with the goal of attaining official recognition for the 8th demand of the popular Proclamation of Timișoara, which stated that communists and former communists (including President Iliescu himself) should be prevented from holding official functions. Supporters of the opposition were dissatisfied with Iliescu's first government, which was made up mostly of former communists, claiming that it implemented reforms very slowly or not at all. The protests mostly ended after Iliescu’s FSN obtained a decisive victory (over two thirds of the votes) in the May 20th elections. However, a small group decided to continue protests and staged a hunger strike. Following attempts of the authorities to clear up the University Square, where the protesters had been squatting during the previous months, some among the protesters grew violent and attacked the police headquarters and the national television station. When the police were unable to contain the violence, Iliescu appealed to the miners to "defend the country". Special trains transported some 10,000 miners to the capital, where the miners violently confronted anyone they saw as opposing the government. The official figures state that during the third mineriad, seven people were killed and more than a thousand were wounded. In contrast to state statistics, the opposition newspaper România Liberă claimed that on 29 June 1990 over 40 bodies were buried in a common grave in Străulești, near Bucharest. Conspiracy theories and rumors circulated as to the origins and development of the mineriad, with some believing that both the Romanian Presidency and Secret Service had a hand in it. Later parliamentary inquiries into the potential role of the Secret Service contributed to the widespread public mistrust of the post-Ceaușescu intelligence service. Government inquiries would show that the miners had indeed been "joined by vigilantes who were later credibly identified as former officers of the Securitate", and that for two days, the miners had been aided and abetted by the former Securitate members in their violent confrontation with the protesters and other targets. September 1991 mineriad 24 September On September 24, 1991, the miners from the Jiu Valley began a general strike and requested that Prime Minister Petre Roman visit Petroșani to listen to their grievances. The trade union leader Miron Cozma warned representatives of the Government that if the miners' dissatisfactions were not resolved as demanded, the miners will come in large numbers to Bucharest. During this time the sub-prefect, Ionel Botoroaga, and the director