Dumitru Mazilu

Dumitru Mazilu (born 24 June 1934) is a Romanian politician. He had a key role in the events of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 and in exposing the human rights abuses of the Ceaușescu regime.

Professional career

Mazilu was born in Bacău. In 1952, he graduated from the Technical School of Engineers in Bacău. The same year, he became a security officer and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In 1959, Mazilu graduated from the University of Bucharest with a law degree, obtaining a PhD in the same field in 1964. As Mazilu attempted to obtain a PhD, he worked as a professor of law at Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy in Bucharest.

From 1965 to 1966, Mazilu served as director of Securitate in Băneasa. According to the Report Armageddon VII of 2004, it is claimed that Dumitru Mazilu had been dismissed from the management of Securitate officers as a result of an attempt to falsify documents relating to a car accident. From 1965 to 1968, Mazilu was responsible for investigating abuses and irregularities committed during the regime of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.

In the 1970s, Mazilu's academic career further expanded. In 1970, he was established as a university professor by the Ministry of Education. In the years 1970–1974, he was the scientific director of the Institute of Political Sciences in Bucharest. In 1974, he gained admiration from American universities such as Harvard, Columbia and UCB. This attention from foreign institutes solidified Mazilu's position in Romanian diplomacy. This led to Mazilu's position as a legal adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Political dissidence in Ceaușescu's Romania

In 1985, Mazilu became involved in discussions of human rights and of the youth of the world. At this point in time, expectations that Mazilu wrote a report critical of the situation of human rights in Romania. Nicolae Ceaușescu was informed by secret services that Mazilu intended to publish the report. Ceaușescu forbade Mazilu to leave the country to prevent him from presenting the report to the United Nations Organization. The report detailed Ceaușescu's policy of exporting the majority of Romania's food, and lowering living standards to quickly pay off foreign debts. This was the case especially for those who lived near the construction site of Ceaușescu's planned palace who were forcefully placed into hastily constructed apartment blocks that lacked electricity and running water, when in contrast, Ceaușescu lived in extravagant wealth. Mazilu furthered criticized Ceaușescu's agricultural policy of destroying traditional farming centers in an effort to modernize Romania's farming industry with the introduction of more modern agricultural centers, claiming that this compromised peasant farmers as their farms were seen by Ceaușescu's administration as "breeding (grounds) of bourgeois liberalism that still (perpetuate) forms of private property".

From the years 1986–1989, Mazilu was placed under house arrest as a result of his criticisms of Ceaușescu's handling of human rights. As a result of Mazilu's critical report of Human Rights in Romania, he was formally fired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1987 and his diplomatic passport was withdrawn, preventing him from attending UN meetings. In May of the same year, Ceaușescu had a letter written to the UN which claimed that Mazilu had suffered a heart attack and was seriously ill.

Dumitru Mazilu wrote a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations stating that he had been hospitalized twice, being forced to withdraw from a summit on 1 December 1987, stating that he would not withdraw his report. The next year, the UN Subcommission to request Mazilu's release. In response, Ceaușescu stated that Mazilu's detention was in accordance with Romanian law and that placing Mazilu on the diplomat list was redundant due to his illness, thus denying the requests of the UN.

However, despite being under house arrest, Mazilu was able to publish a clandestine report to the Geneva in April 1989. The report was published by the United Nations in July of the same year. This report was similarly critical, stressing conditions of extreme hunger, cold and fear in Romani

Despite repeated attempts by the UN to free Mazilu, he remained under house arrest. In September 1989, four diplomats from the embassy of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States of America and Canada were prevented by the Securitate to visit Mazilu. Several radio stations including the BBC
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