The Eighth Tribe, 1981 (8. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1981-07-01 / 7. szám

CIA Agent and Former Soviet Prosecutor Testify

Newsday News Service, Westbury, N.Y.

June 21, 1981:

“A former CIA agent and a former Soviet prosecutor testified that Soviet authorities routinely forge documents and force witnesses to lie in efforts to smear former residents of Soviet-bloc nations.

Melbourne Hartman, who worked as a counterintelligence agent in Europe for the CIA in the 1950-s, said the Soviets are especially vindictive to former residents . . . (because) they tell the world what they know about Soviet atrocities. These people are very specific about these atrocities, and the Soviets don't like that.

Frcderich Neznansky, a former Soviet prosecutor who defected in 1978 said (that) witnesses are indeed trained to testify in line with the prosecutor’s wishes. Witnesses are threatened . . . and harassed hy repeated interrogations. Court transcripts are routinely forged and judges often interrupt trials so investigators can work over uncooperative witnesses.”

The methods described here as used by the Soviet Union against their former residents living now in the IP est in order to silence them, arc identical with those applied recently by the Rumanian communist government against leaders of the Transylvanian World Federation, who dissimilate information of Rumanian atrocities perpetrated against the Hungarian population of Transylvania.

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FACTS AND FIGURES

(Reprinted from the book “Documented Facts and Figures on Transylvania", Danubian Press, 1978).

In 1883 fearing Russia, the Kingdom of Rumania enters into alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

lit 1907 peasants in Moldavia rebel against the cruel treatment they have toendure from Rumanian officials. The insurrection was put down by military force and martial law proclaimed throughout the Rumanian kingdom.

In 1913 Rumania declared war on Bulgaria, and took Northern Dobrudja by force.

In 1911 World War I. erupted. In spite of the "Triple Alliance” (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Rumania I Rumania proclaimed neutrality.

In 1916 based on promises to receive Transylvania, the Banat, and Southern Bukovina as booty, Rumania declared war on Austria Hungary, and swept into Transylvania in' a surprise attack. Within a few days tbc attack was repelled. Rumania was occupied by German forces and defeated.

On March 3, 1918, Rumania signed the “Treaty of Bucharest”, returning Dobrudja to Bulgaria, and giving up all claims to the Transylvanian passes. In' October tbc AustroHungarian Monarchy collapsed. Rumania invaded Transylvania, and on December 1st in a mass-meeting of 25,000 Rumanians in Gyulafehérvá (Alba Julia) declared tbe “Union1 of Rumania with Transylvania” in tbe name of more than five million people who did not even know of the meeting.

Though the Hungarian and the German population strongly objected, the Rumanian army, instigated by tbe French, marched into Kolozsvár on Christmas Eve, in defiance of the Armistice, which stipulated that all military lines should freeze at their locations until further deliberations and agreements.

On January 19, 1919 Rumanian troops opened fire into a crowd of more than 30,000 unarmed Hum garians who gathered on the Matbias-Plaza in Kolozsvár to ask tbe representative of the Entente forces, the French general Bcrthelot, lodged in the hotel at the corner of the plaza, to order the Rumanians out of the city and back to the demarcation line, which was tbe M aros river. More than one hundred Hungarian demonstrators were killed, and more than a thousand wounded. In punishment for the demonstration Rumanian troops looted and ransacked the city.

Peter Pastor writes in "The Vix Mission in Hungary, 1918-1919, a Re-examination” (Slavic Review XXIX, No. 3, 1970) and in “Franco Rumanian Intervention in Russia and Vix Ultimatum: Background to Hungary’s Loss of Transylvania” (1974).

“The Vix Ultimatum, delivered to the Hungarians on March 20, 1919 by the head of the French Military Mission in Hungary, Lt. Col. Ferdinand Vix, seemed to legitimize the Rumanian occupation of Transylvania. The opening of the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 1918 and 1919 in the summer of 1972 shed new and startling light on tbe affair ... It is now evident that the ultimatum was prompted by a sudden crisis in southern Russia where. Allied troops under French command were being defeated hy lhc Red Army. To obtain quick reinforcements from neighbouring Rumania, the French Premier and Minister of W ar G. Clcmenceau had to pav off the Rumanians at once with the, Transylvanian territory they coveted . . ."

(To be continued)

THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY

VII