Maracz: Hungarian Revival

On 6th December 1991, Hungary and the Ukraine signed a treaty in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on good neighbourliness and co-operation. The agreement also contained a 'territorial clause'. In article 2, it was stated that "the parties involved will respect each other's territorial integrity and that they, furthermore, declare not to have any mutual territorial claims now or in the future." In article 17 of the agreement, the text of a previous declaration is incorporated the rights of national minorities that was signed on 31st May -199-1 by both parties entitled: Declaration on the principles of co-operation between the Hungarian Republic and the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic on the matter of guaranteeing the rights of national minorities. It is a declaration that recognizes the cultural rights of national minorities.

One can well understand that Hungary strives to good neighbourliness with the Ukraine, because it is a massive country with many inhabitants (55 million) that is equipped with nuclear weapons. Apart from this, when the Soviet Union fell apart the Ukraine became a part of the Trianon configuration. From the point of view of security and defense needs, the Antall administration was right to block the possibility of an anti-Hungarian Serb-Rumanian-Ukrainian-Slovak alliance developing by easing the Ukraine away from this camp. Once the Hungarian-Ukrainian pact had been signed Slovakia, Rumania/Serbia were no longer able to make a geographical 'link up'. The fact of the Hungarian-Ukrainian pact was sound, but the way in which it was executed was not quite right.

For a long time, the text of the pact remained secret. There was no discussion on the procedure that was to be followed either in the Hungarian parliament or within the main governing party of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (Hun. Magyar Demokrata Forum, MDF). Public opinion was kept out of it altogether. In fact, no discussion or agreement really took place in Antall administration circles either. The KMKSZ, the organization representing Hungarian interests in Subcarpathia was also kept out of the picture.179

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The Hungarian parliament ratified the treaty in the spring of 1993. The clause referred to above only leaked out then. The ratification was pushed through parliament with the help of votes from the opposition parties, the ex-communist MSZP party and the leftist liberal SZDSZ, the liberal left. The Antall government was already governing with a minority at this time and so was unable to push such an issue through parliament on its own strength. The agreement had by now doubtful democratic support and so it amounted in effect to a matter between Antall, the prime minister and Jeszenszky, his minister of Foreign Affairs. These politicians, therefore, made far-reaching decisions behind the backs of the Subcarpathian Hungarians and created precedents which, in the future, would be referred to by the other Trianon configuration countries.

Apart from the curious and, in the international political arena, unusual formulation of the 'territorial clause' establishing that there would be no further territorial claims made in the future, the Hungarian minister of Foreign Affairs neglected something else. The agreement was signed on 6th December 1991 in Kiev after a referendum had been held on 1st December in which the Ukrainians had voted for independence. In the same referendum the Hungarians living in the Subcarpathian district of Beregszasz (Beregovo) had overwhelmingly voted in favour of establishing an autonomous Hungarian district (81.4%). The referendum results were published in the local newspaper Beregi Hirlap on 5th December which meant that the Hungarian Foreign Affairs minister knew the results before leaving for Kiev. One cannot help wondering, therefore, why Jeszenszky did not defend Hungarian interests and why, with the referendum results in his inside pocket, he did not make a fair deal in Kiev. Hungary recognizes the present borders and the Ukraine in its turn guarantees that it will safeguard Hungarian territorial autonomy in Subcarpathia. Instead of negotiating on this option Jeszenszky left the Subcarpathian Hungarians standing in the cold. The KMKSZ signed a declaration protesting against the fact that the autonomous Hungarian district of Beregszasz is not mentioned in the common declaration

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relating to the guaranteeing of rights for national minorities that was ratified by the Ukrainian parliament on 25th June 1992.180

The Hungarian government, led by a prime minister who had once claimed that he felt like the spiritual prime minister of all 15 million Hungarians, not only let down the Hungarians of Subcarpathia, but also all the other Hungarian national communities in the region and gave off a wrong signal to Slovakia, Serbia and Rumania. Antall implied that in exchange for the very minimum, with respect to rights for Hungarian national communities, Hungary would be prepared to recognize the present borders. Instead of establishing a precedent that would break down the Trianon encirclement, while preserving the existing borders the Antall administration created a dangerous anti-Hungarian precedent. The fact that this 'missed' chance was no mere coincidence was clearly evident from the fact that this same man, Jeszenszky, had supported the secret PER negotiations in the summer of 1993 without the knowledge of other government members and had, together with the Rumanian government, tried to marginalize the legitimate RMDSZ representatives.181 It was the Antall administration, which gained no international credit for the Hungarian-Ukrainian treaty, that paved the way for what was to be known as the Balladur Pact.

In 1993, the former French prime minister, Balladur, launched the so-called "Pact for security and stability in Europe'. The objective of the Balladur Pact was to set up clear European boundaries to achieve greater stability in exchange for the respect of the collective rights of national minorities. In the first version of the pact of 9th June 1993, the Quai d'Orsay entertained the idea of introducing small border changes, probably just to see how this notion would be accepted. However, rectification mineures de frontieres quickly disappeared from the text. In March 1995, the Balladur Pact was signed by the member states of the OSCE. As a follow-up to this Hungary and Slovakia drew up an agreement on good neighbourliness, the borders and the rights of the Hungarian 'minority' in Slovakia. As no fixed guarantees on the rights of Slovak Hungarians were given, the Balladur Pact could not be

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seen as anything other than a verification of the Treaty of Trianon. The Balladur Pact does, of course, fit in with the long tradition of French national interest politics.

What has stood in the way of the process of reinforcing Central Europe or what has even sometimes sought to destroy its system with the help of allies in the East has been the particular basic doctrine of French foreign policy that has persisted for centuries. The French kings were always on a good footing with the Turkish sultans and the Russian tsars. The French Republic that preached liberty and which was prepared to secure such liberty abroad, with weapons, if necessary, leaned on Tsarist Russia's 'prison of peoples' and later the imperialist Soviet Union that sought to expand in an imperialist way. The encouragement offered by the present French president, Jacques Chirac, to Russia to quash the Chechenian's current struggle for independence should be viewed as part of this same tradition. The 'peace treaties' that brought down Austria-Hungary fitted in with the policy to encircle Germany. The socialist president Mitterand who was responsible for France's foreign policy spent the fourteen years he was in power either being overtaken by events or simply making blunders. The French could not bring themselves to admit that the Yalta system had collapsed. After the fall of the wall in Berlin, Mitterand sped to Kiev for talks with Gorbachev. While in Berlin, Mitterand refused to walk under the Brandenburger Gate and he even made an official visit to the German Democratic Republic that was only to exist for a few more days at that stage. Mitterand had supported Gorbachev up until the very last moment. Monsieur le President did not want to witness the fall of the Soviet Union.

During the crisis in former Yugoslavia, it once again became evident that the state model of French politics is based on the Jacobin view of a nation state. From the very start, the French were not prepared to recognize that Yugoslavia was an artificial construction that had from the very beginning served the needs of Greater Serbian imperialism and had been held together with the help of terrorist organizations. For a long time, the French refused

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to acknowledge the independence of Slovenia and Croatia, they also denied that the 'ethnic cleansing' actions were really going on and French officials continued to make grand speeches about how close and firm Franco-Serbian relations were. French UN soldiers tolerated the fact that while under their protection a Bosnian politician who had been travelling through Serbia in an armoured vehicle was dragged out of the vehicle and murdered before their very eyes. Subsequently, the commandant responsible for the armoured transportation was not in any way held responsible for the incident. The French even proved to be prepared to conceal the identity of Serbs who attacked French and other UN soldiers reporting that it is simply difficult to 'identify' snipers. They could be Serbian or Bosnian. The official policy now pursued by France in former Yugoslavia is to guarantee humanitarian goals, but in doing so France does not lose sight of its main objective, namely to recognize Serbian territorial conquest as an accomplished fact. French endeavours to stall American proposals in favour of lifting the weapon embargo against Bosnia should be seen in this light, as should efforts to immobilize international power political organizations, such as the UN Security Council and the international contact group set up for former Yugoslavia. While impeding the finding of a possible solution to the problems in former Yugoslavia, the French are also preventing the US from rapidly extending NATO towards the East arguing that the Russians will never tolerate this.

Gabriel Robin's book "Un monde sans maotre. Ordre ou dEsordre entre les nations" well illustrates the degree of continuity that exists in French foreign politics.182 Robin, advisor to the former French presidents Georges Pompidou and ValEry Giscard d'Estaing, was removed from office as head of the French NATO mission in 1986 after having criticized the politics of president Francois Mitterand in his book "Le diplomate de Mitterand ou le Triomphe des apparences" (1985). In the first part of his new book Robin analyzes the Yalta system that was based on 'anti-German leverage'. Anti-German leverage dominated evrything else: strategies, ideologies, institutions etc. In the second part of his book, he discusses the new world order after the Yalta system. Robin finds

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this order, despite the Gulf War, the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the events in Somalia, Rwanda and Burundi safer than the previous world order. Robin acts as an apologist for the Iraqian leader Sadam Hussein and for the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. The Gaullist, Gabriel Robin, calls out for the same things as the socialists.

One can never pin down the French or the British to admitt that they share major responsibility for any main developments in the world today. Yet almost invariably the hotbeds of world conflicts are seated in areas where the imperialist great powers were responsible for erecting new frontiers after the First World War. The irreconcilable discrepancies stem from the fact that France and Great Britain refuse to accept responsibility for their criminal politics. The present Balladur Pact works as a kind of panacea for peace, while at the same time masking where the original responsibilities lie. However, in point five of the Pact's declarations the reasoning already becomes shaky: "A stable Europe is a Europe where people are able to democratically exercise their will and where human rights, also for those who belong to national minorities, are respected, where sovereign states co-operate in harmony regardless of where the frontiers lie and where all neighbouring states strive to establish good relations."

The new and sovereign states of Central and Eastern Europe want to become a part of European organizations, because after decades of Soviet Russian domination and with the present aggressive actions emanating from Russian imperialism, they will only be able to feel relatively safe when sheltering under the wings of Western Europe. When it comes to matters of membership, the EU and NATO both have as a prerequisite that countries wishing to join their organizations must first sort out the mutual problems they might have pertaining to borders and minorities. Among these countries are the countries that have profited from the 'peace' treaties of the First and Second World Wars and countries which have suffered damages. In the framework of the Balladur Pact, which makes provision for greater security, the countries

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that have suffered damages are to sign agreements with countries that have benefited. Though perhaps a strong term, the only correct word for this is blackmail politics. The victims of these unfair peace pacts are required to resign themselves to their unjust fate and once again - this time voluntarily - forgo their right to moral redress. This point may be well illustrated by what Balladur himself once said when he declared in an interview with a correspondent from the French newspaper Dernieres Nouvelles d'Alsace of the 31st January 1995 with regard to the negotiations being carried on with the members elect for the EU after the EU restructuring of 1996: "Things will go more smoothly if the border and minority problems relating to the stability pact are settled beforehand." Diplomats, too, have voiced similar opinions on this matter. In reply to a question put by a reporter from the Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet as to whether the European security conference in Paris could be successful if agreements on good neighbourliness were not signed before the conference Bertrand Dufourcq, secretary at the Quai d'Orsay said, during a visit to Budapest in February 1995: "We would not like to see such a situation arise because the solution to this matter is in the interests of all of Europe, not just Hungary and its neighbouring states."183 The US ambassador in Bucharest, Alfred H. Moses, declared during a visit to Budapest at the end of February 1995 that during the meeting organized by the American under-secretary for Foreign Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, in which US ambassadors stationed in Central and Eastern Europe participated, the point of view generally expressed was "that countries contending with heavy ethnic conflicts inside or outside of their frontiers may not join NATO. Hungary must collaborate with Slovakia and Rumania to resolve the position of the Hungarian minorities."184

The Balladur Pact was signed on 20th March 1995 in Paris. The text of the pact makes absolutely no mention of obligations. The EU presumes that the recommendations made by the Council of Europe will be abided by and further entrusts its execution to the OSCE which is participated in by both the Americans and the Russians. The OSCE was incapable of resolving the Yugoslavian

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crisis and the Russians have shown a disregard for human rights in Chechenia. Hungary's Horn administration, composed of ex-communists and leftist liberals, was in a great hurry to have the pact with Slovakia and Rumania signed. When the appointed day arrived, only the Slovak-Hungarian agreement was ready for signing. The copy of the text which was distributed by the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs had an 'accompanying text' that differed from the content of the agreement. The Rumanians did not succeed in drawing up and signing the agreement. The Rumanians found the Council of Europe's 1201 Resolution which guaranteed collective rights for minorities unacceptable because, in the words of Ion Iliescu, the Rumanian president himself: "The Resolution has, on the one hand, no internationally recognized legal status and on the other hand, it includes the concept of an ethnic territorial separatist vision."

At the time of the signing of the Balladur Pact, it occurred to nobody to demand that the Czech Republic and Slovakia declare the Benes decrees null and void, decrees in which the Czechoslovakian Germans and Hungarians are accused, en masse, of being war criminals. The decrees that should particularly have been withdrawn were, the cleaning up edict of 19th June 1945 and the resolution of 21st June 1945 on "speeded up distribution of and expropriation of agricultural land belonging to Germans, Hungarians and any other enemies of and traitors to the Czech and Slovak people." The other decrees were equally discriminatory: the Germans were forced to wear white armbands, they received the same food portions as the Nazis had measured out for the Jews, the Germans were not allowed to seek any contact with persons in other countries or to make use of public transport.185 If the Munich Agreement of 1938, officially signed by British and French heads of state, is to be rescinded then it would be reasonable to expect that the Benes decrees, which smack of the Nuremberg laws, also be declared invalid, because these decrees particularly contradict the human rights' agreements. The Czech and Slovak authorities do not want to withdraw the Benes decrees, because they do not want to have to meet the claims for damages lodged by the victims of these regulations. It would be more correct

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to detach the nullification order, which is a judicial-moral act, from the damage claims problem.

In conclusion, one can say of the Balladur Pact that it amounts to a fake victory. After all, a degree of moral-political pressure was placed on several states to sign the pact in their own interests. On the other hand, however, the moral-political factors that clashed with human rights were not taken into consideration.

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Maracz: Hungarian Revival