The Romanian Defense Ministry has begun the process of nationalization of the Úzvölgy military cemetery. RHDU immediately responded with protesting the decision.
Hunor Kelemen, leader of the party said the main reason they oppose the decision is because the governmental institutions „did not want or could not” stop the incidents of June 6th, when Hungarian protestors clashed with Romanian authorities after the later wanted to set up a Romanian part in this WW1 military cemetery.
RHDU is still interested in solving the issue through dialogue, wants to restore the original state of the cemetery and proposes a Romanian part for the Romanian heroes on the empty plot next or opposite the Hungarian cemetery.
“There is plenty of space around the cemetery if one wants to open a plot for Romanian heroes” —
said Hunor Kelemen, who also alluded to the scandalous incident in Csíkszentmárton, where in the military cemetery- that is under the jurisdiction of the municipality of Darmanesti (Dormánfalva)- the cement crosses, that were mementos for the Romanian soldiers, were placed on unmarked Hungarian graves.
The RHDU president added, that he does not believe, that giving maintenance of the military cemetery of Úzvölgy to the Defense Ministry would be a good idea, because there was no real dialogue about the issue.
Mr. Kelemen believes that Codrin Munteanu, secretary of the Defense Ministry is responsible for the turmoil around the military cemetery.
„Muntreanu, who has been extremely vocal and filed numerous court cases against using Szekely flags, cannot be trusted in not intervening even more brutally in the future” -said Kelemen.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Friday announced, that the restoration of the military cemetery comes from the secretary himself, who, already when used to be the prefect of the county of Kovászna, has stated that he will “deal with the cemetery in Úzvölgy”.
Attila Korodi, faction leader in the Senate has said to Maszol.ro, a Cluj based Hungarian news portal, that RHDU strongly opposes that the Úzvölgy military cemetery should be under the maintenance of the Defense Ministry. He also added that RHDU urges the formation of a Romanian-Hungarian caretaker committee, to include the municipality of Csíkszentmárton and to restore the original state of the cemetery.
The scandal around Úzvölgy military cemetery has reached its peak last Thursday, when, according to local Hungarian news sites, a colonel of the police, who reportedly also is a confidante of the Romanian Interior Minister, has, in civilian clothing, led some thousand soccer hooligans into the cemetery who broke the gate and vandalized graves. A few Hungarians tried to protect the cemetery from the raging mob, but to no avail.