Government Foes Cordon Off Bucharest Intersection : Romania: Lawmakers empower police to intervene, setting up a new confrontation.

Anti-government protesters cordoned off a busy intersection Monday, and one chamber of the Parliament empowered police to break up the demonstration, setting up the battle lines for a new confrontation.

The brutality unleashed against residents of the capital last week has served only to embolden anti-Communist demonstrators, who now sense that President Ion Iliescu’s new government is on trial with Western democracies.

By reoccupying University Square and obstructing traffic, the protesters have put the government on notice that the unrest will end only when their demands for dialogue on opposition rights are met.

The newly elected Chamber of Deputies voted to give the police power to move against the disturbance, but it was not clear when such action might be taken.

“The city is just boiling,” said Victor Bradu, a 34-year-old artist at the protest, describing the public mood after last week’s violence.

Others said there will be no peace in the capital until Iliescu’s leadership shows some tolerance toward dissent by allowing independent television to operate and by lifting restraints on newspapers that have been critical of his National Salvation Front.

The protesters contend that Iliescu’s party is a haven for former Communists, like himself, who claim to seek a path toward Western democracy while repressing opponents in the style of their totalitarian predecessors.

Iliescu last week summoned to Bucharest a horde of miners who rampaged through the city for three days, beating citizens at random with crude clubs and rubber hoses. They destroyed the headquarters of Romania’s two main opposition parties and shut down the newspaper Romania Libera and other publications that had cast Iliescu and the front as neo-Communists.

The brutal tactics have given credence to the oppositions’ accusations against the front and united the student and intellectual communities against the government that has ruled since the December overthrow of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

“Those who love democracy and liberty and fight against communism will not give up simply because the current leaders have reverted to the system we had under Ceausescu,” said Leonte Teodorescu, a history professor showing solidarity with the demonstrators.

Laszlo Tokes, an ethnic Hungarian religious leader in Transylvania, has suggested that Romania may be headed for “a second revolution” to free itself from communism.

Iliescu is under strong foreign pressure to restore some semblance of democracy in his troubled nation or forgo the Western aid and trade benefits under consideration for Eastern Europe.

“It will be difficult to mend this breach in their image, as it is a very severe one,” said a senior West European diplomat.

Foreign ministers of the European Community, meeting in Luxembourg, decided Monday to postpone a decision on granting special aid to Romania because of the violence.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department called Monday for the government to immediately release demonstrators they wrongfully jailed last week, and again warned that U.S. economic aid will be held back until the government respects human rights.

At the parliamentary session that convened Monday, opposition deputies insisted that last week’s violence be investigated.