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The Eurasian Politician - December 2003
By: Marco Pribilla, 28 Nov. 2003
(Translation: Anssi Kullberg, 7 Dec. 2003)
The successful velvet revolution in Georgia last weekend (22-23 Nov. 2003) has overshadowed the alarming development in another former Soviet republic, Moldova (Moldavia), where people has been driven to street demonstrations by the new plan for solving the crisis of Transnistria, announced by Moscow last week. According to the democratic and pro-Western opposition of Moldova, the Russian plan aims at "liquidation" of the Republic of Moldova, and the demonstrations which started on Tuesday 25 November have gathered thousands of demonstrators to the center of the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, every day. The demonstrators demand rejection of the treaty, resignation of the communist president, and early parliament election.
Although the demonstrations have been mainly peaceful, violence has not been totally avoided. On Tuesday there was a clash between the demonstrators and police, when the police tried to confiscate the sound equipment of the demonstrators. Also the leading figure of the democratic opposition, the vice-chairman of the Christian Democratic Popular Party (PPCD) Vlad Cubreacov was beaten in the incident.
Republic of Moldova, located between Romania and Ukraine, declared independence in 1991, but for over ten years it has suffered from a conflict that started, when the land strip on the eastern side of River Nistru (Dnyestr), the mainly Russian and Ukrainian inhabited Transnistria (a.k.a. Transdnyestria or in Russian Pridnyestroviye) declared secession from Moldova. The roots of the conflict are, however, longer back in the past.
The present Republic of Moldova is roughly the same Bessarabia, i.e. eastern part of the medieval principality of Moldova, which was annexed by Russia in 1812. The western part of historical Moldova joined the principality of Vallachia in 1859 to form the united state of Romania. In the aftermath of the First World War and the October Revolution, Bessarabia re-joined to her motherland Romania, but after some twenty years the region became a pawn in the game of superpowers, and in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty, Bessarabia was claimed in the Soviet sphere of interest.
In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia, and the Soviet Republic of Moldova was constructed mainly of that area. All connections over the River Prut to Romania were cut for decades, and forceful russification of the republic began. Also language and history were subject to heavy russification project by Soviet authorities. The Romanian language, used by the overwhelming majority of Moldova's population, was now renamed by the Soviet authorities as "Moldovan" language, and the alphabets were changed into Cyrillic. Even the historical borders of Bessarabia were not saved - the republic's Black Sea coast was given to Ukraine, while a new narrow strip of land was annexed to Moldova from the eastern side of the Nistru, implanting a population mainly consisting of Ukrainians and Russians. In this way, the Soviet power sewed the seeds for disunity within the Moldovan Republic, and for the Transnistrian conflict.
When the Soviet Union started to disintegrate in 1989, also the Moldovan Soviet Republic woke up to a momentum for liberation. The first step was rehabilitation of the Latin alphabet. Soon the country declared sovereignty, and adopted a tricolor flag modeled on the Romanian flag. During the reign of her first president, Mircea Snegur, Moldova sought to adopt a strong Western orientation, also staying out of the Moscow-dominated "Commonwealth of Independent States" (CIS). A majority of the parliament deputies then supported reunification with Romania, which is very understandable, since about two thirds of the population of Moldova are still ethnic Romanians. The Slavic population is heavily concentrated in Transnistria, Ukrainians and Russians both numbering a bit less than 15 per cent of the population in the republic. In the southern part of the country there lives a small Turkic people of the Gagauzes.
The spring of independent Moldova turned into bloodshed in spring 1992, when the Slavic-majority Transnistria, fearing Moldova's reunification with Romania, declared secession from the republic, and started a Russian-backed rebellion against the Chisinau administration. Armed conflict and a very unfair peace finally led to the end of Moldova's Western orientation, and pro-Moscow factions were pushed into power. In 1993, an ex-communist Petru Lucinschi was made the president, and he annexed his country to the CIS. Controversies between the pro-Romanian "nationalists" of Moldova and the ex-communists have never since been reconciled. Transnistria became a dictatorship out of Chisinau's control, occupied by a large contingent of Russian troops as "peacekeepers". Trade on weapons, drugs and humans flourish in the separatist statelet led by the Stalinist Igor Smirnov, but yet Transnistria is not internationally recognized.
In spite of her poverty and internal problems, Moldova remained as the most free and democratic member of the CIS, until in February 2001 a decisive turn into worse took place, when the Moldovan Communist Party got almost half of the votes in the parliament election, and more than two thirds of the parliament seats. The parliament chose the chairman of the Communist Party, Vladimir Voronin, to president. Voronin is an ethnic Russian and a former KGB officer. During the last two and half years Voronin and his supporters have done all they can to emphasize Moldova's divorce from Romania and to bind the country more tightly to Russia. This has made the pro-Western, pro-EU, and pro-NATO mainly Romanian-speaking opposition to rise into barricades year after year.
The most recent demonstrations were launched when Moscow last week published a treaty draft that aims at a solution to the Transnistria conflict by making Moldova a federation. The former OSCE-led initiatives have all fallen to the rejection by the Russian-backed Stalinist leadership of Transnistria, but the newest draft, written by the number two man of the Russian president Putin's administration, Dmitri Kozak, seemed to get support from both the communist leaders of Moldova and Transnistria. Also the Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma has supported the Russian plan. President Voronin was bound to sign the treaty on Tuesday, and Putin already announced he would make a prompt visit to Chisinau to witness this.
However, according to the democratic opposition of Moldova, accepting the treaty would mean destruction of the state's independence and its fate would be Russian vassalship. Also the OSCE chairman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has strongly criticized the initiative. The treaty would not only make Russian the official language all over the republic, but it would also legalize the presence of Russian army in the republic. An impartiality clause would make it impossible for Moldova to integrate into Western European structures in the future.
On Monday, all opposition parties as well as the most important NGOs together founded the "Committee of the Defence of Moldova's Independence and Constitution", which advised citizens to take immediate action in demonstrations against Moscow's initiative. The marches that started on Tuesday have been participated by thousands of people every day, demanding the rejection of the draft, resignation of president Voronin and early parliamentary election. On Sunday 30 November, a mass demonstration took place, and the struggle is expected to continue until the draft is either buried or essentially altered. The Kremlin draft has proven so problematic that even president Voronin, at the last moment, abstained from signature "for the time being".
The most important support for Moldova's democratic and pro-Western forces has, for the last one and half decade, come from Romania, whereas the European Union and other Western countries have largely abandoned the country to its own fortune. Many eminent European leaders have even publicly dismissed Moldova's aspirations for Western integration. The Moldovan democrats have, however, not yet lost their hope, as the people still seem to believe in Western values. In Chisinau's demonstrations, one can regularly see the flags of the EU and the NATO flying among the tricolors of Moldova and Romania. Western countries should at last show they are worthy of this trust, and make efforts to bring about such a solution to the Transnistria conflict that Moldova's peaceful democratic development would be secured together with the people's freedom and welfare as part of our common Europe.
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The author is a B.A. of social studies specialized in Southeastern Europe, and the chairman of the Finnish Paneuropean Youth.