The Evolution of Protest: A timeline of Romania’s fight against mining

BUCHAREST, Romania — Rosia Montana, a remote mountain town in Transylvania, is now an internationally recognized symbol for government corruption in Romania.

The town is at the heart of a controversial mining issue involving Gabriel Resources, a Canadian company that hopes to create the largest open-pit gold mine in Europe using controversial cyanide techniques in Rosia Montana.

But this town has also become a symbol for unity, providing a space for a new civic movement growing among young people in Romania — unlike any kind of activism seen since protesters fought to bring down the communist Ceaușescu government in 1989.

Today, a series of protests that began in defense of the environment and against major mining projects has become much more. The movement’s young people continue to find new reasons to protest simply for the act of protest itself. Because, for the first time in decades, a generation is coming together.

"The effect that the Romanian Canadian company has had on the Romanian people is very, very good," said Virgiliu Ghidra, a lawyer who opposes Gabriel Resources. "It brought our society together, people went out in the streets to fight them."

The presence of the gold mining project, he added, is a good thing for Romania because "It has awakened a civic consciousness in this country that was lost."

Countless pairs of shoes and muddy boots lined the entrance of Eugene David’s house in Rosia Montana just a few days before the 2014 New Year. David, a local Rosia man, became the outspoken leader of local resistance to Gabriel Resources almost a decade ago. His house, a beautiful wooden structure with a large communal kitchen and several guest bedrooms, also serves as a gathering place for activists when they come to Rosia Montana.

On one night, several dozen activists gathered in a back room to play games and catch up. From all regions of Romania, many had not seen each other in months.

The air was heavy with the heat of so many bodies crammed into one space, although snow sat on the ground outside in the frigid December weather. Bottles of homemade palinca and bags of schnitzel were passed around.

But amidst laughter was also strategy: The activists were making plans for resistance back in their own communities.

In a matter of hours, the quiet mountain town was transformed by several hundred activists celebrating the turn of the New Year.

Almost every empty bed and floor space, whose owner was in defiance of the mining project, was filled to capacity. On that night, a guesthouse meant for two slept seven.

Some of the Romanians present had been protesting for years, like Claudia Apostol, who has worked for a decade at Alburnus Maior, a non-profit organization aimed at saving Rosia Montana from the proposed mining project. Others are new to the movement, like Florin Arhire's mother in Timisoara, who started to protest when her son became involved.

Though the protesters’ goal is to protect the environment from destructive practices, many of them agree that the struggle has renewed a sense of unity among their fellow countrymen.

"I have an entirely new set of friends," said Irina Mărculescu, a medical student who spends many nights of her free time attending rallies and making banners for protests, but who was never previously involved in activism before this year. "I have finally found people who care about the same things as I do."

And Mărculescu’s story seems to be the norm among protesters.

Is the movement still strong?

Behind the new friendships and communal spirit attached with the protest movement, there has also been a shift of focus since September 2013 protests drew large crowds almost every night. According to local news outlets the number of demonstrators peaked at 20,000 in just that month.

The reality is that the numbers today are smaller and the issues are changing.

By October of 2013, only a core group of protesters continued to gather every Sunday in cities across Romania. The chill of the winter months kept many inside, while a consistent group of several thousand continued to work together in Bucharest, Cluj and Timisoara. They carried on into December.

On December 10, Bucharest activists occupied the House of the People’s Advocate in Bucharest’s old town, filling the building so full that no one could move. And in a gesture that many described as atypical, the Romanian parliament voted down a controversial mining law that was almost passed in a secret session.

“I just opened the door, it was open, and everyone came in,” said Matei Ghimis, a prominent activist in Bucharest, referring to the door of the House of the People’s Advocate.

The mining law, which required 240 votes to pass, resulted in a 160 to 105 count.

The legislation would have allowed the Romanian state eminent domain rights in natural resource exploration projects, and its denial felt, according to protesters, like one of the first times their actions had direct results on legislative decisions.

Additional protests in Bucharest in late December raised international scrutiny about a set of repressive immunity laws passed by the Romanian government.

Despite the more recent success in the movement, the number of those rallying is much smaller today than it was in September 2013. Many blame this on the grip of winter’s cold weather, apathy from a lack of concrete results and divergent interests splintering the group.

Alexandru Alexe, an outspoken activist known for leading protests in Bucharest with his megaphone blaring reggae music, said the biggest issue now is to keep the activist movement from forming disparate movements in the face of tempting social media activism.

“It’s easy to click ‘I will come’ to an event on Facebook than to actually come,” he said, adding that the movement had garnered a stronger online presence than physical presence most recently.

But Matei Ghimis thinks the smaller size of the protest movement is more complicated than just cold or apathy.

The geopolitical realities of Romania, he explained, are different now because of Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, a country which shares Romania’s northern border. He said that watching the scene unfold with a neighboring country may be putting a damper on local civic movements.

“The Ukraine situation was a big blow. The ‘civic society’ won there and the country ended up in a worse state than it was before, at least that's how most Romanians perceive it,” Ghimis said.

Now the fight gets sidetracked by tangential issues. The movement against natural gas extraction projects, for instance, has started debates about police brutality on private property.

Ghimis pointed to new issues with Chevron’s natural gas extraction interests in Romania as another example of an issue that is rallying protesters, but remains complicated by political relationships.

“By going against an American company, according to public opinion, we are serving Russia's interests,” Ghimis said. “Public perception of shale gas extraction is bad, but it is seen as a small price to pay.” And young people feel frustrated as Chevron’s project begins despite months of intense protests.

Others say that the protest movement may be out of touch with the people they are trying to help.

“We struggle to connect these protests with the rural areas and the communities that will be mostly affected by this," said Catinca Draganescu an actress living in Bucharest.

There is, perhaps, also a generational gap at play here as well. Many of Romania’s young students were born after communism, and unable to remember the conditions, are not interested in dissent.

"They grew up with different values than our generation,” Draganescu, whose parents were present during the protests of Ceausescu in 1989, explained.

Though the demographics of the demonstrations are varied, the crowds tend to consist mostly of older students and working professionals — medical students, actors and lawyers — a generation that still remembers communism.

Activist Ioana Maria-Iliut, from Sibiu, said she is ready for a long haul.

"The fact that this has brought our generation together is huge no matter what happens from now on,” she said.

The mining law was recently placed again on the Romanian Parliament’s calendar for voting.

The following is a timeline compiling the many different protests that have occurred Romania since September 2013.