OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 103, 28 May 1996

ETHNIC HUNGARIAN LEADER CRITICIZES SLOVAK PRIME MINISTER. Hungarian
Civic Party chairman Laszlo Nagy said Vladimir Meciar's call for
creating "clean Hungarian constituencies" was a "propagandistic move,"
Narodna obroda reported on 28 May. Meciar made the statement during the
recent visit of OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Max van
der Stoel. However, critics have argued that "ethnically clean"
territory does not exist in Slovakia. Nagy said ethnic Hungarian
Coexistence chairman Miklos Duray did not consult his coalition partners
before declaring on 25 May that cooperation between opposition and
Hungarian coalition parties should be strengthened to form a union. Nagy
added that discussion of the matter should be delayed until the new
electoral law is approved. Meanwhile, Coexistence deputy chairman Arpad
Duka-Zolyomi told Sme on 28 May that his party is proposing a union of
Hungarian parties, not of the opposition as a whole. -- Sharon Fisher

HUNGARY'S MINORITY COUNCILS COMPLAIN OF GOVERNMENT WIRETAPPING. Minority
ombudsman Jeno Kaltenbach last week ordered an investigation into
government wiretapping following complaints from minority councils in
southern Hungary, Hungarian media reported. Kaltenbach said a nationwide
investigation was necessary as Greek, Serbian, and German national
minority organizations had voiced concern about the secret service's
surveillance of their activities. Secret Service Minister Istvan
Nikolits first denied any unlawful wiretapping but later admitted that
surveillance may have been conducted in an aim to protect the minority
organizations from the impact of the Yugoslav crisis near the southern
borders. Nikolits is currently preparing a report to present to the
parliament. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

ROMANIAN PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESMAN ON TREATY WITH HUNGARY. Traian Chebeleu
on 27 May said extremists in Hungary, the Hungarian diaspora, and the
Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania put pressure on Budapest to
include the controversial Council of Europe Recommendation 1201 in the
Romanian-Hungarian basic treaty, Romanian media reported. He rejected
the claim that Romania had accepted the recommendation providing for
collective rights for ethnic minorities at the time of its admission
into the council. Chebeleu claims Bucharest only committed itself to
take into consideration that document's stipulations while drafting the
recently passed education law. The recommendation's inclusion in the
Hungarian-Slovak treaty does not solve existing problems but rather
creates new tensions in bilateral relations, Chebeleu added. He further
proposed the recently signed Romanian-Yugoslav treaty as a model for
Bucharest and Budapest. -- Matyas Szabo

[As of 12:00 CET]

Compiled by Deborah Michaels


OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 104, 29 May 1996

HUNGARIAN PREMIER CLEARS DEFENSE MINISTER OF CHARGES. Following a two-day
investigation, Gyula Horn exempted Gyorgy Keleti from responsibility in the
MiG fighter affair, Hungarian media reported. Horn blamed the
constitutional violation on the air defense division of the Hungarian Armed
Forces and a deputy state secretary at the Defense Ministry (see OMRI Daily
Digest, 22 May 1996). Horn also proposed that the Constitutional Court
reinterpret the constitution regarding which military transports require
the preliminary assent of parliament. He urged an investigation into
similar affairs that occurred under the previous government and were not
regarded as constitutional violations. Opposition parties that demanded
Keleti's dismissal said the Socialists should not draw a distinction
between minor and major violations of the constitution. According to
Nepszabadsag, the junior coalition partner Alliance of Free Democrats
believes that Keleti is not personally responsible for the constitutional
violation but should be held politically responsible. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

MINORITY WIRETAPPING INVESTIGATION CONCLUDED. Hungary's Secret Services
Minister Istvan Nikolits on 28 May gave an account of the national security
surveillance of ethnic minorities in southern Hungary, noting that the
local office of the National Security Office ordered measures to be taken
for the protection of minorities in the summer of 1992, Hungarian media
reported. He added that the office proceeded in accordance with legal
regulations because it used no secret service methods and gathered no
information on minority leaders. Meanwhile, the Hungarian parliament on 28
May rejected the opposition's proposal to call on the Slovak legislature to
repeal the Benes decrees, which declared the collective guilt of ethnic
Hungarians in World War II. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

[As of 1200 CET]

Compiled by Deborah Michaels