Ceausescu Gave Order for Troops to Fire on Protesters, Official Says

BUCHAREST, Romania — Nicolae Ceausescu personally ordered troops to fire on protesters at the start of Romania’s uprising, and his wife told soldiers who didn’t want to shoot a pregnant woman to run her down with a tank instead, an official said Tuesday.

In an interview, Interior Minister Mihai Ghitac, the former military commander of the Bucharest garrison and one of the first generals to side with civilians seeking Ceausescu’s ouster, described the massacre in mid-December of unarmed demonstrators in Timisoara, 300 miles northwest of Bucharest--the atrocity that unleashed the popular revolution.

Ceausescu “gave strict orders to shoot,” Ghitac said. “Special units had been sent” to infiltrate army ranks, “and these units provoked general genocide in Timisoara.”

Elena Ceausescu, the virtual second in command, was no less harsh, Ghitac said.

“They telephoned the wife of the despot that they could not shoot because there were women and children,” he said. “She was told over the telephone that a pregnant woman told the soldiers, ‘Shoot, and you will kill two people.’

“The tyrant’s wife said, ‘If you can’t shoot, go with tanks against them.’ ”