MINELRES: Romania: Divers Bulletin no. 5 (88) / February 16, 2004

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Divers Bulletin no. 5 (88) / February 16, 2004
News

HUNGARIAN STUDENTS AND PUPILS CAN ASK FOR SUPPORT FOR EDUCATION

CONTROVERSIAL PROPOSITION ON SETTING UP MUSEUM OF HOLOCAUST

FDGR ASKS GERMANY TO BACK ROMANIA

Documentary

ROMANIA�S NATIONALIST PARTY LEADER TURNS PRO-JEWISH


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News

HUNGARIAN STUDENTS AND PUPILS CAN ASK FOR SUPPORT FOR EDUCATION

CLUJ-NAPOCA �Iskola Foundation, administrating the funds coming from
Hungarian government dedicated to support the students and pupils of
Hungarian ethnicity in Transylvania, set up in Cluj an office where the
support requests can be submitted. The financial support is regulated by
the Status Law, passed by the Parliament from Budapest. According to the
preliminary data, about 140 thousand young people, of whom 15 thousands
are students, are to be beneficial of financial support. The selection
criteria refer to age, up to full legal one, and also the students
should learn in institutions of Magyar language teaching. After the
requests selection, Iskola Foundation will centralize them, while the
Foundation�s administration Board will make the decisions upon each
request. They will be sent to Hungary together with the minute and the
decisions made. It is in Hungary where the decisions on the amounts to
be granted to each school are made. The support represents ROL
equivalent of 20,000 forint. (DIVERS)
summary


CONTROVERSIAL PROPOSITION ON SETTING UP MUSEUM OF HOLOCAUST

CLUJ-NAPOCA � The mayor of Cluj-Napoca municipal, Gheorghe Funar, will
propose the Local Board to set up the Museum of Holocaust from
Transylvania. Funar, who is also the secretary general of the ultra
nationalist party Greater Romania, stated on February 9 that the museum
will consist of documents, books and photos about the Jews deported
during the World War II. The chairman of the Jewish Communities
Federation in Cluj, Gavril Goldner, yet indicated that before
establishing a museum of Holocaust, Gheorghe Funar should primarily deal
with renaming the street called as Ion Antonescu and the press
distributors should give up spreading fascist-style �Obiectiv legionar�
publication. At the same time, Goldner also added that he had not been
asked about the initiative of mayor Funar. "It depends on circumstances
whether we agree with establishing such a museum. First we should see
the purpose because it may be different from what we actually believe ",
pointed out Gavril Goldner. On the other hand, he added that in order to
solve this issue even the leaders of Roma communities should be asked
about it. �The term of Holocaust is reserved only to two ethnicities �
the Jews and the Roma. (DIVERS)
summary


FDGR ASKS GERMANY TO BACK ROMANIA

BUCHAREST � The Democrat Forum of Germans in Romania (FDGR) asked
Germany to back our country�s accession to European Union and not to
agree with the proposition of Dutch Euro-MP Arie Oostlander to cease
negotiations on the grounds that Romania would not fulfill political
criteria, according to press release edited on February 7. The request,
drawn up in a letter signed by FDGR president, Klaus Johannis, was
addressed to federal chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, as well as to the
governing and opposition political parties. In his request, Klaus
Johannis reminds that �there is no alternative for Romania to accede
European Union and there is national consensus upon this issue�. �The
condition of the national minorities from Romania � one of the political
accession criteria � has improved in the last years. This is also the
direct effect of EU accession negotiations held by Romania. Of course,
the way Romania is fulfilling the accession criteria is not perfect, but
the condition of our country is certainly comparable to the countries to
accede EU this year�, it is also mentioned in the letter of FDGR.
(DIVERS)
summary


Documentary

ROMANIA�S NATIONALIST PARTY LEADER TURNS PRO-JEWISH

BUCHAREST - Described by one newspaper as "the Jean Marie Le Pen of the
Carpathians", Romania's extreme nationalist party leader Corneliu Vadim
Tudor has long relished his notoriety as xenophobic, racist and in
particular anti-Semitic, Reuters reported. 
He has vehemently denied a Holocaust took place in Romania, where
hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed during World War Two, and has
launched countless vitriolic attacks against Jewish leaders. 
"Here's the secret of my political success: I say out loud what
everybody thinks but has no courage to say," he wrote in his book
"Aphorisms". But just months before national elections in November, the
leader of the ultra-right and increasingly popular Greater Romania
party, says he has had a change of heart. 
He unveiled a statue of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in
January, says he plans to build a Holocaust museum in Bucharest and
wants to travel to Israel to ask for forgiveness at Jerusalem's Wailing
Wall. 
"I am not an enemy of Israel. I'm not anti-Semitic," he told Reuters.
"It was a misunderstanding...maybe it's my fault for not explaining my
stance until now." His critics say he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The
Israeli embassy in Bucharest has accused him of political opportunism
and analysts say he is singing a different tune only to lure moderate
voters ahead of the elections. "I don't think it's real," said political
analyst Sorin Ionita, executive director of the Romanian Academic
Society think tank. "Very few people believe it is." 

ISRAELI FIRM HIRED 
The Evenimentul Zilei Bucharest daily ran a cartoon showing Vadim Tudor
in successive phases of his political career, dressed as Hitler, Stalin,
a Muslim fanatic and a rabbi. 
Aware of the need to polish his image, Vadim Tudor said he will hire the
firm that managed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's election
campaign to help him win the presidency this time around. 
He has come close. In the 2000 presidential race he came second to
President Ion Iliescu with 28 percent of the vote and lost with 33
percent in the runoff after nearly all political parties threw their
support behind the ruling ex-communists. 
Staunchly anti-American and anti-European until recently, he now says he
supports Romania's accession to the European Union and NATO. Vadim Tudor
has seen his support rise, especially in the countryside, where people
are increasingly impatient with persistent poverty and corruption 14
years after the collapse of communism. 
"Other politicians fight like dogs over a bone. Vadim Tudor is brave, he
supports the people. From his salary as a senator he feeds the poor,"
said Marcel Voivodeanu, 47, an electrician in the Carpathian town of
Brasov. Voivodeanu was among more than 1,000 supporters who braved
sub-zero temperatures and snow to listen to an hour-long speech by Vadim
Tudor when he inaugurated Rabin's statue in an icy Brasov park last
month. 

CEAUSESCU'S COURT POET
A former court poet to communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Vadim Tudor
intersperses his speeches with his own verse and lines from the Bible.
He now praises the Jewish people for giving the world the Scriptures. 
"I will build a Holocaust museum in Bucharest, maybe by Easter of 2005,"
he said, seated at his desk in the Senate in front of a statue of
Napoleon. "We will buy objects and documents. If I am president, it will
be a lot easier." About 400,000 Jews were killed in pogroms and forced
labour camps during World War Two in Romania, then a Nazi ally,
including more than 100,000 who perished at concentration camps in
Transylvania, then under Hungarian rule. War-time ruler Ion Antonescu,
blamed for unleashing the Iron Guard fascist movement on the country's
Jewish community, was tried and executed as a war criminal shortly after
the war. 
But he is still admired by many Romanians as a national hero for
attempting to defy the advancing the Soviet army towards the end of the
war. Post-communist Romania has had difficulty dealing with this ugly
chapter of its history and Vadim Tudor has capitalised on the underlying
tensions. Many believe that he will now direct his tirades against other
minorities such as the Roma, who make up more than 10 percent of the
population. 
"I expect that he will now turn anti-Gypsy," Ionita said. Vadim Tudor
said the Roma, largely impoverished and illiterate, are to blame for his
country's bad image abroad and that the state should move in and
"educate" them. "They are like big children," he said. "I respect the
gypsy minority. They gave us very good musicians, writers and sportsmen
but they are the exception. The majority are beggars and outlaws." 
summary


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