Riots Romania

Romanian police crushed a violent protest by thousands of angry coal miners and arrested their leader, Miron Cozma, in clashes that left at least one miner dead and 100 injured. About 2,000 miners were headed to the capital, Bucharest, to protest a high court ruling that sentenced Cozma in absentia to 18 years in jail for leading coal miners in anti-reform riots in 1991. The clash lasted three hours, with about 1,000 police fighting back with tear-gas grenades, rubber bullets and batons.

Romanian police crushed a violent protest by thousands of angry coal miners and arrested their leader, Miron Cozma, in clashes that left at least one miner dead and 100 injured. About 2,000 miners were headed to the capital, Bucharest, to protest a high court ruling that sentenced Cozma in absentia to 18 years in jail for leading coal miners in anti-reform riots in 1991. The clash lasted three hours, with about 1,000 police fighting back with tear-gas grenades, rubber bullets and batons.

Anti-government protesters cordoned off a busy intersection Monday, and one chamber of the Parliament empowered police to break up the demonstration, setting up the battle lines for a new confrontation. The brutality unleashed against residents of the capital last week has served only to embolden anti-Communist demonstrators, who now sense that President Ion Iliescu's new government is on trial with Western democracies.

Workers have begun replacing shattered window glass, and a steady autumn rain is washing away soot from firebombs lobbed against the granite facade of government headquarters on Victory Square. But the terror unleashed during three days of rioting by angry miners last week has inflicted psychological and political damage that Romanians will find much more difficult to repair.

Former Communist Ion Iliescu pledged Wednesday to be a democratic president of reconciliation, but the United States boycotted his inauguration to protest his role in violent attacks on opposition figures. The capital was generally quiet after a tumultuous week of anti-government riots, mob rule by loyalist miners and a crackdown on dissenters.

Anti-Communist protests flared in the Balkan capitals Wednesday, with soldiers firing on demonstrators in Bucharest in the worst rioting in Romania since the December revolution that overthrew dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Thousands of Romanians angered by a pre-dawn police raid on protesters who had occupied a central square for 53 days stormed the state television station and set fire to police headquarters. State radio reported that four people were killed, two of them shot to death.

Romania's provisional prime minister, Petre Roman, said Monday that some of the demonstrators who forced their way into government offices in Bucharest on Sunday and briefly held captive the country's vice premier were "suspicious persons, ex-convicts, people without jobs, loaded with money and armed with knives."

Romania said that at least 83 people will stand trial for involvement in political violence in Bucharest. Officials asserted that the six people killed in the June 13-15 riots died before pro-government miners arrived on the scene. A Foreign Ministry statement also absolved security forces of responsibility for three people who died of gunshot wounds, saying the troops used only blanks.

Troops backed by tanks kept an uneasy peace Wednesday in the Transylvania town of Tirgu Mures, where tensions between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians led to bloody street battles Tuesday night, leaving at least six people dead and 300 wounded. Tanks cordoned off all highways into Tirgu Mures, about 250 miles northwest of Bucharest, and tanks as well as about 500 soldiers and police patrolled downtown. A special commission of inquiry agreed to meet today with representatives of both sides.

The nation's intelligence chief warned Monday that more rioting could break out if Parliament does not quickly revamp the country's leadership. "We are only at the beginning of a very hot period," said Virgil Magureanu, head of the Romanian Intelligence Service, SRI. "It cannot be said for certain that there will not be more violent attacks in the near future."

Prime Minister Petre Roman resigned Thursday, bowing to violent protests against his economic reforms. But the move failed to stop chaotic demonstrations by thousands of enraged miners and other citizens, who demanded that Romania's president also step down. By nightfall, the protests threatened to blow up into a major confrontation between the ruling National Salvation Front, which took power two years ago, and angry workers in one of Europe's poorest countries.

Thousands of coal miners angry over skyrocketing prices stormed government headquarters Wednesday and fought police with firebombs, clubs, rocks and axes. Three people were killed. The miners had commandeered trains in central Romania to bring their demands to Bucharest. Among the demands was that Prime Minister Petre Roman resign. "We are not going to leave this town until Roman resigns," their leader, Miron Cosma, said on television. "The responsibility for the dead is his."

Romanian riot police broke up an anti-government demonstration in Bucharest, clubbing and kicking protesters and journalists, witnesses said. The clashes flared when about 1,000 demonstrators barricaded a central boulevard following a protest march by 20,000 supporters of the biggest non-parliamentary opposition group, the Civic Alliance. Some blocked the University Square outside a hotel and hurled stones at hundreds of police who surrounded the area.

About 1,500 police occupied a square along the capital's main boulevard after fighting anti-government demonstrators who blocked traffic Saturday for the fourth day. Anti-riot troops and military police carrying shields and clubs moved in on the demonstrators, who unleashed a barrage of rocks and bottles. Hundreds of assembled Romanians booed as the security forces pushed in. Many people were beaten and arrested.

Prime Minister Petre Roman said Friday that his government had ordered miners to leave the capital, but the vigilante mobs beyond the control of any authority continued menacing the city until dusk. Roman defended a civilian crackdown by miners and other angry workers armed with clubs, pipes and metal-tipped rubber hoses as a "correct and justified" response to what he called an organized coup attempt against his government.

President Ion Iliescu has instituted mob rule in the Romanian capital and created a new haven for the former Securitate secret police who terrorized the nation under the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, intellectuals warned on the eve of Iliescu's inauguration. About 2,000 people returned to University Square late Sunday, rekindling an anti-government protest that was routed from the site last week. Several hundred kept up a steady chant of "Down with Iliescu!" and "Down with the criminals!"

Romania said that at least 83 people will stand trial for involvement in political violence in Bucharest. Officials asserted that the six people killed in the June 13-15 riots died before pro-government miners arrived on the scene. A Foreign Ministry statement also absolved security forces of responsibility for three people who died of gunshot wounds, saying the troops used only blanks.

One of the very first things Cornel Dinu did, upon arriving in the tiny Italian town of Telese to commence final preparations for the World Cup, was to express the sincere relief that he and his fellow Romanians felt, on their soccer squad and as a whole, at no longer being under the thumb of a government dictatorship, at being able to come and go and say as they pleased, at being free.