The Eighth Tribe, 1980 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1980-10-01 / 10. szám

Excerpts from the 107 page document RUMANIA’S VIOLATIONS

OF THE HELSINKI FINAL ACT PROVISIONS, SUBMITTED BY THE TRANSYLVANIAN WORLD FEDERATION TO THE EUROPEAN

CONFERENCE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN BERLIN, 1980.

Realizing that the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution 217 C III has declared itself not to be indifferent to the fate of minorities,

Regarding Art. 27 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights which provides for the protection of certain characteristics of persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities,

Welcoming Art. 1. of the International Human Rights Covenants recognizing the rights of all peoples to self-determination and its application to all peoples under foreign occupation and domination,

Regarding regional instruments on Human Rights, in particular Art. 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantee for everyone belonging to a national minority the enjoyment of the human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized in these instruments,

WE REQUEST THAT THE SIGNATORY STATES OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS INDIVIDUALLY OR JOINTLY TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTION:

1. ) Insist that Rumania respect the human and national rights of the Bulgarian, German, Gypsy, Hungarian and Jewish minorities in the spirit of the Helsinki Act and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

2. ) Urge that in the interest of the European security and world peace Rumania and Hungary be called upon to settle immediately the territorial and national differences existing between the two countries since the perpetuation of the present tension might lead to catastrophic consequences.

To justify the above, we point out that:

A. ) Rumania utilized economical and political terror methods to compel the Rumanian Jewry to immigrate, stripping them of their property.

B. ) The German minority was herded into concentration camps, and through economical and political terror forced to leave their native country.

C.l.) The Chango Hungarians of Moldavia who made up 42% of the population before World War II, are reduced to 250,000 with no Hungarian schools and no Hungarian clergy whatsoever.

C.2.) The Transylvanian Hungarians who are unquestionably part of the Hungarian national majority within the Carpathian Basin, and whose number in spite of the Rumanian falsifications and oppression is around three million, representing thereby 20% of all Hungarians living on the face of this Earth — are day by day systematically stripped of their basic human and national rights by the Rumanian government.

Hungarians are being dispersed in different parts of Old Rumania.

The history of Transylvania is falsified.

Rumanians are being settled in Transylvania in order to change the ratio.

Contacts between Hungarians in Transylvania and their relatives in Hungary are made difficult and in many cases impossible by administrative methods.

Hungarian schools are being closed down one after the other, and leaders of the Hungarian communities are annihilated by terror.

In 1948 the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide accepted the following definition as one of the many ways by which the crime of CULTURAL GENOCIDE may be committed:

“. . . systematic destruction of historical or religious monuments or their diversion to alien uses, destruction or dispersion of documents and objects of historical, artistic or religious value, and of objects used in religious worship.” (U.N. Doc. E/447.)

With the beginning of 1974 the Rumanian government nationalized all documents, official and private correspondence, memoirs, manuscripts, maps, films, slides, photos, sound recordings, diaries, manifestos, posters, sketches, drawings, engravings, imprints, seals and “other similar materials” over 30 years old, taking them from the possession of religious and cultural institutions or private citizens. (Act. No. 63 of Nov. 2, 1974 and Decree/Law 207, 1974, amending Decree/Law 472, 1971.)

The intent behind the nationalization of the acclesiastical archives is to sever the religious communities from their historic roots. A church without a past tradition has no future, especially one which represents a religious and national minority. The first victim of these warlike designs against the religious

THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY

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