PROSECUTOR: And who wrote the papers for you, Elena? The prosecutor quotes Ceauescu, Ceauescu's program. CEAUSESCU: Is it possible that we are facing such charges? The following is a transcript of the closed trial of Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceauescu and his wife, Elena, as shown on Romanian and Austrian television. In one speech, a Romanian politician likened Ceausescu to Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Peter the Great, Abraham Lincoln and other major historical figures. A voice in the studio said that the army was wholly on the side of the people. COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE: Even though he like her committed insane acts, we want to defend them. Yet there is a big difference between grousing, which is endemic to the military, and actual rebellion. NICOLAE CEAUESCU: We had no account in Switzerland. Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu must be held fully responsible for this. The English translation is by the U.S. government's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Ceauescu's speech of 21 August 1968 was a public address by Nicolae Ceauescu, General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and President of the State Council of Romania, strongly condemning the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. NICOLAE CEAUESCU: I repeat: I am the president of Romania and the commander in chief of the Romanian army. ALISON SMALE December 21, 1989. Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99, why government should get small The counsel for the defense now takes the floor and instructs the Ceauescus once again that they have the right to defense and that they should accept this right. At the beginning, Ceauescu claimed that it is a provocation to be asked whether he was sick. At the moment the situation is rather uncertain. [3], From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, The former headquarters of the Central Committee of the, File:Ceausescu Final Speech - Former Central Committee Building - Bucharest - Romania.jpg, Video of Ceausescus Last Speech, December 1989, Nicolae Ceauescu LAST SPEECH (english subtitles) 1/2, https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Ceauescu%27s_final_speech&oldid=714636674, Articles with Romanian-language external links, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, About Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core. 23 December 1989: Nicolae Ceauescus overthrow follows a week of carnage in which thousands of protesters against his regime were killed in cold blood. Why did you starve the people? CEAUSESCU: No, the people are fighting for freedom and against the new forum. PROSECUTOR: In the same way he refused to hold a dialogue with the people, now he also refuses to speak with us. Have you understood them? However, there is a difference between real sickness that must be treated and mental insanity which leads to corresponding actions, but which is denied by the person in question. Elena and Nicolae Ceauescu must be held fully responsible for this. PROSECUTOR: Did you know about the genocide or did you, as a chemist, only deal with polymers? He was a cosignatory of an open letter harshly critical of the Ceauescu region which appeared last march. One of the first acts of the new leadership was to place the security forces, the dreaded Securitate, under control of the army. This is a legal trial, and I honor them by defending them. Who pays them? Everybody should be paid according to his performance. Earlier, joyful crowds had paraded through the city after reports that Mr Ceauescu had been arrested after trying to flee from the roof of the party headquarters by helicopter. VIENNA, Austria (AP) _ For the first time that anybody could remember, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu was interrupted at a public speech by boos and jeers that began a huge demonstration against him in Bucharest Thursday. PROSECUTOR: Please, ask Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu whether they have ever had a mental illness. He then tried to placate the crowd by offering to raise workers' salaries by 200 lei per month (about 18 U.S. dollars at the time, yet a 10%-20% raise for a modest salary) and student scholarships from 100 to 110 lei while continuing to praise the achievements of the past 42 years. I do not recognize this court. I guaranteed that every village has its schools, hospitals and doctors. The English translation is by the U.S. government's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. And I also do not recognize the counsel for the defense. They were not really interested in the people. In the wake of growing tension over an uprising in Timioara in which thousands were reportedly killed, Ceauescu decided to give a nationally televised speech before a crowd in Palace Square (now known as Revolution Square) in Bucharest. Central planning in economics leads to a mismatch in prices and a collapse in the economy while a Central Narrative in politics leads to an increased incidence of involuntary rebellion. Nobody is likely to rise up and become a Man on Horseback. Why did you make the peasants starve? NICOLAE CEAUESCU: No one recognizes that. Because of the crimes they committed against the people, I plead, on behalf of the victims of these two tyrants, for the death sentence for the two defendants. All their property will be impounded. Only a president who is still confirmed in his position can demand to speak at the Grand National Assembly. Elena answers: The intellectuals of this country should hear you, you and your colleagues. They wanted to separate the people from the army. Paper is patient. Elena Ceauescu's last moments were as pathetic as one could imagine. Only a few hours before the Genius of the Carpathians had been in apparently complete command. ELENA CEAUSESCU: Incredible. What defamation, what provocations! Defendant, if you had no accounts in Switzerland, will you sign a statement confirming that the money that may be in Switzerland should be transferred to the Romanian state, the State Bank. A flight into peril, flashbacks to underground action. Robert Ford, the former US ambassador to Syria, has effectively accused the Obama administration of abandoning genuinely pro-American rebels in Syria thereby allowing the ascendance of al-Qaeda. And today you are acting in the same megalomaniac way. The final speech of the prosecutor follows: PROSECUTOR: It is very difficult for us to act, to pass a verdict on people who even now do not want to admit to the criminal offenses that they have committed during 25 years and admit to the genocide, not only in Timisoara and Bucharest, but primarily also to the criminal offenses committed during the past 25 years. has openly accused president Obama as unable to lead in world. The people were slaves. CEAUSESCU: Nu recunosc nici un tribunal in afara de Marea Adunare Nationala. However, why are your programs not implemented? The balcony where Ceauescu delivered his last speech, taken over by the crowd during the Romanian Revolution of 1989 The speech was typical of most of Ceauescu's speeches over the years. You should have stayed in Iran where you had flown to. As a result, the prosecutor says: Elena has always been talkative, but otherwise she does not know much. A horse or a hearse? CHIEF PROSECUTOR: Esteemed chairman of the court, today we have to pass a verdict on the defendants Nicolae Ceauescu and Elena Ceauescu who have committed the following offenses: crimes against the people. Ceausescu begins his address to the people as he had in years past but this year the tide turned. You were the most important aide, the number two in the cabinet, in the government. What about the accounts? The truth shall set you free, even if it makes you miserable. The defendant has not recognized us. I am the president of the people. No one can dissolve the National Assembly. I do not recognize the court. PROSECUTOR: Note the following: the defendant refuses to sign this statement. Elena and Nicolae Ceasescu state: Well, you told us about it. However, there is a difference between real sickness that must be treated and mental insanity which leads to corresponding actions, but which is denied by the person in question. I have no statement to make, and I will not sign one. Ceauescu refused to answer. CEAUSESCU: No, no. The prosecutor quotes Ceausescu, Ceausescu's program. The prosecutor cites all academic titles she had always claimed to have. The bill of indictment contains the following points: Genocide, in accordance with Article 356 of the penal code. ELENA CEAUESCU: We will not sign any statement. Since the old government has been dissolved and Ceausescu has lost his functions, he no longer has the right to be treated as the president. PROSECUTOR: And who wrote the papers for you, Elena? CEAUSESCU: We will discuss this before the Grand National Assembly. He refused to undergo a psychiatric examination. The message was apparently sent on the understanding that Mr Ceauescu had been arrested. Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway NICOLAE CEAUESCU: This is not possible at all. Those moments of Ceausescus weakness and the power of popular pressure explain why, a mere 48 hours later, Ceausescu was attempting to flee Romania, all power lost. This speech was an annual event and carefully scripted by the regime to insure both success and the appearance of popular support. It was one of the most pivotal moments in the Romanian Revolution of 1989. The atmosphere was one of jubilation, and the over-riding feeling among the thousands celebrating in the city centre before the shooting began was one of undiluted triumph. Within hours Ceauescu was beseiged inside the Central Committee building by irate crowds. Fiction. Ford said of his resignation,I was no longer in a position where I felt I could defend the American policy. Sooner or later inability to credit yoga or videos produced in Los Angeles as actual factors becomes more and more widespread. ELENA CEAUESCU: The terrorists are from Securitate. In addition, the law forbids the IRS from using its normal enforcement tools to collect unpaid penalties. PROSECUTOR: This situation is known. The front rows of the assembly were made up of low-level Communist Party officials and members who acted as cheer-leaders. The prosecutor agrees, but stresses that they lived in them while the people suffered. They carried out acts that are incompatible with human dignity and social thinking; they acted in a despotic and criminal way; they destroyed the people whose leaders they claimed to be. Bucharests Broadcasting House was the main source of information yesterday for Romanians about the countrys liberation and the means by which politicians, military officers and dissidents tried to influence the situation. PROSECUTOR: You claim to have taken measures so that every peasant is entitled to 200 kilograms of wheat. PROSECUTOR: The Grand National Assembly has been dissolved. Elena keeps whispering to him. Not a single shot. The collapse of the narrative doesnt happen in a single big step, but through an accumulation of small, personal, often innocuous refusals. The story of Ceauescu's final speech is a textbook example. PROSECUTOR: Please, ask Nicolae and Elena Ceauescu whether they have ever had a mental illness. Its not that we dont want to respect the commander-in-chief, one told me sadly. The following is a transscript of the closed trial of Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, as shown on Romanian and Austrian television. At that very moment, many everyday Romanians saw the weakness of Ceauescu's regime for the first time. The crimes against the people grew year by year. This shows again how false the charges are. The problem with the Narrative is that it suppresses the dispersed information by insisting on the centralized knowledge, on stories the elite make up themselves. You are guilty of these offenses even if you do not want to admit it. Former President Donald Trump speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, on March 4, 2023. It is surpassingly perilous not only for the country, but also for the ruler who relies on it. This is where President Ceausescu gave his final speech in December 1989, before fleeing Bucharest. PROSECUTOR: The people are fighting against you, not against the new forum. In response, the two laugh, and she says: We do not stay abroad. Now we finally saw your villa on television, the golden plates from which you ate, the foodstuffs that you had imported, the luxurious celebrations, pictures from your luxurious celebrations. Ceausescu relates his recent meeting with Dubcek in Prague in August 1968. [1] The crowd, now totaling up to 80,000, were given orders on where to stand, when to applaud and what to sing. We must not allow the slightest impression of illegality to emerge. Then follows the reading of the indictment. Elena and Nicolae Ceauescu should be punished in a really legal trial. I will not speak with you provocateurs anymore, and I will not speak with the organizers of the putsch and with the mercenaries. What prevents him from doing so? He was Secre. As the crowd becomes more unruly, Ceausescu becomes more confused and he begins arguing with the unseen hecklers. Last modified on Sun 29 Mar 2020 07.01 EDT President Nicolae Ceauescu was overthrown yesterday and became a fugitive in the country he has ruled for 24 years as remnants of his personal troops. As a result, the prosecutor says: Elena has always been talkative, but otherwise she does not know much. Immediately before them were plainclothes Securitate agents and a row of police militia, who kept the mass of the crowd about thirty meters back from the front of the Central Committee building. Nobody has opened an account. For example,the administration recently issued a new list of prisoners to be released from Guantanamo, citing theirpractice of yogaas proof they had reformed. CEAUSESCU: I will answer any question, but only at the Grand National Assembly, before the representatives of the working class. They were even worse than the king, the former king of Romania. I will not say anything here. ELENA CEAUESCU: I will not answer. PROSECUTOR: Please, make a note: Nicolae Ceausescu refuses to cooperate with the court-appointed counsel for the defense. The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli Rebranding Christianity for $3.99, or why the truth shall make you free If he no longer has a certain function, he cannot demand anything at all. PROSECUTOR: Nicolae Ceauescu should tell us why he does not answer our questions. And that assumes more dont simply dodge paying the penalty because of the ease with which they can claim a hardship exemption, or because the law places strict limits on the IRS ability to collect the money. . PROSECUTOR: But not of our army, you are not the commander in chief of our army. PROSECUTOR: Do you not know anything about the order to shoot? Every honest citizen who worked hard here until 22 December knows that we do not have medicines, that you two have killed children and other people in this way, that there is nothing to eat, no heating, no electricity. O voce: Un pahar cu apa! PROSECUTOR: Well, Mr. This is a vulgar provocation. Therefore, it is a mistake for the two accused to refuse to cooperate with us. PROSECUTOR: Do you not know anything about the order to shoot? PROSECUTOR: By now, there have been 34 casualties. You, as a scientist, did you know about it? And we will not betray our people here. PROSECUTOR: This would serve your defense. Finally, I would like to refer once more to the genocide, the numerous killings carried out during the past few days. Forget the pontifications from the myriad talking heads on TV and radio. This demonstrates their lack of understanding. However, he had badly misread the crowd's mood. What do you say as a citizen? I now ask the court to pass a verdict on the basis of the law, because everybody must receive due punishment for the offenses he has committed. However, why are your programs not implemented? Nicolae Ceauescu had been making speeches for over a couple of decades. NICOLAE CEAUESCU: I do not recognize you. PROSECUTOR: We have wonderful programs. In 1947, we assumed power, but under completely different circumstances. NICOLAE CEAUESCU: As a citizen, as a simple citizen, I tell you the following: At no point was there such an upswing, so much construction, so much consolidation in the Romanian provinces.

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