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Romania Hungary
Although in the postwar period Romania and Hungary were
"fraternal states in the socialist community of nations,"
bilateral
relations were marred by historical hostility, and
disputes
continued to erupt throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1977 Kádár visited Romania, and he and Ceausescu
signed a
comprehensive agreement governing bilateral relations. The
agreement called for more cultural exchanges between the
countries
and for setting up additional consulates in Szeged and
Cluj-Napoca
for that purpose. The Hungarian government hoped the
agreement
would improve its contact with the Hungarian minority in
Romania,
but the Ceausescu regime failed to implement the agreement
and
continued its policy of forced assimilation under the
guise of
enhancing national unity.
In the 1980s Romanian-Hungarian relations remained
tense. The
Hungarian government and intellectual circles began to
express
concern over the issue of ethnic assimilation in Romania.
In 1982,
reports of mistreatment of the Hungarian minority in
Transylvania
further exacerbated relations. The media of both countries
publicized the controversy, and an energetic
anti-Hungarian
propaganda campaign on the anniversary of Romania's union
with
Transylvania brought relations to their lowest level since
World
War II.
With the progressive deterioration of
Romanian-Hungarian
relations, polemics crept into official political
statements. In
1985 the Central Committee secretary for international
relations in
Budapest blamed the poor relations on the political
climate and
reduced human contacts, presumably referring to a series
of
measures taken by Romania to hinder contacts between
Transylvanian
ethnic Hungarians and Hungarian visitors. The next day,
Ceausescu
at a Central Committee plenum criticized "nationalism,
chauvinism,
and revanchism wherever it was to be found." In turn Radio
Budapest
accused Romania of failing to implement the 1977
agreements signed
by Kádár and Ceausescu.
A particularly serious episode in the chronology of the
crisis
was the Hungarian Ministry of Culture's 1986 publication
of the
three-volume History of Transylvania. The work
followed
Bucharest's publication of two volumes describing
atrocities
committed against Romanians by Hungarian forces occupying
Transylvania from 1940 to 1944. The Romanians started a
propaganda
campaign against the publication of Hungary's three-volume
work.
Ceausescu addressed a joint plenum of the German and
Hungarian
nationality councils and condemned the publication as the
"revival
of Horthyst, fascist, and even racist theses by
reactionary
imperialist circles."
In 1987 relations between the two countries further
worsened as
large numbers of ethnic Hungarians began leaving Romania.
The
Hungarian government established an interdepartmental
committee and
allocated the equivalent of approximately US$5 million to
resettle
the refugees. Meanwhile, 40,000 people marched to the
Romanian
embassy in Budapest to protest the planned demolition of
Transylvanian villages. The demonstration, organized by
Hungary's
dissident Democratic Forum, appeared to have the tacit
support of
the Hungarian government. The protesters regarded the
planned
demolitions as an attempt to disperse the ethnic Hungarian
population, which they claimed numbered some 2.5 million
persons.
Following the demonstration, Hungary was ordered to close
its
consulate in Cluj-Napoca and vacate its embassy in
Bucharest, which
was to be converted to a cultural center.
In an attempt to resolve some of the issues dividing
the
countries and to obtain guarantees for the rights of the
Hungarian
minority in Romania, new Hungarian leader Karoly Grosz met
Ceausescu in August 1988 at the Romanian city of Arad--the
first
meeting between the countries' leaders in more than ten
years. The
day-long discussion was fruitless, as the Romanians
rejected two
key proposals. The first called for reopening the
consulates closed
during the dispute--the Romanian office at Debrecen and
the
Hungarian facility at Cluj-Napoca. The second appealed for
an end
to the rural systematization program
(see Systematization: A Settlement Strategy
, ch.2).
In March 1989, Hungary declared that it would lodge a
complaint
with the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva concerning
Romania's
failure to abide by cultural agreements, its policy of
forced
assimilation of minorities, and the flood of refugees into
Hungary.
At Geneva the Hungarian representative accused Romania of
"severe
violations of basic human rights," while his Romanian
counterpart
reproached Hungary for "pursuing irredentist goals." The
Hungarian
government therefore decided to join the Geneva Refugee
Convention
and to establish refugee camps in the eastern part of the
country
and in Budapest.
The Swedish representative to the UN Human Rights
Commission
submitted a resolution calling for an investigation of
alleged
human rights violations by Romania. The Swedish initiative
was
cosponsored by Australia, Austria, Britain, France, and
Portugal.
Later Hungary made an offer to "co-sponsor" the
resolution. Romania
rejected the criticism as meddling in its internal
affairs. The
Romanian representative to the Commission claimed that all
ethnic
groups in Romania enjoyed "legal guarantees and the means
to
preserve their cultural identity."
Data as of July 1989
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