
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990                   TAG: 9004110470
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HUNGARIANS VAINLY SEEK RECONCILIATION

A PHOTOGRAPH in your March 23 issue showed an attractive young blonde with a couple of clean-cut young men "waving a Romanian flag in a demonstration in Tirgu Mures where clashes between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians have killed at least seven people and injured 300."

The photograph quasi-suggests that such nice people are gentle folks who could not hurt a fly. This is probably so.

Still, this photograph is grossly misleading when contrasted with the bloody truth as reported in your March 21 edition: "Tuesday, bands of armed Romanians poured into the city from neighboring villages to fight with about 5,000 ethnic Hungarians demonstrating for greater political and cultural autonomy. Their demands include establishing Hungarian television, Hungarian street signs and schools in Transylvania."

CBS and the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour showed that these "bands of Romanians" armed with clubs, knives and axes had been transported from neighboring villages by bus to invade Tirgu Mures. Among the horrors shown was a man being clubbed and kicked to death, a man who has turned out to be a Hungarian university professor. Andras-Suto, the foremost and internationally known Hungarian writer and playwright, was luckier: He narrowly escaped death after suffering heavy injuries and the loss of one eye.

And why all these killings and atrocities? Because Transylvanian Hungarians, having been instrumental in the overthrow of the hated Ceausescu regime, would like to have Ceausescu's policy of cultural genocide abolished. Just recently, the Romanian Ministry of Education has prohibited sending books and school texts to Transylvania from Hungary. The Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed out that such a ban is a violation of the Helsinki Accords, which guarantee an unimpeded flow of ideas.

All the Hungarian minority wants to have their human and civil rights restored, rights accorded to them by the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki agreement.

The 2.5 million Hungarians of Transylvania, a region that belonged to Hungary for a thousand years before it was given to Romania after World War I, had been hoping that with the fall of Ceausescu, a new era of Romanian-Hungarian reconciliation will come. So far their hopes have not been fulfilled. STEPHEN SISA HUDDLESTON

by CNB