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proiect SECRET SERVICES IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA AND THEIR COMMUNIST LEGACYMID-TERM REPORT Course:Introduction to Political Science Instructor:Dr.Mircea Boari Student:Ghioc Viorica , SPE 1 January 7th 2003
SECRET SERVICES IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA AND THEIR COMMUNIST LEGACY
At least nine intelligence services are known to operate in post-communist Romania. Both the exact number and functions of these units, about which the authorities have made contradictory statements, have become the objects of widespread speculations in the media. Most analysts tend to see these agencies as successor organisations of the Securitate, the notorious political Police of the communist era. Official denials of any connection between the new agencies and their infamous predecessor have not been able to dispel the suspicion that they are splinter organisations of the former Securitate, resuscitated under new names and with specialized functions.
Although the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) – the country’s main security structure - has attracted a great deal of public attention over the last years , the activity of smaller security services has repeatedly provoked heated debates in the media, especially since it appeared to have been even less subject to parliamentary or other forms of public controls than that of the SRI. Moreover, the modus operandi of these parallel services, which often have overlapping areas of competence, lacks any transparency.
Among the security units operating under the umbrella of various ministries and other central institutions are the Protection and Guard Service of the Presidency; the Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (also known under the code name of Military Unit 0215 - UM 0215); there is Operative Surveillance and Intelligence Directorate of the General Police Inspectorate (subordinated to the Mintry of Internal Affairs); the Foreign Intelligence Service (attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs); the Counter-intelligence Directorate and the Intelligence Directorate of the Army (the Ministry of National Defence); an intelligence structure within the General Directorate of the Penitentiaries (the Ministry of Justice); and a Special Telecommunications Service, which claims to be a military body, although it is not subordinated to the Defence Ministry.
Following the creation of these agencies, allegations and rumors about the continuing role and influence of the notorious Securitate, Ceausescu’s secret police, have been a staple of post-December 1989 Romanian political life. Although the Securitate was officially disbanded and replaced by the Romanian Intelligence Service and the other intelligence services in 1990, the post-communist organisations are operating under the shadow of their predecessor and this represents one of the main internal sources of conflict and dangers that could impel Romania away from a possible liberal and democratic future.
Since 1990, waves of changes have been taking place in the leadership of the Romanian Intelligence establishment. Although the real reasons for these changes remain unclear, there are indications that an internal struggle for power is taking place.
From the very beginning, SRI was depicted as President Ion Iliescu’s “personal security service”. Indeed, the SRI’s “birth certificate”, the un-published Decree no 181 of 26 March 1990, stipulated that the new service was to be directly subordinated to the president, and the Provisional Council of National Unity, Romania’s surrogate parliament at the time, would have some control over it. The history of SRI, plagued by dissent and purges, appears to be rooted in what was described as the organisation’s “original sin”, that of being a continuation under a new name of the communist-era secret service.
The presence of a considerable number of former Securitate officers within the SRI ranks is perceived as the main obstacle to a complete overhaul of the Romanian intelligence system. Although no official figures are available and estimates differ widely, in March 1994 Magureanu claimed that “only one-third of the approximately 15,000 Securitate officers had been offered employment in the new organisation”. But as the real number of Securitate officers during Ceausescu regime was estimated in the region of 50,000, it is hard to believe that the new SRI and the new intelligence services are not mentally and methodically descended from the old organisation.
Some younger and more open-minded Securitate officers hired by the SRI after the first wave of purges added their voices to those denouncing the continuity in personnel, material resources, methods, and mentality between the two institutions. The first major breach in the secrecy surrounding the new intelligence service was made by Adrian Ionescu, a former Securitate captain placed on reserve on 15 October 1990 on Magureanu’s order. Among other things, Ionescu accused Magureanu of having turned the organisation into a tool of the then ruling party (the National Salvation Front ) , despite statements that the SRI was an apolitical organisation.
A second wave of personnel changes took place in the secret service between June and August 1991, following the scandal in May of that year over several tons of Securitate and SRI secret documents found in a ravine at Berevoiesti (Prahova County). Dubbed in retrospect “the big purge”, this wave was reported to have affected some 30% of the SRI’s personnel.
Interesting details about the purge were revealed in a letter addressed to the parliament in April 1992 by a group of unidentified SRI officers demanding Magureanu’s removal for what they said was a systematic interference in the country’s political life. According to the authors of the letter, most of the “nearly 1,500 officers” dismissed during this second wave were professionals who had no connection with the communist nomenklatura. They added that former party activists in the Securitate, who held leading positions in the SRI, had not been affected by the purge. Magureanu responded angrily to these reactions, speaking of a “demolition mania” with “incalculable consequences” for the SRI. His reaction raised the suspicion that the letter contained reliable information on the service.
In January 1992 another former SRI officer, Colonel Marin Iancu, decided to speak out against the SRI leadership. He criticized the similarities of style, methods, and structure between the SRI and its predecessor and warned that the former might become another “state within the state” if the parliament failed to impose a strict control over it.
Hints about the third wave of changes in the SRI leadership appeared in the Romanian media at the end of 1993. In January 1994 some of the heads of SRI branches in the territory were removed. In early March 1994, the heads of the SRI’s Protection Division (known as Division E, in charge of protecting and monitoring SRI cadres and safeguarding state secrets), were dismissed for having allegedly leaked confidential information to the ultranationalist weekly Greater Romania (Romania Mare). Across these two years (1993 and 1994 ) several scandals related to SRI leaders took place and attracted the attention of the media and also led to eliminations from and changes within this institution .
However, the current purges within the SRI do not necessarily signal that the uncompromised, new generation of officers have scored a victory over the old Securitate guard. Most new commanders of SRI divisions have Securitate credentials, just like their predecessors. Irrespective of the reasons for the personnel changes, the Romanian Intelligence service will probably continue to experience “the enemy within” syndrome for some time, while the mood in the service will remain “extremely tense”.
UM 0215 - THE RE-BIRTH OF A POLITICAL SECRET SERVICE
One of the most controversial intelligence services operating in post communist Romania is known by the code name UM 0215. This service, subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was set up as a haven for officers from the notorious political police of the communist era. Independent media have repeatedly charged the service with meddling in Romania’s political life. Despite strong official denials, doubt continues to surround the service’s activities, with some critics suggesting that it might take the role of a new political force by doing some of the “dirty tricks” for the Romanian Intelligence Service, the country’s main security structure.
UM 0215 took shape in January 1990 as the brain-child of Gelu VoicanVoiculescu, one of the most enigmatic characters involved in the events surrounding the overthrow of Ceausescu. During the turmoil, Voican Voiculescu was involved in Ceausescu’s trial, execution, and secret burial as acting head, for a few days, of the Department of State Security (DSS), which formally ceased to exist shortly after the dictator’s ouster. On 26 December 1989, Ion Iliescu, then president of the National Salvation Front Council, ordered the transfer of the DSS and Security Troops Command from the Internal Affairs Ministry to the Defence Ministry, and on 30 December signed a decree stipulating the dissolution of the DSS.
In order to reorganize the country’s intelligence system, the new authorities decided to give three months’ notice to the Securitate employees, during which period they were expected to carry on their activities under the new military umbrella. Voican Voiculescu, as newly appointed deputy prime-minister, launched a campaign to rehabilitate Securitate personnel in early 1990, which later became an open glorification of that institution in nationalist-communist publications such as Romania Mare and Europa. According to some analysts, this campaign was aimed at reactivating some segments of the former Securitate in order to place them at the service of a group within the nascent, post communist power structures . The first new secret service to be built on the ruins of the Securitate seems to have been the Foreign Intelligence Service, set up on 18 January 1990 under the command of Major General Mihai Caraman, a former deputy-director, from 1972 to 1978, of the Foreign Counter-intelligence Service.
Also in January 1990 Voican Voiculescu began preparations to create UM 0215 by gathering some 400 employees of the Securitate’s Directorate IV (responsible for military counter-intelligence) and the powerful Bucharest branch of the former Securitate service. From the start, the unit had the reputation of a political police force using Securitate-style methods, including strict rules for undercover operations and using code names and multiple identities in addressing one another. Even its very designation recalled the Securitate’s practice of giving code names for its special departments consisting of the letters “UM” followed by four figures. . It is said that none of all the secret services operating in post –communist Romania has changed its command as often as UM 0215. Its first head was Colonel Ion Moldoveanu, a Securitate officer who had allegedly been in charge of the surveillance of the Romanian dissidents. From February 1990 to February 1993 another three former Securitate officers were appointed and dismissed as the head of UM 0215. Since 1993 the unit’s commander has been Major General Dan Gheorghe, who prior to 1989 was in charge of the surveillance of foreign students living in Bucharest. The service is said to employ some 1,000 officers in Bucharest and some twenty in each of Romania’s forty counties. It is reportedly made up of two divisions. One is for counter-intelligence, which in official jargon is termed “protection of the cadre of the Internal Affairs Ministry”. The other one is for intelligence, which is divided into three sections: combating hooliganism; delinquency and “parasitism” (a term reminiscent of the Ceausescu era, largely misused for persecuting political opponents); and economic crimes.
THE SECRET SERVICES’ INTERFERENCE IN POLITICS IN POST- COMMUNIST ROMANIA
The accusation most frequently levelled against SRI and UM 0215 is that they have involved themselves in political life to such a degree that they have become a political police force. Some of these apprehensions are rooted in the highly politicized circumstances under which the new Romanian secret service was created. Critics maintain that UM 0215 was set up and functioned for more than two years as a secret service loyal to Petre Roman’s faction within the National Salvation Front (NSF), while the SRI emerged as a kind of “personal security service” for President Iliescu. In December 1991, in a letter attributed to a group of officers from the Foreign Intelligence Service, UM 0215 was depicted as Voican Voiculescu’s “fiefdom” and was charged with having continued to provide information to Roman, even after he had ceased to be prime minister. Growing frictions within the NSF and the party’s split in March 1992 led to the conclusion that a “true war” was going on between the SRI and UM 0215. In the end, forces loyal to Iliescu and the head of the SRI, Virgil Magureanu, prevailed.. During the critical phase of the conflict in 1992, the SRI repeatedly denied that there was any tension between itself and UM 0215. But it apparently orchestrated a series of media “revelations” about the unit’s activities, in an attempt to make the unit shoulder the blame for most of the dark episodes in Romania’s political life in the first half of 1990.
The interference of UM 0215 in politics was by no means limited to taking sides in the conflict between opposing wings of the ruling party. The service proved far more active in undermining Romania’s democratic opposition, especially in the first months after the fall of the Ceausescu regime. Among the known actions attributed to it are the infiltration by agents provocateurs of an opposition rally on 18 February 1990, which turned violent; the distribution of fake Legionary leaflets claiming that a fascist take-over in Romania was imminent; the selective release of documents from the Securitate archives aimed at compromising opposition leaders who ran in the elections of May 1990; the infiltration of the non-stop marathon rally in Bucharest’s University Square from April to June 1990; and direct participation in anti-opposition violence that occurred in Bucharest on 14 and 15 June 1990, when thousands of miners from the Jiu Valley descended on the capital. Voican Voiculescu dismissed some of these accusations as fabrications stemming from the SRI; however he admitted that he had favoured the use of Securitate files in the 1990 election campaign.
After June 1990 Internal Affairs Minister Doru Viorel Ursu and his successor, Victor Babiuc (both close associates of former Prime Minister Roman), are believed to have succeeded in disciplining UM 0215. It is thought that the unit suspended activities that might be construed as interference in political affairs and focused instead on tasks normally undertaken by an internal affairs ministry.
In 1993, however, internal regulations were released that apparently signaled a resumption of questionable, Securitate-style practices, including the gathering of intelligence on Romanians living, studying, or working abroad; people with dual citizenship; employees of foreign firms in Romania; and foreign residents. It was also reported that the service was keeping tabs on leaders of political parties and trade unions, political personalities and journalists. It also revealed the close cooperation between UM 0215 and the SRI, which involved the former being obliged to enter immediately all sensitive information into the SRI’s computer network. This implicitly confirms that the two services have buried the hatchet and are now coordinating their objectives.
As if there were not enough secret services in Romania, in May 1994 media announced the creation of an Operative Surveillance and Intelligence Directorate (DSOI) within the Internal Affairs Ministry. Colonel Traian Dima was appointed head of the directorate, which stressed its independence of UM 0215. The DSOI appears to focus on police-related tasks, especially combating organized, cross-border crime. However, as in the case of the SRI and UM 0215, some of its powers are reminiscent of those wielded by the communist secret police.
CONCLUSION
The situation inside the post-communist Romanian intelligence establishment showed to what extent the legacy of the Securitate, one of the most brutal instruments of repression in the former communist bloc, continued to cast a shadow over Romania’s quest for democracy and European integration. . Thus, as long as the Romanian secret service continued to function without a clear legal basis of budgetary allotment, and the fate of Romania’s policy was decided behind closed doors, the enemy within would destroy Romania’s fragile path to democracy and to a new destiny.
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