Former army chief slams Hungarian government in open letter, citing smear campaign and unjust dismissals
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The current government has failed to show an example, and pursued “unfair and atrocious communication and behaviour”, the defence expert of the opposition Tisza Party said in an open letter on Wednesday.
In the letter addressed to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Fidesz group leader Máté Kocsis, Fidesz-KDNP communication director Tamás Menczer and head of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyás, Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi said he had been “deeply offended by the smear campaign he had been subjected to.”
“I am a honest Hungarian citizen who has been wearing a uniform since age 14, has sworn an oath to serve the country and has done so in everyday tasks, at trainings, at war, in the NATO alliance system, and often far away from family and loved ones,” he said, adding that he had done this until the day he was released from duty.
He said he had been released from duty because he refused to assist in the “unprofessional amok run of a defence minister who was a businessman with a degree in agriculture”.
He added that one must ask the question: why was it necessary to fire thousands of soldiers without an explanation, and on what basis they had been selected, considering that many of them were well-trained, multilingual officers less than 45 years old. At the same time, the current chief of staff is 63, he added.
Commenting on recent espionage allegations, he said the government had made them up, accusing him of being Ukraine-friendly and having prepared a fake report.
Fidesz fired thousands of career officers and replaced them with party loyalists to ensure that when the time comes the Hungarian army will be on the side of the party when the people rebel against an illegitimate government that fixes an election. Orban is planning for when he will need to use the army to suppress the Hungarian public just the same as in Belarus. Fidesz is using the Russian textbook to create Orbanistan