Chapter 23
Intrigues and Machinations
But let’s see now what did this bungle cause. It happened on Sunday, 17 September. At 4 p.m. the prime minister, who was in the country at that time, acknowledged that it was his voice. The same evening the machine began to turn: on the large square in front of the parliament building a large crowd began to form. The next day 18 September 2006 several thousands joined the demonstration, the opposition leader included, he made a speech that could have started even a world war. The demonstrators accepted his slogan ‘Gyurcsany clear off!’ demanding the immediate resignation of the prime minister. What the frustration of the crowd made worse was a hapless humbug of the state TV channel that was telling during the late afternoon news that the crowd was numbering about 900 people (instead of the actual tens of thousands).
It resulted in a march of several thousands to the TV building. Those remaining on the square at the parliament drafted a petition to be read in by the TV. Here the centre of gravity began to shift on the extreme right: this paper was to be read by two persons notorious for their breach of peace. It goes without saying that security men wouldn’t let them in. The de facto leaders of this ramble convinced the even bigger crowd on the square to go with them to the TV and back them up. As the chairman of the TV wasn’t inclined to negotiate with them either, and at about 10 p.m. a boost of police arrived, demonstrators started to revile the police and throw stones at them. Although ever more policemen arrived, the crowd didn’t let dissolve itself, even it cooped them up at the entrance.
Around midnight a monitor seemed to bring solution, but water ran out and the police was pushed back. Now the hell began. Demonstrators started to set cars on fire, and one of them lighted the entrance of the building. The perversity of the situation is proven by the fact the demonstrators helped firemen to extinguish fire. However, they took the hosepipe and wanted to use it to take the building. Water was stopped and they didn’t succeed. The second attack of the police with another monitor failed and policemen fled. The monitor was taken and destroyed. Another group of policemen couldn’t manage to make order either. Even they got into trouble as demonstrators threw stones continually. The crowd almost succeeded in disarming the police, although they were shooting in the air with live cartridge, but a new team of policemen saved them.
Police decided to evacuate the building and the petition was accepted. TV broadcast was stopped, the crew escaped. So did a few politicians having been guests in a program during the evening. At last the demonstrators managed to go into the building, where damage was enormous. They did their own contribution to it, almost all movable was taken by them, laptops, PCs, even video cassettes from the archive. After some hours of rambling the demonstrators obeyed the commands of the police to leave the place.
The damage didn’t limit itself to the TV building, also the Soviet military monument on the square in front of it was damaged. One of the demonstrators was taking off the EU flag from the building and replacing it with a national one, when others from the crowd demanded from him to stop it. It would give a lot of possibility for rumours in the international press later. After the broadcast on TV started, the demonstrators read their declaration. In the morning the crowd of demonstrators slowly melted.
During the day after both the prominent actors of the opposition and the head of state spoke. The latter called the attack on the building a line of criminal acts. The opposition, it goes without saying, made the government responsible for the situation. In it there was a large proportion of truth. The police, that was actually headless in the previous evening as the prefect was out of town and unavailable almost all the time, acted like an army without a commander. As there had been no such event for decades nobody knew how to behave. Although the police had all means needed physically, because of its perplexity it couldn’t turn it into advantage. Nobody was responsible and at the same time all the cabinet was. Well, the premier didn’t accept the resignation of the minister of interior.
I don’t think anybody thought about such fame when spoken about being in focus of the world. It showed that during the about 17 years of democracy it had changed into anarchy because of the balance of power standing almost always around equal. As the first cabinet took its place in 1990 the first thing it proposed in the parliament was that a bargain should be made: lots of laws needing a majority of two-thirds was necessary to turn into ordinary fifty percent laws. A bargain, because the liberals, getting the second place in the election, were to vote this change and in return they were to nominate a liberal for head of state. Only 13 of the two-third laws remained. It made the country more governable, but at the same time any greater reform impossible. For that consensus would have been needed, and it became ever less probable to arrive to.
As it is usual, almost nobody got any punishment for those vandal acts. Just the opposite, as, when the opposition would take the governing position, they would start a long row of made-up suits where the responsibility of the instigator would become blurred and that of the official governing body exposed. That was the same with those events happened on the national holiday, about a month after the attack against the TV building. That was the second example for the mismanagement of the police force.
Thus, the atmosphere in public life was not ideal for the elections of local governments in the near future. Its probable that results were shifted to one side. But they went in order and local governments did a much better work in that period than parliament did. As for the second event, they were pre-programmed. The fiftieth anniversary of the 1956 uprising was waited by both sides. The opposition saw it as their sole property, as it was done in their opinion against communist dictatorship. The leftist parties saw it as an attempt to eliminate the cruelty of that dictatorship and improve the same social system. Both considered it a great positive event. The opposition, all the same, wanted it to monopolize for itself, it decided to make it a marker long to remember. Well, they succeeded.
The first act of seclusion was that the big opposition party’s leadership announced they wouldn’t celebrate the anniversary together with ‘this’ government. The venue for their meeting of celebration was best chosen – in the sense of ‘the worse the better’ – a large crossing of two thoroughfares, not far from the inner city. For that purpose it was to be blocked for the traffic during the whole afternoon. The meeting took place in total peace, nobody disturbed anybody. The meeting was addressed by the opposition leader who repeated again that it is impossible to accept the legitimacy of such a government that was the direct successor of the communist dictators and they were to carry on fight on the street until this cabinet would resign. To make it a little worse he invited the chairman of the EU people’ party and that man assured him about his support.
All-the-same, it would make no trouble in itself. What made it so, however, was the second action. Seemingly it was independent of him, but, if you had a brain the size of a crumb, you knew that it was he who freed the monster. A lot of bare-headed young – and not so young – men marched to the square at the parliament to continue their demonstration, but it was cordoned off, with the police standing in battle line on the inner side. The demonstrators began to kick away the cordon and attacked the police. They had mobile phones everywhere and were communicating by them. The police again did two large mistakes. One of them was that the boost force ordered to the capital from the country was left alone without guidance and they lost their way in the strange town. They reached the spot of the trouble too late. The other mistake was almost stupidity. They were able to hear the communication on the mobile phones as they knew who the opposing party consisted of (therefore knew their numbers), however, they let them make a fool of them. In the communication the demonstrators discussed that they should draw the police after them from the closed streets to the venue of the opposition party’s meeting, in order to make as great a disorder as possible.
And it happened as they planned. The meeting was just finished, but as the road had been blocked (in their favour) and not opened yet, there were no ways out as the demonstrators and the police behind them reached the place. As nobody would do as asked by the loud speakers above police cars the police began to accomplish their work. The police wouldn’t repeat their mistakes done a month before, when the opposition called them too soft for not being able to stop the attack. At this time they were not soft at all. They used their batons, as well as rubber balls – never used in Hungary yet – and were hitting first, asking later. An MP of the opposition was hit so badly he was taken to hospital with a broken nose, because he was not quick enough to identify himself before hit on the head.
It is not needed to tell that it was considered too brutal all over the world. The responsible persons were sought for at once and the parliament passed some regulations for the future, e.g. forbade rubber balls. I don’t think it can be evaluated in a reliable way what really happened and who made what kind of mistakes. You must also accept that the insurance companies had their hands full for some days because of the damaged cars in the streets the demonstrators ran along and threw them on fire. It concerns not only abuse by the police. It takes time and a normal atmosphere, not such a one when a new government would start at once a line of investigations into topics that were crimes in their opinion. Only third parties can make a neutral judgment. For a long time there is no hope to find such ones here.
Well, I would say gladly that it was all. It wasn’t. It was only afternoon at this time. There came the evening, when the unveiling of a monument for the 50th anniversary of the uprising was to take place not far from the municipal park. There were a lot of domestic and foreign guests invited, as well as several prominent actors of the cultural life were to perform. The police was unable to ensure the proper circumstances. For the performances silence would be needed. Instead of that there was a constant roar of large cc motorcycles from the background that were leaving there place when the police was coming near, but were only changing their position and making the terrible roar again.
Also, there was a funny incident. An old man stole one of the exhibits, a T-34 tank. It was put on waiting, even the battery taken out and only a little fuel in it, but he – or rather they, as I cannot be convinced that the old man wasn’t only a scapegoat – acquired the proper kind of battery and started it. It soon stopped because of lack of fuel.