Romania: Ethnic Minority Briefs No.2
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Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:48:05 +0300 (EEST)
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Subject: Romania: Ethnic Minority Briefs No.2
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Mediafax <[email protected]>
Romania: Ethnic Minority Briefs No.2
No. 2 / April 8, 2002
DIVERS
- reporting ethnic diversity -
SUMMARY:
1. ROMANIAN MPs REJECT HOLOCAUST RESPONSIBILITY
2. ROMANIAN PRESIDENT ADVOCATES GOOD ETHNIC RELATIONS IN
TRANSYLVANIA...
3. ...BUT COUNTERS ANY REVISIONIST ATTEMPTS
4. ROMANIAN STATE UNIVERSITY'S PLAN TO TRAIN TEACHERS IN HUNGARIAN
CAUSES IRE
5. HUNGARY'S ETHNIC ROMANIANS ASK BUCHAREST FOR HELP
6. COUNCIL FOR PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION TO BE ORGANIZED UNTIL JULY
7. FIRST RESOURCE CENTERS FOR YOUNG ROMA (GYPSY) TO BE OPEN IN
BUCHAREST
ROMANIAN MPs REJECT HOLOCAUST RESPONSIBILITY
BUCHAREST - Three Romanian MPs, including one member of the ruling
party PSD, last week rejected the recent admission by Premier Adrian
Nastase of Romania's responsibility for participating in the Holocaust
against Jews in World War II.
The Chairman of nationalist Greater Romania Party (PRM) said that
"someone is interested in portraying the Romanians as a nation of
criminals (...). They want to kill Marshall Ion Antonescu once more".
Adrian Paunescu (PSD) said that "no government can establish what only
experts are entitled to do," and that "historic matters are the
competence of historians." Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase
recently said that responsibility for the atrocities committed during
the Romanian Holocaust is confined to Romania's leaders and
governments of that era. Marshal Antonescu, who was executed as a war
criminal in 1946, was accused of deporting and killing thousands of
Jews and Gypsies during the WWII period. A post-1989 "Antonescu cult"
in Romania has been part of the larger campaign denying any Romanian
participation in the Holocaust. (DIVERS)
ROMANIAN PRESIDENT ADVOCATES GOOD ETHNIC RELATIONS IN TRANSYLVANIA...
CLUJ - Romanian President Ion Iliescu last week spoke up for good
relations between Romanians and Hungarians in ethnic-mixed
Transylvania (Western Romania) adding that a tense state, of
hostility, serves nobody. "We have already given a signal of normalcy.
We have to live in good understanding. (...) These people (ethnic
Romanians and ethnic Hungarians) have lived in Transylvania for
centuries, we have a common destiny, a common history and we have to
find a way for understanding, as we have the same destiny and are the
citizens of the same state," according to Ion Iliescu. History pleads
against disunion in the relations with the Hungarian citizens, which
holds true also in Romania's relationships with neighboring Hungary,
Iliescu said. He added: "We are neighbors, we have to have normal
neighborly relations". (DIVERS)
..BUT COUNTERS ANY REVISIONIST ATTEMPTS
CLUJ - Romanian President Ion Iliescu said last week in Cluj (Western
Romania) that he would stand against any "plain or hidden attempt to
cut Transylvania off the national unitary state". "I am assured that
the engine behind our new historical and spiritual revival will be the
culture, after all the attempts to turn Romania into a <<former
Romania>> would have failed," said Iliescu. He added that Romanians
and Hungarians in Transylvania have been "pillars of the
Christian-European civilization".
On the other hand, The Romanian Foreign Ministry last week was taken
aback by remarks of Istvan Csurka, chairman of the Hungarian Justice
and Life Party, in which he was reported to talk about reclaiming
territory which used to be part of Hungary. "These statements made
during the election campaign in Hungary come in blatant contradiction
with European values and norms and undermine good-neighborly relations
- an essential aspect of the new European and Euroatlantic security
and stability," a ministry press release said. The ministry added that
such revisionist attitudes could not be described as mere electoral
statements with a populist content and then overlooked. (DIVERS)
ROMANIAN STATE UNIVERSITY'S PLAN TO TRAIN TEACHERS IN HUNGARIAN CAUSES
IRE
ORADEA - The plans of the state university in Oradea (Nagyvarad, in
western Romania) to start Hungarian teachers' training it is rejected
by the local Hungarian-language church Partium University, Duna TV
reports.
At the request of the County Bihor branch of the Hungarian Democratic
Union of Romania (UDMR), Oradea University plans to start teachers'
and kindergarten teachers' training starting September. "If it sets up
a Hungarian course, the Oradea University will have much greater
weight in the eyes of the population and everyone" said Sandor Kiss,
chairman of UDMR branch. More than 1,500 students study at the state
university in Oradea, where teaching is in Romanian. The leadership
of the Partium Christian University - funded from private resources
and also given Hungarian government assistance - is unhappy that the
UDMR support this initiative. "The intention is to take the wind out
of our sails. They are setting up a teachers' training specialization
at a state university which, for 12 years, did not even wish to hear
of Hungarian-language tuition", said Bishop Laszlo Toekes, an
well-known leader of Hungarian community in Romania. (DIVERS)
HUNGARY'S ETHNIC ROMANIANS ASK BUCHAREST FOR HELPb BUCHAREST
- A delegation of Hungary's ethnic Romanians (which number
stands at around 15,000) brought to Bucharest a five-page list of
unresolved problems falling under the jurisdiction of the Hungarian
state but also included requests for help from Romania. They are
asking the Romanian authorities for financial support for, among other
things, the publishing of Romanian language newspapers and aid
material for the nurturing of mother-tongue culture and are also
urging the establishment of a high-ranking Romanian institution
similar to the Office for Hungarians Beyond the Borders. Among their
unresolved problems they mentioned that 40 per cent of councilors in
their minority self-government bodies are not actually ethnic
Romanians and that Romanian Orthodox Church assets have not been
returned to them by the Hungarian state. Romanian Prime Minister
Adrian Nastase said Bucharest would contribute with 26 bn Lei (800,000
USD) for the renovation of the Romanian Orthodox chapel in Budapest.
(DIVERS)
COUNCIL FOR PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION TO BE ORGANIZED UNTIL JULY
BUCHAREST - Romania's Council for the Prevention of Discrimination
(CNPD) will come into effect until July 2002, according to a report on
the implementation level of Government Strategy on the Improvement of
Roma Situation, one year after its enhancement. In accordance with the
document, released last week, the task for CNPD organization and
functionality is assigned to the Interethnic Relations Department
within Ministry of Public Information. The annual report on Strategy
planning fulfillment cites that monitoring activity on citizen
discrimination in the relationship with local and central
administration was not possible, as "the Council is to be developed".
According to the Government Ordinance 137/2000, CNPD is in charge with
all discrimination sanction procedures. (DIVERS)
FIRST RESOURCE CENTERS FOR YOUNG ROMA (GYPSY) TO BE OPEN IN BUCHAREST
BUCHAREST - A protocol for establishing three resource centers for
Roma youth was signed on April 4 by the Romanian Ministry of Youth and
Sports, together with UNICEF representative in Bucharest and the Roma
non-governmental organization OPRE. The centers aiming at organizing
cultural and education manifestations are to be built into a district
mostly inhabited by Roma people. Romania is the European country
holding the biggest number of Roma people. Last year the Romanian
Government launched a program for this minority's social integration.
(DIVERS)
DIVERS is a weekly news bulletin edited by the Mediafax News Agency
with financial support from Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center
(EDRC) in Cluj. For now, the full version of the bulletin is only
available in Romanian and can be found at
http://www.divers.ro
--
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