The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1983-08-01 / 8. szám
(As promised in the previous issue of our Quarterly, we are presenting here excerpts of the Memorandum published by the Transylvanian Underground in November, 1982 and sent to the participating governments of the Madrid Conference, among them. the government of the United States. Since our State Department has the entire text on file, these excerpts serve only to bring to the attention of the general public the desperate struggle of the three-millionstrong Hungarian native population of Transylvania under the brutal oppression of the Ceausescu-government. Many of those brave patriots who wrote, published and distributed this Memorandum are dead now, while others are suffering in the Rumanian torture-chambers for having had the courage to speak the truth and ask for a just solution of the Hungarian problem in Rumania.) VOICE OF THE CATACOMBS “The Hungarians of Transylvania are facing the most dangerous times of their entire history. The laws and international agreements which are supposed to secure our existence, serve only as camouflage to hide the actions of the Rumanian government, which are in complete opposition to those laws and agreements Rumania obligated itself to follow in dealing with the ethnic minorities. “Since we firmly believe that two different ethnic groups can coexist only as equal partners, we ask for the Hungarians in Transylvania the right to self-representation and the right to demand the recognition of their rights. “We demand to be recognized as partakers of the Hungarian cultural heritage and be allowed, as Rumanian citizens, to keep our cultural contacts with the Hungarian People’s Republic. “We demand the recognition of our cultural autonomy as well as the right to self-representation as an ethnic community in Rumania. “We demand self administration and share in the leadership of our country. “We demand that the Hungarian language be recognized as second official language in the Hungarian-inhabited districts. “We demand equal opportunities and equal treatment. “We demand the right to cherish and preserve our cultural, historical and ethnic environment. “We demand that an International Committee be formed, which would include Rumanian and HunII garian representatives also, in order to examine our situation and render unbiased decisions for the sake of our survival!” “EXTERMINATE THE HUNGARIANS” Even before the ill-famed speech of Dictator Ceausescu on May the 10th, 1983, in which he declared all the ethnic groups and especially the Hungarians “slaves” of the Rumanian master-race, his regime launched a concentrated attack against the native Hungarian population of Transylvania. It was first reported by the Vienna, Austria newspaper DER KURIER, April 29, 1983: “We have received placards and posters sent to us from Transylvania, with the text: ‘Rumanian Brothers! Let us clean up our land from the Hungarian parasites in order that we alone be the owners of this beautiful land! The Hungarians are our enemies! Squash them, exterminate them, anywhere you can find them!” Through May and June several newspapers all over the world reported this new anti-Hungarian action of the Ceausescu government. These placards and posters are printed by the government’s printing shop in Bucharest and sent to administrative agents all over Transylvania with the order to display them in railroad stations, bus terminals, railroad cars, buses, post offices and other public places. Anyone who is caught removing such posters receives, besides the usual beatings, jail sentences up to three years. HUNGARIAN AMERICANS According to the latest figures of the Bureau of Census, there are 1,776,902 persons in the United States of America who declared themselves Hungarian Americans. They are located mostly in the states of Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California. If we take into consideration that the Transylvanian Hungarians constitute about one-fourth of all Hungarians inhabiting the Carpathian Basin, we may assume that almost 450,000 of the Hungarian Americans regard Transylvania as their old homeland, and still have relatives there suffering under the Ceausescu terror. THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY
