More Scattered Fighting; 80,000 Reported Dead

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) _ The provisional government appealed for a cease-fire today by pro-Ceausescu forces who killed thousands in vicious weekend street battles. Christmas carols rang out for the first time in 42 years.

Scattered fighting was reported in Bucharest and other cities, but public transit was back in operation in the capital three days after hard-line Communist President Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown.

There were reports that as many as 80,000 people had died and 300,000 were wounded since the popular revolt began Dec. 15. Hungary’s Budapest Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp. reported the same figures Sunday night, quoting ″authoritative sources in Bucharest″ but giving no details.

The reports, like others on casualties, were impossible to verify independently. But if accurate, the Romanian uprising would be the bloodiest anti-Communist revolt ever, its death toll far eclipsing that of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 in which about 30,000 people are believed to have lost their lives.

Hungarian radio later quoted Victor Ciobanu, health minister under Ceausescu and now in opposition to him, as denying that 70,000 or more had died but offering no overall casualty estimate.

Ceausescu, who sternly ruled for 24 years and rejected the reforms sweeping Eastern Europe, spent Christmas a prisoner of his own army, awaiting trial for abuses of power.

But members of the hated Securitate - the security force Ceausescu built to protect himself and his Stalinist regime - fought for their lives in desperate street battles against the army. Bodies piled up in Bucharest’s morgues and hospitals.

Four men believed to be Securitate agents were arrested by Yugoslav police today after they crossed the Danube River that forms the border between Yugoslavia and Romania, Belgrade radio reported.

While downtown Bucharest was generally quiet today, radio and television reported fighting in the southwest suburb of Drumul Taberei and around the Ministry of Defense building in the capital’s southeast. The reports gave no details on the clashes.

Hungarian radio and Yugoslavia’s Tanjug news agency also reported fighting today in Timisoara, the western city where the uprising began, as Ceausescu loyalists barricaded themselves inside a militia building. Still, street cars and trolley buses resumed service in Romania’s fourth-largest city.

Tanjug also reported serious fighting in Arad, near the Hungarian border, and the central city of Sibiu, without giving details. Sibiu was the former stronghold of Nicu Ceauescu, the son of the deposed president.

The National Salvation Committee, the provisional government, appealed for a cease-fire, and ordered civilians to turn in their arms today. It broadcast appeals to let the army fight the security police, who were shooting from rooftops and apartment windows in the capital and elsewhere.

A member of the security police was arrested today outside Bucharest’s Mitropolia cathedral after members of a crowd shouted, ″We know this man, he’s a terrorist 3/8″ The man wore a bulletproof vest and had a hand grenade.

Radio Bucharest played Christmas songs and carols today, the first time since the Communist takeover in December 1947, and it reported on the positive foreign reaction to the uprising.

In Rome, Pope John Paul II sought a special blessing for Romania and prayed that the hope of Christmas may find fertile ground in Eastern Europe, ″awakened from a nightmare.″

A message from President Bush was read to the people over Romanian radio and television, ″hoping for a peaceful passage to democracy″ and deploring ″the tragic and senseless loss of human lives″ since the revolt began.

The Bush administration and the French government both said they would not object if the Soviets or other Warsaw Pact nations use their military forces to assist the uprising. The Soviets said such a move was ″impermissible.″

Thousands reportedly were massacred by security forces when they opened fire on unarmed anti-government protesters in Timisoara on Dec. 17. The revolt against Ceaucescu’s harsh rule spread across Romania and reached Bucharest Dec. 21, when student protesters defied gunfire to chant their wish for freedom.

Ceausescu, 71, fled his capital on Friday in a helicopter and was captured Saturday with his wife, Elena, in an underground bunker - one of several prepared years earlier under his regime.

Unlike his son, Nicu, and daughter, Zoia-Elena, who were paraded before TV viewers after their arrests Friday and Sunday, Ceausescu has not been seen since Ion Iliescu, a leader of the National Salvation Committee, announced his arrest Saturday. The elder Ceausescu was reported to be held at a military base.

The National Salvation Committee pledged that the courts would mete out punishments of ″the greatest severity″ to ″the dictator and his former lackeys.″

Romanian radio said secret police used scores of safe houses and vast networks of tunnels in Bucharest and in Timisoara to store weapons and launch attacks. Ceausescu’s downtown palace was connected to the maze of tunnels and contained a bunker designed to resist nuclear attack, it said.

At Bucharest’s main Orthodox cathedral, Letitia Patrut mourned the students who were killed by the security forces.

″These young people, how they sacrificed for us 3/8″ she said. ″We must pray for these poor young people who defended the people.″

Security men who were driven from Parliament fired toward the 300-year-old Romanian Orthodox cathedral. ″They are devils,″ said Bishop Nifon of Bucharest.

A Belgian journalist, Danny Huwe of the commercial TV network VTM, was killed in Bucharest while reporting on the fighting. Turkish journalist Emre Aygen, was in grave condition today after being shot twice shot in the head, VTM reported. A French journalist was crushed to death by a tank Saturday.

Associated Press correspondent John Daniszewski, New York Times correspondent John Tagliabue and two European journalists were wounded by gunfire in Timisoara late Saturday and early Sunday before the security forces surrendered to army troops backing the revolt.

At Bucharest Emergency Hospital, doctors who have not slept in three days said they had treated 2,000 civilians since Thursday, a fraction of the city total.

Bodies lay on the hospital’s floors frozen in grotesque positions, with identity papers taped to bare chests. Sobbing people spent Christmas Eve looking for lost sons and brothers. Victims included a pregnant woman and teen-agers.

″It is horrible murder,″ said Dr. Stephan Miliesescu, a plastic surgeon who was working the emergency ward. He said victims came in with single shots to the head from well-trained snipers.

Doctors had to sedate and strap down one swarthy security guard, who shouted that the revolt had upset Ceausescu’s socialist paradise. He yelled: ″You are criminals, and we will kill you all 3/8″