Close to a thousand civilians and public personalities from the Szeklerland had come together to form a human chain around the military cemetery in the Úz Valley yesterday afternoon in order to inhibit Romanians from unlawfully breaking into the common graveyard, where the bodies of Austrian, German and Hungarian soldiers rest. After Romanian groups had arrived by force in numbers to the scene, they started demanding the opening of the cemetery gate while shouting: “out with the Hungarians from the country!”, singing irredentist songs and yelling to the Hungarian groups present to be ashamed of themselves.
After a certain period of time, the Romanian crowd – that was strongly overtaken with alcohol and artificially revolted – started to become more and more unmanageable up to a point where Romanian authorities completely lost control over the event. The infuriated Romanian herd climbed on the fence, broke the cemetery gate, smashed several wooden crosses that marked the memory of Hungarian heroes, beat up Hungarians with flagpoles and rods torn from the fence, causing with all of this an enormous damage both in a moral and substantial manner. The loudspeakers started to play popular and vulgar music at first and celebratory speeches followed after. During an Orthodox religious service, they consecrated the Romanian war memorial and laid wreaths at the freshly erected concrete crosses. Once again, the people of Dărmănești/Dormánfalva and the other Romanian participants proved that despite acting unlawfully, despite having the Romanian authorities present at the scene, they could and can do whatever they want without consequences. Nobody was arrested, nobody was taken into custody up to this day.
Alongside civilians, representatives of Romanian political organisations also took part in the event, whose presence and irresponsible behaviour just intensified the already tense atmosphere, what is more, they even posted instigating and inciting texts against Hungarian communities on social media afterwards.
The Hungarians were meanwhile praying, a lot of them even burst into tears, and the Romanians literally occupied and desecrated the graveyard. The peacefully protesting Hungarians locked out on the Bacău county side of the cemetery were escorted to the Sânmartin/Csíkszentmárton side by the Gendarmerie. The Hungarian protesters ultimately left the scene to avoid any further physical abuse.
Hunor KELEMEN, president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) condemned the incident from Úz Valley and declared the following: “We strongly condemn all acts of violence and call on the authorities to immediately apprehend those who resorted to physical aggression, who destroyed property in a barbaric fashion, who have invaded the military graveyard from the Úz Valley, destroyed the gate and tore out the Hungarian crosses in order to intimidate our community. The Hungarians protested peacefully against the illegalities committed by the mayor of Dărmănești/Dormánfalva, actions that were deemed to be illegal by several Romanian authorities. The Hungarians protecting the graveyard formed a human chain and did not provoke anyone, but protested for their ancestors’ memory to be respected. At the same time, we are asking the Romanian news televisions to put an end to misinformation and incitement, because it only leads to furthering the conflict.”
The president of RMDSZ, in addition to apprehending those responsible, asked the Prime Minister to replace the Minister of Internal Affairs and the prefect of Harghita county, both of whom were responsible for letting such severe atrocities happen.