The Timişoara 1989 Case: A Turning Point in History and in Mass Media

Lucian-Vasile Szabo, Senior Lecturer Ph.D. Department of Philosophy and Communication Sciences West University of Timisoara, Romania

Abstract: The analysis of the Romanian and international press accounts regarding the dead of Timişoara, and of the manner in which these reports had been interpreted, between December 20^th and 31^st 1989, brings to attention an important aspect: the fascination exercised by the false victims on journalists and researchers, to the detriment of the actual deceased and wounded, true heroes of the 1989 Revolution. Under the pressure of events and due to the embarrassment of having to admit to the exaggerations committed and to a deficient work method, the media channels almost ignored substantial events, profound dramas, which would have made, in different contexts, exceptional journalism topics. It is a complex framework, in which the essence of the historical events of the period has been affected. The flawed accounts have led to history being written with numerous areas marked by suspicion, thus affecting the image of the Revolution of Timişoara as a pure and generous action against the communist regime. These circumstances call for the analysis of the events of mid-January 1990. The dead, ten in all, discovered on January 14^th in a mass grave and in an individual grave in the Heroes Cemetery in Timişoara, were among the persons killed between December 17^th and 18^th 1989. They are, without a doubt, heroes of the Revolution.

Keywords: 1989 Revolution, the Timisoara syndrome, mass graves, repression, Paupers Cemetery, Heroes Cemetery, terrorist, journalists, fake

Cover-ups even after Ceauşescu’s downfall

There are a few common defining elements in the case of the bodies unearthed in the Heroes Cemetery: 1) The persons had been shot dead by repression troops; 2) They were not among the 43 bodies taken from the County Hospital morgue, transported and cremated at the Cenuşa Crematorium in Bucharest. It is still unclear today how the selection was made; 3) The deceased had been buried almost illegally in the Heroes Cemetery, between December 27^th and 28^th 1989, when Ceauşescu was no longer in power; 4) They were buried during a time when the grieving families were looking for their dead, and a great part of Timişoara’s population was claiming them; 5) The idea that it had been an attempted cover-up, employed during the first days of freedom, is also supported by the fact that the ten bodies had been buried in a mass grave dug at night with the help of an excavator; 6) Another ambiguous aspect is the fact that the authorities did not inform the population with regard to this operation, later issuing contradictory statements; 7) Some persons had their identity papers on them, thus adding to the ambiguity of this case; 8) The press, the international press firstly, gave less attention to these findings, perhaps also due to the fact that they had previously exaggerated with regard to the images of December 22^nd 1989, when the old, pre-revolution bodies had been unearthed in the Paupers Cemetery; 9) Many analysts and researchers of these events avoided discussing this finding, which clearly demonstrated that a massacre had taken place in Timişoara, their main interest lying in the case of the old bodies in the Paupers Cemetery.

This figurative blindness affecting the researchers, including Jean Baudrillard (1993, 1994, 1995), was also noticed by Richard Andrew Hall, a CIA historian and analyst, who dedicated his doctoral thesis to the Romanian Revolution – Rewriting the Revolution: Authoritarian Regime-State Relations and the Triumph of Securitate Revisionism in Post-Ceausescu Romania. Focusing his attention on the Timişoara victims, Hall would not hesitate to condemn these inexact stands taken by Michel Castex, Jean Baudrillard, Andrei Codrescu or Vladimir Tismăneanu, whom he names explicitly: “A look at some of the most influential, or at least sensationalist literature (for example, Michel Castex), on the December 1989 events in Romania, reveals much discussion of the alleged ’staged massacre that never happened’ of the Paupers cemetery–referred to as ’The Timisoara Syndrome’ by some–is coupled with NO mention of the 15 January 1990 discovery of real victims of the December bloodshed in the Heroes cemetery” (Hall 1996). The exhuming, as already mentioned, started on January 14^th, and continued into January 15^th.

A few aspects need to be clarified regarding these victims’ route. Their search began on December 19^th 1989, when several relatives of the missing tried to obtain information from medical units, particularly from the Timişoara County Hospital, the most important institution of its kind, located in a building which also contained the morgue, the Forensic Medicine Laboratory, as well as the county’s Sanitary Department. Access was cut off by forces of order (militia and members of the Securitate), and the family members were sent away and even threatened (Szabo, 2009: 154). On December 22^nd, just before Ceauşescu’s flight, but when Timişoara was already a liberated city (since December 20^th), around 12 o’clock, the search for the missing focused on the Paupers Cemetery (Suciu, 1990: 250). At that time, there were still arrested people, who had not been released yet. Also, nothing was known of the 40-43 bodies taken from the County Hospital (on the night of December 18^th -19^th), transported and cremated in Bucharest; therefore, it isn’t difficult to imagine (to remember!) the intensity of the emotional turmoil experienced by the families of the missing.

Assumed terrorist buried in a separate grave

A paper entitled Victimele libertăţii (“The Victims of Freedom”), written by Romeo Bălan, a general of the military court and former military prosecutor, who investigated several files regarding the 1989 Revolution of Timişoara, manuscript provided by the author himself, contains a logical and detailed description of this controversial episode of the victims in the Paupers Cemetery. Thus, on December 26^th 1989, the decision was made to bury in a mass grave the ten bodies declared as unidentified. On December 27^th, the bodies were taken from the morgue to the cemetery. Meanwhile, Silaş Maftei was identified by his family, who asked for a priest. Under these circumstances: „On December 28^th 1989, in the presence of over one hundred citizens, the ten bodies were buried. Nine were buried in the mass grave, the tenth, suspected of belonging to a terrorist, was buried in an individual grave, in a corner of the cemetery” (Bălan, ms: 12). The source of this information is Major Dumitru Florescu, from the Timiş County Civil Defense, the person who handled this operation (Florescu, 1991). It is unclear, however, why no efforts were made to contact relatives, particularly since the funeral was attended by a significant number of people, if we are to believe this statement.

Concerning the above-mentioned “terrorist”, there is an impressive story to be told. His name was Francisc Bancov, a worker in the Wool Industry (“Îndustria Lânii”), an enterprise located on Leontin Sălăjan Blvd., currently Take Ionescu. F. Bancov was shot on December 24^th 1989, around 9 o’clock, before the local commercial complex, located in front of the County Militia Inspectorate of the time, which later became the Police Inspectorate. The man had been walking, pushing his bicycle along, when he was hit by a bullet in the head. He fell and lay there for several hours. They tried accrediting the idea that he had been a terrorist, although there was no evidence to support this. Thus, the conclusion arises that he was killed by armed forces protecting the Revolution, in the confusion created during that highly tense period of fighting against the so-called terrorists. Bălan (2011: 124) states without a shadow of a doubt: „By corroborating the victim’s position with the gunshot wounds, it was concluded that the bullet had been fired from the M.I. (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ed.) Inspectorate, story also confirmed by the fact that the young man trying to help the victim had also been fired upon from the Inspectorate”.

The testimony belonging to the daughter of the man killed under such tragic circumstances confirms the fact that the authorities (coroners, military representatives, city clerks, policemen or prosecutors) were negligent in identifying the victims to be buried in the Paupers Cemetery. Veronica Toman came in possession of her father’s work identification card and found out details regarding his death. Thus began the race: „Since then I had been looking for my father in several places, hospitals, the morgue, but hadn’t been able to find him, until today, January 15th 1990, when I recognized him as the deceased in the Paupers Cemetery” (Toman, 2000). The question arising is: if he had been at the morgue, why hadn’t he been found, and why had he been buried two or three days later as unidentified?

Accounts in the Romanian and foreign mass media

In this context, it is imperative to mention that, contrary to international mass media, the Romanian mass media carried out a less spectacular but profound campaign, on a very real topic: where are the dead of Timişoara? It started in January 1990 and provided, step by step, personal information about the people shot during the Timişoara repression, focusing on the 43 bodies taken from the County Hospital morgue, transported in great secrecy to Bucharest, where they were cremated at the Cenuşa Crematorium. With regard to this press campaign, Rotar (2010) noted: „A comparative analysis of some of the most representative newspapers in Romania at the time, Adevărul and Romania liberă , reveals what was disclosed. In the case of Romania liberă there was a heartfelt press campaign to find out the truth. It started on 7 January 1990 with an article signed by Emil Munteanu, which became, at the time and after December, a slogan for Romania: ‘where are the dead of Timişoara?” The place where the ashes of these martyrs, shot on December 17^th 1989, were spread was identified only two years later. Today, a church stands in this place. The term „stands” is indeed quite appropriate, as the place of worship stands on pillars, above a manhole, where most of the heroes’ ashes went.

Very brief news about the events taking place in Timişoara and in Romania existed before December 22^nd 1989. It was treated and used with caution. Part of it was spread by the staff of the Consulate General of Yugoslavia, through actions that put the lives of these remarkable people in danger. Mirko Atanacković, the General Consul of Yugoslavia in Timişoara at the time, organized the gathering of data concerning the events in the city. Between December 16^th and 20^th he edited reports, which he himself or others from the consulate carried to the border, in order to pass them on to the authorities in the neighboring country. Information was also transmitted by telephone, until December 20^th, when the external phone line was cut. The internal line remained, ensuring the connection with the Yugoslavian Embassy in Bucharest. From here the action of spreading the information continued with the help of the telex apparatus provided: „We broadcast the news that the people were demanding freedom, democracy, the mass resignation of the communist regime, open borders and freedom of the press. At the same time, the telex reached more than 40 addresses of press institutions and agencies in Yugoslavia and other countries” (Atanacković 2010: 145).

Some news would reach publications and radio stations outside Romania. It is noteworthy that the Romanian department of the Free Europebroadcasting station was extremely reserved about spreading the information received. This was unclear and needed to be verified through other sources, an operation difficult to fulfill, as Romania’s borders were closed, and communication was interrupted. On December 18^th 1989, Free Europe began broadcasting this information, noting that it was uncertain. It would be a far cry from the subsequently triggered information avalanche, allowing the media side-slip around „the Timişoara syndrome” (Baudrillard 1993: 65). This behavior, so rigorous from a professional aspect, of the journalists in the Romanian department of Free Europe, discouraged the citizens of Timişoara to some extent, and those of Romania generally. Radios were set to the Free Europe frequency, listeners trying to catch some news of the uprising repressed in bloodshed, despite the fact that listening to this station was forbidden and the messages were hard to make out, due to the intense jamming by the Romanian communist authorities.

In 1999, Miodrag Milin managed to publish a volume containing hundreds of important documents held in the archives of the Free Eruope broadcasting station. The materials, telegrams and press abstracts, mostly used in those intense days at the end of the year 1989 for informing the editors and the public, clearly indicate how the number of victims of Timişoara (dead and wounded) evolved. As the radio station gathered the information from several press agencies and followed up on the topics on various radio or TV stations, as well as in the newspapers, we gain a truthful image of the phenomenon. As a general feature, one can notice that the station’s reporters were very careful to avoid broadcasting inaccurate news, although their sympathy for the citizens of Timişoara, and of Romania as a whole, was obvious, as well as their hope that the revolution would be a success. Another obvious fact is that the professional sources of information, i.e. the editorial offices, would select the information more rigorously and would insist on obtaining confirmation of the facts. Anonymous sources, such as unidentified citizens (Serbian or Hungarian), who had left Romania during those days, were more uplifted, but their testimonies would be meticulously recorded.

Early information regarding the Timişoara massacre

A first piece of information about the victims of Timişoara would emerge immediately after midnight, on December 18^th: „Information is given of demonstrators being wounded and arrested” (Milin 1999: 12). At that time, however, there were already tens of dead people in Timişoara; naturally, the news could not get out so fast. We also notice the use of the reflexive tense, against the rules of journalism, as we are not told precisely who is behind the expression „is given”. At 14:48, in Budapest, the account of a „West European diplomat” was given, who would state that „he had heard of wounded and arrested, but not of dead”. At the same hour and minute another telegram is sent, concerning the death of a woman amidst confrontations. In Vienna, at 16:56, a different telegram states that two people had allegedly been killed in Timişoara, based on the testimony of a Yugoslavian citizen. At 18:57 a telegram from Belgrade citing an „eyewitness” states that „security forces have killed tens of people”. A little later, in Vienna, the death of a child is announced. Up to this point we are within the boundaries of truth.

Tuesday, December 19^th, the press materials gathered in the archives of Free Europe would speak of “hundreds of victims”, without mentioning the numbers of dead and wounded. It is an aspect proving the lack of information, as well as the reporters’ reluctance to broadcast unconfirmed data. At 9:59, a piece of news from Vienna emerges, stating that „a few medical university students heard from their colleagues who had stayed behind in Romania that, allegedly, hundreds were dead and many were wounded” (Milin 1999: 26). At that time there were many medical students from Greece and Arab countries staying in Romania, and in Timişoara. Many had left the city, particularly as the winter holidays were near. This news, however, marked the beginning of the saraband of the dead. After a few minutes, another piece of news emerged from Vienna: “250 dead bodies in one hospital alone. This figure, of 3-400 dead, would further be used by Budapest and Moscow. It would also be noted by Die Presse. Later, however, a press abstract from Budapest would note the first attempt at returning to a reasonable number of deaths: „The number of victims recorded in Timişoara seems to be much lower than initially thought” (Milin 1999: 42).

Catherine Durandin would carry out a proper analysis of the phenomenon regarding the number of deaths, aided by Guy Hoedts, in the volume La mort des Ceauşescu, with a 2011 Romanian language edition. The analysis refers strictly to Timişoara, focusing on the mystery of the 4,600 dead and on the impact of the images from the Paupers Cemetery. The authors do not launch a clear hypothesis regarding the reasons for this media exaggeration, as the enunciations are mostly interrogative. The conclusion, also formulated as a question, seems to indicate a manipulative mechanism aiming at demonizing Ceauşescu: „The media exaggeration of the horror and of the mortuary frame-ups would follow. Did they really want to convince the Romanian citizens and the entire world that Ceauşescu and the Securitate agents were bloodthirsty monsters? On December 21^st 1989, all stations announced four thousand dead, when in fact there had been approximately one hundred and fifty victims. Disinformation worked well” (Durandin 2011: 107). However, there isn’t enough data to see whether disinformation developed spontaneously, by accretion of independent elements, or was in fact organized. Catherine Durandin seems to suggest a mixture of the two tendencies, because, in her demonstration she speaks of the tension of those days, the Hungarian and Serbian reporters’ fatigue and confusion, placed at the start of the information avalanche. We are referring to December 21^st 1989, when the figure of over 4,000 deaths in Timişoara reached the international mass media. It is important to remind the readers that, on that date, external links were practically suspended, the frontiers were closed, and information could only reach beyond the country’s borders under exceptional circumstances. However, certain officials of the regime had access to the telecommunication systems.

Disinformation, confusions, altered history

The chain of events can be reconstructed by chronologically rearranging the data presented in the text in back and forth motion in relation to the historical time. It starts with December 18^th 1989, when the France Presse agency announced that „witnesses to the manifestations carried out on Sunday, the 17th, speak of massacres and hundreds of dead”. Those involved in the events would not see anything suspicious in this account. As a direct participant, I myself would have probably given a higher figure, although I had only actually seen two dead and three wounded. The war atmosphere, with tanks in the streets and automatic gunfire lasting for hours, in many parts of the city, gave me the sensation of a carnage taking place. These considerations are also valid for the second moment in the timeline of accounts, on December 20^th, when another dispatch of the France Presse agency informed that „witness accounts confirm the brutality of the repression: children crushed by armored vehicles, demonstrators killed by bayonet stabs, machine gun bursts aimed at passers-by, army raids on hospitals” (Durandin 2011: 98). For the same day, a telegram belonging to the AND agency is mentioned, referring to „three-four thousands dead in Timişoara”.

The day of December 21^st 1989 holds a significant place in this mechanism of information and, at the same time, disinformation, due to the emergence of reports from the Tanjug Yugoslavian press agency, which mentioned brief executions carried out in Timişoara. Also, Politika Ekspres dedicates an entire page to the testimony of one person, arrived Wednesday morning in Vršac (located 14 km from the Romanian-Yugoslavian border)”. Accounts by witnesses arriving by train to Vršac are presented in other investigations as well, richer in details. Summarizing the facts noted by the Politica newspaper on December 20^th 1989, Iovanovici (2010: 133) would write: „Passengers arriving by train in the city of Vršac on the Yugoslavian border had seen a massacre in front of the cathedral. They reported the murder of 36 children, carrying candles in a procession, asking for bread, peace and human dignity”. It is a first reference to fire being opened by the repression troops lead by General Mihai Chiţac against the demonstrators on the steps of the metropolitan cathedral in Timişoara. This episode contains unclear elements, but it is a fact that a few persons died and were wounded there.

Still referring to the events of December 21^st, the authors would remember, from a subsequent testimony given to Libération, the account of a few reporters working for the Hungarian Television, who would declare that they had reasons to doubt the figure of 4,623 dead in Timişoara, information received „by telephone from a Romanian refugee of Hungarian ethnicity in Budapest”. Although surprising, the information regarding the dead would be broadcast, the journalist would explain, because „we knew how the Securitate worked and we were expecting the worst” (Durandin 2011: 105). It is worth mentioning that the Department of State Security, providing information services during the communist regime, acted more like an organization for defending and maintaining the communist leaders in power. Events would build up to December 22^nd 1989, when, before the first foreign press correspondents managed to broadcast the first on-site accounts, the information regarding the more than 4,600 dead of Timişoara exploded in the world press, creating the „ Timişoara syndrome”. The mass media would fulfill its duty: „Thus, on December 22^nd, the Hungarian, East German and Yugoslavian press agencies, reproduced by France-Presse at 18.45, spoke of more than 4,632 dead bodies – how accurate this delirium of the imaginary! – victims of the December 17^th and 19^th uprisings, killed either by bullets, or by bayonets, and of 7,614 demonstrators shot by the Securitate” (Durandin 2011: 101). The authors would suggest that the accuracy of these data indicates that a mystification may have been carried out by representatives of the former totalitarian regime, specialized in statistical manipulation.

Massacre with and without question marks

A study published in 2001 would prove to be more cautious in its analysis, not venturing to find the guilty, but focusing on the profound changes generated by the protest movements in former communist countries. These would materialize in the changes of regime, clearing the revolutionary character of the actions. Jeffrey Goldfarb would underline the role played by television, focusing on its positive impact, as a key institution in the fight for power, placed at the center of armed struggles after the flight of the Ceauşescu couple, abandoning power. Goldfarb refers to the building housing the Romanian Television in Bucharest, an institution that played a major role in broadcasting events, as well as in manipulating reality. To Goldfarb, the slaughter of Timişoara did exist, and he does not feel the need to introduce any question marks: „There was a dramatic moment in 1989 when the dynamic of the definition of the situation was strikingly apparent. On December 17, 1989, the security forces of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu attacked protesters in the city of Timisoara. Parishioners of a Hungarian pastor, Laszlo Tökes, were attempting to defend him from arrest, and their neighbors, including many students, were demonstrating in their defense. In the manner typical of the repressive regime, the police fired on the crowd, resulting in a massacre” (Goldfarb 2001).

In another author’s view, the role played by the Romanian Television in the Revolution was not only major, but would also stand out through tenacity and heroism, with direct reference to the activity in the famous Studio 4, in contrast to other interventions: „In striking contrast to the macabre faking of the mass grave in Timisoara, this movement established itself as a formidable force in the fight for democracy” (Maherzi 1997: 22). Again, we encounter the reference to the dead of Timişoara by using a common location (the fake mass graves), by explicitly adding the denigrating term fake. Naturally, the author, whose statements are found in a UNESCO report, would refer to the errors committed by the media. However, he would not have the curiosity to consult several sources, but would limit himself to using this incorrect image, convinced of its truth. He would thereby commit the same mistake as the journalists of December 1989, those who unjustifiably inflated the number of deaths in Timişoara. There is a difference: the journalists wrote in the heat of the moment, impressed by what they had seen and under the threat of guns. Lotfi Maherzi would do this under quiet circumstances, seven years later, enough time for proper information…

A writer and historian, and not a researcher in the field of media, Catherine Durandin cannot escape certain contradicting stands when investigating the great confusion of Timişoara. The concern for presenting the facts in a unified manner, which would not allow contradictions to arise, or outlining the unclear aspects, where they would appear, would have kept the analysis (pertinent, nevertheless) on the subject of the dead exhumed on December 22^nd in the Paupers Cemetery in Timişoara from being marked by partly contradicting elements. Also, we sometimes witness the emergence of speculative stands, insufficiently argued. Thus, we see the image of a man crying before a pile of bodies marked by recent cuts (Durandin 2011: 100), which shows the pain of a parent who lost a child, desperate for being unable to at least find the body, if the child had been killed, and then the assumption that this had been a deliberate action to deceive the journalists (Durandin 2011: 106). The conclusion, recorded in the same place, would be that the persons who informed the TASS Soviet news agency, the television and radio stations and the newspapers in Belgrade and Budapest had been wrong, thus misleading the global mass media.

The archaeology of error a few years later

The Tanjug press agency and the Belgrade Television’s involvement in promoting false news regarding the dead and the mass graves of Timişoara would also be captured by Louis Armand. In his rather consistent analysis, the author would correctly decipher the mechanism of amplifying the lie, but would simplify the reality. Like other researchers, he would only pay attention to these elements of distortion, claiming: „Buoyed by figures issued by the communist-Yugoslavian news agency (Tanjug), this figure soon rose to 64,000. Yugoslav television showed what were purported to be mass graves, images of which were re- broadcast internationally, only later to be revealed as belonging to an old paupers’ cemetery. After the execution of Nicolae Ceauseşcu on Christmas day, 1989, the total deathtoll in Romania during the anti-communist uprising was dramatically readjusted to 700; while in Timisoara itself the figure was 70” (Armand, 2007: 48).

However, things were more complicated. Many Western journalists were already in Timişoara and could see for themselves what was happening. They saw the bodies in the Paupers Cemetery and reported on these. Rudi Vranckx (2002) would note, 13 years after the streets of Timişoara had been spattered with blood, that the fetus placed on a deceased woman’s chest was not her son, and that one of the men had died of liver cirrhosis. But back then, in the evening of December 22^nd 1989, he did broadcast the … sensational news from Timişoara. He explains, again, the context at the time: „It took us journalists months to get even a hint of the real story. We were so tied up with Ceaucescu’s execution, the orphanages, the deprivation…sensational, exotic bits of news. For the first time I had seen the face of war. And that face wore a mask”. But if Vranckx could be wrong, as he was a less experienced journalist, how can one explain the act of renouncing the ethical principles by the more experienced? This is also the case of Marc Semo, from Libèration, who, 20 years later, would maintain that, on that day, under the terror of gunfire heard in the city, he thought that the testimonies were supported, that the data regarding the hundreds, thousands of dead seemed to be confirmed (Durandin, 2011: 104). This action of reducing the number of victims (sometimes even beyond the natural boundaries and reality itself) is triggered not only by the attempt to reestablish the truth following the emerging exaggerations or by a feeling (sometimes unconfessed!) of those who let themselves be fooled or were fooled, but also by a combination between the two. Cesereanu (2010) thinks that another cause may have been the insistence in using the term genocide by the newly installed power in Romania after December 22^nd 1989. Naturally, the representatives of these new structures carried out other actions as well, some even more dangerous, in order to conserve the recently gained power.

The number of dead would not become an obsession to many people. A sociologist such as Monica Ciobanu, who directly experienced the Revolution in Bucharest, would speak, 20 years after these events, of the solidarity between protesters, of their need to express their revolt at the regime. She would support the cause of Timişoara and Romania, not seeing the issue of the dead as a priority (Stan şi Turcescu, 2010: 45). Another relevant fact is that of the 38 world public figures interviewed by Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu (2010), only eight would refer to the events of the Timişoara Revolution. None would speak of lies, farces or syndromes, although public figures such as Daniel Chirot, Dennis Deletant, Tom Gallagher, Martin Rady or Francisco Veiga were very much familiar with the situation. During that time, Dennis Deletant served as an editor, consultant and reporter for BBC, thus handling an impressive amount of news. He did not seem to have been impressed by the imaginary figures regarding the dead mentioned in the press telegrams which came to his attention (Stan şi Turcescu, 2010: 77).

Early doubts and late invalidations

Suspicions regarding the exaggerated number of deaths in Timişoara would be voiced as early as before the end of the year 1989. From a brief, but very well informed article, unfortunately unsigned, published in The Windsor Star (December 28^th), we find out important information, gathered with reporter’s talent: „In Bucharest, there were indications that figures of up to 80,000 dead given on Romanian television may have been wildly inflated. French Minister of Humanitarian Aid Bernard Kouchner said he had been told by Romanian health officials the total number of known dead in fighting around the country over the past two weeks was 746 and that the number of wounded was 1,800. Here in Timişoara, estimates of the number killed in the Dec. 15-17 weekend police ’massacre’ have reached as high as 4,500. Doctors at city hospital here have said since that they believe „several hundred” to be a more realistic figure”.

Wilkie Curtis (1989) would also speak of the possibility that the number of victims may have been exaggerated. However, he expresses this cautiously, without direct approaches and radical statements: „Indeed, the news of a massacre in the western city of Timişoara by government forces, which triggered Ceausescu’s downfall by arousing the anger of the Romanian people, appears to have been highly exaggerated. News agencies, basing their accounts on announcements by Romanian authorities, reported that as many as 4,600 were killed in Timişoara on Dec. 17 when security forces opened fire on a crowd in a public square to break up a protest demonstration”. There is also falsehood in this: Romanian officials never spoke of 4,600 dead in Timişoara. On January 14^th 1990, the Washington Post admitted the thesis regarding the exaggerated figures in the case of the Timişoara massacre. However, this was done discretely, finding justification in… the Romanian people’s credulousness: “Exactly how many died in the massacre at Timişoara is not yet known, but in the first days the figures were wildly inflated. In a country where information had been rigidly controlled for a quarter century Romanians were ready to believe anything” (Battiata and Harden 1990). Rune Ottosen (1995) would follow this evolution in the Norwegian press. His analysis is based on the image of the enemy in the press, where Ceauşescu appears alongside other great enemies, such as Saddam Hussein, Khomeini or Gaddafi. The case of the Aftenposten publication is mentioned, which would promote the figure of 60,000 dead in Romania, citing „a spokesman of the new regime” (Ottosen 1995). The hasty invalidation would follow on June 18^th 1990, claiming that there had in fact been 1,038 deceased.

The conclusion arising from the analysis of The Timişoara Syndrome is disconcerting. Undoubtedly, there is a great discrepancy between the real events that took place in Timişoara and in Romania during the repression initiated by Ceauşescu in December 1989 and the way in which they were accounted by the international mass media. The analysis of the facts was deficient, significant names in the field of media research provided analyses based on shaky information and findings, often taken from the press. A mystification of reality was followed by a mystification of research, indicating that there aren’t great differences between the exaggerated accounts of the revolution events and the attempts at clearing these up. Denouncing falsehood (which, undoubtedly, existed) with superficial information and personal opinions is the way to further continue the mystification! Beyond all this remains the tragedy of Timişoara: 107 dead (among whom a two-year-old little girl), hundreds of wounded, hundreds of maltreated arrestees. Among the deceased, some were recovered from the mass graves in January 1990, whereas others were never found, having been secretly cremated. And these are accurate, easily verifiable data.

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