Attacks Against the Hungarian Minority in Serbia Are Increasing

New York Times ^ | September 16, 2004 | NICHOLAS WOOD

[OESY]

SUBOTICA, Serbia, Sept. 15 - When the Setets family set off this morning to take their 13-year-old daughter to school, they got a shock. As they left their small, two-room house on the outskirts of Subotica, in northern Serbia, they found a 15-inch kitchen knife imbedded in their front door. Alongside it, someone had sprayed the Serbian word for "death" in red. Further to the right was "Drop dead, Hungarians."

Such ethnically motivated attacks by Serbs against people like the Setets (pronounced sheh-tets), members of this country's 300,000-strong Hungarian minority, have become rife, souring relations between Serbia and neighboring Hungary. The Hungarian government has urged Serbia to do more to protect the Hungarians, most of whom live in Vojvodina Province

The discovery of the graffiti at the Setets house came just 12 hours before a visit by President Ferenc Madl of Hungary to Subotica as part of a state visit to Serbia and Montenegro.

Local Hungarian politicians say that incidents like the desecration of graveyards, assaults and racist graffiti, have increased in the last six months. The Setets's 19-year-old son, Denis, was beaten up by Serbs last month as he cycled home from a nightclub.

Hungary's foreign minister, Laszlo Kovacs, last week described such attacks as "atrocities" but toned down his language on Monday after a meeting of European foreign ministers in Brussels. He also said he did not believe that the Serbian government was behind the attacks.

Serbia has until now played down the incidents in Vojvodina. A report last week by the Serbian Interior Ministry on 67 incidents of violence this year concluded that none were ethnically motivated. But President Boris Tadic called for a full police investigation of the tensions in Vojvodina after meeting President Madl on Tuesday in Belgrade.

Hungarian politicians here acknowledge that the incidents in Vojvodina pale into significance when compared the ethnic violence that tore Yugoslavia apart, leaving at least 300,000 people dead. They also stress that Hungarians managed to co-exist with Serbs throughout the Balkans wars of the 1990's.

But they also fear that unless the government takes the current tensions more seriously, the violence could quickly increase.

"You have to bear in mind, this is how the war in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo began," said Jozsef Kasza, leader of the Vojvodina Alliance of Hungarians, the main ethnic Hungarian party in Serbia. He has called on Serbia to increase the number of ethnic Hungarians in the police.

Serbia's deputy minister for minority rights, Jelena Markovic, accused Hungarian politicians, including Mr. Kasza, of exaggerating the problem to gain more votes when Serbia holds municipal elections this Sunday.

"The Hungarians are using these incidents for political gain," she said in a telephone interview.

She added that Mr. Kasza's party appeared to have adopted its stance after failing to gain any parliamentary seats in elections last December.

One former government adviser said that although the issue may be linked the elections on Sunday, Serbia would gain by being seen to take the issue seriously. "It's time to show that the Republic of Serbia is responding in a different way to Milosevic's Serbia,'' said the adviser, Pedrag Simic, now a professor of political science in Belgrade, referring to Slobodan Milosevic, who is being tried on war-crime charges by a tribunal in The Hague.

[Drango]

Has anyone told Bill Clinton?

[ruiner]

I thought Europeans had superior multicultural societies!

[thoughtomator]

Clinton Legacy... sure glad he cleaned up that mess in Yugoslavia!

[thoughtomator]

That's only in the Jew-hating parts of Europe, silly!

[MusicZone]

Unfortunately, discrimination and intimidation are nothing new to the diaspora ethnic Hungarians. They are also discriminated against in Romania. If anyone has an interest in this subject, visit the website for the Transylvania Reformed Assistance Committee (TRAC): http://www.sibd.org/trac/index.shtml. TRAC is a non-profit group of Reformed ministers and laypeople whose mission is to help these people with food, clothing and the Word of God.

[MusicZone]

Ooooops. Sorry for incorrect link. I am new and not very good at this yet. Here is the link for Transylvania Reformed Assistance Committee (TRAC) -http://www.sibd.org/trac/

[DTA]

Someone might ask, what kept spinmeisters so far from creating an artificial crisis in Vojvodian province, where 26 nationalities live in peace?

Hungearians and Serbs lived in tollerable harmony for centuries, even after horrendous crimes Hungarian fascists committed in WWII (e.g. forcing 2000 Serbs and Jews to drown in icy Danube river on Christmas day of 1942).

"Pictured here are policemen and soldiers standing around the bodies of murdered Jews in Novi-Sad, Yugoslavia on January 23, 1942. On April 12, 1941, Hungarian forces entered Novi-Sad and immediately began terrorizing the Jewish residents. Between the 21-23 of January 1942, Jews were taken from their homes, in the freezing cold, and murdered. Most were drowned in the Danube River. Over 800 Jews died in the massacre and other Jews fled to Budapest. The Germans entered Novi-Sad in March 1944 and the remaining Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

Yad Vashem Archives 3016/2

After WWII, there was no expulsion of Hungarians from Serbia for the crimes committed during the war.

NOR HUNGARY EVER PAID REPARARATIONS TO SERBIA FOR CRIMES COMMITED IN WWII

Today, Hungary hopes to make The Trianon traty null and void and annect territories of Serbia, Romania and Slovakia. The problem? Slovakia is NATO coutry and Romania is soon to become NATO country, therefore territories for grab are off limits.

It leaves Serbia, non-NATO member.

Hungarian, Albanian and Croatian lobby in Washington,DC are working overtime these days in fanning up the artificial crisis.

NYT fishwrap does not mention who has started the whole campaign of "terror against Hungarian minority".

Perhaps it can be traced to a bunch of thughs who beated up one boy and forced baseball bat into his rectum. Perpetrators were Hungarians, victim was a Serb.

Although transparent, this is dangerous game and HUngary is playing with fire.

[jb6]

Yugoslavia, what is left of it, is a multi-ethnic society. Several hundred thousand Albanians live in Belgrad. At one point in 1998 CNN even showed them protesting in front of the US embassy to stop the Klinton bombings...of course coming to their senses, CNN promptly pulled this off the air.

As a none NATO/EU member, Yugoslavia is still ripe for dismemberment by NATO/EU. Hungary has laid claims on this piece of land for the past 60 years. These stories are the exact carbon copy of the stories in circulation in 1997 and before that in 1993-5. Recycle what works. Further, as a member of NATO/EU, Hungary has more rights to the "truth" and media then Yugoslavia ever did and an outside source will not be used, until years after the next war on Serbia, to determine any truth of this matter.

One must build up a moral foundation for the West's "unwanted" humanitarian war on another Christian nation, especially with the Milosovich case in total collapse. He will still die of a "heart" attack before it is over.

Soon we will read of another mass extermination by the Serbs, of another 100,000 dead bodies that not even a fraction of which will ever be found.

[A. Pole]

Soon we will read of another mass extermination by the Serbs, of another 100,000 dead bodies that not even a fraction of which will ever be found.

Maybe not - Hungarians migh prove to be more honest people than Albanian/Bosnian Mooslims.

[Eska]

My wife is from good hunkie bloodlines that came to America 100 years back to get rich and then go back to hungary and buy farms. Over a dozen families (relatives) came over. Some saved and went back after 10 years, bought farms. Some married and became americans. 95 years later, the ones that stayed are all educated and successful. The ones that saved, and went back to Forro are all in babushkas and still suffering the effects of communism. The big picture is that it was america that made the ones that didn't save successful. Reagen was right.

Have talked to some and they really want that part of romania back that is populated with hungarians.

[DTA]

Hungarian government does not give a hoot for Hungarians living in Serbia. They are only interested in Serbian territory.

After 1920, there were Serbs who remained in Hungary and Hungarians who remained in Serbia.

Today, there is 350,000 Hungarians living in Serbia and 5000 (five thousand) Serbs living in Hungary.All others were assimilated.

Hungary's howling about trampled minority rights is another variation of wolf accusing the lamb for muddying his water.

[Alamo-Girl]

Jeepers... Thanks for the ping!

[joan]

I read that in the early 1990's about 50 Hungarians protesting in Romania were killed - do you know anything about that? But in Serbia there hasn't been any Hungarian killed by Serbs, to my knowledge, in the last dozen years or more. Surely, the media were hype it if they found a single case.

There was also a vandalism incident last month, and they caught a young man named Akosa Sakala, which doesn't look like an ethnic Serb name. When I tried to research "Sakala" on the genealogical sites, it seemed to lead to people mostly claiming Slovakian ancestry (but also Czech and a few other non-Serb countries).

Do you know the origins of the name "Sakala", and also, have you ever heard of an "Akosa" before?

Vandalism arrest made | 21:38 August 31 | Beta

BELGRADE -- Tuesday – Police arrest 19-year old Akosa Sakala for vandalizing graves in a Catholic cemetery in Kanjiza.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the vandalized graves belonged to those of Hungarian nationality.

Police say that Sakala was not intoxicated when arrested, but was found to be under the influence of a controlled substance.

This whole thing is MEDIA MANUFACTURED and pushed. They are making a case of any drunken brawl, unsubstantiated claims, school fights, etc. and putting it in the papers everyday.

[DTA]

Surname Sakal ie. Szakal in original transkcription is Hungarian surname .

According to google search Akos is also Hungarian name. It is good to know that Hungarian names follow LASTNAME FIRSTAME template so this perp is SZAKAL Akos. In Hungarian transcription, "SZ" sounds like "S" in Smith while S sounds like "Ch" in "Chicago"

So, true blue Hungarian dude high on some substance desecrated Hungarian graveyard. This is criminal offence, but not an act of hate crime as media wants us to belive.

The real forces behind the surge of fake "ethnic violence" in Vojvodina are Hungarian government and their fifth column, Messrs. Joseph Kasza and Nenad Canak.

[DTA]

>>>>>>BELGRADE -- Tuesday – Police arrest 19-year old Akosa Sakala for vandalizing graves in a Catholic cemetery in Kanjiza<<<<

In Serbian, names follow noun declination while in English they do not. "Akosa Sakala" is genitive case of "Akos Sakal" This is lousy translation from Serbian.

[joan]

The real forces behind the surge of fake "ethnic violence" in Vojvodina are Hungarian government and their fifth column, Messrs. Joseph Kasza and Nenad Canak.

Aren't there going to be elections soon which could push some of these people out of power? I heard they got their positions because they had helped the DOS.

[DTA]

yes, there are municipal election this Sunday.

But the campaign is in the full spring. Serbs in Hungary are being threatened and harrassed and there are only 5000 of them. But don't expect to read about it in NYT

[joan]

Wasn't there once a much larger Serbian population in Hungary?

You seem to know a lot about music. Have you heard of the Hungarian folk group Vujicsics which plays Serbian music? I believe it was started by an ethnic Serb Hungarian named Tihamer Vujicsics who later died in a 1976 plane crash.

He was researching and trying to save Serbian music and dances in towns where Serbs lived. Apparently there was a real lively scene of Serbian culture in Hungary in the early 1900's. Was the Hungarian Serb folk music/dancing greater in the 1800's, or were the early 1900's the peak?

[DTA]

>>>>>Wasn't there once a much larger Serbian population in Hungary?<<<<

Austria and Hungary, later KuK (Austro Hungarian empire) were well kept and well administered countries, with an excellent administration and census records. They were run by the pen.

I do not have the census data at hand but I have seen it. Data can be used to demonstrate how Serbs disappeared from Hungary after the end of Austrian Hungarian empire. Mind you, there were no population transfers between Hungary and Serbia.

Hungary has to explain what happened to the Serbian community that once existed in Hungary. there is only 5000 Serbs left today.

I will check about music scene and let you know.