BUCHAREST: Nearly at the gates of Bucharest, Romania’s miners were turned back by a combination of bribes and threats. Sullenly, bitterly, they are returning to their pits. What they were attempting was no mere strike, however, but amounted to nothing less than a failed coup. The government’s "victory" over them may, perhaps, turn out to be equally important for Romanian reform as Mrs. Thatcher’s facing down of Britain’s radical mining unions in the 1980s. This year started ominously for Romania, with living standards declining and heavy foreign debt repayments - $2.3billion - falling due. This was the background to the miner’s march, armed with clubs and axes, on Bucharest; this and the memories of a previous "visit" to the capital by rampaging miners in the early post-Ceausescu years. Halfway to the capital, the miners inflicted two humiliating defeats on police and security forces, injuring 30 soldiers and taking hundreds prisoner. Some police and army officers deserted and the commander-in-chief ran away from the battlefield dressed as a peasant. Darkly, many local people joined in as miners began to shout for the government’s overthrow.
BUCHAREST: Nearly at the gates of Bucharest, Romania’s miners were turned back by a combination of bribes and threats. Sullenly, bitterly, they are returning to their pits. What they were attempting was no mere strike, however, but amounted to nothing less than a failed coup. The government’s "victory" over them may, perhaps, turn out to be equally important for Romanian reform as Mrs. Thatcher’s facing down of Britain’s radical mining unions in the 1980s. This year started ominously for Romania, with living standards declining and heavy foreign debt repayments - $2.3billion - falling due. This was the background to the miner’s march, armed with clubs and axes, on Bucharest; this and the memories of a previous "visit" to the capital by rampaging miners in the early post-Ceausescu years. Halfway to the capital, the miners inflicted two humiliating defeats on police and security forces, injuring 30 soldiers and taking hundreds prisoner. Some police and army officers deserted and the commander-in-chief ran away from the battlefield dressed as a peasant. Darkly, many local people joined in as miners began to shout for the government’s overthrow.