Word: budapesters
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...least 12,000 by year's end. Virtually all the newcomers belong to the large ethnic Hungarian minority (more than 1.7 million) that lives in the western Rumanian region of Transylvania. The immigrants complain that ethnic Hungarians are the victims of official discrimination. Hungarian authorities agree: in April, Budapest protested a new Rumanian program to uproot hundreds of ethnic Hungarian villagers in Transylvania as a deliberate policy of "weakening the identity of national minorities...
...growing number of ordinary Hungarians, one-third of whom have relatives in Transylvania, called for more decisive action. With the approval of reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev, Budapest endorsed vitriolic attacks on the Ceausescu regime in the semi-official press. In January the Hungarian government legalized the status of the refugees already spilling across the border; two months later parliament voted $6 million to pay for resettlement programs in cooperation with church groups and the Hungarian Red Cross...
Days after Janos Kadar's replacement as Communist Party leader by Prime Minister Karoly Grosz, the mood in Budapest was still euphoric. "We won," exulted one party member last week. "It went beyond our expectations," said a high-ranking government figure. Agreed a Western diplomat: "The change is unprecedented in the Soviet bloc...
...market-directed policies he insists are necessary to revive the Hungarian economy, which is weighted down by an $18 billion gross foreign debt and double-digit inflation. But Grosz warned Hungarians not to expect too much too soon. "Many think reform will change everything," he told a Budapest daily. "It is only work that will change our situation...
...chief reformer, Kadar had run Hungary since Moscow installed him in power in 1956. Now he has the largely ceremonial post of party president. Few Hungarians seemed to care; all eyes were on his successor. "This is a talented and politically skilled crowd," said a senior Western diplomat in Budapest of the country's new power elite. "What they might do now is wide open...