Romania Leaders Are Ceausescu Collaborators, Ex-King Alleges

LAUSANNE, Switzerland —  Former King Michael of Romania said today that the country’s new leaders are Communists who collaborated with the executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

“The people who are at the head of the provisional government are true Communists who collaborated with Ceausescu,” he said in an interview in the French-language daily 24 Heures.

“Everybody there knows it,” he said. “The Romanians did not fight to be ruled once again by the same people. They do not want to continue with the same order.”

The National Salvation Front named a government Tuesday headed by President Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party Central Committee secretary who was demoted after criticizing the Ceausescu regime.

Deputy Foreign Minister Corneliu Bogdan said Wednesday that while some of the new leaders had been party members, they had all been elected by consensus of the Front. Vice President Dumitru Mazilu, who also suffered under Ceausescu, pledged Romania would never return to communism.

The Communists forced King Michael, now 68, to abdicate in 1947.

He said he would have preferred a normal trial of Ceausescu and his wife--executed Christmas Day after a swift, secret trial--but he said it was understandable especially in view of the immense hatred the people had for Ceausescu.

“I do not like revenge, but this execution was understandable,” he said.