Toward a New Central Europe

THE HUNGARIAN MINORITY PROBLEM IN TRANSYLVANIA

A Letter from the Federalist Union of European Nationalities {FUEN)

General Secretariate
Rolighed - Rungsted Kyst - Danmark,
Tel. Hoersholm 629
2nd of November 1964
Ref. No. 1-11-14-64

To His Excellency,
Ion Gheorghe Maurer
President of the Ministerial Council of the
Rumanian People's Republic
Bukarest, Rumania

Your Excellency,

properly documented reports, which were submitted to the 14th Regensburg Congress of the FUEN between 11th and 14th of June 1964, caused the September 27/29 session of the Central Committee of the FUEN in Andorra to entrust me with the task of calling your attention to the serious situation of the Hungarian minority in your Republic.

Above Congress established that the legal statutes of the Hun- garian national minority are not satisfactory for the maintenance of its peculiar national existence, as its permitted minority organiza- tions are subdued to the central powers of the Rumanian majority, and depend upon their measures without appeal. The Hungarian minority of 1,700,000 persons has no political representation of its own, either.

The Congress and the Central Committee of the FUEN express their disappointment over the policy your Government and the Ru- manian Workers' Party pursue with the apparent purpose of dena- tionalising the Hungarian minority. This policy has in the recent years reached the extent of an intellectual genocide against this ethnical group, which is subject to discrimination in all fields of life.

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The FUEN regards this policy as incompatible with the principle laid down in Article 21 of the Rumanian Constitution.

The Congress of the Central Committee of the FUEN beg to call your Government's attention to the fact, that the internationally recognized rights of national minoritiesómay we point to Article Two of the UNO General Statement on Human Rights, dated 10th of December 1948órefers first of all to the free use of the mother tongue in public education, in culture, in history and in all fields concerning national civilization, and they also refer to the free pre- servation of the nation's past and present spiritual inheritage. The Congress and the Central Committee regret, therefore, the oppression of these rights and the Rumanisation of Transylvania, and inherited and ancient country of the Hungarian minority.

The Hungarian minority in the Rumanian People's Republic has no facilities whatsoever to defend itself against discrimination and denationalization, it has no representation of any kind in the political life of the Rumanian People's Republic. It cannot ask for protection from any international authority, nor from the Government of the Hungarian People's Republic, its ethnical sister-land. With special emphasis I request Your Excellence to instruct your Government to consider what measures should be passed to save in time the cultural life and the language of this national minority, which is a loyal and integrated part of the Rumanian People's Republic, bears great Euro- pean traditions, highly estimated by all European states.

I beg Your Excellency to accept the expression of my highest regard

	
	
SVEND JOHANNSEN 	 	        POVL SKADEGARD 	         

    President    	                Gen. Secretary

(A copy of this Note has been sent to Mr. Janos Kadar, then President of the Ministerial Council of the Hungarian People's Republic, as well.)

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