Magyar News, 1991. szeptember-1992. augusztus (2. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1991-10-01 / 2. szám

IN THE WAKE OF OCTOBER 23

Drop a small pebble into a lake and watch the ripple on the water travel far away to the other shore. The revolution in Hungary, in 1956, may have resembled the little pebble, but what came in the wake of it surely doesn’t look like a ripple. Since then we see nations grabbing for their independence, we see the walls of Communist dictatorships crumbling down. We can’t contribute all this to the Hungarian revolution. Let us just say that the world was ripe for it; the winds were blowing in the right direction.

There are two things that come to my mind. One is when the Soviet representative came to the Hungarian Parliament after October 23, he hugged some of the members of the press who were waiting there and said: “We are so happy that the Hungarians showed us the way.” Everybody was amazed till November 7. That was the time when the Soviets

showed us their way. We Hungarians weren’t happy about this.

The other occasion I recall was when the Soviet chief in Hungary was packing to leave, he said: “We will see who has the last laugh.” This was Andrepov who later became the head of the Soviet Union. Strangely enough he referred to the revolution as something to learn from and wasn’t too keen on putting it down by force. He, in general, considered the requested 16 points as demands for reasonable reforms - as long as they could be controlled. Andrepov only had the reins of the Soviet in his hand for a short time, he passed away in a few months. So we don’t know what he was capable of doing, but he had enough time to put his protegee, Mikhail Gorbachev, on solid ground. We learned to like this fact and we enjoyed seeing the world change. Everything, in regard to the Communist block, was put on

fast forward. It was hard to keep up with it and it surpassed the wildest imagination. What happened to that great power that had full control over mind and body? It lost against the soul and spirit of the people. We, who managed to survive, now have the last laugh. We also have tears in our eyes. Tears for those who gave their lives to be the pebble that brought waves into the ocean of nations. We shall always remember our heroes of 1956, October 23, the brave heroes of the Hungarian Revolution.

Joseph F. Balogh

On October 20, Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., the Hungarian Committee of Norwalk will celebrate at the Hungary 1956 monument at the south end of Main Street near WestAve. This monument is the only one in our area in memory of the 1956 October 23 Hungarian Revolution. Please be there.

Gabcikovo-Nagymaros project (continued)

is only 10-15 percent of the production of a 1000 MW power plant, and therefore, not a single plant can be shut down on that account. As far as the costs are concerned, the completion of the project, including the extension of the bypass canal, would cost the Slovak people 10 billion krones for construction arid 50 billion krones in lost drinking water. Compared to this, the termination would cost nothing, because the materials of the bypass canal can be reused as valuable road and building construction materials: the lower canal is an ideal site for recreation; and the concrete structure of Gabcikovo itself can be used to house a gasturbine type power plant

The Hungarian government which is concerned about the three million ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring states, tried very hard to achieve an amicable solution. It has offered to build, free of charge to the S lovak government a state of the art cogenerating gas-turbine station that would produce more clean electricity than the Gabcikovo plant. They were turned down.

In the meantime nature has also manifested its influence: vegetation started to break through the surface of the badly sealed bypass canal, and the hot summer sun melted the asphalt that was used to seal the canal. Behind the asphalt there is only stone, gravel and sand, which when wetted, would not contain the water inside the bypass canal. Therefore, the construction firm wanted to

protect and cool the asphalt sealer by filling the canal with water. With this the last act of the drama started. The construction firm built a pumping station on the north side of the bypass canal and attempted to start it up, but was prevented by Slovak environmentalists from doing so. Later on, 51 mayors of the region requested the termination of the project and Austrian, Czeck and Hungarian environmentalists and four members of the Czechoslovak Parliament joined the picket. They rejected the Slovak separatist government’s attempt to fan ethnic hatred and gave an example in regional cooperation. The standoff continued until the 23rd of July, 1991.

On that day, the Slovak police arrested the leader of the Slovak Union of Nature andLandscape Protectors, Dr. Jadomir Sibl, two leaders of the Czeck environmentalists from Moravia, András Sárkány the leader of the Slovak environmental group called Eurochain, seven members of the Austrian environmental group Global-2000, three reporters of the Hungarian TV program titled Black Box, and many local residents. After the police broke through the barricades and arrested the people who chained themselves to the pipes, the pumps were started. At this point nature once again sided with the environmentalists as some of the water that was pumped into the bypass canal to cool the melting asphalt seeped into the ground and the rest flowed backwards into the Danube. This was caused by faulty workmanship, the canal did not slope toward Gabcikovo as it should have.

In the meanwhile, the international community of environmentalists is starting to take notice of these events. The Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Policy Institute sent a wire to President Havel reminding him that it is his government (not that of Slovakia) which is responsible for renegotiating this agreement, that the Slovak attempt to reroute the Danube is illegal. It is time for President Havel to pay more than lip service to mayors of the region and with the environmentalists. As the Slovak government has already started rerouting the Danube and plans to start up Gabcikovo by October 1992, the Foundation to Protect the Hungarian Environment is contemplating another international day of protest in order to stop this outrage.

Prof. Lipták is a self-employed engineering consultant in the fields of industrial modernization, energy conservation and environmental protection. He has written 15 books and is on thefaculty of two universities. In 1956 he participated in formulating the 16 demands, was captured by the Russians and ever since continued to work with the democratic opposition. As president of the Foundation to Protect the Hungarian Environment, he organized, in 27 capitals of the world, the first international day of protect to protect the Danube. He is also a director of the World Federation of Hungarian Engineers and a spokesman for the Hungarian Greens whose party nominated him for Parliament elections.