Stephan Roller levele Kanada külügyminisztériumához, 1996. II. 13.
Stephan Roller:
BRIEF TO THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
CANADA
FOR THE COSULTATION WITH NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN PREPARATION FOR THE 52ND SESSION OF THE U.N. COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Submitted: February 13, 1996
The Hungarian Human Rights Monitor is an organization based in Toronto which collects information and speaks out on human rights issues affecting Hungarian minorities in Eastern and Central Europe.
The HHRM is concerned about the deterioration of minority rights in several countries in east-central Europe: the suppression of Hungarian language use in Slovakia, the restricting of Hungarian schooling in Romania and the intimidation of minorities by the buildup of military and police personnel in the Hungarian core area of Transylvania. However, the focus of this submission is the situation of Hungarians in Voivodina, Serbia.
While there has been tremendous suffering in all parts of the former Yugoslavia, we feel that the Voivodina Hungarian national group is the one whose existence as a community is most threatened at this time.
After 76 years survival, the situation of the Hungarians of Voivodina is aggravated by two things which encroach on their human rights:
1. Young Hungarian men of Voivodina have been called-in to serve in the Yugoslavian army in disproportionally large numbers. The situation continues. Many refused military service. About 10% or 40,000 of the Voivodina Hungarians have left the country since the war broke out. The young men did not want to fight the war and were justifiably afraid of mistreatment. This fear was substantiated by reports that minority soldiers were sent to the most dangerous battle fronts and, in some cases, were shot by members of their own Yugoslavian army units.
Today, these young men are being refused amnesty; they are put on court-martial type trials, and have had taken away the right of inheritance. Not giving them pardon is discriminative treatment and impinges on their right of return and settlement.
2.The second violation on the rights of this group is related to the movement of Bosnian refugees to Serbia. About 120,000 persons, more than half of all refugees to Serbia, went to or were directed to Voivodina, particularly to the northern region, which is where the Hungarians are concentrated.
What we object to are the more and more cases reported since August, 1995 of refugees forcing out Hungarians from their homes, sometimes with the help of police and local authorities. The eviction process starts with authorities insisting that householders take-in a refugee family. Alternately, refugees take over homes of people who are temporarily absent or who are too old or too weak to resist. Representations have been made to Serbian authorities by minority associations to stop or outlaw this process but the evictions continue.
To add to this disenfranchisement, Hungarians are dismissed from their jobs on the basis of their national origin and refugees are given preference in hiring for jobs.
These things, combined with the general hardships of the war, and bureaucratic barriers put up by the Serbian government to the operation of Hungarian institutions, such as the press and schools, make the outlook for the Hungarians of Voivodine as a developing community bleak and precarious.
We ask therefore the Canadian government to consider these violations of the human rights of minorities in its interventions at the 52nd session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. As well, we urge the government to support the reopening of the mission of the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Voivodina to monitor and support the security of the ethnic minorities. Finally, a stand should be taken against the use of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees funds and resources to settle refugees at the cost of displacing indigenous people from their homes.
Stephan Roller
Ottawa Representative
Hungarian Human Rights Monitor
29 Arbuckle Cr. Nepean L2G 5H1
