BIBLIOTECA CUPRINS

INTRODUCTION

We decided to write this book because we wish to tell the truth about painful developments in Romania after the december 1989 events, namely about the atrocities commited by extremist Hungarian (Magyar) nationalists in two counties of Romania, Covasna and Harghita, as well as about the policy to persecute the Romanian majority population in Transylvania in 1990 by the Hungarian minority. We try to do this without prejudice, using an old positivistic principle – to show facts and events the way they took place – going, to this purpose, for the testimony of those who had the “privilege” to be physically abused, humiliated and offended just because they were Romanians.

Usually, the truths of history are expressed much later, after the respective events take place, the fifty-year rule being observed by most historians; this is done because analysts do not wish to make mistakes in passing judgment. We take this risk knowingly, writing about events that took place in 1990 (a very short time ago), owing to the national importance of their contents and mostly because we cannot be indifferent to the suffering of our people. In the Harghita and Covasna counties, which are situated in the centre of Romania, this suffering was terrible after the changes following Decembre 1989; the Romanians who were there because they wanted to or happened to, instead of crying for joy, cried for anguish, as they were oppresed in their own country, left without any defence, in that hard-to-describe chaos. A tyranny had fallen apart, a dictatorial, anachronistic system had been torn to pieces, but another monster was noisily emerging – chauvinism, based on social, political, economic and cultural exclusivism. This was not the first time Romanians in Transylvania were facing such a situation, being considered “tolerated” in their own country (the previous epoch are full of such examples), this was not the first time when they were openly told to leave here, but still, nobody expected that right in the 20^th century medieval practices would be revived, and to top it all, this situation would be presented as normal.

We mention that the only source we used was the testimonies of those directly affected, whom we are deeply grateful to for their courage. These testimonies and depositions are in the archives of the Parliament of Romania (to use less space, the notes here only refer to page and file numbers.) Equally, in some instance, we did not mention the names of those involved, because they still live in those respective areas and we wish to protect them from possible threats or revenge. Our effort is an allarm signal for those at the top of the political, military and judicial hierarchies, whom we hope to convince that the issue of Transylvania and the Romanians who live there is not an artificial problem, it is not based on fals data and it deserves to be studied carefully.

Romania and two counties with majority Magyar population:

Harghita and Covasna

Total population – 22,760,449

(as of the Jan. 1992)

- Romanians 20,324,892

- Magyars 1,619,368

- Gypsies 409,723

- Germans 111,301

- Ukraineans 66,483

HARGHITA:

Total population – 347,637

- Romanians 14 %

- Magyar and Szecklers 84,6 %

- other nationalities 1,4 %

COVASNA:

Total population – 232,592

- Romanians 23,4 %

- Magyar and Szecklers 75.2 %

- other nationalities 1,4 %

INCEPUT