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THE RIGHT TO SELF­DETERMINATION SHOULD BE GRANTED

TO THE PEOPLE OF TRANSYLVANIA

Statement
by the
United States Chapters of the Transylvanian World Federation
and Affiliated Organizations addressed to the
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
United State House of Representatives
on the subject of
TERMINATING THE MOST­FAVORED NATION TREATMENT
previous granted to the
SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF ROMANIA

On April 27 1981
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT
The duly elected executives of the U.S. Branches of the Transylvanian World Federation and Affiliated Organizations1 with the full and undivided support of the entire membership residing in eighteen states of the United States of America, and composed exclusively of loyal citizens of this great country,
respectfully request

that the Most­Favored­Nation status previously granted

to the government of the Socialist Republic of Rumania be terminated or suspended for the period of one year, during which time the government of the Socialist Republic of Rumania

may be requested to furnish reliable proof that the reasons for this action as listed in this document are eliminated, and the grievances, infringements and violations properly rectified through due governmental process.
Our request is based on the grounds that the government of the Socialist Republic of Rumania is pursuing an extremely brutal ultranationalistic policy while ruling over a multinational country, and as we shall prove, it violates the rights as well as the very existence of more than one­fifth of its total population by the use of terroristic methods against ethnic minorities intolerable in a civilized world.
Furthermore, we shall prove that the government of the Socialist Republic of Rumania is found in flagrant violation of the Peace Treaties, the Helsinki Act., and of its own constitution, and is guilty of cultural genocide, ethnocide, and other acts against humanity.
CONDENSED BACKGROUND STUDY

TRANSYLVANIA is located in the eastern most part of the Carpathian Basin. A glance at the map will show us that this basin is completely surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains forming a compact geographical and economical unit. This land has been inhabited by Hungarians since 895 A.D. and became over the centuries one of the most successful and long­lasting political and cultural units of Europe. Transylvania played an important cultural as well as political role within this unit for ten centuries as part of the Hungarian homeland. It was the cradle of Hungarian art and literature. From the sixteenth century on it became the fortress of religious freedom: the first country on earth where man's right to pursue his own religious belief was declared the law of the land. The Hungarian educational institutions of Transylvania were esteemed all over Europe from the fifteenth century on. A lively exchange of educators and students with Italian, French, Dutch, English and German universities kept the Hungarian cultural life of Transylvania abreast of the world's great cultural achievements.
Rumanian herdsmen began to move from the south across the high ridges of the Carpathians into the Hungarian Kingdom during the fourteenth century, seeking new pastures for their sheep herds. From the seventeenth century on, groups of Rumanian refugees fleeing from their own despotic rulers asked permission to cross the border and they were granted asylum. More and more refugees came and settled in different parts of Transylvania. The Hungarian administration built villages for them; churches and schools in which they could serve God their own way and teach their children in their own tongue. The new immigrants were aided in developing their own culture and as time went on they became prosperous and multiplied in numbers.
At the end of World War I, based on the fact that 52% of the population spoke the Rumanian language, Transylvania was awarded to the neighboring Rumanian Kingdom and the ordeal of the native Hungarian population began. Torn from the Hungarian majority­block of the Carpathian Basin by military force, and thrown into minority status within a primitive Balkan country, Transylvanian Hungarians had to endure unprecedented discrimination and injustice. The Hungarian­educated Rumanian middle­class respected the ancient Hungarian cultural institutions of Transylvania and made no serious attempts to destroy the Hungarian cultural heritage of the subdued people. Eventually, due to German influence, the more nationalistic elements came into power, turning Rumania into a satellite of Hitler.
During and after World War II more than two­hundred­thousand Transylvanian Hungarians were killed, or died in the forced labor camps of Rumania. However, the tragedy of the native Hungarian population in Transylvania began with the rise of Ceausescu, the new Rumanian dictator, Ceausescu transformed the postwar Marxist regime into a national­socialist (NAZI) dictatorship by declaring at the Ninth Communist Party Congress in 1965: "Rumania is a uniform national state, its territory now occupied by one nation, which was forced by concrete historical events, and which resulted in the Rumanian Socialist Nation."
With this, the practice of government policy shifted from the Marxist­Leninist international socialism to national socialism, first introduced on this globe by Adolf Hitler, practiced later for a short time by Joseph Stalin.
Thus, the nearly five­million non­Rumanian inhabitants of the new Socialist Republic of Rumania, among them three million Hungarians, were placed officially outside the law, outside the constitution, and became foreigners, outcasts, people without right and without a future in their own homeland.
LIST OF CRIMES

Perpetrated by the Government of the

Socialist Republic of Rumania

1. According to statistics 547 clergymen, 489 Hungarian educators, 49 Hungarian writers, poets, and artists along with more than 28,600 other Hungarian intellectuals were either executed, beaten to death, forced into suicide or died in Rumanian prisons, mental institutions or forced labor camps as a result of the government's policy to eliminate the cultural leadership of the Hungarians in Transylvania and Moldavia.
. All Hungarian cultural establishments and institutions were either torn down or confiscated and Rumanized, including museums, archives, and libraries.
3. Hungarians were forced under strict penalty to hand over to the Rumanian authorities every picture, book, map, script, printed matter, private letter, artifact, etc., that could be found in their homes and was older than twenty years. Almost every night the Security Police performed a few "surprise raids" in the homes of unsuspecting Hungarians. They searched for hidden letters, books or anything else, and in the event they were unable to find anything they would "Plant" some old Hungarian newspaper or magazine in order to create a pretext for further harassment. Often those who were found "guilty" were beaten to death.
4. The use of the Hungarian language in public places, including streets was forbidden under penalty of beatings.
5. Hungarian schools were taken over step by step and Rumanized. The presence of two Rumanian students suffice to change the language of education from Hungarian to Rumanian, while the presence of twenty­five Hungarian students are needed ­ without one single Rumanian ­ to keep the language of a class of Hungarians for the next six months. Hungarian children are beaten for speaking their own language on any school grounds, while the few remaining Hungarian teachers are daily intimidated, arrested, tortured or sometimes beaten to death.
  1. Young Hungarians are under constant pressure, being urged to deny their Hungarian heritage, change their name, and sever all contacts with their families. Those who refuse to do so are being discriminated against in every aspect of human existence, including job opportunity, housing and food tickets. Those who refuse to change their Hungarian names and take a new Rumanian identity cannot participate in sports. The best example is the famous "Rumanian" gymnast, NADJA KOMANECI, who is a Hungarian girl from Transylvania born under the name of ANNA KEMENES, but in order to be allowed to compete had to change her name and deny her origin. Her trainer, Bela Karoly, is also a Hungarian, who just recently defected to the United States due to constant harassment because of his Hungarian name.

7. Hungarian populations of old Hungarian cities are being moved out of thier home by entire blocks, and while being shipped away to distant corners of old Rumania, their homes are given to new Rumanian settlers in order to change the Hungarian character of the cities.
8. Hungarian churches are under concentrated pressure. Old historical buildings are torn down under the pretext of being "unsafe." Building permits for new churches are being refused. Parishioners are discouraged by veiled threats from attending church services. Church elders, members of the presbytery are subject to lengthy interrogations by the notorious SECURITATE, the "security police." Clergymen who go around visiting members of their congregations in their homes are often arrested and charged with "conspiracy against the state." They are often beaten, tortured or driven to suicide.
These crimes are not unknown the the world. Amnesty International in London, as well as the Human Rights Division of the United Nations pursued intensive studies concerning the treatment of the native Hungarian population by the Rumanian government.
The Congressional Records contain several testimonies and statements on the subject. On July 25, 1979, the Honorable Congressman Richard T. Schulze, Republican­Philadelphia, stated (Congressional Records, House, July 25, 1979): "The Rumanian government continues to abuse the Hungarian population. There are over 2,500,000 Hungarians who are being forced to assimilate themselves into the Rumanian culture. They have done away with Hungarian schools, bilingual signs, and any form of self­administration for these Hungarian people... The sub­committee received very detailed, factual, well supported evidence, confirmed also by independent Western sources, of a systematic effort to destroy a whole network of Hungarian cultural institutions, to deprive this ethnic group of its language traditions, and cultural identity. I emphasize the elements of destruction in this process. It is the closing of the schools where children can study in their mother tongue, it is the elimination of one of Europe's oldest universities, it is the campaign of extreme ethnic, cultural, and religious intolerance which the Hungarians are protesting..." Congressman Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat­Connecticut, added: "The plight of over 2,500,000 Hungarians in that country cannot be indifferent to us. Their condition, instead of being improved, it has worsened." Congressman Larry McDonald, Democrat­Georgia: "Rumania shamelessly continues to suppress its national minorities..." Congressman John H. Rousselot, Republican, California: "Reports indicate that the ruling regime in Rumania is attempting to systematically eliminate all facets of Hungarian culture..."
Congressman Rousselot's prediction made in 1979 came true: Today all facets of Hungarian culture are eliminated in Transylvania, a country which was regarded sixty­five years ago as the cradle, the citadel and the standard bearer of Hungarian culture.
We quote from a letter written by an American citizen of Transylvanian descent who visited his birthplace in August, 1980, accompanied by his wife and two children: Ten years ago Kolozsvar was still the largest Hungarian city in Transylvania. Today there are only a few thousand Hungarians left. Just one single month this year, in the month of May, thirty­thousand Rumanians were brought into the city and about twenty­thousand Hungarians were removed with nothing but a suitcase in their hands to the swamps of the Danube River in order to make room for new settlers. Many of the Hungarians we visited ten years ago, took their own lives, due to desperation. They were simply thrown out of their homes without compensation, without jobs. without pensions..." "Even the cemeteries have changed. When we tried to take flowers to the graves of those beloved, we could not find the gravestones. All the Hungarian gravestones were removed by the truckload, we were told. The graves of our parents and grandparents disappeared. Not even the dead seem to have the right today in Transylvania to rest in a grave with their Hungarian name on the gravestone...
"As we traveled across Transylvania, there was not a single place where we could use the Hungarian Language without being exposed to crude and threatening remarks. Those standing in line for potatoes, bread or anything else, if heard by the food distributors whispering among themselves in Hungarian, were chased away without a bite of food. The discrimination against Hungarians reached such proportions that Hitler's Germany was nothing compared to it.
"We are indeed living in a terrible world and a terrible age," the letter concludes, "in which there are plenty of institutions to care for 'endangered species,' be these species birds or animals, but for endangered humans, nobody seems to care!"
The point we want to emphasize in connection with these abuses is the very fact they are committed against a minority which did not migrate voluntarily into Rumania, but was living peacefully in its own homeland as part of the majority nation, and was thrown into minority status by an act of war, over which it had no control whatsoever
THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE WITHIN

In November 1950, the Socialist Federation of Hungarian Workers in Rumania, sent a MEMORANDUM to the United Nations, the governments of the Socialist Countries, and the Madrid Conference. We are quoting from that
Memorandum:
"The experiences of six decades convinced the coexisting nationalities in Transylvania that their national existence and human rights are neither protected nor ensured within the framework of the Rumanian State. Therefore, in order that these nationalities may safeguard their ethnic heritage, and at the same time be enabled to live and work peacefully side by side, we implore the member state of the United Nations, the signatory states of the European Security Accords, and most of all the countries of the Socialist Camp: TO ESTABLISH THE IN­DEPENDENT SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF TRANSYLVANIA UNDER THE PROTECTIVE MANDATE OF THE UNITED NATIONS.
SUGGESTED ACTION

Since it is neither within the power of this committee, nor within the present reach of the government of the United States to solve this tragic situation one way or another, we respectfully suggest that this committee, in order to show the oppressed peoples of Transylvania that the United States of America is still the Champion of Freedom which does not condone oppression and the persecution of minorities,
TERMINATE THE PREFERRED NATION STATUS OF

THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF RUMANIA,

with the understanding that this status shall not be granted again until the Rumanian government can prove to a mixed commission visiting Transylvania that the abominable persecution of the Hungarian and other national minorities has ceased, and the following conditions are met:
1. The Hungarian language is recognized in Transylvania as second official language.
2. The Hungarian Autonomous Region is re­established under strictly Hungarian administration.
3. The old Hungarian educational institutions are re­established.
4. The confiscated museums, libraries and archives are returned to the re­established Hungarian cultural and church related organizations.
5. Old Hungarian cemeteries are returned under the care of the Hungarian churches.
6. Those Hungarians who were deported from their native towns or villages, or left their homes under duress, are allowed to return. Rumanians who were re­settled into Hungarian towns and villages with the purpose of diluting the Hungarian character of the area or filling the better paying jobs at the expense of the native Hungarian population, are returned to their own provinces.
7. All signs and markers in Hungarian populated cities, towns and villages are again bilingual.
8. Equal opportunity is established in every field of human existence.
9. All harassments and intimidations in relation to nationality are terminated.
10. The sixteenth century shrine in Torda, the very building in which the elected representatives of the three Transylvanian nations declared for the first time in this world, man's inalienable right to the free exercise of his religious belief, is restored again to show the human race that men of different tongues and different beliefs, if motivated by good will and understanding can bring our world forward in one accord and in the right direction!
We sincerely feel that it is our moral obligation to insist that governments desiring friendly relations with us, abide by the same rules of ethics as we do. We are certain that the government of the Socialist Republic of Rumania as well as the people of that country would greatly benefit from a more harmonious and therefore more productive co~nstence of all nationalities which call that country their homeland.
Respectfully submitted:
Albert Wass de Czege Dr. John Nadas
President General Secretary


(Mrs.) Ilona Boissenin
Washington Representative
Update the Trade Act
In Accordance with the Provisions of the

Helsinki Agreement!

April, 1981
Immigration as the only solution for the protection of oppressed national minorities is not enough, since five minion people, one fourth 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. There must be other means, and there are other means by which a totalitarian government based on a minority party's rule can be forced to respect and abide by international agreements and by the very charter properly defined and guaranteed.
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 RELrGION, OR TO USE THEIR OWN LANGUAGE."
Rumania ratified the above covenant but refuses to apply it to Hungarian, German, Jewish, Bulgarian. Serbian and Gypsy native minorities, which together make up almost one fourth 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..." (U.N. Doc. E/447)
According to the above definition Rumania is guilty of Cultural Genocide by confiscating and destroying Hungarian museums, libraries and archives, Hungarian monuments and churches as well as old Hungarian cemeteries. But most of all by forcing the Hungarian youth of Transylvania to learn and profess to a falsified history which is abasing and derogatory to their Hungarian consciousness, and places them not only into an inferior status but declares them "alien vagrants" in their own native land.
CAN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ENDORSE CULTURAL GENOCIDE?
CAN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES ENDORSE TERROR,
DISCRIMINATION, DEPORTATION, TORTURE AND MURDER COMMITTED DAILY AGAINST DEFENSELESS MINORITIES BY THE CEAUSESCU GOVERNMENT IN RUMANIA?
IF NOT MAKE IT KNOWN TO THE OPPRESSOR AS WELL AS THE OPPRESSED!
Terminate Aid to Rumania!
Do Not Renew Preferred Nation Status
To Ceausescu's Terror Regime!

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