Vatra Romaneasca & Canada Connection
The Foreigner
For those interested in some circumstantial information regarding the Vatra
Romaneasca manifesto and the Tirgu Mures clash, read on. ... however,
considerable material has been appended. The evidence seems more inclined
to indicate that the Manifesto was a legitimate document of Vatra
Romaneasca rather than a Romanian equivalent of the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion.
Three Canadians of ethnic Romanian descent (Gheorghe Balasu, Mihaela Moisin
& Nicolae Doru Popescu) arrived in Romania on February 18, 1990. All three
were later to be expelled from Romania on March 21, 1990, immediately
following the March 19-20/90 clashes in Tirgu Mures. A report written by
Ciaran Ganley and published in the Toronto Sun, March 23/90 said, "Romanian
interim vice president Cazimir Ionescu yesterday blamed recent clashes in
Transylvania on a resurgence of the [Iron] Guard. Romanian officials said
the three Canadians were found in possession of Iron Guard literature"
The article continued, "'Balasu is definitely a leader of the Iron Guard in
Canada,' said Meir Halevi of the Jewish Defence League. He said Balasu is
involved in reorganizing the Guard in Canada. 'The fact he (Balasu) was
expelled comes as no surprise,' Detroit-based Iron Guard expert Dennis
Debbault said."
At the time of the expulsions Balasu was aged 65, Moisin 49 and Popescu 47.
In another report in the Toronto Sun published March 30/90 and written by
Bill Dunphy, it was written:
"As 'proof' of his guilt, Popescu says the Romanian people were shown: a
poem from a book he was distributing; a photo of him with a world leader of
the Legionaire (Iron Guard) movement; and a portion of a three-year-old W5
[tv] documentary. The documentary dealt with the vicious 1986 murder here
in Metro [Toronto] of the editor of a Romanian-language newspaper,
Cornellus Dima-Dragan. A murder the Metro homicide squad lays at the
doorstep of an Iron Guard faction here in Canada. Popescu happened to turn
up at the murder scene a few hours after Dima-Dragan was gunned down.
Popescu, who says he was returning some music tapes to a friend who lived
in the same building, stepped right into the spotlight focussed on one of
the few political murders Canada's seen."
The report continues, "He suggested the editor had been killed by the
dreaded Romanian secret police. He succeeded in focussing media attention
on Dima-Dragan's politics, but he also succeeded in focussing police
attention on him."
Canada's national newspaper, The Globe & Mail, on March 23/90, in a report
written by Charlotte Montgomery, stated that "Mr Balasu publishes the
Romanian Voice" and that Moisin and Popescu work for it. The Globe & Mail
interviewed Valerio Cercel of Hamilton, Ontario who said "...Mr Balasu had
been scheduled to do television interviews and hold a news conference while
in Romania. Mr Cercel said that before he came to Canada 10 years ago he
had been falsely imprisoned by Mr Ceausescu's government on charges of
being an Iron Guard supporter."
In an Associated Press report published in the Globe & Mail, March 23/90,
it was written, "At a news conference, interim Prime Minister Petre Roman
said the three were found with Iron Guard literature.'
It further reported, "Mr [Cazimir] Ionescu said yesterday, in singling out
the Iron Guard as provocateur: 'They scared the Romanians with the idea
that the Hungarians want to take over Transylvania, and they are telling
the Hungarians that some requests they have made (to the government) will
not be granted."
On March 23/90 in the Toronto Star, Bill Taylor wrote, "Balasu's wife Lena
said yesterday she hadn't heard from him. She denied Roman's accusation
and said the three had been in Romania on an errend of mercy and to visit
family. 'They weren't there for political things,' she said."
In the Toronto Star, April 1/90, Alan Ferguson reported, "Newspaper reports
in Bucharest said the three had been involved in distributing pamphlets in
Tirgu Mures and had made inflammatory speeches in nearby Cluj."
Now let's have a look at an interview of Nicolae Doru Popescu videotaped in
Tirgu Mures at a rally circa March 4 sponsored by Vatra Romaneasca. The
Romanian transcript was translated by Omnicom Professional Languages
Services Limited, Suite 202, 2 Sheppard Ave E, Willowdale, Ontario, Canada.
The text reads as follows:
D.P.: My name is Doru Popescu. I live in Toronto, Canada, and I attended
the meeting very willingly, so I cannot describe it in words. What I want
is unity that you proved in the past, and it seems you prove it now, more
than ever in every part of the country.
TV: How did you get there, Mr Popescu?
D.P.: I knew the people from "Vatra Romaneasca" due to a happy
circumstance, I met them and they asked me to join them and then I came to
that meeting.
TV: What do you think about this meeting?
D.P.: I'll tell you about that in a few words: today Alba Iulia, tomorrow
the whole country ... you see what people say - "Romanian Language" - we
have been, we are, and we shall be in favour of using our old language, one
language, one nation...
TV: Mr Popescu, do they know, there, in Canada, what is really going on
here?
D.P.: We know everything about this, because the staff of "Cuvintal
Romanesc" broadcast everything that was going on in our country, we have
always been close to our country, and we will always be close to it.
TV: When did you leave the country?
D.P.: In 1981. I came from Canada...two weeks ago. I was there at the end
of December and the beginning of January, when I took in medicines and
documentary materials for interested Romanians.
TV: Do you have a different picture of the moment you are involved in?
D.P.: We believe that "Ardeal" would be the first region to arise...
TV: Outside the country they have a different opinion about the true facts
concerning the "Ardeal".
D.P.: There is something to be understood: the people creating that tension
are only the people interested in being masters of "Ardeal" and "Tara
Romaneasca". And I sure the Romanians will not permit this.
TV: Listen, [to the chanting crowd] in Romania only Romanian language...
D.P.: Of course, only Romanian language. No other language can exist.
TV: What was your impression of this meeting - people from all parts of the
country started crying.
D.P.: They suffer a lot here. It is not only suffering, it is according to
a feeling - closed in hearts due to a tyrant regime - a beginning to a new
way towards as democractic Romania, desired by the people of Transylvania,
who have to accomplish that wonderful task.
TV: What was the...
D.P.: I think the Hungarian part proved to be very ill-meaning towards the
Romanians, who always received them very well in their own country and
provided them with all opportunities for future development; Hungarian
people behaved quite differently towards our Romanians.
TV: Tell us a few words about the magazine you work for.
D.P.: The magazine "Cuvintul Romanesc" was founded in 1970 by a group of
Romanians which were fighting and which will continue to fight until
communism is abolished in Romania. They are "the fighters in exile". We
have joined them because we felt that they could offer us a real
possibility to fight.
TV: Today's meeting...
D.P.: We knew that before; today Alba Iulia, tomorrow the whole country.
TV: A last question: where are you going and what message are you carrying
on through your newspaper?
D.P.: Yesterday channel two of the Romanian television broadcast a very
clear message: I shall return to my country; I was thrown out of the
country because I was against the "masters" of the country; now I return
and I shall stay here.
Popescu was interviewed on the balcony with other leaders of Vatra
Romaneasca in Tirgu Mures. On the balcony were Radu Ciontea, one of the
leaders and a senator of PUNR. Ciontea was a graphics arts teacher in a
secondary school whose parents were alleged to be Iron Guardists.
(B.I. seria R.K. nr.525257/1989 eliberat de Mil. Tirgu. Mures. Also on the
balcony was Zeno Opris, a surgeon at a Tirgu Mures hospital, as well as Dr
Silviu Petru Olariu who was the head of Vatra Romaneasca in Tirgu Mures.
On page 26, paragraph 138 of the UN Commission of Human Rights Report
published January 8, 1991, was the following: "...Vatra Romaneasca Union
and the Romanian National Union Party [PUNR] represented in Parliament by
the National Unity Alliance have made protection of the Romanian heritage
one of their main policies."
The Vatra Romaneasca manifesto, dated February 20/90, contains item 11
which reads as follows: "Vatra Romaneasca guarantees to every one of its
members that it will, using its own special methods, secure the necessary
financial support for propaganda, not just from influential political
figures at home, but also from several more or less clandestine
organizations abroad, particularly French and Canadian ones."
Early references of Vatra Romaneasca appeared in a publication put out by
the facistic Boian News Service of New York City. In no. 239-41 of Oct-Dec
1988 of Porunca Vremii (Revista de prestigiul si drepturile neamului
nostru) George F. A. Boian wrote an article entitled "Ceausescu and Pacepa
Both are Liars." Like all of the stuff put out by the Boian News Service,
it rambles and is quite disgraceful in both logic, and often excessively
anti-semitic, anti-gypsy, anti-Hungarian.
In one paragraph Boian wrote, "The truth is that Pacepa had the mission
(Today same) to take over property "VATRA ROMANEASCA" at Grass Lake,
Michigan which was started by Bishop Policarp Morusca; Rev. Trutza and etc.
George F. A. Boian had his connection with Bucharest because for his
diplomatic service. We are asking Pacepov why he does not mention the names
of the agents in USA and Canada."
Interestingly, a report put out by the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation,
dated April 12/91 entitled, "Questions for Rumania's Prime Minister Petre
Roman." states that "Uniunea Vatra Romaneasca (Rumanian Hearth Union),
formed on December 27, 1989, proclaimed..." This was a year after the Boian
News Service published its material concerning the same, so the formation
of Vatra Romaneasca was not a spontaneous post-revolutionary thing. This
leads to the interesting thought that such an organization within and
without Romania during the Ceausescu reign could not exist without the
knowledge and the complicity of the Securitate.