Fraternity-Testvériség, 1987 (65. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
1987-01-01 / 1. szám
FRATERNITY Page 13 EYE-WITNESS REPORT OF THE VIENNA HUNMAN RIGHTS CONFERENCE On the morning of November 4, 1986, exactly 30 years after Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush the Hungarian Revolution, representatives of 35 countries gathered in Vienna to discuss security, cooperatiion, and human rights in Europe. It was the opening of the third follow-up meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), whose member states, the countries of continental Europe as well as Great Britain, Turkey, Canada and the U.S., first met in 1975 and signed the Helsinki Final Act. The “Helsinki Process,” is it is called, is an ambitious attempt to link East with West as well as issues of military security with those of technological and cultural cooperation and human rights. Critics of the process claim that, by signing the Helsinki Final Act, the West concede the post-World War II division of Europe in exchange for promises on human rights that the Soviet block never intended to keep. Supporters argue that the Final Act provides a legal basis for criticism of government human rights practices and an opportunity to achieve concessions by linking performance in one area — human rights or cultural freedom — with cooperation in others, such as technological exchange or arms control. As the Vienna conference opened with statements from the foreign ministers of all 35 signatory states, all the parties vied to outdo one another in praise for the “spirit of Helsinki.” But the most inspiring advocates of the Helsinki process are ordinary citizens in the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and elsewhere who have dared to call for their governments’ compliance with the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act even when this led to harassment, abuse, and imprisonment. These courageous individuals — like the members of Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77, or the Ukrainian Helsinki Monitoring Group, or the authors of the CSCE Program Proposal of 1982 concerning the plight of the Hungarian minority in Rumania — had their own unofficial delegate to the Vienna Conference, Yuri Orlov, recently released from 8 years of detention and Siberia exile, who in 1976 founded the first citizens’ Helsinki Monitoring Group. The significance of the 30th anniversary did not go unmarked. On the night of November 4, Ilyés Gyula’s poem “One Sentence on Tyranny” echoed in the vast expanse of the Heldenplatz, the square in front of the Hofburg Imperial Palace in which the CSCE Meeting is being held. 500 people participated in a candlelight march commemorating the Hungarian Revolution. Earlier in the evening Vienna’s Karlskirche was filled to overflowing as over 1,000 people attended a memorial mass to honor the Revolution’s victims. The famed Augustinier choir sang Mozart’s Reqiem and prayers were offered in Hungarian, German and English. Those attending included the chief U.S. delegate, Warren Zimmerman. The mass was organized by the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation, which drew a parallel between the Hungarian struggle for freedom in 1956 and the less dramatic but no less valiant struggle of Rumania’s oppressed Hungarian minority today. In 1956, the West failed to respond in any meaningful fashion to the Hungarian Revolution. It should not fail to grasp its opportunity within the Helsinki Process to respond to the struggle of Rumanian Hungarians for freedom and dignity. Hungarian human rights advocates were also represented at the CSCE by the Coordinating Committee of Hungarian Organizations in North America and by individuals from France, England, Germany, Austria, and the United States. The human rights situation in Hungary was discussed in a report issued by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. The Federation also highlighted the plight of the Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia and Rumania in the 27 proposals it presented to the CSCE Meeting. Elizabeth Kiss Graduate student, Oxford, England Komjáthy Aladár: A KITÁNTORGOTT EGYHÁZ Kapható az Amerikai Magyar Református Egyesület alábbi címén. Ára — postaköltséget beleszámítva — 8 dollár. HUNGARIAN REFORMED FEDERATION OF AMERICA Fraternal Life Insurance — Since 1896 2001 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20036-1011 Phone: (202) 328-2630 Dr. Komjáthy Aladár Montreal-i (Canada) lelki- pásztor eléggé nem becsülhető, igazán hézagpótló szolgálatot végzett, amikor az amerikai magyar reformátusság formativ időszakának történetét megírta. Nagy tanítása: az új hazában élő magyar számára a legnagyobb megtartó erő a magyar egyházhoz való tartozás.
