AKCIÓ AZ EURÓPAI ALKOTMÁNYBAN A KISEBBSÉGI JOGOK FORMÁLÁSÁRA

Tisztelt HL Társaim.

Egy hét múlva, november 28-29-én Nápolyban összeülnek Európa külügyminiszterei, hogy megállapodjanak ay európai alkotmány alapelveiben. Erre az ülésre, (Ausztria és Olaszország támogatásával, Szlovákia és Lettország ellenzésével) Magyarország benyujtotta a nemzeti kisebbségek jogainak védelmére vonatkozó javaslatát.

Nagyon fontos, hogy e tárgyalásokra ráirányuljon a világ figyelme. Ezért kérem az HL tagjait, hogy mindenki küldjön az alábbihoz hasonló cikket az általa olvasott ujság szerkesztőjének. Ha mindenki rászánja azt az órát, ami szükséges a szerkesztő cimének kikereséséhez és a levél megirásához (kérem, hogy az alább mellékelt levelet senki ne másolja, de az abban szereplő adatokat nyugodtan használja), akkor e héten többet tehetünk kisebbségbe került honfitársainkért, mint az elmult évtizedekben bármikor.

Aki magyar velünk tart!

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Ms. Joy L. Haenlein, editor
Editorial Page

Dear Ms. Haenlein,

Next Sunday, the foreign ministers of the European Union will meet in Naples to decide if the Constitution of the European Union should include the defense of the collective human rights of national minorities.

In order to explain how today's minority problems evolved in Europe, I wrote the attached article. If you decide to publish it as a Viewpoint article, it would inform your readers of this critical step in the formulation of the Constitution of Europe.

Very truly yours,

Béla G. Lipták, P.E., has published a number of technical books and is a former adjunct professor of Yale University
84 Old N. Stamford Rd., Stamford, CT. 06905-3961
Tel: 203-357-7614, Fax: 203-325-3922
E-Mail: Liptakbela@AOL.COM

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Europe's Constitution and the Rights of the Minorities

The two-day conference of the foreign ministers of Europe (in Naples on November 28-29, 2003) signals not only the birth of the Constitution of Europe, but also Europe's position on the collective human rights of national minorities. Hungary, with the support of Austria and Italy has submitted the proposal, which is opposed by Slovakia and Latvia. In the coming debate on minority rights, American public opinion will also play an important role and for that reason, it is justified to go back and explain how the minority problems of Central Europe evolved in the first place. 

"Every nation's homeland is sacred. If you destroy one, you mutilate the entire human race" said Father Gratry on the pulpit of the Notre Dame Cathedral in 1920. He was talking about the Trianon Treaty, which on the 4th of June, 1920 dismembered the 1000 years old kingdom of Hungary. Just as the Jews could not forget the loss of their homeland, nor did the Hungarians and never will.

      Just as Nazism was not born in Germany but in Versailles, so the tragedy of Central Europe originated in Trianon, where, from the fragments of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the successor states of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and greater Romania were created. These artificial formations forced Croats, Serbs and Muslims to live together and compelled Czechs to live with Slovaks.

          It takes time for historic events to reveal their consequences. It took nearly 80 years for these creations of Trianon (Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia), to self-destruct and as a result, to de-stabilize the Balkans.

        Trianon cut mercilessly into the flesh of compact Hungarian populations. Hundreds of towns were separated from their suburbs; villages were split in two; communities were deprived of their parish churches or cemeteries; townships were cut off from their railroad stations and their water supplies. A 1000-year-old European state was made into an invalid. In the process, 35% of all Hungarians were turned into foreigners without moving from the towns built by their forefathers. Hungarians became Europe's largest minority and in the "free for all" that followed the kingdom's dismemberment, even Austria helped herself to parts of Hungary. 

      The new borders were not drawn on the basis of plebiscites and did not follow ethnographic borders. The dismemberment of the 48 million Austro-Hungarian Empire resulted in the creation of 16 million ethnic minorities who never moved from their hometowns and became foreigners only because the borders were redrawn around them.

      President Wilson would have preferred, if a Danubian Confederation would have replaces the Sustro-Hungarian Monarchy and he also wanted to draw the new borders of the confederation's member states on the basis of self-determination through plebiscites, but his views were disregarded. On March 31, 1919, President Wilson called the proposed dismemberment of Hungary absurd, but was overruled by the French. As a result, the United States Congress refused to approve the Treaty of Trianon, but it was implemented anyway.

      When the Wends and Slovenes of the Muraköz protested their separation from Hungary, when the Ruthenians expressed their desire to remain part of the kingdom, which they shared for a thousand years, when the Swabians of the Banat protested their annexation into Romania, their requests been all denied. There was only a single instance where self-determination prevailed: The city of Sopron was allowed to hold a plebiscite and voted to remain part of Hungary.

      In any society, the acid test of civilization is the respect for minority rights. The successor states, which were created, validated the words of Tacitus: "We hate whom we hurt."  They attempted to solve their minority problems, through denationalization, ethnic cleansing, deportation, expulsion, transfer, dispersion and other forms of uprooting. Hungarians had to choose between their nationality and their property. Because of intimidation and coercion, 350,000 Hungarians decided to leave all their possessions and flee to rump Hungary.

       The collective possessions of Hungarian communities were also targeted. In Romania alone, Hungarians lost 1,665 schools and universities, including the world famous János Bolyay University, which, as of today has still not been returned.

       After 1956, when 2,700 Hungarians died in fighting the Soviet tanks and the heroic children of Budapest succeeded in unmasking and mortally wounding Communism, the rulers of the successor states used the revolution as a pretext to speed the forced assimilation of their Hungarian minorities. While 287 were hanged in Hungary and 300,000 escaped to the West, things got even worst for Europe's largest minority. It was after the Hungarian Revolution, when the remaining autonomous Hungarian regions of Transylvania in Romania and Vojvodina in Yugoslavia were abolished. Although autonomy has been guaranteed by the Great Powers in 1920, again in 1945, and once more by the European Parliament, in 1993  (in Article 11 of Decision 1201), today, the over 3 million Hungarian minorities have no autonomy at all!

       After 1989, there was a short period of hope. The Hungarian bishop, László Tőkés (who led the successful revolution against Ceaucescu and was later nominated for the Noble Peace Price) was temporarily heralded as an all-Romanian national hero and Miklós Duray, the Hungarian leader of Charter 77, was also released from jail in Slovakia. Unfortunately, this period of hope did not last.

          By 1991, the formerly Communist leaders of the successor states (Milosevits in Yugoslavia, Iliescu in Romania, Mechiar in Slovakia) once again turned to anti-Hungarian propaganda to distract the public's attention from the real problems and life got even worst for the Hungarian minorities.

        One wonders if there is a limit to the patience of the Hungarians, the largest of European minorities and what will happen when that limit is reached? Problems do not solve themselves accidentally. Those who want a better future must first have a plan, a concept of that future. For the stability and prosperity of Central Europe, that plan must start with cultural autonomy and local self-government for ALL the minorities in the region and should eventually end with the formation of a voluntary federation.

       The Central European nations should not only join NATO and the EU, but should also form a federation which is economically self-sufficient, politically stable and geographically large enough to fill the power vacuum, which neither Western Europe, nor the United States can fill. History teaches us, that the Balkans always became unstable whenever a power vacuum evolved in the Danubian Basin. Right now there is a power vacuum there. History also teaches us, that peace and prosperity resulted, not only for the region, but for all of Europe, when there was local power in the Carpathian Basin.        

           Instead of repeating them, wise men learn from the mistakes. Only mindless bureaucrats worship the status quo. The rest of us know that if something is broken, it should be fixed.  What is needed in Central Europe is to build a strong Danubian or Visegrad Federation, one that can be crystallized around the nucleus of Hungary, Slovakia, Vojvodina, Slovenia and Croatia, a Federation that later could expand to include Romania, Bosnia, Sub-Carpathia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria.

       It would be fitting, if the foreign ministers of the European Union in Naples would start the process of rebuilding Central Europe. This federation, similarly to that of the Benelux states, could take care of its own affairs, could guarantee the human rights of all its minorities while also being a vital part of an integrated Europe. Europe needs to correct the wrongs of the 20th century and needs to reestablish the balance of power between its eastern and western half. The foreign ministers in Naples can make the first step on that road by guaranteeing the human rights of all national minorities in Europe. 

Béla Lipták

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