Soldiers Fire on Protesters as Romania Erupts Again

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. The broadcast added that 93 people were hospitalized, with four in serious condition. Witnesses reported seeing two bodies removed from near the Interior Ministry after soldiers fired shots from inside the building ringed by armored personnel carriers.

In Washington, the State Department said Wednesday that it deplores the use of “excessive force” by Romanian police. The department urged all sides to exercise restraint.

There were also mass protests against Communist authorities in Sofia, where voters gave strong endorsement to the Bulgarian Socialist (Communist) Party in elections held Sunday, and in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, where 30,000 rallied to demand free elections in the republic of Serbia.

Violence was reported only in the Romanian confrontation, which had been brewing for weeks due to a standoff between ex-Communists and those who want all former party members barred from public office.

Witnesses said that police in riot gear moved on an encampment of protesters at University Square shortly before 4 a.m., chasing down those who tried to flee, dragging resisters to police vans and beating some with clubs and nightsticks.

One policeman with blood-stained clothing indicated that the harsh treatment was in retaliation for protesters having spat on officers during previous brushes.

Hours later, thousands of anti-Communist sympathizers took to the streets, overturning and setting fire to police vehicles and reoccupying the square in the heart of the city.

President-elect Ion Iliescu issued an appeal for all “aware and responsible people” to defend government buildings under siege by the rioters.

“We are facing an organized attempt to remove by force and violence the country’s elected leaders,” he said in the appeal broadcast over television and radio.

Fighting raged into the night, with smoke billowing from police vans and buses torched by the protesters.

Romania’s new leaders had promised after the May 20 election that they would not use force to disperse hunger strikers and their supporters who had sought to disqualify all former Communists from running in the elections.

The National Salvation Front, which bands together dissidents and reformed Communists like Iliescu, retained control of the government in a landslide victory.

The front had been expected to win because of its advantage as the interim governing power, and because the two main opposition parties were poorly organized, deprived of equal resources and led by returned emigres who were not in Romania during the bloody revolution that led to Ceausescu’s execution.

Students and others disillusioned with the fate of their revolt sealed off University Square on April 22, creating what they declared a “neo-Communist free zone.”

Protesters who stayed at the square around the clock erected a tent camp on the adjacent lawn of the National Theater, fouling the area with food scraps and human waste during the seven-week siege. Traffic through the main artery was diverted to narrow side streets.

After the elections, demonstrators revised their demands to insist on an independent television station and other measures to sustain a political opposition.

Talks between government officials and the hunger strikers collapsed earlier this week, and prosecutors issued an ominous communique Tuesday accusing protesters of “profiteering, prostitution and gambling, theft and violence and drug abuse.”

Authorities said 263 were arrested in the early-morning sweep.

In Sofia, the third day of anti-Communist unrest was staged by a small, militant core of opposition activists. Opposition leaders and Sofia University students, who had rallied by the thousands Tuesday and called for a general strike, attempted to distance themselves from the actions that snarled traffic and inflamed many residents of the capital.

Young opposition supporters decked out in blue, in support of the Union of Democratic Forces, overturned trash cans and dragged chairs, tables and other improvised barriers onto Lenin Boulevard and made threatening gestures at cars that failed to honk their horns in support.

Capital residents forced to walk to their jobs shouted at the youths in anger.

The opposition alliance of 16 parties won the majority of votes in Sofia in Sunday’s election, but the Communists carried the rest of the nation of 9 million and appeared headed for an outright majority in the 400-seat Parliament. A runoff is scheduled Sunday for seats in which no candidate polled a majority. But the Communists’ lead is thought to be insurmountable.

Opposition supporters contend that the Communists cheated, although international observers deemed the vote free and fair.

Union of Democratic Forces leaders appealed to the demonstrators Wednesday to end their disruptions.

“It is unacceptable to block traffic junctions and to organize noisy protests with cars at night,” a statement from opposition headquarters said. “This turns public opinion against the UDF.”

In Yugoslavia, Belgrade traffic ground to a halt during the anti-Communist protest organized by five unsanctioned opposition parties, including the powerful and strongly nationalist Serbian Renewal Movement.

Serbia is the only one of Yugoslavia’s six republics that has not held or scheduled multi-party elections this year.

The large turnout at the rally that had been forbidden by Serbian Communist authorities suggested that the power of republic party leader Slobodan Milosevic may be eroding.

Milosevic has resisted agreeing to free elections in his republic, primarily out of fear that an open vote in the troubled province of Kosovo would return the region to majority Albanians who would eventually seek secession from Serbia.

The 30,000 participants marched to the Serbian Parliament building and handed authorities a petition demanding elections by the end of the year.