MINELRES: Romania: Ethnic Minority Briefs No. 67

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: Divers Bulletin <edivers_buletin-admin@mediafax.ro>


No. 67/ August 25, 2003

DIVERS
- reporting ethnic diversity -

SUMMARY
1. UDMR LAYS OUT ITS LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES
2. NEW HUNGARIAN PARTY TO HAVE ITS OWN CANDIDATE FOR LOCAL ELECTIONS
3. ROMANIA REJECTS HUNGARIAN LIBERTY MONUMENT ARAD
4. TEACHERS OPPOSE MOLDOVAN GOVERNMENT'S 'INTEGRATED HISTORY' COURSE.

FEATURE
5. FESTIVAL OF ETHNIC COMMUNITIES IN ROMANIA 

UDMR LAYS OUT ITS LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES
BUCHAREST � Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) Chairman Marko
Bela said on August 21 in a press conference that UDMR's legislative
priorities for the coming period are amending the Constitution and of
the electoral laws, the state budget bill, as well as the debate in the
Parliament of a legislative proposition on the income tax. Marko Bela
said that UDMR would also support in the upper Chamber Senate its
proposals on modifying the Constitution, including the change of Article
1 on the "Romanian national state" definition. According to the UDMR
leader, it is important that Constitution amendments already passed by
the second Chamber Camera Deputatilor to be also approved by the Senate,
namely the use of mother's tongue in administration and justice. He
added that before passing the budget bill on the next year, the
Parliament should vote a legislative proposition of UDMR that aims at
the possibility for 1% of the income tax to be sent to culture, church,
foundations etc. Marko Bela specified that this principle is also
included within the protocol concluded by UDMR and ruling social party
PSD. (DIVERS) 
                                   

NEW HUNGARIAN PARTY TO HAVE ITS OWN CANDIDATE FOR LOCAL ELECTIONS
TIRGU-MURES � A newly constituted Liberal Union of Ethnic Hungarians in
Romania (ULMR) has announced its intention to have a candidate for local
Elections next spring, according to party leaders. ULMR will go to the
elections as an ethnical organization and will have its own candidate
for the City Hall in Tirgu-Mures (central Romania). �Nevertheless the
candidates� nominations will not be made public as UDMR might make
pressure over them�, said the leader of the organization, Kiss Kalman.
"All ethnic Hungarians who joined the ULMR are exposed to real pressures
from UDMR. If we publicize the names of our candidates, in two months
these people should runaway from the country�, added Kiss who didn�t
elaborate. (DIVERS) 
                                   

ROMANIA REJECTS HUNGARIAN LIBERTY MONUMENT ARAD
ARAD - Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR) Chairman Bela
Marko said on 21 August that the Culture Ministry has infringed on an
accord between the UDMR and the PSD on re-erecting the Liberty Statue in
the Transylvanian town of Arad, Radio Free Europe reported. The
monument, which comprises several statues, was erected in 1890 in memory
of 13 Hungarian generals executed by the Habsburg Empire on 6 October
1849. Transylvania became part of Romania in 1918 and the Romanian
government ordered the monument dismantled in 1925. Culture Minister
Razvan Theodorescu said on 20 August that a ministerial commission has
decided against re-erecting the monument, which has been restored in a
monastery in Arad, because of "aesthetic and historical reasons,"
according to Hungarian media reports. Theodorescu said the monument does
not meet current criteria for public-space artworks in an urban
environment and does not fulfill the requirements of honoring prominent
moments in Romania's history. UDMR parliamentary Deputy Gyorgy Tokay
said the decision will be challenged in court. Marko also said the UDMR
is demanding that bilingual signs be displayed at train and bus stations
in localities where the Hungarian minority makes up at least 20 percent
of the population. (DIVERS) 
                                   

TEACHERS OPPOSE MOLDOVAN GOVERNMENT'S 'INTEGRATED HISTORY' COURSE
CHISINAU - History teachers who attended the annual conference of
Chisinau municipality teachers last week spoke up during the meeting
against the Moldovan government's plans gradually to replace the
teaching of the history of Romanians with a course on "integrated
history," RFE reported. Eugenia Starcea, who is also a municipal
councilor representing the opposition Popular Party Christian
Democratic, warned a government representative at the conference that
the Moldovan teachers "will know how to act if the need arises."
Education Minister Valentin Beniuc sought to reassure the teachers that
the course is based on the experience of teaching history in Central and
Western European countries, while Deputy Premier Valerian Cristea told
the audience that the "integrated history" course does not seek to
conceal the (presumably, Dacian-Roman) origins of the people." (DIVERS) 
                         

FEATURE

FESTIVAL OF ETHNIC COMMUNITIES IN ROMANIA

By Marian Tutui for Southeast European Times
Sighisoara has been described as the only European medieval walled city
that is still preserved. In 1999, it was designated a world cultural
heritage site under the protection of UNESCO. Known in German as
Schassburg and in Hungarian as Segesvar, the town was first mentioned in
1280. It was founded by German (Saxon) artisans who settled in
Transylvania, drawn by the advantages offered by the Hungarian kings who
had conquered the province. The surrounding walls and many of the
buildings in the historic center date back to the 14th century. Recent
plans to build a theme park called Draculaland near Sighisoara aroused
strong opposition from historical and environmental organizations, as
well as from Britain's Prince Charles. As a result, another location was
chosen.

Sighisoara's renown is due in large part to two illustrious people who
were born there, one a Romanian and the other a Saxon. The valiant but
cruel prince Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476), known also as Dracula, was
three times the ruler of Wallachia, a medieval principality in what is
now southern Romania. The town's other famous inhabitant was Hermann
Julius Oberth (1894- 1989), one of the three founding fathers of
rocketry and modern astronautics, along with the Russian Konstantin
Tsiolkovsky and the American Robert Goddard. Without knowing of each
other's work, the three pioneers arrived at similar conclusions about
the possibility of a rocket escaping the earth's gravitational pull.
With his rocket model, Oberth also contributed to the making of one of
the first science fiction films in the world: Fritz Lang's Woman in the
Moon (1928).

Nowadays, Sighisoara is a popular holiday destination. In addition to
its well-preserved architecture, it hosts summer festivals of medieval
art, symphonic music and ethnic traditions. This year, the 3rd edition
of the Pro Etnica Festival has been held between 22 August and 24
August. In all, 19 groups of dancers and singers, some professional and
others amateur, will represent no fewer than 16 ethnic communities in
Romania - Albanian, Armenian, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Gypsy,
Hebrew, Hungarian, Lipovan-Russian, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Tatar,
Turkish and Ukrainian. Together with guests from abroad, including
Romanian dancers from Voivodina and the Irish music band Blackbeers,
each community will bring its distinct rhythm and flavor. By day, the
public has enjoyed parades of national costumes. In the evening,
concerts, theatre performances and folk dances has been offered in the
very center of the city, the Hermann Oberth Square.

Keeping in mind the long history of a city where Germans, Hungarians and
Romanians have lived together for centuries, one would be hard pressed
to find a more appropriate location for a festival celebrating the
country's myriad traditions and peoples. The ministries of Culture and
Foreign Affairs, together with the German Embassy, are sponsoring the
event. 
                                   

 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
www.divers.ro
e-mail: divers@mediafax.ro