date=10/23/94
type=correspondent report
number=2-168194
title=Hungary / Uprising (l)
byline=Stefan Bos
dateline=Budapest
content=

voiced at:

Intro:  Hungarian prime minister Gyula Horn participated in a
ceremony marking the 38th anniversary of the 1956 uprising
against Soviet communist rule despite protests from former
dissidents.  Stefan Bos reports from Budapest, Mr. Horn was a
member of a para military unit that helped suppress the uprising.

Text:  Prime minister Gyula Horn participated in a wreath-laying
ceremony in front of the graveyard of prime minister Imre Nagy,
who was executed by Soviet troops because of his participation in
the 1956 uprising.

Mr. Horn said during the ceremony the uprising must never be
forgotten, but he did  not  mention his own controversial role
during that period.

Mr. Horn served in a para military unit, known as the Padded
Coats, that helped suppress the uprising.  Recently, Mr. Horn
claimed he never participated in those actions.

He described his role as  not  much more than guarding buildings.
But former dissidents attending the ceremonies disagreed.  Alajos
Kalman, who was one of the student leaders fighting the Soviet
troops, said former communists, like Mr. Horn, must  not
participate in ceremonies marking the 1956 uprising.

                       /// Kalman act. ///

         I don't know why he thinks he could come here.  This is
         his personal problem.  Sometimes we feel that how could
         those people come here and put flowers here, people who
         were fighting at the other sides of the barracks.  It is
         a very delicate problem.

                     /// End Kalman act. ///

Throughout much of his political career, Mr. Horn regarded the
uprising as a counter revolution.

But several former Hungarian soldiers, who were handing over
their weapons to Russian troops in 1956, said they did  not
believe Mr. Horn did  not  betray his country.

One of them, who also attended the ceremony, said it is time for
reconciliation between former communists and those people
fighting them.

Mr. Horn, who was elected to office earlier this year, formed a
coalition government with former dissidents now united in a
liberal party.

The liberals said they prefer to focus on a bride future for
Hungary, rather than picking up the past of the prime minister.
(Signed)

neb/sb/bd-t/lwm

23-Oct-94 7:05 pm edt (2305 utc)
nnnn

source: Voice of America

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RFE/RL Daily Report
                   No. 204, 26 October 1994


SLOVAK POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS. Representatives of the Movement for
a Democratic Slovakia and the Slovak National Party on 25 October
met for another round of coalition talks. SNP Deputy Chairwoman
Eva Slavkovska said that even if her party is not directly
represented in the new cabinet, it will continue to support the
MDS. MDS Deputy Chairman Sergej Kozlik said because of
uncertainties within the PDL, the MDS will have to hold informal
discussions with both the PDL and its individual deputies, TASR
reports. Also on 25 October, top representatives of parliamentary
groups met for a second time to discuss the first session of the
parliament. They agreed only, however, to set up eleven
parliamentary committees. Gasparovic said the final round of talks
will be held on 2 November, one day before the parliament
convenes. Finally, Coexistence Chairman Miklos Duray on 25 October
said his party "certainly will not be in the cabinet," noting that
the failure of Common Choice, the Christian Democratic Movement,
and the Democratic Union to invite representatives of the
Hungarian coalition to a meeting on 22 October confirms that those
parties have discontinued discussions with the Hungarians. --
Sharon Fisher, RFE/RL Inc.

SLOVAK CABINET APPROVES MORE PRIVATIZATION PROJECTS. The Slovak
cabinet on 25 October approved 12 of the 16 projects submitted by
Privatization Minister Milan Janicina. The projects approved
include the Satur travel agency, several food and beverage
producers, a cement manufacturer, and part of the energy firm
Zapadoslovenske Energeticke Zavody. Janicina rejected a comparison
between the privatization procedures of the current cabinet and
those of former Prime Minister and MDS Chairman Vladimir Meciar,
noting that Meciar virtually stopped privatizing for two years and
restarted only after the fall of his government was inevitable.
The current cabinet, however, has been approving projects since
June--in full compliance with the law. Foreign Minister Eduard
Kukan during the same session discussed Slovakia's application for
membership in the OECD. Kukan said the cabinet would prefer
Slovakia to apply by 15 December to avoid falling behind the Czech
Republic, Poland, and Hungary, TASR reports. -- Sharon Fisher,
RFE/RL Inc.

HUNGARIAN OFFICIAL SAYS AUTONOMY INEVITABLE FOR MINORITIES. Csaba
Tabajdi, political secretary in charge of Hungarian minorities,
said at an international conference in Budapest on 24 October that
autonomy is inevitable for minorities, MTI reported. He charged
that the international community is not sufficiently defending
minority rights. Tabajdi also argued that without autonomy,
minority problems cannot be solved because autonomy does not
promote but rather prevents separatism. Meanwhile, Laszlo Tokes,
Hungarian minority representative in Romania, and Hungarian Prime
Minister Gyula Horn patched up their political differences during
a meeting in Budapest. Horn said there should be no doubt about
the Hungarian government's commitment to supporting the Hungarian
minority in Romania. Tokes, for his part, expressed doubt about
Romania's resolve to protect minority rights, even if these are
included in bilateral treaties. -- Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.

DUTIES DOUBLED ON HUNGARIAN FOOD IMPORTS. The Ministry of Industry
and Trade has announced that import duties on 280 food items will
double as of 1 November, MTI reported. The decision was prompted
by the government's desire to protect domestic producers and
reduce Hungary's chronic trade deficit, which reached $2.8 billion
in August 1994. The new duties will affect the equivalent of some
16% of the food items imported in 1993. Industry and Trade
Minister Laszlo Pal said the move has long been advocated by
Hungarian producers and fiercely resisted by foreign suppliers. --
Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.

LIBERATION OF NORTHERN TRANSYLVANIA COMMEMORATED. Romania on 25
October marked the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Carei,
the last settlement in Northern Transylvania to have been freed
from Hungarian rule after Romania joined the Allied Forces in
August 1944. The ceremony in Carei was attended by President Ion
Iliescu, Defense Minister Gheorghe Tinca, and other high-ranking
officials. Iliescu, in an address broadcast by Radio Bucharest,
voiced concern at what he described as "the reappearance of forces
calling for a revision of frontiers and glorifying those empires
that blocked for centuries the evolution of peoples in this area."
He added, nevertheless, that Romania's cooperation with Hungary
should not be overshadowed by "the remembrance of old conflicts."
He pleaded instead for a rapprochement between the two countries.
-- Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.
                                                        

[As of 1200 CET] 

(Compiled by Jan Cleave and Pete Baumgartner)
Copyright 1994, RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.


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Millions Below Poverty Line Ambivalent About Benefits of Capitalism BY John
Pomfret

  (C) 1994 THE WASHINGTON POST (LEGI-SLATE ARTICLE NO. 215167)

   BUDAPEST - The last time Lazslo bought a new pair of shoes was in 1985.
Standing amid eight shabby heads of cabbage at a market on the outskirts of
booming Budapest recently, the retired teacher pointed to the sole of one of
his shoes and proudly declared: "But I am very vigilant about repairs."

    His wife laughed. "Tell him about new shirts," she said.
    "Oh, that was 1990," Lazslo replied with the blend of bitterness,
fatalism and self-mockery that forms the emotional goulash running thick on
the streets of Eastern Europe today.
    Lazslo, 69, and his 62-year-old wife, Katalin, are two of the losers in
Eastern Europe's revolution. After laboring for a combined total of 67 years
for schools and ministries, they retired in 1989, shortly before changes
shook Hungary. Today, they survive on pensions that add up to about $100 a
month, half the average monthly salary in Hungary.
    "We thought retirement would be easy. We had subsidized food, some
savings. Then they freed the prices. Now we can't spend a single penny on
luxuries. All we can afford is this," Katalin said, pointing at the cabbage
heads lolling on the pavement while her husband struggled to stuff them into
tattered plastic bags.
    The collapse of the Soviet-style command economy created a new class of
brash capitalists brandishing cellular telephones as they cruise bumpy
highways in sleek new cars. But it also instigated a downward economic spiral
shoving millions, like Lazslo and his wife, below the poverty line in a
repetition of the inequalities that contributed to the rise of socialism and
extreme nationalism here before World War II.
    In 1990, caught up in the euphoria of the revolution, Lazslo and his wife
voted for the reformist government formed by Jozsef Antall and backed swift
moves to bring Hungary into the West. This year, weighed down by debts, an
evaporating bank account and unease about faster economic reforms, they chose
ex-Communists who promised slower changes. That party, led by Prime Minister
Gyula Horn, took power in July.
    Throughout Eastern Europe, millions of other people share the
apprehensions of this elderly couple and, like them, have expressed it at the
ballot box. Today, former Communists or anti-reform populists run most of the
formerly Communist countries. This month, Slovakia gave its deposed prime
minister, Vladimir Meciar, who is threatening to stop privatization and even
renationalize some companies, what appears to be a mandate to take power
again.
   But even among people who on the surface have benefited from reforms,
ambivalence runs high - partly because if the culture of communism taught
people how to be obedient, it did not teach them how to work.
   Anna Maria, a 42-year-old Romanian peasant, is one example. Her extended
family received 33 acres in a government program to return land that had been
expropriated by the Communists. Still, she is not content.
    "The government used to do everything for us, but now we've got to work,"
said the red-cheeked mother of two in a complaint echoed by scores like her.
    Asked about the good things in the revolution, Lazslo agreed that new
found freedom topped the list.
    "You can speak, you can criticize, you can gossip. Sometimes we forget
how good it is," he said. But when a reporter asked if he could use Lazslo's
last name, the old man balked.
   "I'd rather not," he said quietly. "Do you think they'd take away my
pension? ... I guess the old thinking still holds me."

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date=10/25/94
      type=closeup
    number=4-07837
     title=Central Europe: Economic Growth vs. Economic Security
    byline=Pamela Taylor
 telephone=619-1101
  dateline=Washington
    editor=Phil Haynes

content= //  inserts available from audio services  //

Intro:   The transition from centralized economies to free market
         systems in Central Europe is moving at a healthy and
         positive pace, according to many economists.  Even the
         poorer countries of the "southern tier" registered
         growth in 1993, and are looking even better in 1994.
         But many people don't understand how their country's
         overall economy can be improving when their own lives
         are deteriorating.  In several countries, they have
         registered their discontent at the polls, voting former
         communists back into office.   Few experts think there
         will be any return to the tough times Central Europeans
         have known in the past. But some economists fear a
         slowing of the pace of reforms which they consider vital
         to the longterm improvement of living conditions for
         everyone.  VoA's Pamela Taylor takes a look at what
         several recent studies are saying about the real and
         perceived state of Central Europe's transition
         economies:

Text:    To judge Central Europe's economic health, much depends
         on which end of the telescope you view it through.  Seen
         from the macro angle of ledger books and balance sheets,
         economists from the world bank to private consulting
         firms say the big picture looks good.   But as it is
         viewed close-up by workers and pensioners, the
         conversion to capitalism has come at a huge cost.  For
         thousands it has meant not only job losses and declining
         living standards but also the complete disappearance of
         a social safety net.  These same people would have no
         doubt been surprised to hear the upbeat assessment of
         Central Europe's economies given by Keith Crane of the
         private consulting group Planecon at a recent conference
         in Washington D-C:

Tape:    cut   #1      Crane      runs   [:]

         "1993 was really the first year in which four out of the
         eight countries which we follow actually reported
         positive economic growth.  Slovenia, Romania, Poland and
         Albania all grew last year.  This year, we're in the
         midst of a fairly substantial, rigorous recovery in the
         region.  The northern three -- Hungary, Poland and the
         Czech Republic -- all are reporting fairly substantial
         increases in industrial output.  All are reporting
         positive G-D-P (gross domestic product) growth.  Despite
         the problems of inflation and other problems in the
         Balkans, even there we see a turnaround this year.
         Romania is reporting a second year growth after some
         very substantial declines in the past.  Even Bulgaria is
         reporting a turnaround.  In Slovakia, the other country
         that last year did fairly poorly, is also turned
         around."

Text:    In fact, Mr. Crane says this rosy scenario may even be
         underestimated because it is based only on official data
         and ignores the thousands of small private enterprises
         which have sprouted throughout the region.  The World
         Bank's senior economist, Marcelo Selowsky (mar-cell-oh
         sell-off-ski), agrees, pointing out that the official
         figures are in fact mostly based on industrial output,
         the very sector of the economy where most countries have
         been slowest to privatize:

Tape:    cut   #2      Selowski        [:]

         "In most of these countries, existing data in my view
         underestimates a lot of economic activity, a lot of the
         data still reflects the output of state-owned
         enterprises, which are the main source of official data
         in many countries.  There is an enormous
         under-estimation of the emerging private and service
         sector.  In Russia this grey economy may be around 10
         percent, in Poland maybe the same.  If we take that into
         account, things are a little better than the data
         appears."

Text:    The Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic Studies
         has a less optimistic view.  It says Central Europe will
         not catch up to the economic standards of the less
         well-off countries in the European Union, such as Spain,
         for another decade.  Maybe not, but Planecon predicts
         growth rates of up to five percent per year for the next
         three to four years. [ Opt ]  And, according to Keith
         Crane, Central Europe's economic success has happened
         without the massive influx of western capital most
         economists once insisted was needed.

Tape:    [ opt ]   cut   #3        Crane        [:]

         "This has been and continues to be a East European
         process.  The savings and investments are East European
         savings and investments, the policies which have been
         adopted have been adopted by the East Europeans.  I
         think sometimes we in the west overexaggerate the
         importance of western advisors, the programs that have
         been implemented have been East European programs and
         the results as you can see is now we are starting to see
         some strong economic growth." [ End opt ]

Text:    Another study by UNICEF, the United Nation's children's
         fund, notes, however, that economic changes during the
         transition have provoked what it calls "a deterioration
         of unparalleled proportions in human welfare".  UNICEF
         attributes this to insufficient tax revenues to pay for
         long-standing social programs.  Keith Crane agrees, but
         says it is governments which have failed to keep up with
         businessmen when it comes to reform:

Tape:    cut  #4      Crane      [:]

         "Yes, there have been a lot of social problems in
         Eastern Europe, but the governments have not made it
         easier because many of them have failed to bite the
         bullet and try and target assistance.  Many people
         receiving child support are driving Mercedes.  Key
         government activities, like collecting taxes, providing
         social benefits and just providing a rule of law in
         which private businesses can operate have not improved
         at the same speed with which the private sector has
         developed.  [ Opt ]  Over the next two, three years this
         is going to be the key concern in Eastern Europe -- the
         ability of these governments to really modernize
         themselves and to develop a civil society by having
         government offer services instead of being a way for
         people to enrich themselves." [ End opt ]

Text:    This means, among other things, taking the politically
         risky decision to privatize unprofitable state-run
         enterprises.  Poland's ex-communist prime minister,
         Waldemar Pawlak (vahl-de-mar pahv-lahk), took an
         important step in that direction this month, and Romania
         has presented a mass privatization plan to the world
         bank.  But it was precisely to ward off threatened
         shut-downs of state industries which led to the return
         of many former communists to power.  Janusz Bugaisky
         (yahn-oosh boog-aye-ski) of the Washington-based Center
         for Strategic and International Studies:

Tape:    cut    # 5      Bugaisky     [:]

         "Since the initial victory of the right-of-center
         liberals in 1990, the pendulum in some countries has
         swung toward leftist parties which promise greater state
         protection against wrenching change.  However, it is
         much too simplistic to view this as some kind of
         harbinger of a return to communism.   There is clearly
         no attempt to restore the old communist structures but
         primarily calls for economic adjustment -- what they
         call social justice -- to build a more fair welfare
         umbrella.  This in practice, however, may prove
         extremely difficult despite the election promises of
         these leftwing parties because of the necessity of
         budget discipline maintaining the programs initiated in
         the past few years.

Text:    The challenge Central Europe faces now, Mr. Bugaisky
         thinks, is how to narrow that widening gulf between what
         he calls "the rich and connected" and "the poor and
         disconnected".  (Signed)

neb/pam/pch

25-Oct-94 6:23 pm edt (2223 utc)
nnnn

source: Voice of America

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