ROMANIAN SCIENTISTS have exhumed the supposed bodies of executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, in an attempt to allay relatives’ doubts about where they are really buried.
Pathologists and officials gathered at the Ghencea military cemetery in Bucharest yesterday morning to open the coffins of the former ruling couple, who were summarily tried and executed on Christmas Day 1989 after a failed bid to escape a violent uprising against their rule.
The operation was kept secret and officials quickly closed the cemetery to the public as the pathologists took samples from the corpses before allowing workers to rebury them.
After the Ceausescus were executed by firing squad at a provincial military base, they were buried in secret to avoid potential reprisals by a nation that had grown to loathe them.
Later, rumours began to circulate as to whether the trial and execution had actually been staged, and whether they were really interred in Ghencea cemetery.
The Ceausescus’ daughter, Zoia, launched a case against the state in 2005 to seek proof of her parents’ burial place. After she died of cancer a year later, her brother Valentin pursued the case, and he was finally given permission to exhume the bodies in 2008. Another son, the notorious playboy Nicu Ceausescu, died of cirrhosis in 1996.
“If my wife Zoia had been alive, this would have been the happiest day of her life,” said her widower Mircea Oprean.
“I tend to believe the remains are those of my in-laws. But I cannot be a hundred per cent sure until the DNA tests are performed. I saw the bodies.
My father-in-law’s was quite well preserved, I recognised his black winter coat with some holes in it,” he added.
Ceausescu’s nephew, Emil Barbulescu, said it was natural for Valentin Ceausescu to “want to know where he can light a candle” for his parents.
“It should have happened earlier, to avoid all the speculation. But I’ve never had doubts about the burial place, because I was sure that it was in no one’s interest to perpetuate a lie that was so easy to expose.”
Experts said the DNA tests could take up to six months, and results might be inconclusive.
Ceausescu was condemned and executed by former allies who exploited a popular uprising to topple him and seize power.
One of them, Gelu Voican-Voiculescu, claims to have overseen the couple’s burial in Ghencea cemetery.
“The Ceausescus’ remains will definitely be found in those tombs,” he said. “I hope those who have harassed me for years with all sorts of accusations will now apologise.”
Oprean said Mr Voican-Voiculescu and others should “answer for this crime” if the bodies are not those of the Ceausescus.
“If they are not buried here then we will take the Romanian state to court,” he said.
Execution ended brutal regime
THE SUMMARY trial and execution of the Ceausescus on Christmas Day 1989 did away with perhaps the most brutal and destructive of eastern Europe’s communist dictatorships.
A peasant’s son who rose through the communist party ranks, Nicolae Ceausescu took power in 1965. He was initially courted by the West for his willingness to defy the Kremlin. His open policy towards the United States and European Community also gave him access to huge loans. Over time, however, his rule became ever more erratic, despotic and idiotic.
Seeking to boost Romania’s birth rate, Ceausescu banned abortion and contraception; the result was a surge in gruesome and often fatal back-street abortions. He also ordered the destruction of rural villages and much of beautiful old Bucharest, in a bid to “modernise” the country that amounted to little more than forcing people to live in new, jerrybuilt tower blocks.
These monstrosities are part of his legacy, as are the packs of stray dogs that roam Romania’s streets, descendants of pets that were abandoned when their owners were made to swap houses and airy villa apartments for tiny flats far above the ground.
Sagging under the weight of the foreign loans that had helped Romanians live reasonably well in the 1970s, Ceausescu decided to repay all the credit in a rush. In doing so, he bankrupted the country. As his popularity plummeted he relied on the Securitate secret police to protect his regime and it recruited hundreds of thousands of informers, bugged millions of homes and spied on anyone who had contact with foreigners.
When spreading unrest gave some of his former allies an opportunity to oust himin the 1989 revolution – which was probably closer to a putsch – few lamented his demise or that of his wife Elena, who had helped run the country during the final, bitter years of their reign.
