Unrest Erupts

Rock fans and miners rumble

Nothing mocks the democratic pretentions of the Communist nations more than a mass protest. Twice in recent weeks, East bloc governments have been embarrassed by such signals of popular discontent. Items:

The double-barreled concert was to have been the feature attraction of a daylong festival celebrating the 28th anniversary of East Germany's birth as a Communist state. In one corner of East Berlin's huge Alexanderplatz, a Western-style rock group, Express Berlin, was performing before several hundred rapt young people. At the opposite end of the square, a Russian military band tootling patriotic marches competed unsuccessfully for the crowd's attention. Suddenly, the cacophony erupted into violence.

The trouble began when several rock fans tumbled down a poorly covered ventilator shaft on the Alexanderplatz. Clearing the way for rescue teams, police ordered the rock band to stop playing but permitted the Russians to continue their concert. Enraged, the youngsters attacked the police Hurling bottles, sticks and planks and smashing the windows of surrounding buildings, the crowd howled, "Biermann, Biermann"--referring to Poet-Balladeer Wolf Biermann, one of many dissident East German artists and intellectuals who have been forced into exile (TIME, Oct. 3). More menacingly, the rioters began to chant, "Russians out! Russians out!" East German officials were unable to downplay the riot, which was seen by some Western diplomats. Eyewitnesses reported that one policeman was stabbed to death and another killed when rioters beat him on the head with a beer crate during the three-hour melee. At least 200 young people were injured, and 700 others were held by police in an underground parking lot beneath the Alexanderplatz for post-concert quarantine.

In Rumania, officials were temporarily successful in stifling news of an outburst of violent labor unrest in the nation's southwest, but last week letters from strikers describing the disturbances reached the West. Some 35,000 miners from the Jiul River basin, which provides 70% of the country's coal supply, went on strike in early August to protest food shortages, unpaid overtime work and a reduction of pension and sickness benefits. The walkout was by far the largest in Rumania since the Communist takeover in 1948.

The Bucharest government sent massive police and army reinforcements to the mines to quell the strikers--which apparently led to bloody clashes. When the miners refused to budge, Labor Minister Gheorghe Pana and Politburo Member Hie Verdet were sent from Bucharest to talk the strikers back to work. Pick-wielding miners grabbed the two officials and held them hostage in a pit. At this point, Party Chief Nicolae Ceausescu was summoned from his Black Sea vacation and brought to the scene by helicopter. Surrounded by armed bodyguards, the Rumanian leader warned the miners that unless he can maintain absolute order and discipline, "we will be trampled underfoot by others"--meaning a possible Soviet invasion. He also promised that the miners' grievances would be given serious consideration. After the miners returned to work, however, some of their leaders were arrested or beaten by police. According to the reports, 4,000 strikers were fired, and others were sent off to work in other mining areas or on collective farms elsewhere in Rumania. Meanwhile, special militia detachments--called "butchers" by the miners--sealed off the Jiul basin area, and security police agents were infiltrated among the miners. The dissidents refer to them as "party dogs."

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