Troops Keep Uneasy Peace in Romania

Troops backed by tanks kept an uneasy peace today in Tirgu Mures, where army sources said three people were killed and 226 wounded in rioting between ethnic Hungarians and Romanian nationalists.

Romanian radio reported earlier that six people were killed Tuesday in fighting in the Transylvanian city, but the army figure was corroborated by the district hospital which said it had received three bodies.

A dozen tanks and 500 soldiers and police guarded the center of Tirgu Mures, 280 miles north of Bucharest, where a state of emergency was declared Tuesday after fierce clashes between Romanian nationalists and ethnic Hungarians.

Tensions between the two communities had simmered since the overthrow of the old hard-line Communist government of Nicolae Ceausescu in December but erupted this week into the worst ethnic clashes in Romania for decades.

Ethnic Hungarians and Romanian nationalists attacked each other with gasoline bombs, clubs and scythes Tuesday night before tanks were brought in to separate them.

Deputy Prime Minister Gelu Voican inspected the area of the fighting and told Reuters: “I have come to see the situation, to try to calm things down and see if we can create a spirit of cooperation.”

Thousands of people milled through the streets this morning though shops, offices and workplaces were closed.

The presence of the army did not prevent isolated scuffles breaking out in the elegant Square of Roses, where the hard core of almost 1,000 Hungarian militants remained.

Military sources said an army officer was stabbed and slightly wounded.

The ethnic Hungarians occasionally chanted “Criminals” and “Down with Vatra,” referring to the Romanian nationalist movement Vatra Romanesca. It has been accused of fomenting the violence in Transylvania, where Romanians outnumber Hungarians by four to one.

The Hungarians, who are demanding the right to be taught exclusively in the Hungarian language, appear to have been the better organized of the two communities Tuesday night.