U.S. to Block Economic Aid to Romania : Diplomacy: The Bush Administration accuses the Iliescu government of political repression. The action comes in the wake of vigilante violence.

The Bush Administration, accusing President Ion Iliescu of heading Romania back down the road to repression and dictatorship, said Friday that it will drop the Bucharest regime from the list of emerging Eastern European democracies being considered for U.S. economic aid.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Iliescu’s use of truncheon-wielding miners to attack anti-government demonstrators “strikes at the very heart of Romanian democracy.”

“Until the democratic process is restored, the United States has decided to withhold all . . . economic support assistance that Romania might be eligible for,” Boucher said.

The U.S. action will have little immediate impact on Iliescu’s government because it has never received U.S. economic assistance anyway. But Boucher said a future aid program had been under consideration.

Last month, Iliescu and his National Salvation Front won Romania’s first multi-party election since before World War II. The State Department said the balloting was “flawed” by violence and intimidation, but the defects probably did not change the outcome because the front appeared to have adequate support to win in any case.

Boucher said any possibility of future U.S. economic assistance to Romania has been jeopardized by the street violence of recent days.

“Organized attacks against the offices of opposition political parties and independent newspapers and beating of political figures who pursue democratic goals through peaceful means, by workers summoned to Bucharest by President Iliescu himself, both threaten to return Romania to authoritarianism,” Boucher said, reading from a prepared statement.

“We call on President Iliescu and his government to halt immediately any further action against Romania’s fledgling democratic process,” he said. “Specifically, he should clear all worker vigilantes from the streets and publicly pledge that they will not be encouraged to return.”

The Administration has been ambivalent about Romania since the overthrow and execution of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Washington clearly prefers the Iliescu government to the former regime, even though it has fallen far short of the democratic reforms that have accompanied the peaceful anti-Communist revolutions in neighboring Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.

Boucher said the U.S. government froze consideration of most-favored-nation trading concessions for Romania as a result of the election irregularities. He said Friday’s action means “that the further consideration of aid that might have been forthcoming . . . has also been put on hold.”

The action does not affect humanitarian assistance, such as $80 million in food and $1 million in medical supplies that were announced earlier.

Boucher called on Iliescu to “provide public guarantees of safety for leaders and members of all political parties . . . and reopen all independent newspapers and magazines.” He also urged the government to “engage opposition parties and other groups in a dialogue to repair the damage to Romanian democracy which has been caused by the events of the past few days.”