Defiant to the End

For two hours on Christmas Day an unrepentant Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu faced an invisible tribunal. In answer to charges of genocide, subversion of the national economy and secreting $1 billion in foreign bank accounts, the couple defiantly challenged the right of their accusers to judge them. Excerpts:

Ceausescu (arguing loudly): I do not recognize this court. Read the constitution.

Prosecutor: We've read the constitution. We know it better than you do.

Ceausescu: I will not answer a single question.

Prosecutor: What possessed you to reduce the people to the state they were in? Why did the people have to starve?

Ceausescu: This is a lie and proves the lack of patriotism in the country . . .

Prosecutor: What have you done for the country?

Ceausescu: I built hospitals.

Prosecutor: You destroyed the Rumanian people and their economy.

Ceausescu: We do not intend to argue with you. The population had everything it needed . . .

Prosecutor: Who ordered the shooting of the people?

Ceausescu (staring at the ceiling): I will not answer a single question. Do not interpret my silence as answers. I will answer only to the working class.

Prosecutor: There are more than 64,000 dead in the cities.

Elena (angrily): This is a provocation!

Prosecutor: All you did was science?

Elena (shouting): I am the president of the Rumanian Academy of Sciences! I am the First Deputy Prime Minister . . .

Prosecutor: Let Ceausescu tell us something about his Swiss bank accounts.

Elena: Evidence, evidence, evidence!

Ceausescu: There is not a single account. You are a provocateur . . .

Prosecutor (reading the verdict): On the basis of the actions of the members of the Ceausescu family, we condemn the two of you to death.

Ceausescu (defiantly): I am not a defendant. I am President of Rumania and the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. I refuse to recognize this court.

A voice interrupts, ordering the pair to stand.

Elena (to her husband): No, dear, we will not rise.