In Marosszentgyörgy, which is integrated with Marosvásárhell, the memorial to the victims, wounded and those who were dragged from the bloody Romanian-Hungarian conflict of 1990, etched in memory as Black March, was inaugurated on Saturday.
The monument erected on the border of the local Roman Catholic and Reformed cemeteries recalls with Hungarian, Roma and universal symbols that 31 years ago the Hungarian-speaking Roma of Marosszentgyörgy rose to defend the Hungarian community of Marosvásárhely under attack. It also commemorates the fact that the residents of Marosszentgyörgy tried to prevent buses and trucks carrying agitated Romanian peasants from distant villages from reaching Marosvásárhely with roadblocks.
On March 19, 1990, Romanian village men equipped with sledgehammers and axes were transported to Marosvásárhely to "protect" the town from the Hungarians. The violent, in many cases drunken men ransacked the headquarters of the Romanian Hungarian Democratic Union (RMDSZ) and severely abused the András Sütő . The anti-Hungarian pogrom attempt continued the next day, but then a Hungarian counter-demonstration was also organized. The Hungarian protesters and the gypsies who came to their aid chased the Romanian peasants from Husáng and the Romanian protesters from Marosvásárhely who sympathized with them from the main square of Marosvásárhely.
The clashes resulted in 5 deaths (3 Hungarians and 2 Romanians) and 278 wounded. After the events, the Romanian justice system only investigated the Hungarian counter-reaction, bringing charges only against Hungarians and Roma. The court sentenced two of them to ten, one to six, and the rest to two and one year, respectively.
Referring to the Black March in Marosvásárhely, the Bucharest government reorganized the Romanian intelligence service, the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). The former secret service, the Securitate, which operated as the communist political police, was abolished after the fall of the dictatorship.
The bloody inter-ethnic clash and the partial attribution of responsibility started a strong wave of emigration among the Hungarians, as a result of which the Hungarians in Marosvásárhely became a minority.
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