|
Romania Military Personnel
In 1989 virtually all men who were eighteen years of
age or
older had to serve in the armed forces or Ministry of
Interior
units to maintain them at full strength. The terms of
service in
the armed forces were sixteen months in the ground forces
and air
force and two years in the navy and in the Border Guards.
The armed
units of the Ministry of Interior, the security troops and
the
militia (police), also served two years
(see Ministry of Interior and Security Forces
, this ch.). They were selected during
the same
annual induction cycle as were those called to serve in
the armed
forces. Students accepted into civilian universities were
required
to serve nine months on active duty prior to matriculation
or to
take instruction from the military faculty and become
reserve
officers after graduation. The demographic strain of
universal male
military conscription on the national labor pool, however,
forced
the Ceausescu regime to cut the armed forces by 10,000
soldiers in
1987. Also because of demographic trends, by 1989 women
had
achieved a small, but increasingly visible, role in the
armed
forces.
According to Article 36 of the 1965 Constitution,
defense of
the country is the duty of all citizens, and military
service is
obligatory, but only men were subject to induction into
the armed
forces. Young men generally accepted compulsory military
service as
a reality of life in Romania. There were no provisions for
conscientious objection and no alternatives to military
service.
Conscientious objectors had traditionally been subject to
harsh
treatment by political authorities. Seventh Day Adventists
who
refused to serve in the army during the 1930s were
imprisoned.
During World War II, citizens who refused military service
were
charged with treason and summarily executed. In the late
1960s,
small numbers of Nazarenes were arrested for objecting to
compulsory military service. In 1989, however, authorities
granted
limited numbers of deferments from service in extreme
cases of
family hardship or illness and granted, as well, some
educational
exemptions. Still Romania lacked the organized movement of
youths
opposing military service that had developed in several
non-Soviet
Warsaw Pact countries in the 1980s.
Data as of July 1989
|
