The new Romanian government could become just as cruel and repressive as the old one if human rights violations are not monitored, warns a Romanian-born NIU student.

Eva Incze, an 18-year-old NIU freshman, comes from a Hungarian minority family and was born in the rural village of Tekero Patak in Romania.

“You need to have free access to television and newspapers to run a campaign, and the government is not allowing that,” Incze said.

“The U.N. (United Nations) or the United States should monitor the (Romanian) government to make sure minorities are treated fairly,” she said.

At age seven, Incze’s parents decided to move the family to Chicago in search of a better life and away from the repressive rule of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

“The whole thing started when a Hungarian priest was going to preach a mass in Hungarian, which was illegal. When police came to arrest him, a human chain of women and children surrounded him. The police started shooting at them,” Incze said.

Ceausescu was executed last December after the violent revolution in Romania.

Romania’s population is 15 percent minorities, most of them Hungarian, Incze said.

“Ceausescu tried everything he could to destroy the Hungarian culture. They would use bulldozers to destroy our schools and we weren’t allowed to read or write in Hungarian … he was afraid of our culture,” she said.

She fears that the New Salvation Front, Romania’s current government, might continue to repress the minorities if no one watches its actions.

“Americans are missing the point,” she said. “They think everything is OK because there was a revolution, but Romania has a long way to go.”

She said President George Bush is too slow in reacting to Eastern Europe’s changes, and the United States should do something concrete to show its support.

Incze was in Romania for two weeks last summer and the imminent revolution did not surprise her.

“The pot had been boiling for quite a while and I could tell it would boil over soon when I was there. People were sick and tired of living just to survive,” she said.

She also said Hungary’s declaration of independence in fall 1989 was a major influence in starting Romania’s revolution.

Incze said Hungarian minorities are extremely proud of their culture, so it made sense to begin the revolution after decades of persecution.

Incze asked anyone interested in helping the minorities in Romania to write or phone their legislators to argue against current U.S. policies toward the country.