Lawmakers OK Action to End Romania Protest

The newly elected lower house of Parliament voted today to allow the police and army to move against anti-government demonstrators who retook a public square they were driven from last week.

A senior opposition leader demanded that Parliament investigate the events that led President-elect Ion Iliescu to call coal miners in to put down last week’s unrest.

Hundreds of people gathered for a second day in University Square to demand the ouster of Iliescu, and students said they will go on strike Tuesday.

Several miles away, another 300 people staged a pro-government demonstration outside Parliament, which was guarded by dozens of soldiers and police with machine guns.

Iliescu’s inauguration had been scheduled for last week but has been postponed amid the turmoil.

Of the lawmakers present in the 377-member House of Deputies, only 72 voted against the motion to have “the forces of law and order” end the University Square demonstration. Seven abstained.

The vote split generally along party lines, with deputies of Iliescu’s National Salvation Front supporting the motion along with splinter parties loyal to the front and the three main opposition parties against.

Passage was virtually certain in the Senate, where the National Salvation Front also holds a clear majority.

The unrest began last Wednesday when police broke up an anti-Communist sit-in on the square. When the unrest continued, Iliescu called thousands of miners into the city, and they used clubs and iron bars to beat anyone they suspected of being anti-government.

Six people were killed and more than 500 injured in the unrest, the worst since the December uprising that toppled Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Student leader Marian Munteanu was moved today from the Emergency Hospital to a police hospital after being charged with “instigation and participation in violence,” according to his opposition group, the Students League.