The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1983-04-01 / 4. szám
WE PETITION THE PRESIDENT and THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA to update the Trade Act of 1974 in order to reflect the provisions of Basket Tree of the Helsinki Final Agreement, as it applies to the countries which signed it. Emmigration, as the only solution for the protection of the oppressed national minorities in Rumania is not enough. More than four million people, one-fifth of the total population of today’s Rumania, can not be emmigrated out of their native land, where they had their culture well established centuries before the Rumanians moved in and took over. Article 27 of the 1966 United Nations Covenant of Civil and Political Rights states: “In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.” Rumania ratified the above covenant but refuses to apply it to the Hungarian, German, Jewish, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ruthenian and Gypsy minorities, which together make one-fifth of the country’s total population. The United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide in 1948 accepted the following definition as one of the 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 HISTORICAL, ARTISTIC, OR RELIGIOUS VALUES AND OBJECTS...” According to the above definition, RUMANIA IS GUILTY OF CULTURAL GENOCIDE by confiscating and destroying Hungarian museums, libraries, church archives, monuments, churches, schools and cemeteries. CAN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ENDORSE CULTURAL GENOCIDE? CAN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ENDORSE TERROR, DISCRIMINATION, TORTURE AND MURDER COMMITTED DAILY AGAINST DEFENSELESS MINORITIES BY THE CEAUSESCU GOVERNMENT OF RUMANIA? IF NOT, MAKE IT KNOWN TO THE OPPRESSOR AS WELL AS THE OPPRESSED! BY UPDATING THE TRADE ACT, WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE would be able to put pressure on those governments which desire the benefits of American trade and aid to change their ways of dealing with the minorities. Achieving this, we would do a great service to mankind, a service becoming to our American traditions! Respectfull submitted by the United States Branches of the Transylvanian World Federation and affiliated organizations operating in 28 states with a membership of more than a half million American citizens: MRS. ILONA BOISSENIN Washington representative VIII THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY
