TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/010190/01019004.001

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 4KB | 66 lines

WORLD, Page 37

A Revolution's Unlikely Spark
By John Greenwald


    As pastor of the Hungarian Reformed Church in the Transylvanian
city of Timisoara, the Rev. Laszlo Tokes seemed an unlikely figure
to spark a revolution. But Tokes, 37, possessed a sharp tongue at
a time when that attribute was rare in Rumania. Not only did he
lash out against the tyrannical regime in Bucharest, but he even
accused Hungarian Reformed Church leaders of collaborating with
communist authorities.

    No cause aroused Tokes's wrath more than the plight of his
fellow 1.7 million ethnic Hungarians, who make up 8% of the
Rumanian population and are concentrated in Transylvania, the
country's westernmost region. Long a center of ethnic turbulence,
Transylvania passed from Hungary to Rumania in 1918, after World
War I. The region reverted to Hungary in 1940, and was ceded back
to Rumania in 1944. Ethnic Hungarian leaders charge Bucharest with
attempting "cultural genocide" by shutting ethnic schools,
dissolving Hungarian communities and seizing historical archives.
Some 18,000 ethnic Hungarians fled Rumania last year.

    Tokes ran afoul of authorities last August in an outspoken
interview with Hungarian television. Among other things, he
attacked Bucharest's plan to raze up to 8,000 villages and resettle
their residents in high-rise apartment complexes. Some 50,000
ethnic Hungarians would be relocated in the program, which has
brought denunciations from international human rights groups and
strained relations with the Budapest government.

    Denied a ration book by the state after the broadcast, Tokes
was unable to buy bread, meat or fuel. Parishioners who tried to
bring him provisions were confronted by police. The pastor was
barred from meeting relatives, and his telephone was shut off. In
a surreal form of harassment, authorities occasionally turned on
the phone to deliver threats to Tokes, then billed him for the
calls at long-distance rates. To protect his four-year-old son,
Tokes sent the boy to live with relatives.

    In November four masked thugs broke into the apartment where
Tokes lived with his pregnant wife, and they beat and stabbed the
minister. Two friends who were visiting Tokes helped fight off the
attackers. In a smuggled videotape made last fall, a haggard Tokes
showed clear signs of strain. "They've broken our windows every
day," he said. "Now they've started breaking them in the church as
well. Our friends sleep here now. The nights are terrible."

    Threats of violence were just part of Tokes's troubles. Church
officials tried to transfer him to a less volatile parish in
southern Rumania. When Tokes refused, Bishop Laszlo Papp accused
the pastor of "violating the laws of both church and state" and
obtained a court order for his eviction. But hundreds of supporters
formed a human chain around Tokes's building to protect him, thus
triggering the crackdown that helped inspire the nationwide
demonstrations that toppled Nicolae Ceausescu.

    Tokes and his wife were taken into custody, present whereabouts
unknown. After Ceausescu's fall, Rumanian television said Tokes was
alive and well and "calling on people not to give up their fight
for freedom." The once obscure minister has already joined the
ranks of Eastern Europe's foremost fighters for liberty. Wrote
Solidarity leader Lech Walesa in an open letter to Tokes last week:
"I honestly admire your activity in a country oppressed by
dictatorship. Even prison walls will not be able to hide what is
noble and good from the eyes of the world."