Re: Hungarians in Vojvodina
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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 23:15:37 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: Re: Hungarians in Vojvodina
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Re: Hungarians in Vojvodina
Following recent Brendon Rafferty's query (see
http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive/04091999-19:42:57-7319.html): just
received relevant RFE/RL WATCHLIST publication. The corresponding
excerpt follows.
Boris
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RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL WATCHLIST
Vol. 1, No. 14, 15 April 1999
A Weekly Checklist Of Events Affecting Civil Societies In Eastern
Europe And The Post-Soviet States
.............................
END NOTE
CORNERED MILOSEVIC MILITANTS TURN TO NEW TARGETS
By Charles Fenyvesi
Even as it faces continuing NATO bombardment for its actions in
Kosovo, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his militant
supporters are turning to new targets: independent-minded journalists
in Yugoslavia, Montenegro's independent government, and the Hungarian
minority in the province of Vojvodina.
.................
Tensions Rising In Vojvodina
Other reports, coming from refugees and through the Internet, tell
about police patrols in Serbia's northernmost province of Vojvodina
cruising the streets in vans and combing through air raid shelters.
They check identification papers. They look for young men, especially
those who belong to the Hungarian minority which numbers more than
300,000. Many of the men picked up are taken to military camps and
then quickly dispatched to Kosovo. According to unconfirmed reports,
if a check of the records reveals that a young man has ignored two
draft notices, he is branded a deserter, and some of them have been
shot.
Men between 16 and 60 are not permitted to leave Serbia, but in some
Vojvodina border posts, guards reportedly claim that new orders raise
the limit, and they turn back men up to 65 years of age.
Since NATO's bombing began, more than 44,000 Yugoslav citizens have
made their way to Hungary, the only NATO member bordering Serbia.
(Some of them travel as tourists, and so far only a fraction have
applied for asylum; others cross the border illegally.) Tensions along
the frontier, now being fortified by Serbia, and among Vojvodina's
ethnic Hungarians, are rising. On April 11, Budapest radio quoted
ethnic Hungarians as fearful about the influx of armed Serbian
refugees fleeing NATO attacks in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia.
Allegedly, some of them have seized houses and apartments belonging to
ethnic Hungarians, just as Serbs fleeing from Croatia and Bosnia in
Yugoslavia's previous wars had once done.
Though ethnic Hungarian leaders have criticized the bombing and some
ethnic Hungarians have joined Serbs to serve as "bombing targets"
around bridges and public buildings, others are afraid to leave their
homes. The carefully chosen words of Jozsef Kasza, chairman of the
Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, speak volumes: "The danger is not so
explicit at the moment to allow an atmosphere of panic to prevail in
Vojvodina."
According to ethnic Hungarians, Serbian neighbors angrily remind them
that NATO planes fly over Hungary's territory, authorized by an act of
parliament in Budapest. Moreover, Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi
announced in Brussels on April 9 that a Tirana-Budapest air-bridge is
being set up to fly humanitarian aid to Kosovars and that Hungary will
not set quotas to the number of refugees it will admit.
The Budapest government is torn between its fear of furnishing the
Serbs a pretext to expel ethnic Hungarians and its loyalty to the
Atlantic alliance it was invited to join last month. No government in
Budapest can ignore the vulnerability of ethnic Hungarians to Serbian
revenge, and the prime minister, Viktor Orban, is known for his strong
sense of responsibility for ethnic Hungarians.
Nevertheless, Hungary has a courageous, if expensive and risky
historical tradition of not closing its borders to people fleeing from
neighboring lands. During Yugoslavia's earlier wars in this decade,
Hungary served as a safe haven to nearly 200,000 refugees, including
Serbs. But now, with additional responsibilities as a NATO member,
Hungary faces a cornered bully surrounded by his enforcers blinded by
hatred.
*************************************************
Copyright (c) 1999. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
RFE/RL Watchlist is prepared by Charles Fenyvesi on the basis of a
variety of sources including reporting by RFE/RL Newsline and RFE/RL's
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