Almost a century has passed since the end of the First World War, after which the victorious powers, in the peace negotiations held in Versailles, realized the plans that they had made before the War. The injustice of the conditions imposed on Hungary on June 4, 1920, which violated the concepts of international law, was already obvious on the day of the signing of the treaty but, to this day, a re-examination and dispensing of justice has never taken place.

The Hungarian nation, which had existed as the Hungarian Kingdom, with a constitution written in 1222, and which served as an example to Europe in its role as a constitutional state, was divided into seven parts and 3.5 million Hungarians found themselves forced, unasked and against their will, to live under foreign rule.

Since June 4, 1920, the Hungarian nation, which had played the role of Protector of Europe with undying merit – memorialized and recognized every day with the ringing of the noontime bells – lost her representation embracing the whole population.

This representation of the entire Hungarian population, which was separated into seven parts, one third of whom were forced to live under foreign rule hostile to them, was regained nine years later, in 1929, under the auspices of the First Hungarian World Congress.

The Second Hungarian World Congress, held in 1938, established the World Federation of Hungarians and invited it to take part as a body in its sessions, as a working organization and a permanent chargé d’affaires. Suspended during the decades of the Communist era, it resumed its activities after 54 years and, since 1992, the Hungarian World Congress, representing all Hungarians, has met in regular sessions, every four years.

On the 70th anniversary of the World Federation of Hungarians, the VII World Congress of Hungarians was in session between August 16 and 20, 2008, with 1000 delegates. Its most important decision was to accept the Declaration of the Hungarian People’s Right to Self-Determination (see Attachment 1). This declared the claim of the entire Hungarian people, embodied in the World Congress of Hungarians, to the right for self-determination, based on the International Document for the Equality of Civil and Political Rights and the Document for the Equality of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, accepted by the United Nations in 1966. Paragraph 1 states: „All peoples have the right to self-determination. This right means that all peoples are free to choose their own political system and may freely ensure their economic, social and cultural development.”

The Declaration of the Hungarian People’s Right to Self-Determination of the VII World Congress of Hungarians, in a separate attachment, reaches out to the peoples of Europe, particularly to the youth and governments of Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria, assuring them that, in the eyes of the Hungarian people, their own self-determination is also a holy and inalienable right.

The Declaration of the Hungarian People’s Right to Self-Determination states that, without a just settlement of the Hungarian Question, the European Union cannot represent „freedom and security”.

Within the framework of the VII Hungarian World Congress, more than 500 delegates took part in the Conference for the Re-examination of Trianon, which lasted all day. The delegates accepted the Proposal to re-examine the 1920 Treaty of Trianon and the 1947 Treaty of Paris and, with a 7 point justification, demanded that the International Community put an end to the consequences of the Treaties of Trianon and Paris, which held the Hungarian people collectively responsible for war-crimes, and still does so, and that they provide Justice for Hungary! (See Attachment II). This offers enough proof that the peace treaty at the end of World War I. was created for the peoples of Europe by intentionally misled politicians, who were given false information. This is now very obvious.

The united Hungarian People, embodied in the Hungarian World Congress, in its seventh session, in August 2008, accepted the decisions and, represented by the World Federation of Hungarians, they submit the following

P E T I T I O N

in which they ask for the re-examination of the June 4, 1920 Treaty of Trianon, at the end of World War I, and the February 10, 1947 Treaty of Paris at the end of World War II, the cessation of the discrimination against the Hungarian people and the Hungarian nation and the provision of justice for the Hungarian People. Under the present circumstances – taking into account its importance and effects – it would mean an appeal for Justice for Europe.

In support of the above request we provide the following

Justification

1. In the course of the peace treaty negotiations at the end of World War I, which took place at Versailles, based on the concept of nationality, two thirds of Hungary’s territory were taken away to create states that had never before existed, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, and to expand the territory of Romania.Czechoslovakia, using a historical concept, also received 3 million German citizens. These new states were built upon the concept of self-determination.

At the same time, in regard to Hungary, this international right was not applied. She was denied both historical and national rights and also the right to self-determination. In this way, pure Hungarian territories and communities came under the rule of the above-mentioned successor states.

Obviously, there is a double standard in the application of international rights, which discriminate unfavorably against those people whose mother-tongue is Hungarian. This disadvantageous discrimination is one typical judgmental method of racism.

More than 90 years after the end of the War, the Hungarians living in the Carpathian Basin still have no anwers to the questions concerning their fate. If, for example, it was legitimate for a state to annex a community because it spoke the Slovak language, why then is it not legitimate, on the same basis, to take those territories where Hungarians are in the majority, speaking the Hungarian language, from the artificially created states and reannex them to Hungary?

2. The punishment imposed on the Hungarians, on June 4, 1920, was unacceptably unjust. The fact has to be accepted that Hungary cannot be held responsible for the outbreak of World War I. At the time of the outbreak of World War I, Hungary was not an independent state but, as a partner in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, she was forced into the War because, from 1867 on, the Imperial Ministry of War in Vienna made all the military decisions that involved Hungary, just as the Imperial Foreign Ministry in Vienna made all the decisions on foreign policy and financial policy. On July 7, 1914, Count István Tisza, the Hungarian Minister in the Crown Council, was the only person to vote against the War and he even wrote a letter, the following day, to Emperor Franz Joseph to urge him not to declare War. Even after the veto, at the time of the renewed negotiations to start the war on July 14, he agreed, under pressure, to go to war only on condition that the Great Powers be notified that Hungary, in the event that she was on the winning side, did not intend to take any territory from the Kingdom of Serbia. (Pozzi, Henri: A háború visszatér, (War will return) p.200-201)

In spite of this statement, the media of the Allied Powers trumpeted to the world the humiliating lie that Count István Tisza engineered the outbreak of World War I, by arranging for the assassination in Sarajevo, where the heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, was the victim.

On the contrary, the political powers at the time knew, and later admitted that this action was planned and executed by the Serb Secret Service.

When it became possible to refute the false accusation that Hungary started the War, on October 31, 1918, in his home, in front of his loved ones, the man who vetoed the war and tried to prevent it, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count István Tisza, was murdered in an abominable manner.

3. The dismemberment of Hungary – in a certain way – was planned well before the outbreak of World War I. This plan and its realization was not dependent on the outcome of the War, therefore it should not have been a subject of the peace negotiations at the end of the War. This statement is supported by the following facts:

· Prior to June 23, 1914, that is the date of the assassination in Sarajevo, there was a military agreement between Russia, Serbia and Romania, in which they promised to Serbia certain Hungarian territories in which Serbs had never lived. The Entente Powers fulfilled this promise in the Belgrade Agreement of November 13, 1918, in spite of the fact that, at that time, CzaristRussia no longer existed and the Soviet Union, which came into existence in this territory, was not a member of the Entente.

· The ceasefire agreement which ended the armed conflict between the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Allies, signed with full authority, on November 3, 1918 in Padua, left the territory of Hungary untouched.

In spite of this – or perhaps because of it – ten days after October 31, 1918, the day that Prime Minister, Count István Tisza was murdered, the government of the power-hungry traitor, Count Mihály Károlyi, was able to make a military agreement in Belgrade with the representative of the French Army, which allowed the enemy forces to penetrate deep into the territory of Hungary and their troops to reach as far as the demarcation line. All this took place without Hungary in the meantime becoming involved in any armed conflict.

This treachery of Mihály Károlyi is proven convincingly by the fact that, five months later, when he was forced to relinquish his power, he fled to the protection of the worst enemy of Hungary, Edvard Beneą, who gave him a passport so that he could travel the world. His expenses were paid by a Czech banker named Panast.

· After the signing of the ceasefire agreement in Padua on November 3, 1918, the Entente powers realized that it conflicted conceptually with the earlier secret agreement, which had promised Transylvania to Romania. During World War I, Romania had changed sides several times and, in 1916, had even attacked her allies from behind. In the peace treaty with the Germans on May 8, 1918, she finally excluded herself from the Entente Powers. She solved her political incapacity with military means: five days after the ceasefire agreement in Padua, on November 8, 1918, the French military leaders divided their troops, which were in the territory of Serbia, and sent half of them, under the leadership of General Berthelot, to Bucharest, where they overcame the reigning Romanian government that was set in place by the Germans, and put in place a new government that was willing to allow Romania to join the victors, that is the Entente, in exchange for receiving Transylvania. (See the letter from the new Prime Minister of Romania, Brătianu, to Clemenceau, written on November 8, 1918.)

· Although the Padua Ceasefire declared the cessation of all military actions, one of the Entente powers, France, disregarding her own cease-fire agreement, without a declaration of war against Hungary, initiated military action against her. This is a fact, either because France considered Hungary part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy or, on the directive of Clemenceau, the Entente did not recognize her at all, that is, considered her non-existent in a political sense(!)

They conducted this war, which was undeclared, by recruiting the ethnic minorities – except for the Serbs – minorites like the Czechs, with whom, before the ceasefire, Hungary had never been in a state of war, or the Romanians. Romania, an ally of Hungary, on the instigation of the Entente powers, in a separate peace agreement, became a traitor and attacked Hungary from behind, causing a state of war. In other words, they fought in uniform along with such phantom national states, like Czechoslovakia, and the Serb-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom / that is the future Yugoslavia / that had never before had citizens, borders or history and which, especially, were never state-building nations. They owed their „existence” to the powers behind the scenes, who influenced the leaders of the Entente, and to the ambitious desires of a handful of emigrant politicians, unknown in their own country, who belonged to no particular camp.

The accomplice of Mihály Károlyi, the other traitor, Béla Lindner, Minister of War, who, on the basis of the Belgrade Military Agreement, disbanded the Hungarian Army before the military action of the Entente, fled to Yugoslavia and lived there until his death. A statue was erected there in his memory.

4. In the Peace Treaty of Versailles, the decisions about Hungary were made by decision-makers who were led astray by lies. Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, later recognized that they had made decisions based on lies: „Some of the proofs, which our allies provided, were lies and distortions. We made decisions on false claims.” (Lloyd George, Speech at Queens Hall in Pozzi, Henri: Századunk bűnösei, (Sinners of our century) p. 283)

5. The most convincing proof of the injustice of the Treaty of Trianon is that, from the territory of Hungary, 4026 square kilometers were given to Austria, who, rather than Hungary, was responsible for the start of the War. Austria, who fought in the War alongside Hungary, as the same state (the Monarchy), also received territory from Hungary!

6. What happened in Sub-Carpathia is similar to the injustice with Austria. In Trianon, Sub-Carpathia was given to Czechoslovakia, so that the Ruthenians, who were in the majority there, would augment the ratio of the Slav population in Czechoslovakia. However, President Beneą, without any reason, simply ceded this territory to the Soviet Union. As a result, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Sub-Carpathia became part of the Ukraine, a country to which it had never belonged in the course of history. The Ruthenians and Hungarians, who had inhabited this territory for more than a thousand years, were not even given the right to self-determination.

7. In the years following the peace announcement of the Treaty of Trianon, history has proven how false was the propaganda of the Entente, spread in all the western countries as a preparation for the War, stating that Hungary was like a prison for the ethnic minorities. The inhabitants of the villages in the territory annexed to Austria did not accept the fact of annexation and, after they were refused self-determination, they took up arms to try to force a decision to reannex them to Hungary. Ten villages were successful in obtaining this result in 1923. From the time of King (Saint) Stephen I. (1000 A.D.) the country has welcomed foreigners and the proof of this is that the deciding inhabitants of these villages were Germans and Croatians. Therefore the German-speaking villages wished to separate from the German-speaking Austria and return to their homeland, the country of the Holy Crown, Hungary.

The following are the ten villages that were reannexed to Hungary: Alsócsatár, Felsőcsatár, Horvátlövő, Kisnarda, Nagynarda, Magyarkeresztes, Németkeresztes, Ólmod, Pornóapáti, Szentpéterfa.

8. The successor states did not in any way fulfill the conditions of their agreements, in which they agreed that they would assure the Hungarians, who came under their rule, their human and national rights.

To the contrary, the states that possessed the territories annexed from Hungary – Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia – with unified political measures, isolated Hungary economically and politically and took steps to split up and assimilate the annexed Hungarian population. In other words, they proceeded with ethnic cleansing – confiscation of property under the name of land reform, educational and cultural oppression, forced declarations of allegiance, colonization, settlement of foreigners, falsification of census data, disadvantageous discrimination against the Hungarians and destruction of the historical and cultural memorials.

In total, it can be established that, in the territories of the successor states, the numbers and ratio of Hungarians have fallen by 50% and their chances of survival have deteriorated, therefore the re-examination of the Treaty of Trianon cannot be postponed.

9. The Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1947 was, for Hungary, another dictated peace, a second Trianon, which exceeded the first. Additional territories were taken from Hungary. During the War, she suffered the greatest loss of life – 15% of her total population – and this suffering people continued to be massacred. In Sub-Carpathia, in Szolyva, the Hungarian Auschwitz, 18,000 people are buried in a communal grave. In Serbia, 40,000 Hungarian citizens were massacred in the fall of 1944. During the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris, there was not a word about them. In Attachment III can be found the data affecting Hungary and the Hungarians in the Treaty of Paris. („The whole Communist section of the Assembly was hissing like a snake.”)

The victors of World War I and World War II used the denouncement of the Hungarians as collectively guilty as war criminals as an excellent tool for the mutilation of the nation and the country. (N. B. the Gyulafehérvár Decision; the Trianon Dictate and the accompanying letter from Millerand, the President of France; the 1943 letter from Molotov, rejecting the more positive judgment in the proposal of the English diplomats, regarding Hungary’s role among the satellite states; the „enslaver of ethnic minorities”; and the label of „the last satellite” etc.)

Thus, the events preceding the peace after both World Wars, just as the creators of peace themselves, are responsible for whipping up the 20^th century hatred of Hungarians.

Today, in the states of the Little Entente, there are outbreaks of Hungarian hatred, which spread like wildfire, with hate-speech against Hungarians, and this is why we feel justified in petitioning the Great Powers and the United Nations to prohibit formally these actions and to provide international protection.

10. The Hungarian people have never really accepted the enforced peace treaties that followed the two World Wars.

The Hungarian state, conducted influencial and conceptual diplomacy against the decision of the Treaty of Trianon, which brought its own fruit: International courts returned to Hungary the territories inhabited by Hungarians. However the Peace Treaty following the second World War overrode these decisions.

Following the Treaty of Paris, the Communist Hungarian State „forgot” the annexed compatriots, for whom it was responsible under the Constitution. At that time, in the annexed territories, primarily in Transylvania, the Hungarians continued their struggle against the injustice. The Romanian state mercilessly retaliated against any peaceful, well-intended opposition. They tortured Kálmán Sass, a pastor of the Reformed Church in Érmihályfalva, sentenced him to death and executed him. They sentenced to death the Roman Catholic priest in Arad, Aladár Szoboszlay, together with nine of his colleagues and they executed them, denying the families, even today, any information about the whereabouts of their earthly remains. Áron Márton, a Roman Catholic bishop, served a long sentence in prison because he attempted to submit a petition to the Paris peace negotiations, to offer a solution more acceptable to the Hungarians. István Dobai, an international lawyer, was sentenced to life-imprisonment because, in a detailed and submissive memorandum, he wanted to propose a lasting settlement of the relations between the Romanians and Hungarians and, within this, the most difficult of all, he wished to propose a solution to the United Nations regarding the population exchange. Attachment No. IV of the current petition contains a memorandum about the Transylvanian case in the United Nations, with the title of: „Blessed are the Peacemakers”, completed on February 8, 1957.

We have summarized in Attachment No. V, further Translylvanian attempts, aimed at a re-examination of the the Peace Treaty of Paris, based on the research that Zoltán Tófalvi has conducted over the past fifteen years.

11. The Trianon and Paris peace negotiations were unjust, and their provisions are still today afflicting Hungarians, in unprecedented proportions, to mention only one – the stolen Hungarian ships and infrastructure, which had a value of 974.685 kg, that is close to one million kg. of pure gold.

Scarcely four years before the outbreak of World War I, on April 2, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, former President of the United States of America and a historian, in a speech before the Hungarian Parliament stated: “This is the opportunity for me to express my thanks to the Hungarian nation for the heroism, with which she defended the European civilization, sword in hand, for close to a thousand years. The fate of this nation in the past was to defend against every uncivilized attack from the East, not only herself but also the West, not just the European West but also America in the womb of Europe. I say this, because I know your history and I would not declare myself to be a cultured man if I did not know it. I thank you once again. I ask every representative to declare in every district that America is indebted to the Hungarian people.” (Original unavailable, translated from Hungarian.)

In 1991, Francois Mitterand, the President of France, also acknowledged the injustice of the Peace Treaty of Trianon.

To this day, it is unclear why the Hungarian people was punished so severely in such an unprecedented manner.

The justification outlined above makes it obvious that the delivery of justice to the Hungarian people cannot be delayed, because the Hungarian Question is not just a question concerning Hungary and her neighbors.

Today, when the European Union wishes to represent „freedom, law and security”, we can no longer tolerate a double standard for even one nation.

Therefore, now that we are approaching a hundred years since the end of the First World War, we can say: Justice for Hungary! That will actually mean Justice for Europe!

Accepted by the highest decision-making body of the World Federation of Hungarians, the Assembly of Delegates of the World Federation of Hungarians

May 1-2, 2009
In Budapest

Miklós Patrubány
President of the World Federation of Hungarians