Area Handbook for Romania Part 23

Ministry of Internal Affairs

The minister of internal affairs is one of the three members of the Council of Ministers who head governmental agencies charged with defense of the country and security of the regime and the social system. His ministry is responsible for the various police and related organizations that, although controlled from national headquarters, perform most of their functions at the local level in the defense of law, order, and property. It cooperates with the Ministry of the Armed Forces and with the State Security Council, a watchdog committee that oversees police activities, but neither of those agencies does a large share of its work with local government or party agencies (see ch. 8).

Two-thirds of the ministry's major directorates deal with the militia.

They include the militia's general inspectorate; its political council; and directorates relating to firefighting, special guard units, the Bucharest militia, and Bucharest traffic control. Other directorates of the ministry deal with prisons and labor settlements, reeducation of minors, and state archives.

Militia

The militia is organized at the national level under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is probably also responsible to the State Security Council. The chain of command between the ministry and local police units appears to work from inspectorate general offices in the ministry through the thirty-nine _judet_ (county) inspectorates and one for the city of Bucharest. Local police units and local inspectorates, in addition to being subordinate to their counterparts at the next higher level, are also responsible to the locally elected people's councils.

This dual subordination probably works because of the overriding influence of the Romanian Communist Party at all levels.

Most of the police work is done, and by far the greatest part of the organization is situated, in the many local police offices. These are located any place in which there are sufficient numbers of people or enough valuable property to justify them--in towns, communes, enterprises, or cities, where there may be several. The ministry may also establish other individual police jurisdictions at railroad stations, ports, airfields, and large construction sites and in other special situations on a temporary or permanent basis.

The militia is charged with defense of the regime and the society, with maintenance of public order, and with enforcement of laws. To accomplish the more general tasks, it is directed to detect criminal activities and to apprehend criminals. The militia is also given responsibility for preventing crime and for guiding, a.s.sisting, or directing other organizations involved in protection of the regime, the citizens, and state or private property. An increasing portion of routine police work is required in the control of highway traffic. The militia may also be called upon to a.s.sist in emergencies or in disaster situations.

Militia regulations require the police to respect individual rights and the inviolability of homes and personal property in normal circ.u.mstances. Restrictions are removed, however, if circ.u.mstances warrant. Police may commandeer any vehicle or means of communication, private or otherwise, if the situation demands. During chase or during investigation of flagrant crimes, they may enter private homes without permission or search them without warrant.

Citizens are directed to a.s.sist the militia when called upon or to act as police--to apprehend and hold violators--if no police are at the scene when a crime is committed. Provisions authorizing the formation of auxiliary police groups are established in law. Such auxiliaries would ordinarily be organized by the militia but, whatever their sponsorship, they would be expected to cooperate with local police authorities.

According to the law defining the militia's organization, its personnel consist of military and civilian employees on the staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Officers, military experts, and noncommissioned officers are recruited from the graduates of schools operated within the regular military establishment. Policemen may be drawn from those selected annually for compulsory military service. The armed forces'

personnel regulations apply to militiamen acquired from the draft process or from military schools. Graduates of civilian schools are employed in the police force to meet its requirements for specialists who are not trained in the armed forces. These individuals and others who have had no a.s.sociation with the armed forces retain civilian status and are subject to the provisions of the labor code and other regulations applicable to civilian employees.

The militia's personnel strength of 500,000 in 1972 means that about one person in every forty of the country's population is in, or employed by, the force. The reason for this high ratio is that the militia organization has branches at all government levels, from the national ministry down to the village. Also, its working groups include nearly all of the country's guard, regulatory, investigative, and paramilitary organizations, as well as those performing police and firefighting functions.

Security Troops

Security forces organized at the national level to protect the regime from subversive activities, whether locally or externally generated, were created in the late 1940s and are still maintained. The force in 1972 numbered roughly 20,000 men. It is organized along military lines, and most, if not all, of its men have military rank. It receives its administrative and logistic support from the Ministry of Internal Affairs but is supervised by the State Security Council.

According to p.r.o.nouncements made during anniversary ceremonies held in August of 1968, during their twenty years of service the security troops had been a consistently reliable force. Their mission was described as identifying and apprehending foreign espionage agents and combating local spies, saboteurs, agitators, and terrorists. It was declared that the forces operated under the leadership and direct guidance of the party and governmental leadership and that local security forces were controlled by the party authorities in districts and cities.

p.r.o.nouncements by the leadership about their local subordination notwithstanding, the security troops, which are the direct descendants of the old secret police, are still controlled at the national level.

Because of their declining mission in counter-espionage and counter-subversion, they undoubtedly cooperate wherever possible in usual militia functions, but they appear to have only nominal responsibilities to local government agencies.

The diminishing role of the security troops is evident in several areas.

Their personnel strength in 1971 was a fraction of that of the militia.

The country's efforts against external threat have been increasingly relegated to the regular armed forces. Also, although the chairman of the State Security Council--which was newly established in 1968--is a member of the Council of Ministers, in 1970 he was the only man on the security council who was a ranking party member, and he was no more than an alternate member of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party. His vice chairmen were military officers, and only one of them was prominent enough in the party to have been a member of the Central Committee. It is evident that the State Security Council in Romania does not have the status of the high-level groups that in some countries have the responsibility for coordinating party and governmental activities relating to national security and for providing basic guidance to all of the various military, paramilitary, and police agencies.

PUBLIC ORDER

As is the case in the other communist countries that pattern their systems after that of the Soviet Union, Romania's leadership relies on the party and several ma.s.s organizations to foster a climate in which the people will actively support and cooperate with the regime. These organizations involve as large a segment of the population as possible in a broad spectrum of programs and functions. The efforts they elicit from their members may consist of activities within the organizations themselves or in local governments, judicial systems, and security groups. Ma.s.s popular involvement provides an influence that is generally subtle but that may become direct pressure.

Ma.s.s Organizations

The party attempts to attract the most competent and elite element of the people, to ensure that its members adhere to basic socialist ideology, and to maintain the power to direct and control all other groups involved in major social and governmental activities. The ma.s.s organizations support the party and carry its programs to special interest groups. They keep the party informed of the concerns of their members and may also, within certain limitations, have an influence upon the party's actions (see ch. 9).

There are about a dozen ma.s.s organizations. The Socialist Unity Front is not typical of the group, as in theory it encompa.s.ses all of the others as well as the party--although it supports and serves the party. It functions as a coordinating agency in such things as running the national elections.

The largest typical groups are the General Union of Trade Unions and the youth groups. There are three of the latter: the Union of Communist Youth (Uniunea Tineretului Comunist--UTC), the Pioneers Organization, and the Union of Student a.s.sociations. The UTC is a general group whose members are between fifteen and twenty-six years of age, although members in leadership positions may retain their affiliation beyond the upper age limit. The pioneers are the younger children, seven through fourteen years old; their program is designed so that they move naturally into the UTC when they become fifteen. The student groups are organized in universities or in schools beyond the secondary level. They have experienced difficulties in attracting members and in persuading those they have attracted to accept all of the principles set down for them (see ch. 9).

The other organizations are a miscellaneous aggregation, including a women's organization, the Red Cross, a sports and physical education group, one that involves the various ethnic nationalities, another that is a Jewish federation only, one that is designed to foster ties of friendship with the Soviet Union, and one designed for the defense of peace. Although they are highly dissimilar and vary widely in importance, all are designed to attract groups with special fields of interest and to guide such groups into activities that promote harmony and order.

The labor and youth groups, in addition to being the largest, are also those most actively charged with supporting the regime. Labor union members are active in auxiliaries of the militia and in the military reserves. The UTC membership spans most of the age group that is drafted into the regular armed services and the security forces. Within the services it forms units throughout the organizational structures that either direct or actively a.s.sist in political indoctrination programs and manage sports and recreational activities. Where a party cell exists, the UTC is guided by it; where the military unit is too small to have a party cell, the UTC functions in its place.

Youth Programs

Although the economy has improved and the internal security situation has stabilized, youth problems have increased, and much effort is being expended on their solution. Officials point out that the percentage of young people that have become criminals or whose antisocial conduct gets most of the publicity is very small. They complain, however, that the number of those who will not a.s.sociate with the UTC and who display other negative behavior is far too great. Negative behavior on the part of young people reportedly involves their manner of speech and dress, which "offends common decency," their creation of public disturbances, their apathy toward work, and the fact that many of them have become cynical and infatuated with "wrong beliefs."

Authorities understand the youthful tendency to be nonconformist and accept the fact that a certain amount of the behavior they deplore is an attempt to affirm new and differing youth att.i.tudes. Att.i.tudes and conduct considered to have exceeded permissible bounds, however, are dealt with firmly. Leaders blame the inadequacies of some educational facilities; the ignorance, injustice, or excessive indulgence on the part of some parents and educators; and the overlenient courts.

Solutions that have been proposed since the late 1960s have run the gamut from advice to parents to the creation of powerful governmental agencies. Parents are admonished to take a firm att.i.tude toward their children. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the UTC was made a member of the Council of Ministers, as minister for youth problems. University student a.s.sociations have been given much new attention, as have the other youth organizations and their programs. The militia, armed forces, and security troops have been required to undertake programs to cooperate with youth organizations.

During 1969 the minister for youth problems was provided a research center by the Council of Ministers. Its purpose was to investigate the problems experienced by schools, universities, youth ma.s.s organizations, the militia, and the courts. As case studies are doc.u.mented, the center is directed to evaluate the problems and the solutions found for them locally at the time they occurred and to disseminate the information, with additional comments and recommendations, as widely as possible.

In early 1971 a considerably invigorated program was unveiled for the UTC. Wherever possible, all programs were to become more mature and more stimulating. Military exercises would involve field trips and more realistic maneuvers. Aerial sports would include parachuting, gliding, and powered flight. Hobbies, such as model ship building, amateur radio, and the study of topography, were to be given more adequate supervision.

Better equipment and facilities would be supplied for touring, motorcycling, mountaineering, skiing, and hiking. More youths were to be scheduled for summer camps. No information concerning the effectiveness of the new programs had been made available by early 1972.

Many university students held their party-sponsored a.s.sociations in low regard during the middle and late 1960s, and eventually the then-existing student unions were dissolved or consolidated into the new Union of Student a.s.sociations. The incentives and pressures that were applied, in addition to revamping the union's programs, had succeeded by 1970 in re-animating the a.s.sociation to the point that it was active in all of the country's universities and inst.i.tutes of higher learning. It was authorized to make recommendations applicable to extracurricular sports and tourist programs, political education, and the entire academic area of the educational establishment.

Programs for the young pioneer groups have probably not been the object of the same degree of reform effort that has been applied to the UTC and the student a.s.sociations. A party spokesman stated in late 1971, however, that the 1.6 million pioneers were not too young to develop a socialist consciousness and to be given a communist education. He stated that their major programs should feature direct involvement in work of educational and civic value.

To give young people a sense of accomplishment, as well as to keep them occupied in meaningful and productive work, large numbers of them are organized into youth construction groups. In typical situations temporary housing or camps are built near the project, and all necessary facilities are provided at the site. During the spring of 1970, for example, five such groups were scattered throughout the country, operating concurrently. A majority of the projects have involved land reclamation, irrigation, or drainage. Many of them are major undertakings, and thousands of young people take part in the program.

CRIME AND THE PENAL SYSTEM

During a 1971 discussion on the judiciary's philosophy with regard to the general subjects of law and freedom, the chairman of the Supreme Court stated that the penal code and criminal procedures adopted in 1968 a.s.sign to the law the role of regulator of social behavior. The law has become, he said, not simply an instrument stipulating the rights and obligations of the citizen; its important social role provides a firm foundation for society's behavior. Other spokesmen have amplified this theme. They emphasize that, once an individual understands the law and its objectives, he appreciates the fact that individual freedom is related to the freedom of others and that a free individual is bound to respect accepted ideological concepts and accepted moral and judicial standards.

Public prosecutors have a broad range of responsibility in the judicial and penal systems. Their duties are not confined to handling the prosecution of indicted individuals who have been brought to trial. As the appointed protectors of the civil liberties of the people, their duties extend from crime prevention to rehabilitation of criminals serving prison sentences. They are responsible for seeing that crimes are detected and investigated and that penal action is taken against the criminal. They also see to it that the criminal is held in preventive detention, if necessary, before trial. After sentencing, the prosecutors have access to any place in which the criminal might be detained and pa.s.s on the legalities of the detention and the conditions within the penal inst.i.tution. If a sentence either does not involve imprisonment (but is, for example, in the form of a fine, restriction, or extra work) or is suspended, the prosecutors ensure that the terms of the sentence are carried out.

Public prosecutors are monitored by the Office of the Prosecutor General at the national level. The prosecutor general (attorney general) a.s.sures that the work of local public prosecutors is consistent throughout the country, both in the choice of cases to pursue and in the diligence with which the prosecution is undertaken (see ch. 8).

Crime

Statistics released to the public do not include crime rates. Reliable data that would include petty crime would, in any event, be difficult to obtain because many minor infractions of law and all but the more serious of personal disputes are not termed crimes and are tried before the hundreds of local judicial commissions.

A rough a.s.sessment of the overall crime situation can, however, be made from the concern expressed in the many speeches and articles published by government and party spokesmen. It is apparent that certain types of crime are considered to be adequately under control and occur infrequently enough to be statistically tolerable. There are, for example, few trials in the political category, such as those where dissidents are accused of attempting to undermine the authority of the regime or to subvert the population from the approved ideology. In an exceptional case (apparently at least his second serious offense) an engineer found guilty of pa.s.sing economic information to a foreigner received a twenty-five-year sentence in March 1971 for espionage.

Similar trials were a frequent occurrence during the early 1950s, but much of the publicity they have received since the mid-1960s has occurred because they have become so infrequent as to be noteworthy.

Furthermore, to emphasize the more moderate and strictly legal procedures adhered to by police forces and the judiciary, some of the 1950 political trials are being reexamined. Most of those sentenced to imprisonment from such trials have been amnestied, the largest group in 1964. A few of those who were executed are still being posthumously rehabilitated.

On the other hand, there is a greater percentage of crimes in the categories that are sometimes attributed to an improvement in the standard of living but that reflect dissatisfaction with the rate of the improvement. These include economic crimes--theft and embezzlement--misuse or abuse of property, and antisocial crimes and crimes of violence, which are committed most frequently by younger people. Party officials also deplore the prevalence of laxity in the use of state property and in the safeguarding of official information and doc.u.ments.