Ruling Front in Romania Splits, Offers Coalition

The National Salvation Front government bowed to the clamor from the opposition Tuesday and announced that it has split into two groups, one to govern Romania and the other to take part in coming elections.

In a further concession, senior front member Silviu Brucan said the front will propose that a coalition government be formed until the planned May 20 elections--in effect agreeing to share the power it assumed during the December revolution that toppled Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

A transcript of Brucan’s comments to selected reporters was made available to the Associated Press.

Both decisions were clearly meant to appease increasingly strident attacks directed against the front. Opposition groups accuse it of reneging on its word to run Romania only until the elections, of refusing to share its access to news media and other misuse of power.

Foes of the front argue that a self-declared interim government should not contest elections it will stage itself. Weekend demonstrations demanded that the government resign.

In Washington, the State Department earlier Tuesday accused the National Salvation Front of intimidating the opposition and said that the department’s human rights director, Richard Schifter, was in Bucharest “forcefully stating our concerns.”

On Tuesday, Brucan, a member of the front’s National Council, declared:

“We believe it is illegal for the front to hold political power and take part in elections at the same time.

“That is why we have split into a provisional National Council, to hold legislative power on the one hand, and the National Salvation Front, which is to take part in the elections as a political organization, on the other.”

Brucan said the government will suggest that the opposition parties “take part in the provisional National Council in order to guarantee the objectivity of the elections” when discussions between the government and the opposition resume Thursday.

In another development Tuesday, a military tribunal was told that Ceausescu’s defense minister, Vasile Milea, was not killed on Ceausescu’s orders but killed himself rather than give orders to fire on anti-Ceausescu demonstrators.

Milea has become a hero of the Romanian revolution for trying to keep the army from firing on unarmed demonstrators, as ordered by Ceausescu.

His death helped turn army units against Ceausescu in the uprising that ended the dictator’s 24-year rule and resulted in his execution.

At the trial of four top Ceausescu associates, Col. Corneliu Pircalabescu testified that Milea asked him to tell his wife and children he couldn’t order defenseless demonstrators killed. Minutes later, he shot himself in the heart, said Pircalabescu, head of the civilian reserve force. Pircalabescu is not a defendant in the trial.