OISTEANU, writer, president of the Romanian Association for the History of Religions
102. Dan OTTULESCU, engineer, former political prisoner – 10 years, Romania
103. Ion Mihai PACEPA, general, author: “Red Horizons “(1987), “The Black Book of the Securitate” (1999), USA
104. Octavian PALER, writer, Romania
105. Vasile PARASCHIV, former political prisoner, symbol of the Romanian anticommunist dissidence, Ploies¸ti, Romania
106. Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI, writer, president of the Romanian Cultural Institute. Member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
107. Cristina PETRESCU, historian, expert of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
108. Dragos PETRESCU, historian, member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
109. Dusan PETROVICI, poet, Dusseldorf, Germany
110. Andrei PLESU, writer, Romania
111. Ilie POPA, Dean – University of Pitesti, Romania. President – Fundatia Culturala Memoria, Arges
112. Delia PRVACKI, sculptor, Singapore
113. Constantin RADUCANU, engineer, former political prisoner – 7 years, Romania
114. Constantin RAUTA, scientist, Centre of Excellence, College Park, Maryland, USA
115. Cristina RHEA, poet, journalist, Romania
116. Luís RIBEIRO, historian, Portugal
117. Sorin ROSCA STANESCU – journalist, general manager of the journal “Ziua”, Romania
118. Marilena ROTARU, TV filmmaker, Romania
119. Romulus RUSAN, writer,managerof the International Centre of Studies about Communism – Civic Academy Foundation, member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
120. Ileana SAMOILA, former political prisoner – 8 years, Romania
121. Eugen SERBANESCU, writer, Romania
122. David SATTER, writer, former Moscow correspondent, USA
123. Valerian SAVA, film critic and historian, Romania
124. Armando de SIMONE, journalist, writer, author: “The Black Book of Italian communism”, Italy
125. Eliot SOREL, professor, George Washington University, USA
126. Lavinia STAN, director, Centre of Post-Communist Studies, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada
127. Teodor STANCA, engineer, former political prisoner, Romania
128. Marian STAS, chairman, Codecs Foundation for Leadership, Romania
129. Cristache STEFANESCU, physician, former political prisoner – 20 years, Romania
130. Gheorghe Mihai STEFANESCU, engineer, former political prisoner – 10 years, Romania
131. Cristiana I. STOICA, lawyer, Romania
132. Valeriu STOICA, professor – University of Bucharest
133. Stelian TANASE, writer. Member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
134. Alin TEODORESCU, sociologist, Romania
135. Vladimir TISMANEANU, chairman and co-ordinator of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania. Professor of political science, University of Maryland, USA
136. Cristina TOPESCU, TV journalist, Romania
137. Cristian TOPESCU, TV journalist, Romania
138. Florin TUDOSE, psychiatrist, professor – “S.Haret” University, Romania
139. Florin TURCANU, historian, professor, University of Bucharest
140. Lucian TURCESCU, professor – Concordia University, president – Canadian Patristics Association, Canada
141. Petr VANCURA, chairman, The BELL – Association for Freedom and Democracy, Czech Republic
142. Ion VARLAM, bank expert, former political prisoner, 8 years, Romania
143. Cristian VASILE, historian, scientific secretary of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
144. Anca VASILIU, philosopher, scientist – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
145. Smaranda VULTUR, professor – Western University, Timisoara. Expert of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
146. Dinu ZAMFIRESCU, president – National Institute for the Memory of Romanian Exile, Romania
147. Florin ZAMFIRESCU, rector of the National University for Theatre and Film, Romania
148. Vlad ZOGRAFI, writer, Romania
149. Serban RADULESCU ZONER, historian, ex-president of the Civic Alliance, former political prisoner, Romania
150. Georges ZOUAIN, UNESCO expert, France
151. Alexandru ZUB, historian, academician, former political prisoner, member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
The list of signatures is in alphabetical order. THE LIST REMAIN OPEN(please contact the initiator – Sorin Iliesiu: <vmvd@ong.ro> <soriniliesiu@yahoo.com>Subject: APPEAL FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION. Please mention your profession etc./country. Thank you.)
Sorin Iliesiu (the author of the present appeal): “Communist Romania was like a huge political prison, from which there was no escape, a gigantic penitentiary in which twenty-three million innocent people endured a criminal and absurd sentence handed down by the fatality of history.”
“Communism seemed to have been installed definitively and irrevocably. Its collapse seemed possible only theoretically, in a much too distant future. Nevertheless, we dared to dream, at least for the future of our future grandchildren. Only our dreams eluded the omnipresent censorship, because they could neither be controlled, nor denounced, nor even subjected to self-censorship. But unlike dreams, our hopes were conscious and lucid, and thus inevitably subject to self-censorship. This is why we did not have very high hopes.”
George W. Bush, Riga, May 7, 2005: “The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history.”
Excerpt from page 7 of the report attached to this letter:
“Victims were transformed into executioners; prisoners were tortured by their own friends, by their fellows in suffering. The purpose: “re-education” through physical and psychical destruction, the transformation of young people into atheists, into informers on their friends. Examples of psychological torture: a) On Easter Night, prisoners who refused to make a total self-denunciation (to tell everything that they were supposed not to have declared during Securitate interrogations) are forced to take a ‘holy communion’ of faecal matter; b) Those suspected of having concealed information about participants in anticommunist actions have their heads thrust by their torturers into chamber-pots full of urine; c) Prisoners are forced to spit in the mouth of their anticommunist leader, in order to force him to revenge himself by unmasking them; d). On Christmas Day, a prisoner is forced to go to stool on a bedpan, to ‘symbolise’ the nativity of Christ, while the other political prisoners are forced to kneel and cross themselves before him. (…) The Pitesti experiment is regarded as unique in the panoply of methods designed to destroy the human person. In his celebrated book The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn refers to the Pitesti experiment as the ‘most terrible act of barbarism in the contemporary world’”.
Sorin Iliesiu: “In the end, communism fell into its own trap, deluding itself that the total lie could function even against human nature and – why not – even against God Himself, Who, obviously, had to be replaced by something and somebody. What and who could be a replacement for God? At the same time as they negated Him, the communist dictators attempted to take His place.”
André Malraux: “The Twenty First Century will be religious or not at all.”
“Universal history is nothing more than the recurrence of catastrophes in the expectation of one final catastrophe”, wrote Emil Cioran, reflecting, probably, on the apocalyptic death toll of the catastrophes that occurred last century: ten million victims in the First World War; fifty-five million victims in the Second World War; ten million people murdered in the name of Nazism; one hundred million people murdered in the name of communism.
We must make it impossible for such catastrophes to reoccur. Nazism has been condemned in just and exemplary fashion. Communism and its crimes must similarly be condemned. This will only be possible through knowledge of the whole truth. Due to lack of knowledge, at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 25 January 2006 many parliamentarians of the highest European forum for the defence of human rights and the rule of law voted against the motion to condemn communism, ignoring the arguments put forward by Mr Göran Lindblad, the initiator of the motion. We are convinced that only when the whole truth is known can such a vote be just.
In this highly necessary motion, Mr Göran Lindblad referred to the figure of one hundred million people killed in the name of communist ideology. However, as well as those murdered, there were also billions of victims of other crimes against humanity. In the communist bloc, human rights were concealed precisely in order to be flagrantly and systematically violated. In Lenin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and Ceausescu’s Romania, communism signified continual, indirect murder for the majority.
In the name of all the victims of communism, we solicit that the United Nations, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Congress of the United States of America should firmly condemn the crimes and illegitimacy of communism as soon as possible and should take decisions that will ensure that such crimes will never again be possible.
We propose that the representatives of civil society in the former communist countries should solicit from national and international authorities the firm condemnation of the crimes and illegitimacy of communism. The official arguments necessary for such international condemnation can be obtained by following the most natural path, in the same way as we have proceeded in Romania. Thus, as representative of civil society, I launched an appeal for the official condemnation of the crimes of communism in April 2005. The President of Romania, Traian Basescu, affirmed that he would condemn these crimes on the basis of an official report. In October 2005, I presented him an unofficial report (of 11 pages), attached to the present letter. Subsequently, my Appeal was signed by hundreds of prestigious intellectuals and by leading civic organisations.
In response to the Appeal, the President of Romania decided to establish a presidential committee in order that an official report might be drawn up. Of course, this report will be much more comprehensive than the one I have drawn up, inasmuch as it will benefit from access to still secret archives, as well as the competence of the twenty members of the committee, co-ordinated by the prestigious Vladimir Tismaneanu, professor of political science at the University of Maryland (USA). Thus, at the end of this year, Romania will be the first country in which there will take place, in full knowledge of the facts, an exemplary condemnation of the illegitimacy and criminality of communism.
I consider that the whole world should recognise the extreme forms taken by the criminality of the communist regime in Romania. Here are two examples: 1) Relative to the size of the population, Romania had the highest number of victims subject to extermination; 2) during the anticommunist revolution of December 1989, unarmed and panic-stricken masses of people were massacred: more than 1,100 dead and over 3,300 wounded, whereas in other communist countries the totalitarian regimes collapsed with no victims. It was not by chance that, four months after the revolution, the longest anticommunist meeting in history took place in the capital of Romania – fifty-two days and nights – a demonstration that was repressed with unprecedented brutality.
I should underline the fact that, fifteen years after the fall of communism, while researching for the unofficial report presented to the President of Romania, I discovered terrible things of which I had previously known almost nothing. I could not believe that so many and so terrible atrocities had been possible. Most of them were hidden from us. Some horrors we experienced personally, of others we were aware only partially. We knew only little about the whole. Our parents hid the truth from us precisely because they feared for us: any form of protest could have been fatal. Today, young people know nothing or virtually nothing about these horrors.
Ultimately, all these horrors will be rigorously analysed and summarised in the future official document for the condemnation of the communist regime in Romania.
We therefore propose that the representatives of civil society in the former communist countries should follow the example of civil society in Romania, so that the entire world might recognise the whole truth about the crimes of communism, in order that they will never be possible again anywhere.
We ask that the United Nations should demand that each former communist state should present, as soon as possible, its own country report regarding the illegitimacy and illegality of communism. The international condemnation must take place in full knowledge of the facts, within a global conference. In symbolic fashion, such a conference might take place in Romania, in the huge palace built by Ceausescu, the last Stalinist in Europe.
Romania, Bucharest, 17 May 2006
Sorin Iliesiu, initiator of the Appeal for the Condemnation of the Crimes of Communism in Romania and author of The Unofficial Report towards Condemnation of the Crimes of Communism. Member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania. Vice-president of the Civic Alliance, member of the Group for Social Dialogue.
Postscript: I was one of the 4,000,000 former supernumerary members (i.e. one of the bit-part players) of the Romanian Communist Party. In the world, there were billions of supernumerary members of the former communist parties. These people were also victims of the crimes committed by communist regimes. For the overwhelming majority of people, life under communism meant an indirect and continual crime. Through my Appeal, I wish to represent inclusive the billion former bit-part players members of the former communist parties.
N.B.: The Appeal, the signatories list and the annexes, are published on the web-site www.libertates.com
of “Comitatus pro Libertatibus” / “Freedom Committees”, President: Vladimir Bukovsky.
Signatories to the
APPEAL FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION
OF THE CRIMINALITY AND ILLEGITIMACY OF COMMUNISM
O p e n L e t t e r T o :
· THE UNITED NATIONS
· THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE
· THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
· CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE FORMER COMMUNIST COUNTRIES
==================================================================
As of November 2006, the Appeal has been supported and signed by:
I. COMITATUS PRO LIBERTATIBUS / FREEDOM COMMITTEES, General President
– Vladimir BUKOVSKY
II. The Board of THE ASSOCIATION OF ROMANIAN FORMER POLITICAL PRISONERS, President
– Constantin TICU DUMITRESCU
——————————————————————————————————
1. Sorin ALEXANDRESCU, professor, University of Amsterdam, member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
2. Vlad ALEXANDRESCU, professor, University of Bucharest
3. Liviu ANTONESEI, writer, Iassy, Romania
4. Ioan Sorin APAN, physicist, writer, Brasov, Romania
5. Teodor BACONSKY, diplomat, writer, Romania
6. Cristian BADILITA, researcher, writer, Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin
7. Vasile BAGHIU, writer, Romania
8. Victor BIRSAN, researcher, president of “The Action for the Human Rights Defence”, Romania
9. Octavian BJOZA, engineer, former political prisoner, Romania
10. Ana BLANDIANA, poet, creator of the Memorial of the Victims of Communism and anticommunist Resistance – Sighet, president of Civic Academy Foundation, Romania
11. Alex P. BOTI, engineering manager, Louisiana, USA
12. Lidia BRADLEY, president, Aspera Foundation, Boston, USA
13. Cosmin BUMBUT, photographer, Romania
14. Constantin BURLACU, Ph.D., former political prisoner in Romania, president of The League of National Defense, New York, USA
15. Vladimir BUKOVSKY, writer, former Soviet dissident and political prisoner (“he spent a total of twelve years in Soviet prisons, labour camps and in psikhushkas, forced-treatment psychiatric hospitals used by the regime as special prisons”- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bukovsky)
16. Gheorghe CALCIU DUMITREASA, priest, former political prisoner – 21 years in Romanian prisons, USA
17. Magda CARNECI, writer, vice-president, Romanian Cultural Institute, Paris
18. Gary CARTWRIGHT, political scientist, journalist, Brussels, Belgium.
19. Ioana Bogdan CATANICIU, researcher, The Institute for Archaeology and History of the Arts, Cluj, Romania
20. Smaranda CAZAN-LIVESCU, professor, president – “Athenaeum” Romanian-American Cultural Centre, Atlanta, USA
21. Manuela CERNAT, professor – The National University for Theatre and Film, Romania
22. Rasvan CERNAT, conductor, Romania
23. Mircea CINTEZA, president of Romanian College of Physicians
24. Adrian CIOROIANU, historian, Euro-observer, Romania
25. Octavian CIUPITU, architect, Stockholm, Sweden
26. Nicolae COANDE, writer, Craiova, Romania
27. Daria Craita COMSA, medical physicist, Canada
28. Mihail CONSTANTINESCU, film director, former political prisoner, Romania
29. Nicolae CONSTANTINESCU, member of the Academy of Medicine, Romania
30. Silvia CONSTANTINESCU, journalist, Stockholm, Sweden
31. Andrei CORNEA, writer, philosopher, Romania
32. Doina CORNEA, writer, symbol of the Romanian anticommunist dissidence, Cluj, Romania
33. Gheorghe CRACIUN, writer, professor – Transylvania University, Brasov, Romania
34. Ovidiu CREANGA, writer, Toronto, Canada
35. Radu Calin CRISTEA, journalist, writer, Romania
36. Mircea A. DIACONU, writer, professor, University of Suceava, Romania
37. Dan DIMANCESCU, businessman, journalist, author, Boston, USA
38. Bernád DÉNES, engineer and author, Canada
39. Aurora-Silvia DUMITRESCU, professor, former political prisoner – 6 years, Romania
40. Constantin TICU DUMITRESCU, president of the Association of Romanian Former Political Prisoners, former political prisoner – 23 years
41. Cristinel DUMITRESCU, engineer, former political prisoner – 14 years, Romania
42. Florian DUMITRESCU, jurist, former political prisoner – 25 years, Romania
43. Paul DUMITRESCU, technician, former political prisoner – 2 years, Romania
44. Sisila DULDURESCU-IONESCU, vice-president – The World Union of Free Romanians, Paris, France.
45. Dan L. DUSLEAG, M.D., assistant professor, Indiana University, USA
46. Lucia DUSLEAG, paediatrician, Toronto, Canada
47. Eugenia DUTA, musician, France
48. Smaranda ENACHE, president, Liga ProEuropa, Targu-Mures, Romania
49. Yuri FEDOROV, former Soviet political prisoner, USA
50. Dario FERTILIO, journalist, writer, Italy
51. Radu FILIPESCU, former political prisoner, symbol of the Romanian anticommunist dissidence, president of the Group for Social Dialogue. Member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
52. Serban FOARTA, writer, Timisoara, Romania
53. Silvestru FOCIUC, engineer, former political prisoner – 3 years, Romania
54. Angela FURTUNA, writer, journalist, Suceava, Romania
55. Anneli Ute GABANYI, political analyst, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin
56. Tom GALLAGHER, professor of Ethnic Conflict and Peace, Bradford University, United Kingdom
57. Adelina GEORGESCU, professor of applied mathematics – University of Pitesti, Romania.
58. Gabriel GHERASIM, journalist, New York, USA
59. Andre GLUCKSMANN, philosopher, France
60. Andrew P. GRIGORENKO, president of General Petro Grigorenko Foundation
61. Peter GROSS, director, professor, The University of Tennessee, USA
62. Cristian HADJI-CULEA, director, general manager of the National Theatre, Jassy, Romania
63. Otto R. HOFFMANN, writer, France
64. Petre IANCU, journalist, Deutsche Welle, Bonn, Germany
65. Petru ILIESU, writer, president – ”Timisoara ’89” Foundation, Romania
66. Miltiade IONESCU, physician, former political prisoner – 15 years, Romania
67. Afrodita IORGULESCU, mathematician, professor – Academy of Economic Studies, Romania
68. Anastasia IORGULESCU, medical student, former political prisoner, forced work for all the life, Romania
69. George IPATE, former political prisoner – 3 years, Romania
70. Mircea IVANOIU, professor, University of Brasov, Romania
71. Doina JELA, writer, journalist, secretary – the Association of Independent Journalists, Romania
72. Count KALNOKY Tibor, physician, Sfantu-Gheorghe, Romania
73. Charles KERCEA, former political prisoner – 7 years, Romania
74. Eduard KUZNETSOV, writer, journalist, former political prisoner, Israel
75. Carol LEBORG, analyst, Canada
76. Michael LEDEEN, writer, USA
77. Dmitry LENKOV, scientist, USA
78. Gabriel LIICEANU, philosopher, writer, Romania
79. Alexander LITVINENKO, former KGB-FSB officer lieutenant-colonel, political prisoner, writer, United Kingdom
80. Lucian I. LIVESCU, president – “Youth For a Better World”, Atlanta, USA
81. Traian LUSCAN, office worker, former political prisoner – 10 years, Romania
82. Silviu LUPESCU, general manager – Polirom publishing house, Jassy, Romania
83. Giorgio LUPU, architect, vicepresident – Nadel Architects Inc., Los Angeles, USA
84. Nistor MAN, professor, former political prisoner, Romania
85. Sorin MARCULESCU, writer, Romania
86. Mihai MARIN, office worker, former political prisoner – 8 years, Romania
87. Mircea MARTIN, professor, University of Bucharest
88. Constantin MARTIAN, vicepresident of the Civic Alliance, Romania
89. Claude MATASA, professor, scientist, Chicago, USA
90. Serban MIHAILEANU, cardiologist, Paris
91. Emanoil MIHAILESCU, architect, former political prisoner – 5 years, Romania
92. Florian MIHALCEA, president – Societatea Timisoara, Romania
93. Christian MITITELU, president of the Civic Alliance, Romania
94. Dumitru MOSOIU, office worker, former political prisoner – 4 years, Romania
95. Alexandru MUNTEANU, professor, Transylvania University, Brasov, Romania
96. Carmen MUSAT, journalist, director – “Observator cultural” review, Romania
97. John NANDRIS, archaeologist, Oxford, United Kingdom
98. Ana Maria NARTI, member of Swedish Parliament (Liberal Party)
99. Radu NICOARA, film director, dean of the National University for Theatre and Film, Romania
100. Ecaterina NICULESCU, former political prisoner – 2 years
101. Andrei OISTEANU, writer, president of the Romanian Association for the History of Religions
102. Dan OTTULESCU, engineer, former political prisoner – 10 years, Romania
103. Ion Mihai PACEPA, general, author: “Red Horizons “(1987), “The Black Book of the Securitate” (1999), USA
104. Octavian PALER, writer, Romania
105. Vasile PARASCHIV, former political prisoner, symbol of the Romanian anticommunist dissidence, Ploies¸ti, Romania
106. Horia-Roman PATAPIEVICI, writer, president of the Romanian Cultural Institute. Member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
107. Cristina PETRESCU, historian, expert of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
108. Dragos PETRESCU, historian, member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
109. Dusan PETROVICI, poet, Dusseldorf, Germany
110. Andrei PLESU, writer, Romania
111. Ilie POPA, Dean – University of Pitesti, Romania. President – Fundatia Culturala Memoria, Arges
112. Delia PRVACKI, sculptor, Singapore
113. Constantin RADUCANU, engineer, former political prisoner – 7 years, Romania
114. Constantin RAUTA, scientist, Centre of Excellence, College Park, Maryland, USA
115. Cristina RHEA, poet, journalist, Romania
116. Luís RIBEIRO, historian, Portugal
117. Sorin ROSCA STANESCU – journalist, general manager of the journal “Ziua”, Romania
118. Marilena ROTARU, TV filmmaker, Romania
119. Romulus RUSAN, writer, manager of the International Centre of Studies about Communism – Civic Academy Foundation, member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
120. Ileana SAMOILA, former political prisoner – 8 years, Romania
121. Eugen SERBANESCU, writer, Romania
122. David SATTER, writer, former Moscow correspondent, USA
123. Valerian SAVA, film critic and historian, Romania
124. Armando de SIMONE, journalist, writer, author: “The Black Book of Italian communism”, Italy
125. Eliot SOREL, professor, George Washington University, USA
126. Lavinia STAN, director, Centre of Post-Communist Studies, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada
127. Teodor STANCA, engineer, former political prisoner, Romania
128. Marian STAS, chairman, Codecs Foundation for Leadership, Romania
129. Cristache STEFANESCU, physician, former political prisoner – 20 years, Romania
130. Gheorghe Mihai STEFANESCU, engineer, former political prisoner – 10 years, Romania
131. Cristiana I. STOICA, lawyer, Romania
132. Valeriu STOICA, professor – University of Bucharest
133. Stelian TANASE, writer. Member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
134. Alin TEODORESCU, sociologist, Romania
135. Vladimir TISMANEANU, chairman and co-ordinator of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania. Professor of political science, University of Maryland, USA
136. Cristina TOPESCU, TV journalist, Romania
137. Cristian TOPESCU, TV journalist, Romania
138. Florin TUDOSE, psychiatrist, professor – “S.Haret” University, Romania
139. Florin TURCANU, historian, professor, University of Bucharest
140. Lucian TURCESCU, professor – Concordia University, president – Canadian Patristics Association, Canada
141. Petr VANCURA, chairman, The BELL – Association for Freedom and Democracy, Czech Republic
142. Ion VARLAM, bank expert, former political prisoner, 8 years, Romania
143. Cristian VASILE, historian, scientific secretary of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
144. Anca VASILIU, philosopher, scientist – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
145. Smaranda VULTUR, professor – Western University, Timisoara. Expert of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
146. Dinu ZAMFIRESCU, president – National Institute for the Memory of Romanian Exile, Romania
147. Florin ZAMFIRESCU, rector of the National University for Theatre and Film, Romania
148. Vlad ZOGRAFI, writer, Romania
149. Serban RADULESCU ZONER, historian, ex-president of the Civic Alliance, former political prisoner, Romania
150. Georges ZOUAIN, UNESCO expert, France
151. Alexandru ZUB, historian, academician, former political prisoner, member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
The list of signatures is in alphabetical order. THE LIST REMAIN OPEN (please contact the initiator – Sorin Iliesiu: <vmvd@ong.ro> <soriniliesiu@yahoo.com> Subject: APPEAL FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION. Please mention your profession etc./country. Thank you.)
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Sorin Iliesiu (the author of the present appeal): “Communist Romania was like a huge political prison, from which there was no escape, a gigantic penitentiary in which twenty-three million innocent people endured a criminal and absurd sentence handed down by the fatality of history.”
“Communism seemed to have been installed definitively and irrevocably. Its collapse seemed possible only theoretically, in a much too distant future. Nevertheless, we dared to dream, at least for the future of our future grandchildren. Only our dreams eluded the omnipresent censorship, because they could neither be controlled, nor denounced, nor even subjected to self-censorship. But unlike dreams, our hopes were conscious and lucid, and thus inevitably subject to self-censorship. This is why we did not have very high hopes.”
George W. Bush, Riga, May 7, 2005: “The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history.”
Excerpt from page 7 of the report attached to this letter:
“Victims were transformed into executioners; prisoners were tortured by their own friends, by their fellows in suffering. The purpose: “re-education” through physical and psychical destruction, the transformation of young people into atheists, into informers on their friends. Examples of psychological torture: a) On Easter Night, prisoners who refused to make a total self-denunciation (to tell everything that they were supposed not to have declared during Securitate interrogations) are forced to take a ‘holy communion’ of faecal matter; b) Those suspected of having concealed information about participants in anticommunist actions have their heads thrust by their torturers into chamber-pots full of urine; c) Prisoners are forced to spit in the mouth of their anticommunist leader, in order to force him to revenge himself by unmasking them; d). On Christmas Day, a prisoner is forced to go to stool on a bedpan, to ‘symbolise’ the nativity of Christ, while the other political prisoners are forced to kneel and cross themselves before him. (…) The Pitesti experiment is regarded as unique in the panoply of methods designed to destroy the human person. In his celebrated book The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn refers to the Pitesti experiment as the ‘most terrible act of barbarism in the contemporary world’”.
Sorin Iliesiu: “In the end, communism fell into its own trap, deluding itself that the total lie could function even against human nature and – why not – even against God Himself, Who, obviously, had to be replaced by something and somebody. What and who could be a replacement for God? At the same time as they negated Him, the communist dictators attempted to take His place.”
André Malraux: “The Twenty First Century will be religious or not at all.”
“Universal history is nothing more than the recurrence of catastrophes in the expectation of one final catastrophe”, wrote Emil Cioran, reflecting, probably, on the apocalyptic death toll of the catastrophes that occurred last century: ten million victims in the First World War; fifty-five million victims in the Second World War; ten million people murdered in the name of Nazism; one hundred million people murdered in the name of communism.
We must make it impossible for such catastrophes to reoccur. Nazism has been condemned in just and exemplary fashion. Communism and its crimes must similarly be condemned. This will only be possible through knowledge of the whole truth. Due to lack of knowledge, at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 25 January 2006 many parliamentarians of the highest European forum for the defence of human rights and the rule of law voted against the motion to condemn communism, ignoring the arguments put forward by Mr Göran Lindblad, the initiator of the motion. We are convinced that only when the whole truth is known can such a vote be just.
In this highly necessary motion, Mr Göran Lindblad referred to the figure of one hundred million people killed in the name of communist ideology. However, as well as those murdered, there were also billions of victims of other crimes against humanity. In the communist bloc, human rights were concealed precisely in order to be flagrantly and systematically violated. In Lenin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and Ceausescu’s Romania, communism signified continual, indirect murder for the majority.
In the name of all the victims of communism, we solicit that the United Nations, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Congress of the United States of America should firmly condemn the crimes and illegitimacy of communism as soon as possible and should take decisions that will ensure that such crimes will never again be possible.
We propose that the representatives of civil society in the former communist countries should solicit from national and international authorities the firm condemnation of the crimes and illegitimacy of communism. The official arguments necessary for such international condemnation can be obtained by following the most natural path, in the same way as we have proceeded in Romania. Thus, as representative of civil society, I launched an appeal for the official condemnation of the crimes of communism in April 2005. The President of Romania, Traian Basescu, affirmed that he would condemn these crimes on the basis of an official report. In October 2005, I presented him an unofficial report (of 11 pages), attached to the present letter. Subsequently, my Appeal was signed by hundreds of prestigious intellectuals and by leading civic organisations.
In response to the Appeal, the President of Romania decided to establish a presidential committee in order that an official report might be drawn up. Of course, this report will be much more comprehensive than the one I have drawn up, inasmuch as it will benefit from access to still secret archives, as well as the competence of the twenty members of the committee, co-ordinated by the prestigious Vladimir Tismaneanu, professor of political science at the University of Maryland (USA). Thus, at the end of this year, Romania will be the first country in which there will take place, in full knowledge of the facts, an exemplary condemnation of the illegitimacy and criminality of communism.
I consider that the whole world should recognise the extreme forms taken by the criminality of the communist regime in Romania. Here are two examples: 1) Relative to the size of the population, Romania had the highest number of victims subject to extermination; 2) during the anticommunist revolution of December 1989, unarmed and panic-stricken masses of people were massacred: more than 1,100 dead and over 3,300 wounded, whereas in other communist countries the totalitarian regimes collapsed with no victims. It was not by chance that, four months after the revolution, the longest anticommunist meeting in history took place in the capital of Romania – fifty-two days and nights – a demonstration that was repressed with unprecedented brutality.
I should underline the fact that, fifteen years after the fall of communism, while researching for the unofficial report presented to the President of Romania, I discovered terrible things of which I had previously known almost nothing. I could not believe that so many and so terrible atrocities had been possible. Most of them were hidden from us. Some horrors we experienced personally, of others we were aware only partially. We knew only little about the whole. Our parents hid the truth from us precisely because they feared for us: any form of protest could have been fatal. Today, young people know nothing or virtually nothing about these horrors.
Ultimately, all these horrors will be rigorously analysed and summarised in the future official document for the condemnation of the communist regime in Romania.
We therefore propose that the representatives of civil society in the former communist countries should follow the example of civil society in Romania, so that the entire world might recognise the whole truth about the crimes of communism, in order that they will never be possible again anywhere.
We ask that the United Nations should demand that each former communist state should present, as soon as possible, its own country report regarding the illegitimacy and illegality of communism. The international condemnation must take place in full knowledge of the facts, within a global conference. In symbolic fashion, such a conference might take place in Romania, in the huge palace built by Ceausescu, the last Stalinist in Europe.
Romania, Bucharest, 17 May 2006
Sorin Iliesiu, initiator of the Appeal for the Condemnation of the Crimes of Communism in Romania and author of The Unofficial Report towards Condemnation of the Crimes of Communism. Member of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania. Vice-president of the Civic Alliance, member of the Group for Social Dialogue.
Postscript: I was one of the 4,000,000 former supernumerary members (i.e. one of the bit-part players) of the Romanian Communist Party. In the world, there were billions of supernumerary members of the former communist parties. These people were also victims of the crimes committed by communist regimes. For the overwhelming majority of people, life under communism meant an indirect and continual crime. Through my Appeal, I wish to represent inclusive the billion former bit-part players members of the former communist parties.
N.B.: The Appeal, the signatories list and the annexes, are published on the web-site
www.libertates.com
of “Comitatus pro Libertatibus” / “Freedom Committees”, President: Vladimir Bukovsky.
Translated by Alistair Blyth
Sorin ILIESIU
E-mail: vmvd@ong.ro
Fax: +40-021.3156358
Postal address:
60 Ruschita Str., Sector 2,
021949 Bucharest, Romania