The ethnic clashes of Tārgu Mureş of March 1990 began shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989 overthrew the communist regime. Tārgu Mureş was the stage of violent confrontations between ethnic Hungarians and Romanians.
What exactly triggered the riots (which were broadcast nationally on Romanian television) is still widely disputed. The prevalent opinion in the Romanian public is that they were triggered by direct attacks of ethnic Hungarians against Romanian institutions, symbols, statues and policemen. A direct involvement of Budapest is also claimed although never really proven.
Most ethnic Hungarians in Romania and Hungarian public opinion in general, however, maintain that the rumours spreading about Hungarian violence against Romanians and/or state institutions were unjustified or widely exaggerated. (There have indeed been some lynchings of repressive communist-area policemen perpetrated by ethnic Hungarians, but such events of revenge against abusive officials of the fallen dictatorship were widespread at that time all over Romania and had no ethnic motivation, as most of these lynchings were committed by ethnic Romanian civilians against ethnic Romanian officials.) It is also believed that rumours about ethnic Hungarian violence were being spread in order to undermine legitimate demands of ethnic Hungarians (such as language and cultural rights) and to foster a general anti-Hungarian sentiment.
The nature of the involvement of the Romanian government is also disputed. The official account (undisputed by most Romanians) is that the government quickly succeeded in calming the situation and ended the clashes. Most Hungarians, however, maintain that the government was purposefully slow to act, failing to stem the violence at the beginning and thus responsible for its escalation.
Last updated: 08-26-2005 09:43:18
