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                          DECEMBER 23, 1989  (II)

---------------------------- Table of Contents -----------------------------
No.  Subject                                                      # of Lines

 1. Ceausescu, Wife Said Captured As Battles Rage Across Romania  .....  81
 2. Fighting Continues in Romania after Historic Revolution  ..........  69
 3. Mass Graves Discovered for Romanian Massacre  .....................  36
 4. Soviets Offer Aid, Urge Allies To Support Romanian Uprising  ......  41


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1. Ceausescu, Wife Said Captured As Battles Rage Across Romania
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From: YAWEI%AQUA.DECNET@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Source: Associated Press, 12/23/89

Bucharest, Romania -- Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and  his  wife  Elena  were
captured Saturday, the provisional government said on Romanian television.

    The Ceausescus capture came 1 day after the dictator  was  deposed  from
power after 24 years.

    Ion Iliescu, a member of the provisional government,  said  the  "dicta-
torial family, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, was captured."

    Referring to Ceausescu as a "poison  hyena,"  Iliescu  said  the  former
hard-line  Communist president, who had ruled since 1965, and his wife would
be tried. Elena Ceausescu was the second most powerful person in the country
under the old regime.

    Iliescu also announced the capture of Emil Bobu, the third most powerful
person  in the country, and Ceausescu's brother, Ilie, formerly a deputy de-
fense minister. No other details on the reported captures were provided.

    Romanian radio, like the television in the hands of  the  anti-Ceausescu
forces, also swiftly reported the announcement of the captures.

    If the Nicolae Ceausescu's capture is confirmed, the development  should
provide  a  big  boost  to army soldiers and civilians still battling better
equipped security forces loyal to Ceausescu.

    The fighting has claimed hundreds of lives nationwide since the dictator
was ousted Friday.

    Ceausescu and his wife fled Bucharest Friday in a  helicopter  from  the
roof of the presidential palace, ending his 24 year rule.

    Their son, Nicu, a regional Communist Party chief, had already been cap-
tured and shown on Romanian TV.

    Saturday's announcement was the first definite word from the  opposition
that Ceausescu was in their hands.

    The provisional government, known as the  National  Salvation  Committee
and  comprised of generals and dissident politicians and backed by the army,
declared itself for democracy and free elections.

    But it was clearly having trouble maintaining control.

    Bucharest radio and television, seized by the popular forces Friday, re-
peatedly  appealed  to  people and army units to rush to the capital and aid
soldiers outnumbered by the enemy security forces.

    Fighting was fierce in Bucharest, where the army and civilians who  took
up arms were defending state television and radio headquarters and trying to
capture the fire gutted presidential palace from Ceausescu loyalists.

    As dawn broke over Bucharest, anti-Ceausescu soldiers posted atop the TV
building fought with pockets of loyalists in nearby apartment buildings in a
firefight that lit up the early morning sky.

    Rocket-propelled grenades slammed into the  TV  building  and  defenders
answered with machine-gun and rifle fire.

    Bucharest  radio  reported  intense  combat  in  Brasov,  the  country's
second-largest city, and fighting in another central city, Sibiu.

    It said more than 12,000 people had been killed in Timisoara alone since
the  uprising began Dec. 15 with demonstrations in that western city.  Scat-
tered gunfire continued Saturday in Timisoara.

    Residents there reclaimed the streets after the army appeared to  estab-
lish control.

    The radio also announced that all political prisoners had been released.

    The fighting Saturday blocked  urgently  needed  medical  supplies,  the
International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva reported.

    Spokeswoman Marjolaine Martin said Red  Cross  workers  were  unable  to
reach the center of Bucharest Saturday morning.


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2. Fighting Continues in Romania after Historic Revolution
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From: YAWEI%AQUA.DECNET@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Source: Associated Press, 12/23/89

Bucharest,  Romania  --  Outraged  Romanians  and  rebel  soldiers   toppled
President  Nicolae  Ceausescu  Friday in fierce, daylong battles with troops
loyal to the Soviet bloc's last dictator.

    Hundreds were reported killed in the fighting, which continued early Sa-
turday.

    The rebel army and the people were in control in most places.

    There was only scattered pockets of resistance from pro-Ceausescu  secu-
rity  forces,  said Maj.-Gen. Stefan Gusa, the first deputy defense minister
who joined the uprising.

    The rebels held the communications centers and arrested key figures from
the  Ceausescu  regime, including the interior minister and the chief of the
secret police.

    About 2:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. EST  Friday),  security  forces  opened  fire
around Romania's radio and television headquarters, about two miles apart.

    But rebel troops repulsed the attacks. Dissidents and  those  trying  to
form a new leadership had been broadcasting from the TV center Friday.

    Fighting also was reported late Friday night in the western city of Tim-
isoara,  where  the revolt began on Dec. 15, and in Romania's second-largest
city of Brasov.

    Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency later reported that the fighting in Tim-
isoara had died down.

    The death toll from Friday's uprising was believed to  be  in  the  hun-
dreds,  in  addition to the thousands of civilians reported killed since the
start of the unrest.

    Provisional leader Ion Iliescu appeared on Romanian TV along with  other
members  of a National Salvation Committee that the media said was formed to
run the country temporarily.

    Iliescu, an old acquaintance of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev,  and
former Foreign Minister Corneliu Manescu said free elections would be sought
by April.

    State-run Romanian media said Ceausescu and his wife,  Elena,  fled  the
palace by helicopter early Friday. The palace was later was set ablaze.

    It also was reported they had fled the country.  But  Tanjug  said  late
Friday  night  that they had been captured, along with other ranking members
of the old guard.

    It was not known where they were. China Saturday denied giving sanctuary
to Ceausescu.

    Ceausescu's son, Nicu, also was reported in custody and was shown on  TV
with  a  bloody face, his arms held by a civilian and a man in a uniform. He
was then taken away by his captors.

    Security forces were repulsed in the attacks early Saturday on the radio
and TV headquarters.

    Occupants of the TV building ducked as shots were fired toward the  win-
dows  and  the lights went out. Rebel soldiers inside returned fire, pinning
down the security forces, and repulsed the attack  after  about  two  hours.
The TV station stayed on the air during the attack.


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3. Mass Graves Discovered for Romanian Massacre
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From: YAWEI%AQUA.DECNET@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Source: Associated Press, 12/23/89

Timisoara, Romania -- Hundreds of people Friday were digging up mass  graves
discovered  in  the  forest district of Timisoara.  They were trying to find
the remains of their friends and relatives killed in last  weekend's  crack-
down.

    Three mass graves are believed to be holding as many as 4,500 corpses of
people massacred by security forces on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

    Timisoara, 500 miles from Bucharest  near  the  Yugoslav  and  Hungarian
border,  was  the  center  of  protests brutally suppressed by the regime of
President Ceausescu, who was reported overthrown Thursday.

    West German television, apparently showing footage provided by  Romanian
TV,  showed muddied, naked corpses being dug out and placed on white sheets,
one after the other. All had their feet tied together with wire.

    A dead boy, about three or four years old, was shown on the ground. [CND
reporter's  note:  the footage of the bodies was shown on CNN's World Report
today. It was the most gruesome scene I've ever seen.]

    "Not even Hitler killed his own children, and here they  used  automatic
machine  gun  bursts to strafe them down," said Slavomir Gvozdenovic, editor
of a Timisoara literary review.

    Vasile Todorescu said he was trying to find  his  20-year-old  son,  who
disappeared during the unrest.

    Todorescu said the corpses had been transported by garbage trucks to the
area  and the drivers were later shot by the police so no witnesses would be
left.


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4. Soviets Offer Aid, Urge Allies To Support Romanian Uprising
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From: YAWEI%AQUA.DECNET@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Source: Associated Press, 12/23/89

Moscow -- The Soviet Union Saturday sent medical supplies  to  Romania.   It
appealed  to  its  Warsaw  Pact  allies to help support the uprising against
Nicolae Ceausescu, but appeared to rule out military intervention.

    The Soviet news agency Tass said wounded Romanians likely will be  flown
to the Soviet Union for treatment.

    Tass warned that the fighting in Bucharest had endangered the  lives  of
Soviets living in the Romanian capital.

    "The first planes with medicines and urgent supplies  have  already  ar-
rived  in  Bucharest," President Mikhail Gorbachev said. "But they still are
being held up in the Bucharest airport, which is blockaded."

    The Soviet Red Cross, Ministry of Health and  other  organizations  were
working  with  similar organizations in France and Eastern Europe to provide
medicine and specialists, he said.

    Tass said Gorbachev told the Soviet Parliament that the Kremlin "had de-
cided to appeal to the governments of the Warsaw Pact states with the aim of
coordinated efforts in providing support to the people of Romania."

    Gorbachev said "a number of other measures" were being worked  out  with
Warsaw  Pact  allies, and that a special working group was monitoring events
in Romania. He provided no other details.

    Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov dismissed talk of sending  Soviet  troops  to
Romania to aid the provisional Romanian government that, backed by the army,
declared itself in control after Ceausescu fled Bucharest Friday.

    Romanian TV said earlier Saturday the Soviet Embassy had pledged person-
nel and equipment to aid the uprising.

    The announcement followed an appeal from an  unidentified  army  general
who  urged  Moscow  to step in because "terrorist units" had sent reinforce-
ments to the capital.


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|   Executive Editor:  Sanyee Tang, tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu                    |
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|   One news package was sent out on December 22, 1989.                    |
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