MINELRES: Romania: Ethnic Minority Briefs no 1 / 2004

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


Divers Buletin no. 1 (84) / January 19, 2004

Event

UDMR OPPOSES SINGLE-CONSTITUENCY SYSTEM 

ETHNIC HUNGARIANS INSIST ON AUTONOMY OF SZEKLER LAND 

LIBERTY MONUMENT DISPUTE IN ARAD REMAINS UNSOLVED 

LOCAL PROTOCOL SIGNED BETWEEN PSD AND ROMA PARTY 

Documentary

ISRAEL ANGERED BY STATUE OF RABIN IN ROMANIA 


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Event

UDMR OPPOSES SINGLE-CONSTITUENCY SYSTEM 

BUCHAREST - Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR) Chairman
Bela Marko said on 14 January that the introduction of a system of
single-constituency representation could eliminate the UDMR from the
Romanian parliament and thereby generate interethnic tension, RFE/RL
reported. Marko told journalist that the current
proportional-representation system has secured adequate representation
in parliament of the country's Hungarian minority. He warned that the
situation in Romania might deteriorate into a situation of violent
interethnic clashes akin to those in the former Yugoslavia. Prime
Minister Adrian Nastase responded that each political party has the
right to pursue its own interests and that his Social Democratic Party
(PSD) has reached the conclusion that it would be far better represented
in parliament if a single-constituency system would be introduced for
the Senate elections. Nastase also said that public-opinion polls show
that a switch to single-constituency representation is backed by 70
percent of the population and the PSD would face criticism from the
electorate if it failed to support the change. (DIVERS) 
summaryETHNIC HUNGARIANS INSIST ON AUTONOMY OF SZEKLER LAND 

BUDAPEST - Jozsef Csapo, chairman of the ethnic Hungarian Szekler
National Council (SZNT in Hungarian, CNS in Romanian), announced in
Budapest on 12 January that the SZNT considers the granting by Romania
of autonomy to Szeklers to be a precondition of Romania's EU accession,
RFE/RL reported. Csapo met with Zsolt Nemeth, the FIDESZ chairman of the
Hungarian parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. Csapo later told
journalists that although the SZNT has asked all Hungarian political
parties to support its demands, only FIDESZ has done so. Nemeth said
autonomy can guarantee the survival of ethnic Hungarians abroad, adding
that he supports the idea of inviting Bishop Laszlo Toekes's recently
established Transylvanian Hungarian National Council to the next session
of the Hungarian Standing Conference. The ruling Social Democratic Party
has resisted inviting Toekes's group into that forum of Hungarian
government and ethnic organizations representing Hungarians abroad. 
Furthermore, the recently formed National Council of Transylvanian
Hungarians (CNMT) has demanded in a letter addressed to Hungarian
Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR) Chairman Bela Marko that the
UDMR consider autonomy a priority of the Hungarian community in Romania.
CNMT Chairman Bishop Laszlo Toekes said the organization is not a
political party and is therefore asking for support from parties and
nongovernmental organizations. He said the Hungarian Civic Union and the
Szekler National Council have positively responded to the appeal. Marko
responded the next day by saying the CNMT would be welcome to present
its autonomy proposals to the UDMR if it established a platform within
the UDMR. However, he noted, the UDMR rejects the CNMT as an alternative
political option for Romania's Hungarian minority. Should the CNMT
establish a platform within the UDMR, Marko added, its autonomy
proposals would be duly debated by the organization. Also on 11 January,
prominent CNMT member and UDMR parliamentary deputy Tibor Toro said the
UDMR leadership is attempting to prevent the setting up of a political
alternative to the UDMR by using "Balkan methods." (DIVERS) 
summaryLIBERTY MONUMENT DISPUTE IN ARAD REMAINS UNSOLVED 

ARAD - Representatives of the Ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) and
the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR), which earlier
announced a compromise in the longstanding dispute over the reerection
of the Liberty Monument in Arad (western Romania), failed to agree on 7
January on where the planned Reconciliation Park will be located, RFE/RL
reported. While the UDMR wants the park to be located on the square
where the monument stood until its 1924 dismantling, the PSD insists
that the park be constructed within the citadel in Arad's Old Town. Last
month, Prime Minister Nastase and UDMR Chairman Bela Marko reached
agreement to resolve the dispute. They agreed on placing the monument,
which depicts the 13 Hungarian generals executed by the Habsburg regime
in 1849, within a "reconciliation park" that also hosts a triumphal arch
featuring Romanian historical landmarks. The blueprint for project is to
be finalized by March 2004. (DIVERS) 
summaryLOCAL PROTOCOL SIGNED BETWEEN PSD AND ROMA PARTY 

SIBIU � In the perspective of the cooperation to this year�s local and
general elections, the Social Democrat Roma Party (PRSL) Sibiu signed on
Saturday January 10 cooperation protocol with county subsidiary of
ruling Social Democracy Party PSD Sibiu, through which Roma ethnics
pledge to support all the candidates of the governance party running for
the positions of mayor and chairman of the County Board Sibiu. According
to PRSL president, Petru Duca, in Sibiu County the Roma Party encloses
20 subsidiaries and approx. 5,000 members. (DIVERS) 
summary
Documentary

ISRAEL ANGERED BY STATUE OF RABIN IN ROMANIA 

BRASOV - An extreme nationalist Romanian leader unveiled a statue of
slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on January 15 despite an
outcry from Israel and Rabin's children, who said his memory was being
exploited, Reuters reported. 
The president of the Greater Romania party (PRM), Corneliu Vadim Tudor,
has denied a Holocaust took place in Romania, where hundreds of
thousands of Jews were killed during World War Two, and has been accused
of using his newspaper as an anti-Semitic platform. 
But Vadim Tudor, who is running for the presidency of the ex-communist
country in November, told about 1,000 supporters in the Transylvanian
city of Brasov on Thursday that the statue was a testament to his change
of heart. 
"You cannot be a Christian and hate Jews," he said in an hour long
speech interspersed with Biblical references, his poetry and proposals
for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "They gave us the Bible." 
About 400,000 Jews were killed in Nazi ally Romania, including more than
100,000 who perished at concentration camps in Transylvania, which was
then under Hungarian rule. 
Romania has been hesitant to examine this part of its history. In a
speech to the senate in 2002, Vadim Tudor said there were no death camps
in the country and said no Jews were sent from Romania to death camps in
Germany and Poland or elsewhere. 
The Israeli embassy in Bucharest protested against the statue, saying
Vadim Tudor, a former court poet for communist dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu, was using the memory of Rabin for purely electoral reasons. 
"Mr Rabin represented the values of democracy and liberalism," embassy
spokeswoman Sandra Simovici said. "(PRM) is known for its anti-Semitic,
xenophobic and anti-democratic views." Rabin was shot dead in 1995 by a
Jewish extremist opposed to his interim peace deals with the
Palestinians. 
Opinion polls show the PRM party rising to second place behind the
ruling leftists, especially in rural areas where people are increasingly
impatient with poverty and corruption. 
Vadim Tudor's plans to erect and unveil the statue in Brasov made
headlines for days and prompted a statement from Rabin's children, who
denied they had been invited to the event. "The whole issue is a false
communication spin and we fully protest Mr Vadim Tudor's effort to use
Yitzhak Rabin's memory for his own political profit," they said. 
Young and old PRM supporters at the unveiling said they did not believe
their leader was anti-Jewish but instead an honest man who would fight
the scourge of corruption. They also doubted the number of Romania's
World War Two Jewish victims. 
"Nobody died in Romania," said Violeta Petrescu, 22, an unemployed
college graduate. "These numbers are exaggerated." 
The city of Brasov said PRM had no permit to build the statue but would
not say whether authorities would remove it. (DIVERS)
summary