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American Hungarian Federation calls on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

 

Dear Joe,

Thank you for the notice this afternoon of the Presidential delegation to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

I understand that the Atlantic Council will present Freedom Awards to a number of individuals at this event. Inexplicably, the significant role of Hungary in the fall of the Wall was omitted from the AC's notice, and it appears that no Hungarian will be honored at the event.

I am writing to urge that Secretary Clinton mention and recognize Hungary and Hungary's substantial role in the historical events twenty years ago. This recognition would not only serve historical accuracy, it would be greatly appreciated by Hungarian Americans who have just commemorated the 53rd anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

While the press and historians have reflected on Hungary's significant participation, below is an excerpt from an address to be given by Geza Jeszenszky (Foreign Minister of Hungary, 1990-1994 and Ambassador to the U.S. 1998-2002) on Monday at the NATO School at Oberammergau.*

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter and we look forward to the Secretary's address.

Sincerely,

Frank Koszorus, Jr.
American Hungarian Federation

___________________________________________________________________________

 

*By the 1980s a new generation emerged in Hungary who, having heard something about the hidden past, wanted to know more about it. Films, university lectures, underground publications gave more than hints: facts about the crimes of Communism, about the Gulag Archipelago, about the Hungarian victims of communist repression. The "war cry" of the growing opposition was 1956. A Committee for Historical Justice was formed; it demanded the exhumation of the executed leaders of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, Imre Nagy and his fellow martyrs, from their unmarked graves, and also a new trial for them. In May 1988 Kádár, the man who betrayed the revolution in 1956 and, becoming a Soviet puppet, introduced terrible reprisals, was sent into retirement. The cover page of The Economist showed a truckload of 1956 Hungarian freedom-fighters with the caption "It is Hungary Again," and that was fully justified. Soon the first political parties challenging the old order were formed: Fidesz (Young Democrats) and the Hungarian Democratic Forum), followed a few month later by the Alliance of Free Democrats. All three parties swore by the principles of the '56 revolution. For us 1989 was 1956 under more promising external circumstances.

In February 1989 Imre Pozsgay, the popular leader of the umbrella organization "Patriotic People's Front," made a stunning statement: 1956 was not a counter-revolution but a popular uprising. The dramatic, solemn reburial of Imre Nagy and his fellow-martyrs on June 16, 1989, was much more then a traditional communist "rehabilitation"; it was an international event. The whole world watched it, many foreign dignitaries attended it. It was a unique expression of national unity,  the reform-leaning government of Miklós Németh  provided security, and some members of the government (all members of the communist party) were included in the guards of honour standing by the six coffins. The boldest speech was given by the young leader of Fidesz, Viktor Orbán, calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops. That issue was considered a taboo, even the Polish Solidarnosc - aware of "the geopolitical cage" - had not raised it. The burial was much more then paying homage to the heroes and martyrs of 1956, it was a call for radical change. It was also a call for Kádár, the traitor of 1956, to face his responsibility. In less than three weeks he was dead.

In the summer of 1989 the government started the "Round-Table Discussions" with the opposition parties, and by the end of September an agreement was signed on the complete transformation of the political system. In the following weeks the Parliament passed a series of cardinal laws, practically adopted a new constitution, and thus a negotiated, peaceful revolution was made. All the aims of the 1956 revolutions were met or were on the right course to be realized.

In Poland the semi-free election held in June 1989 resulted in the overwhelming victory of the opposition Solidarnosc. With the appointment of the first non-communist since 1948, Tadeusz Mazowiecki as Polish Prime Minister in August 1989, and the September agreement in Hungary on the peaceful winding down of the communist system, it was still only those two traditional pro-Western states where the days of communism were apparently numbered. In December 1989 the European Community initiated economic help for the two reformist countries. The name, PHARE, (Poland and Hungary - Assistance with Restructuring the Economy) indicated that. But the wind of change, also deliberately blown from the two, soon led to the collapse of the whole artificial edifice called "Socialism" like a house of cards. Why and how did it happen?

A turning point in history

Excerpts from a recent interview in the BBC: "in March 1989, Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth told the Soviet leader he planned to dismantle the barbed wire along the border, as it was rusting and the replacement would be costly. Mr Gorbachev reacted calmly and said border security was Mr Nemeth's problem, not his. The Hungarian prime minister took it as a green light. But could things have gone differently? 'Absolutely, we had worked out a lot of scenarios,' Mr Nemeth told me. 'For me, the most important thing in those days was how I judged the position of Gorbachev in power. If he's being toppled, kicked out of power, that would have been a different story, I can tell you."

The so-called Pan-European Picnic was planned for Aug. 19, 1989 at the Austrian-Hungarian border upon the initiative of the opposition parties, but was endorsed as patron by Otto von Habsburg (then a Member of the EP) and the leading Hungarian reformist communist, Minister Pozsgay. It was originally meant only as a symbolic meeting between Germans, Austrians and Hungarians by a fire: a call for a Europe where borders can be crossed easily. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon the organizers, including Wallburga von Habsburg, arrived and a temporary gate was to be opened in what was still a border fence made of barbed wire, when the unexpected happened. I quote from a recent article. "Lt-Col Arpad Bella, who was in charge of the Hungarian border post, saw a crowd of men, women, even children rushing towards him. Before his eyes, the first wave of East German refugees pushed through a barbed wire-topped wooden gate into the West. Some cried, laughed, embraced each other. Others kept running because they could not believe they were in Austria. Without clear instructions from his superiors, Lt-Col Bella decided not to shoot. 'It was terrible for me!' he said. 'Those two hundred people were just ten metres away from freedom. So I took the decision that I thought was best for Hungary and for my own conscience.'"

The breakout and the successful escape to the West was a sensation which filled the western media. The news prompted tens of thousands of "tourists" from the GDR to come to Hungary, hoping that they, too, could follow their compatriots. I recall a cartoon from the Economist: two people stand in front of the Berlin wall sign on it: "No exit, try Hungary!" That unmanageable mass of people camping in the garden of the West German Embassy in Budapest, but also in parks, loitering in the border area, compelled the still communist Hungarian Government to start talks both with the Bundesrepublik and with the Soviet leadership. Gorbachev told that it was up to the Hungarian government what to do. The East German government protested and demanded Hungary to repatriate all those East German citizens, referring to a bilateral agreement. Hungary had recently signed the Geneva Convention on refugees, not thinking of Germans but of Hungarians escaping from Ceausescu's Romania, and that came in handy. Finally on September 10 the Hungarian government decided to permit all East Germans to leave Hungary through the border with Austria. At least seventy thousand left in a few days. By that time many East Germans stopped in Czechoslovakia and demanded similar treatment. The Prague government gave in and opened its western border. All that had a tremendous impact upon the population of the GDR. The Neues Forum, modeled on the Hungarian Democratic Forum, now emerged as an umbrella organization demanding changes. The October visit of Gorbachev was discouraging for the dictator Honecker. The successful escape of tens of thousands of GDR citizens made it pointless to keep the Berlin Wall closed. When a new, reformist leadership in East Berlin decided to open it, the people smashed the Wall into pieces on Nov. 9.

That was too much for the Czechs to watch: a memorial meeting on Nov. 17 turned into a mass demonstration against the system, with the police dispersing it, but the demonstrations continued in the following days, now directed by the Civic Forum formed on Nov. 19 and the Slovak Openness against Violence. On Nov. 29 the Prague government started negotiations with the opposition and in December agreed to form a new government of national unity, headed by the reformist communist Calfa, while the old parliament elected Havel provisional President on Dec. 29. That was the "velvet revolution."

By that time Ceauşescu, the Romanian "Conducator" was dead. In December  a Hungarian Calvinist pastor at Timişoara/Temesvár refused to give up his parish, and the people, both Hungarians and Romanians, demonstrated in his support. Bloody reprisals followed, but a mass rally in Bucharest, convened by Ceausescu, turned into a demonstration against him and ended in the helicopter escape of the dreaded dictator. He was soon captured and summarily executed. The Council of National Liberation was headed by his former close ally, Iliescu, nevertheless the desire of the people to abandon communism was genuine. Bulgaria changed more gradually (Zhivkov was replaced on Nov. 10), and Albania in two steps by 1991. The failed coup of August '91 in Moscow was just an aftermath, completed by the restoration of the independence of the Baltic States in September, and the break-up of the Soviet Union itself in December.

I think it needs no further argument to say that there is a direct connection between the Hungary of 1956 and the Hungary of 1989. But that is not enough. 1989 was undoubtedly a turning point in world history.  Both world wars and the Cold War had started in Central Europe, this time it was where the Cold War came to an end. 1989 was not inevitable, just as the Soviet seizure of the eastern half of Europe between 1944 and 1947 was not unavoidable. The end of the Soviet colonial empire was indeed inevitable, as all empires disappear eventually, but it could have come much later and under far less peaceful circumstances. The transformation in Poland and Hungary was the model followed by the other communist-dominated countries. By May 1990 most were already free, and the Age of Fear and Lies, the Age of the Stupid and Vicious Party Apparatchiks, of the Irrational Command Economy, the Age of the Cultural Wasteland was over. The Poles and the Hungarians made the greatest contribution to winning the Cold War, without a shot being fired. But I think 1989 belongs not only to a few countries and their leaders. As a close American observer, Robert Hutchings stated: "That the Cold War ended peacefully and on Western terms was an achievement without parallel in modern history." The changes were not caused by U.S. or western policies, "they were deeply rooted in history and driven by the heroic efforts of democratic opposition leaders in Central and Eastern Europe." (Hutchings, Robert L.: American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War, 1989-1992. Baltimore and London, 1997. pp. 1-2.)


 

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_______________________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 6, 2009  

Presidential Delegation to Commemorate 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall 

On the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, President Barack Obama extends his congratulations to the people of Germany – and the people of Europe.   On November 9, 1989, Germans from both sides of the wall joined together, moving freely between East and West – something that had been denied them for over a generation.  This year, we commemorate and recognize their decision, and the decisions of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 to choose freedom over oppression, liberty over captivity, and hope over despair. 

President Obama today announced the designation of a Presidential Delegation to Berlin, Germany to attend the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 2009.

The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State, will lead the delegation.

 Members of the Presidential Delegation:

The Honorable Philip D. Murphy, U.S. Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany

Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.), President, The Scowcroft Group and former National Security Advisor to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush

 Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor and Trustee, Center for Strategic & International Studies and former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter

 Mr. Craig Kennedy, President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States

  

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