The meeting held in Sfantu Gheorghe was attended by Hungarian extremist Csibi Barna, who waved a banner reading “Good-bye Romania” and said he will not leave the country, because this is Szeklerland.
More than 3,000 attended the rally organised Saturday in Sfantu Gheorghe by the Hungarian People’s Party of Transylvania (PPMT) for the autonomy of Szeklerland. In a statement adopted at the conclusion of the rally, participants say they’ve had enough of “Szeklerland being denied” and of “backstage compromise.” The participants in the rally for Szeklerland autonomy adopted a statement named ‘Autonomy is the solution!’ which affirms that ethnic Hungarians will not wait 22 more years for Bucharest to solve their problems. “We must say that the bad experience of past decades is that the centralisation of power generates problems, rather than solve them. We’ve done nothing, waiting for a miracle – now we’ve had enough! We’ve had enough of backstage compromise adopted without involving us! We’ve had enough of the situation in which corrupt politicians waste and steal our children’s future! We’ve had enough of paying the price of wrong decisions taken by the governments which successively control the country! We’ve had enough of the very denial of Szeklerland! Szeklerland existed, exists and wants to exist. This is why we rallied today,” reads the statement. According to the document, the Hungarians want to feel at home in their communities, freely use their mothers’ tongue and national symbols. “Hungarian must be the second official language in Szeklerland. We have this right. We want a self-determining education system from kindergarten to university. We want to have this right! We want to spend the money from our taxes for the prosperity of the inhabitants of this land. We want to have this right! We want to administer our natural resources ourselves. We want to have this right! We do not want a prefect that knows nothing about our problems to hamper our work of keeping and creating values. We want to decide ourselves what we have to do. We want autonomy! Autonomy is the solution. The purpose of autonomy is to ensure the dignity of holidays and the effectiveness of daily activities – while proving that we can have a safe future,” adds the statement. Signatories appeal to churches, Hungarian NGOs, intellectuals involved in science and culture, elders, youths and Hungarian politicians “to draft a common action plan for acquiring the autonomy.”UDMR president Kelemen Hunor said Saturday, in Sfantu Gheorghe, that such rallies should not be organised during the electoral campaign and that PPMT was lucky to have UDMR mobilise its people, else Toro and Tokes “would have remained alone.” The president of UDMR Sfantu Gheorghe, Antal Arpad explained that those who demand the autonomy of Szeklerland only want the rights that already exist in other regions of Europe, and he is convinced that autonomy will be obtained, although he does not know when.Among those who attended the rally was Hungarian extremist Csibi Barna, who was waving a banner reading ‘Viszlat, Romania’ – ‘Goodbye, Romania”. To those who asked him whether this means he will leave Romania, Csibi Barna answered in Hungarian that he will not leave the country, because this is Szeklerland, not Romania.
