Christopher Crabbie, Britain’s ambassador to Romania at the end of last century, who allegedly persuaded Prime Minister Radu Vasile not to unleash the Army against coal miners who threatened to rampage through Bucharest has died. He was 77.
He died from a brain tumor on November 15, 2023, the Times reported on Tuesday.
In January 1999, Romanian coal miners marched on Bucharest. Previous miners’ protests in 1990 and 1991 had left at least half a dozen dead and hundreds injured, and derailed Romania’s fledgling democracy.
Eight years later, as they threatened to riot in the capital, clashing with riot police in villages en route, tensions were high. The fate of the country’s democratic government now hung in the balance once more.
Alone in his office, Mr Vasile, called on Mr. Crabbie, Britain’s ambassador to Romania whom he knew from the tennis courts, the Times reported.
Mr. Crabbie arrived at the prime minister’s offices in Victory Square to find the place unguarded by the usual security. He spent the next three hours alone with the prime minister as they discussed how to deal with the crisis.
The ambassador told the premier it was unwise to deploy the army so he called in his defense minister,Victor Babiuc, for a second opinion who agreed with the ambassador.
Mr Vasile mediated with the miners at the Cozia Monastery halfway through their march to the capital and the crisis passed. Mr Vasile died in 2013.
When he was posted to Romania in 1996, it was still struggling economically and politically in the aftermath of communism, but a lively democracy had taken root. Romanians were enthusiastic about the election of President Emil Constantinescu, a former geology professor, the first time a head of state had been changed by democratic vote.
During his time, then Prince Charles began his yearly visits to Romania. British PM Tony Blair also visited in 1999. Encouraged by Crabbie, and against the advice of the Foreign Office, Blair publicly endorsed Romania’s bid to join the EU, the first European leader to do so.
That wasn’t his first encounter with those in high office.
During a stint in Washington, Mr. Crabbie accompanied British Ambassador Nicholas Henderson to a meeting with Ronald Reagan. He had to borrow a pen from the president because he, the note-taker, had forgotten to bring one.
The president reached out. “Here son, have mine.” Returning the pen at the end of the meeting, he said: “Thank you, Mr. President. You just saved my career.” Henderson was heard to say: “Not necessarily.”
He joined the Foreign Office at 27, after completing studies at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
His first job was the Chile desk following a coup in Chile. His first posting was to Nairobi, followed by the political section of the Washington embassy.
He was then seconded to the Treasury, handling European Community budget issues which is where he allegedly formed his skepticism about the EU and the Euro.
He spent four years in Paris as counselor for European issues in the embassy. It was there that he spent an afternoon alone with Margaret Thatcher in the ambassador’s residence shortly after her eviction from Downing Street in 1990.
Over whisky, an emotional Mrs Thatcher berated former colleagues and described her loneliness when, even as prime minister, she was shunned in the House of Commons tea room.
“I know I mustn’t be bitter”, she told him. “But it is terribly hard.” She also instructed him to cut off his beard because it made him look like a socialist.
Crabbie was finally made an ambassador to Algeria, a country then in the grip of Islamist terrorists. In Algeria, the Crabbies had to travel by armored car. When an Air France plane was hijacked at Algiers airport in 1994, the French ambassador was away. Crabbie lent his help to the French chargé d’affaires as he confronted the killing of two of his compatriots.
After an attack near the embassy, the Foreign Office finally closed the post and months later he found himself in Bucharest
He then was made ambassador to the OECD in Paris.
Crabbie was born in Edinburgh in 1946. He was married twice and had two sons. He and his wife spent their retirement in a village overlooking Nice in the south of France,according to the Times.
UK ambassador: Romania’s GDP is greater than Greece, Croatia, but most Romanians don’t know this
