The Eighth Tribe, 1981 (8. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1981-01-01 / 1. szám
CHAMPIONS OF DOUBLECROSS — CAUGHT IN ACTION! JACK ANDERSON, nationally known syndicated columnist, wrote under the title “Spy Scandal About To Pop”, published on Nov. 6, 1980: “A ranking Rumanian diplomat who defected last February has given CIA debriefers the details of a wide-ranging Soviet espionage operation based in the Rumanian embassy in Washington. Code-named ‘Liberty’ the network was designed to penetrate the Federal Government at various levels... (The Rumanians) had easy access to half a dozen Democratic senators and at least two Republican senators. More alarming, though, was the identification of a former Senate staff member as a purveyor of intelligence to Rumania. He was employed by a senior Democratic senator.” Jack Anderson seems to have stumbled on something we Hungarians have tried for years to convey, and the State Department kept denying vigorously. Namely, that Rumania can not be trusted. For several years now dictator Ceausescu has succeeded in making America believe that his government was slowly “breaking away” from the Russians, and for this he deserved aid from the American taxpayer’s pocket, as well as our confidence and friendship. Whenever the proven facts of the ethnocide, perpetrated by the Rumanian government against the Hungarian population was pointed out in public, the Rumanian reply was that the Hungarians, loyal supporters of the Soviet Union, were trying to discredit Rumania on Russian order. Rumanian diplomats constantly referred to their country as a loyal friend of the West, while denouncing Hungary and the Hungarians in general as Russian oriented. Thus trying to erase from memory the Hungarian uprising of 1956, when the short-lived free Hungarian Republic was crushed by Russian tanks, and Rumania, in full support of the Russians, eagerly took part in “punishing” the freedom-loving Hungarian people by executing prime minister Imre Nagy, leader of the uprising and hundreds of Hungarian intellectuals in Transylvania. The fact that the Rumanian embassy in Washington used its diplomatic immunity and its friendly connections with well-meaning Americans in order to promote Russian espionage, proves again that the ethics of Rumanian foreign policy, as in the past, so today, regard treachery as a practical tool to achieve national goals. Since Rumania has existed, which is hardly a century, the list of Rumanian doublecross and treason could fill a book. Just to mention a few: In 1914 Rumania signed a mutual defense-treaty with Austria-Hungary. THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY In 1916, when Austria-Hungary was engaged on two fronts in World War I, Rumania launched a surprise attack on Hungary’s unguarded Eastern borders. In 1917, when Austrian and German troops entered Rumania, and it seemed that the Central Powers were winning the war, Rumania betrayed its new friends, the Entente alliance by signing a separate peace treaty with Austria-Hungary. In 1918, as the wheels were turning the other direction due to the United States entering the war on the side of France, Italy, Serbia and Russia, Rumania hurriedly broke the treaty again, and attacking Hungary in the back for the second time occupied Transylvania. The Hungarians of Transylvania, thus forced into minority status in their own native land and under a hostile foreign government, were stripped from freedom, property, job-opportunity, and severely persecuted. More than two hundred-thousand Hungarians were evacuated by force from their homes, and put across the new frontiers into a reduced Hungary with nothing but a suitcase. In 1938 Rumania eagerly joined Hitler’s Germany in the persecution of Jews and Hungarians. In early 1941 Rumania entered World War II on the side of Germany, invading Russia with a half-million troops. In 1944, when the tide was turning, Rumania betrayed Germany and joined the Russian army in the invasion of Hungary, creating such a blood-bath that in many instances the Russians had to protect women and children from the marauding Rumanians. During the first three months of Rumanian occupation about thirty thousand Transylvanian Hungarians were murdered, and more than a hundred thousand were driven into the ill-famed death-camps located in the swamps of the Danube delta. In 1956 Rumania used the pretext of the Hungarian uprising to aid Russia in executing Hungarians. Nevertheless, fifteen years later, when Rumanian oppression of the national minorities reached the proportions of genocide, as this word is defined in the U. N. Charter, and several international, as well as American organizations began to seek redress: the Rumanian government tried to ward off the attacks claiming that the Hungarians, being long-time allies of the Russians, are doing this to discredit Rumania for being anti-Russian. At last, the mask has slipped and the true face of Ceausescu’s government has become visible. First, by securing an export route for Iranian oil through the Soviet Union to the Black Sea Rumania defied the American request to boycott Iran. Secondly, Ru-V
