Mark Ellis, President ABA/CEELI
740 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005-1022
Fax: (202) 662-1597

August 2nd, 1999


Dear Mr. Ellis:

I am writing with regard to the 1999 CEELI Award being presented to Emil Constantinescu, President of Romania on Saturday, August 7th, 1999 at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

As an American citizen of Romanian origin, I want to express my disappointment and sadness about your choice for the recipient of this award. For the past ten years I have been trying to recover without success properties in Romania that belonged to my family and were confiscated by the communist regime prior to 1989. I was hopeful that the right to private property would be reestablished under the Constantinescu presidency. Unfortunately, the past three years since President Constantinescu was elected have seen an accelerated degradation of the property rights in Romania. And despite President Constantinescu's electoral promises, the judicial system in Romania remains one of the most corrupt branch of government in Romania.

 Moreover, many relatives of the Romanian past and current politicians (including President Constantinescu's) fraudulently bought confiscated properties despite being claimed by their former owners. For details, I refer you to the web page of the Romanian-American Committee for Private Property (CPP) which lists many grievances of dispossessed Romanian property owners: http://www.romhome.org/

I hope you will bring up the private property issue with President Constantinescu as he has refused to have an open discussion with the Romanians living in the United States despite his numerous visits to this country and our desire to establish a constructive dialog with him. His attitude towards a community that supported his bid to become President of Romania shows that he only wants to preserve the status quo established by the former communists over the past ten years in Romania. And I am outraged by the claim that he was a dissident during the communist years in Romania considering that he functioned as a communist leader within the university system in Bucharest.
For all these reasons I believe that President Constantinescu does not belong among the past recipients of your prestigious award.

Sincerely yours,

Alexandru C. Bageac
P.O.Box 15236, Kenmore Sq.
Boston, MA 02215-0004
Bageac@yahoo.com