- Title: Romanians remember victims of revolution 30 years on in Bucharest
- Date: 23rd December 2019
- Summary: TOMBSTONE PHOTO OF STAN BANCILA, KILLED ON DECEMBER 21 1989
- Embargoed: 6th January 2020 10:02
- Keywords: Bucharest Nicolae Ceausescu Romania Romanian Revolution victims of Revolution
- Location: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
- City: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
- Country: Romania
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
- Reuters ID: LVA002BB75GZD
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Relatives of people killed in the violence of Romania's 1989 revolution remembered the dead at a Bucharest cemetery on Saturday (December 21) 30 years after communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled from power.
Some of those present said they were angry that the perpetrators of the violence had escaped justice. "My revolt grows each year, as nobody is punished," said Elena Bancila, whose son Stan was killed on Dec. 21, 1989.
Steluta Vintila, who lost her brother in the revolution, said he had died hoping for a better life, but that after three decades she did not think that promise had been realised.
Ceausescu and his wife Elena governed Romania with a heavy hand for 24 years, but when protests against the regime broke out in the western city of Timisoara in mid-December 1989 they spread across the country.
After a week of demonstrations, riots and an armed crackdown, the Ceausescus fled Bucharest on Dec. 22. They were captured in the nearby town of Targoviste, court-martialled under charges of genocide and corruption and executed on Dec. 25.
Romania is the only former Communist country from the now defunct Warsaw Pact where the regime was toppled in violence.
The country joined NATO in 2004 and the European Union in 2007, but remains one of Europe's poorest and most corrupt countries.
(Production: Sinisa Dragin, Boki Babic, Lewis Macdonald) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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