The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1982 (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1982-10-01 / 10. szám

In 1967 on October 12 the Mures-Magyar Autonnomous Region became liquidated. The previous 16 regions were rearranged into 40 districts and 2,706 commiines. The aim was to mix as many Rumanian inhabited regions with Hungarian regions as geographically possible, thus lowering the percentage rate of Hungarians within the administrative units. “The chauvinistic policy of Rumania . . . disregards all human rights and international obligations solemnly agreed upon and promiesed in peace treaties . . .” (Osterhaven: Transylvania, Page 40)

On December 3, 1967, the NEUE ZÜRICHER ZEITUNG, Switzerland, reported that in the “Hungarian areas of Transylvania the presence of the secret police is still strong. Political opponents (of Mr. Ceaucescu) and troublesome intellectuals are put behind bars without delay . .

In 1974 the “Handbuch Europäischer Volksgruppen” (Reference Book on European Ethnic Groups) estimated the Hungarian population of Transylvania as two millions.

On November 2, 1974, Act 63 of the Socialist Republic of Rumania amended Law 472/1971, ordering the “nationalization of all documents, books, letters, pictures, art objects, etc. in possession of religious and cultural institutions or private citizens.”

This amendment of the law was another decisive step toward the complete Rumanization of Transylvania by eliminating all traces of a Hungarian past, and thus clearing the way for a new, falsified history, already in the making.

In 1975 on February 1, the NEUE ZÜRICHER ZEITUNG, Switzerland, reported under the title “Bureaucratic Chicanery Against the Churches in Rumania” that “The intent behind the nationalization of the ecclesiastical archives is to sever the religious communities from their historical roots. A church without a past (tradition) has no future, especially one which represents a religious and national minority in the same time . . . the Rumanian government has openly embarked on an escalated campaign against the Church and the Hungarian minority.” “The above mentioned outrages form a part of a systematic effort to re-write Rumanian history . . (Human Rights Violations against the Hungarian Minority in Rumania, a Committee for Human Rights publication, 1976.)

In the same time THE FINANCIAL TIME reported: “A favourite device is to ‘facelift’ the tombs and crypts of famous Hungarian families in the Medieval Házsongárd cen/etery in Cluj (Kolozs-THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY

vár) by allotting them to recently dead Rumanians. In this way the ethnic composition of the former population, now dead, is restructured favourably .. .”

Also The Financial Times reported on April 2, 1975 under the title “Transylvania’s Ethnic Strains” that at least 25 students are required to set up a minority class in any school, while a Rumanian class has to be set up as soon as there are two Rumanian speaking students. This report refers to Law 278/1973 which calls for the merger of classes with insufficient numbers of students, and provides that every community with Rumanian speaking students no matter how few, must establish a Rumanian section. Since most rural villages in Transylvania have only 500 to 1,000 inhabitants, there may very possible not be enough Hungarian students for a separate class (25). As a result of this law the merger necessarily occurs at the expense of the Hun garian section, even if the population of that village is 90% Hungarian.

Protests concerning the oppression of and the gross discrinination against the Hungarian minority in Rumania reached the United Nations Division of Human Rights Office to be submitted to the Commission on Human Rights and to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, in Geneva.

Thirty-eight members of the U.S. Congress condemned the treatment of the Hungarian Minority by the Rumanian Government, and asked President Ford to discuss with President Ceaucescu “the abridgement of human and civil rights of ethnic and religious minorities in Rumania.” (See: Congressional Records, May and June 1975. Also: “Documents on the Human Rights Violations Against the Hungarian Minority in Rumania Before the United Nations Human Rights Commission. The World Council of Churches and the United States Congress and Government” published by the American Hungarian Federation, Washington, D.C. 1975)

G. Satmarescu, Rumanian author and scholar, repudiated the published figures of the recent Rumanian census by estimating the total number of Hungarians in Rumania at 2.5 million. (East Central Europe, edited by Stephen Fischer-Galati, University of Colorado, 1975)

In June 1976 a joint Memorandum of the American Hungarian Federation and the Transylvanian World Federation was presented to the United States Congress, asking for the withdrawal of the “Preferred Nation” status granted to Rumania previously, until that government fulfilled its obligations toVII