A TRNC Precedent?

An interesting (certainly by the standards of an int'l law journal's website - cf. the concept of "law school hot" - and perhaps even really interesting) discussion of last year's war in Georgia and its possible repercussions:

I have read in the blogosphere and received emails myself claiming that the events in Georgia require a rethinking and rewriting of the laws governing the use of force and the acquisition of territory. I am rather sceptical but would welcome articles arguing the opposite. To me, it is a case of ‘plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose‘.

But let us first address the depressing politics - this time demoralizing world politics perfectly personified by some celestial Central Casting.

First, the breathtakingly cerebrally challenged Saakashvili, whose every move, including throwing the match into the dry tinder, has militated against his desired entry of Georgia into NATO. The conspiracy minded may well claim that he was a Russian agent. His one redeeming feature were his blustering sophomoric news conferences which supplied relief to a very serious situation - comic relief, that is, provided by the squirming dignitaries forced to stand, ex officio, by his side and suffer each of his ‘I told you so…!’

Then we were treated to a rather new scary spectacle - US officials palpably and transparently aware of their real and perceived weakness, also of their lack of credibility, speaking loudly whilst carrying a broken reed. It is a photo-finish as to which America gives us more of a shiver - blustering, over-confident, but strong, or blustering, under-confident, and weak.

And then there was the redoubtable Sarkozy and Merkel (but hardly Solana…!) making all the right noises of ‘engagement diplomacy’, but unable to paper over the deep internal divisions within the Union, and therefore manifesting again Europe’s long inability to translate its economic might into political and military capital - so what’s new? Only Putin comes out entirely in control - hopefully, in the long run, a Pyrrhic victory.

The Russians will not withdraw from the two rump entities any time soon and no one will push them either. Have the Superpowers not been somewhat more equal than everyone else for some time now? That does not make the invasion any more legal than that of, say, Turkey into Cyprus and the status of the rump ’statelets’ is indeed likely to remain more like that of Northern Cyprus than that of Bangladesh. This may not be the time for talking of ’shifting paradigms’ (a less elegant phrase might be ‘koshering the pig’) but perhaps it is rather even more important to hold fast to the old ones oft consecrated in their breech. But I am sure there are other views out there and EJIL or EJIL:Talk! would welcome hearing them.

When I first read this earlier in the year, it made think of an article I saw back in December which made me think of the idea of a "TRNC precedent" (the phrase that popped into my mind, as a natural counterpoint to the idea of a "Kosovo precedent" which has been widely touted by secessionists the world over, but especially in the post-Soviet space) which is alluded to by the author above.

And now there's been an interesting follow-up to that article I saw in December: it seems that Greeks forced out of Northern Cyprus can lay claim to their land in the European Court of Justice. I wonder if this will have an impact on real estate prices in Abkhazia (especially since the registration of property claims by people displaced in the conflict there has been going on for years)?

Greek Cypriots 'can reclaim land'

The EU's top court has backed the right of a Greek Cypriot to reclaim land in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus that has since been sold to a UK couple.

BBC News, 28 April 2009

Meletis Apostolides was one of thousands of Greek Cypriots who fled his home when Turkish forces invaded in 1974, following a Greek-inspired coup.

The land was later sold to Linda and David Orams, who built a villa on it.

The European Court of Justice says a ruling in a Cypriot court that the villa must be demolished is applicable.

Even if the ECJ ruling cannot be enacted because the land is under Turkish Cypriot control, it means Mr Apostolides will be able to pursue a claim for compensation in a UK court.

It could also open the way for hundreds more Greek Cypriots to demand restitution for properties they were forced to flee.

Many Britons and other foreigners have invested in property in northern Cyprus, despite the legal ownership still being in some doubt.

Mr Apostolides said he was "very much" pleased with the EU court's ruling, and that it was "what we expected".

He added: "This is a difficult issue that has to be decided by the courts."

Property boom

The European Court of Justice ruling on Tuesday said that the decision of a Cypriot court in Nicosia was applicable in the north, even though Cyprus does not exercise control there.

It also said that one EU country - in this case the UK - must recognise judgments made in the courts of another.

The Republic of Cyprus joined the EU in 2004.

EU law was suspended in northern Cyprus for the purposes of Cyprus's accession, but lawyers argued successfully that the Orams' civil case still falls within the scope of the EU regulation.

Northern Cyprus is self-governing and still occupied by the Turkish army, but is not recognised internationally.

Nevertheless, it has become a thriving tourist destination in recent years, and house-building has boomed.

Some of those houses have been sold by Turkish Cypriots to foreigners, even though the land they were built on was once owned by Greek Cypriots and its legal status remained uncertain.

Property disputes dating back to 1974 have been one of the main obstacles to efforts to reunify Cyprus.

Correspondents say dispossessed Greek Cypriots are now likely to launch more legal battles, which in turn may harden opposition to reunification among Turkish Cypriots.

Russia's approach to NGOs: the "tarnished image problem" and "preventing color revolutions"

I happened upon this (admittedly somewhat outdated) paper (pdf) titled "Contextual and Legislative Analysis of the Russian Law on NGOs," by an American named Josh Machleder who was working as an Alfa Fellow at the INDEM Foundation back when this law was big news. I haven't read it closely, but the section headings make it look quite interesting.

Update April 29 - looks like this topic is still current, here's a recent piece on it from OpenDemocracy that I just saw today.

Battling Historical Narratives

Moldova in Myths and Legends, Chisinau, April 14.

I already pointed out how the government-run newspaper Moldova Suverana equated the protesters / rioters on April 7th with fascist Romanians retaking Chisinau in 1941. Now I have seen the flip side of this exaggeration of historical parallels, in a message sent around a few days ago by an opposition activist:

The Moldovan state authorities' violence against protesters is without precedent. Unlawful arrests, preventing access to a lawyer, torture, sexual abuse towards arrested young women are comparable only with the Soviet times in 1940s, when the country was militarily incorporated in the USSR along with the Baltic States.

Making Sense of Recent Events in Moldova

Wondering what happened, Chisinau, April 12.

The international community continues to digest the events of the past couple of weeks in Moldova. Statements from the UN can be found here and here, and Amnesty International has expressed its concern here and here (see here for AI Moldova's website and here for a more in-depth memo covering Amnesty's concerns), and offers you a chance to sign an online petition calling on the Moldovan authorities to protect detainees from human rights abuses here.

A webcast of an event held last week by the Moldova Foundation in DC entitled "Moldova's "Twitter Revolution" and Post-election Political Crisis" may also be worth watching, although I haven't had time to look at it yet.

Nicu Popescu had an op-ed in the FT on Friday (see full text here also) which does a good job of setting the context and makes things seem rather dire:

Just before Easter, as European diplomats were packing for the holidays, a crisis erupted in the forgotten and usually quiet Moldova that will require their intervention to sort out. Without a quick political solution, the European Union could face a new consolidated autocracy like Belarus on its border. Relations with Russia would deteriorate further and the launch of the eastern partnership initiative, under which the bloc aims to strengthen ties with six ex-Soviet states, would be undermined.

The trouble started two days after elections on April 5, which delivered a third straight victory to the Communist party. A minority of violent protesters broke into the parliament and the presidential palace, prompting the government to accuse Romania, an EU member state, of plotting a coup d'état in Moldova. More importantly, it also launched an indiscriminate crackdown on opposition parties, peaceful protesters and independent journalists. [...]

Russia quickly reacted to the crisis with political and practical support for the government's crackdown. President Dmitry Medvedev and the Russian foreign ministry have made numerous statements offering their backing to Vladimir Voronin, Moldova's president. For Russia, a more isolated Moldova is a more likely political ally.

The consequences of the crisis for the eastern partnership could be dire. Moldova is more dependent on the EU than any other eastern neighbour. More than 50 per cent of its trade is with the EU, the country receives significant EU assistance, most Moldovan emigrants work in the EU and almost three-quarters of Moldova's population support EU integration.

If the EU cannot influence Moldova, broader questions about its relevance in the eastern neighbourhood will emerge. The eastern partnership summit planned for early May could be a public relations disaster if it looks like the 27 EU heads of state are conferring legitimacy to a bunch of autocrats, killing the policy politically before it has been properly launched.

The long-term consequences of the crisis could be even more far-reaching. Moldova already has more than 100,000 Romanian citizens and Traian Basescu, Romania's president, has pledged to facilitate issuing passports. The EU faces the prospect of Moldova becoming a Russian political satellite with hundreds of thousands of EU citizens subject to a repressive regime. The EU has never faced such a dilemma. [...]

The genie of Moldovan authoritarianism is out of the bottle. Simple EU persuasion will not be enough to push it back. Huge international pressure forced even Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe to share power with the opposition in 2008. The job in Moldova might be much easier, but only if the EU cares enough to act.

Nicu has also written in recent days about the prospect of Moldova's isolation and the fact the Moldova now faces, in addition to the need to reunify with its breakaway region of Transdniestria, "the need for a second reintegration: the reintegration of a society divided by violence."

In addition, I wanted to highlight an op-ed piece run on Foreign Policy's website by Cristina Batog, who writes the following:

Because of [the opposition's] lack of cohesion and leadership, the protests have been doomed from the start, and the way events unfolded has only resulted in the tarnishing of everything the protesters stand for -- unification with Romania, the importance of a youth voice, and the ideal of democratic protest itself. Almost every election in Moldova has been accompanied by protests in Chisinau, typically initiated by young professionals and students. But this time, the protests quickly spun out of control. Whether you believe the opposition's argument that Moldovan security services and the communist government provoked the clash, or the government's argument that Romania manipulated the protesters, the results were counterproductive to say the least. Government buildings were vandalized, demonstrators clashed with police, and hundreds of protesters were beaten and arrested.

The opposition has the right idea politically, but the wrong idea tactically. Instead of taking to the streets, it should accept that it lost the elections fairly and should start creating a united force that can challenge the communists through democratic procedures and institutions. Likewise, the communist leadership fails to realize that it is fighting an uphill battle: The young people jailed in droves are the best and brightest of Moldovan society and will eventually become the republic's elite. Also, the Communist Party's anti-Romanian ideology is unsustainable and self-defeating in the long run. The communists should stop criminalizing pro-Romanian ideas and accept that Romanian history and language are an integral part of the Moldovan national identity.

Also worth reading are a couple of recent articles from Jamestown's Vlad Socor: "Moldovan Authorities Caught Unprepared by Violent Riots" and "Moldova's Body Politic in Gridlock After Elections and Riots."

The FT had an interesting piece quoting Speaker of Parliament and possible next President Marian Lupu admitting and apparently rationalizing human rights abuses committed by police in Chisinau:

Marian Lupu, speaker of Moldova’s parliament, said the amnesty from prosecution announced on Wednesday by Vladimir Voronin, Moldova’s president, must apply to protesters who contested the Communists’ election victory two weeks ago as well as to the police who beat them in holding cells.

“The president said there would be an amnesty for everybody involved,” he told the Financial Times. “Logically, if you forgive one side then you have to forgive the other side as well.” [...]

Mr Lupu said police had reacted emotionally to the injuries sustained by their colleagues. “They visited their colleagues in hospital, some 200 of them, and saw how badly injured they were.”

The FT is also on top of a very important developing story involving something that's been of interest to me for some time - Romania's citizenship policy with respect to Moldovans

I also highly recommend the ongoing English-language coverage - inter alia, of police (mis)treatment of detainees and of the potential for Moldova to develop in authoritarian direction - by Dumitru Minzarari.

Russian pundit Dmitry Babich also had a fairly interesting piece about recent events.

And if you read Russian, I highly recommend checking out the two-part post by Alexei Ghertescu, a young lawyer in Chisinau, in which he recounts his own experience of the events of April 7th. If I have time, I will translate his very interesting account of that fateful day.

As for my own thoughts about what happened in Chisinau, I am still trying to figure everything out, a task which hasn't been aided by the fact that one of my best friends from high school has been in London over the weekend for his first ever visit to the city.

I do know one thing. Today was the day when just about everyone (both Russian and Romanian Orthodox churches, as far as I know) in Moldova celebrates Easter. So I guess I can just wish everyone there a happy Easter and hope that the holiday brought at least a bit of a sense of peace to the country's people, who have experienced far too much fear in recent weeks.

Photos from Chisinau

Construction workers repairing the Presidential Palace on April 12 discard a damaged pane of glass

I have uploaded some of my photos from Chisinau to this set on Flickr. The set includes a number of photos from the opposition rally last Sunday the 12th and also some of the damage done to government buildings downtown. Nothing too special, but it's Chisinau the way I saw it on this trip.

I'm still trying to come up with a narrative on which to hang all of my interview notes, so if anyone's actually waiting with bated breath for that, I'm afraid you may have to wait another day. In the meantime, below is an absolute slew of articles sent around by the Moldova Foundation today - yes, I'm too lazy to do the clipping for you, dear readers, since it's already been done, albeit rather selectively. Click on the words "Read More..." below to, well, read more.

One thing I would note regarding a couple of the articles below that mention Natalia Morari and suggest she's either in some kind of detention or (quoting her) on the run, underground in Moldova (actually, on my last full day in Chisinau I heard a rumor she was hiding in Transdniestria!) - it's strange that neither of those articles points out that on her blog, her husband has posted a message stating that she is fine and at home in Chisinau under house arrest and is incommunicado due to being under some sort of gag order. Obviously it's not the gospel truth just because it's on her blog, but you'd think one of the journos would have looked it up and at least mentioned the contradiction between what Ms. Morari is saying to the Telegraph and what her husband is saying on LJ.

Oh, and one more article that's worth reading but didn't make the selection below is this NYT piece, which does as good a job as the newspaper article format allows of examining the thorny question of Moldovan national identity in light of last week's events.


LIBERALS, LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND OUR MOLDOVA REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN VOTE RE-COUNTING
Infotag (Moldova)
April 15, 2009

The three main opposition forces that have won seats in the next Parliament of Moldova – the Liberal Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Moldova Noastra Alliance – have announced they will not have a finger in re-counting the ballots cast at the April 5 parliamentary elections in this republic.

MNA leader Serafim Urechean stated at a news conference in Infotag today that the vote re-counting, scheduled by the Central Election Commission for April 15 to last only one day, is “but a farce organized by the Communist Party… The Communists are undertaking an attempt to legitimize the April 5 voting returns that were rigged. We are checking voter registers, but shall not participate in the Wednesday’s ballot re-counting, the more so that nobody can say what has happened to the sacks with ballot-papers since the election day”.

Urechean expressed regret that the vote re-count will suspend the voter-register check work being carried out by the said opposition parties.

“We would like to draw your attention to one thing: the vote recount, initiated by the Communist Party, will be carried out by [over 20 thousand] members of electoral commissions all over the republic – certainly for the public means. And the opposition parties are examining voter registers all by themselves and on party money”, said Serafim Urechean.

Liberal Party Chairman Mihai Ghimpu voiced apprehension that new violations may be committed during the vote recounting tomorrow.

“We know that sacks with ballot-papers are stored somewhere in the Central Election Commission. We are not ruling out that a ballot substitution may be organized. As you all know, the Communists are now in a desperate quest for one parliamentary mandate, which they are, so far, missing for electing a new president independently”, said Mihai Ghimpu.

As Infotag has already reported, the re-counting idea was put forward by the Communist Party Chairman, President of Moldova Vladimir Voronin, and the Constitutional Court and the Central Election Commission have approved of such recount.

…DO NOT RECOGNIZE ELECTION OUTCOME, AND CALL FOR RERUN

Chisinau. The above-mentioned three main opposition parties will demand that the outcome of the April 5 parliamentary election be declared null and void, and will call for a new election, LDPM leader Vlad Filat stated at the news conference he held jointly with the leaders of the Liberal Party and the MNA.

"The opposition parties have gathered enough evidence that the election outcome was rigged," Filat said. "While checking electoral rolls we have found out that people who died many years ago participated in the election. Minors and people who have been working abroad for many years have also been included in election lists and subsequently cast their ballots”.

"He said that the opposition would in the near future present a joint report on the results of checking election lists.

"We will present the mechanism of falsification of election results and will show that some 400,000 additional people were included in election lists, and that 'dead souls', as well as minors and those who have gone abroad cast their ballots in the recent election," Filat said.

At the same time, the Liberal Party, the LDPM and the MNA expressed deep concern about the fate of young people arrested in the wake of the 6-7 protest rallies in Chisinau. The three parties asked for their unconditional release and pledged to bring evidence showing the real provocateurs behind the 7 April mass riots. The Liberal Party, the LDPM and the MNA also demanded access to the Teleradio-Moldova company but so far they have received no answer.

At the April 5 , the parties won together 41 out of 101 parliamentary seats. The other 60 seats were won by the ruling Communist Party.

* * *

DEMONSTRATIONS PROMPT MOLDOVAN RECOUNT
By Thomas Escritt, Financial Times (UK)
April 12 2009

Moldova’s Constitutional Court on Sunday agreed to stage a recount of last week’s election after thousands of people took to the streets to protest against alleged police brutality.

President Vladimir Voronin asked the court to consider a recount on the grounds that it could re-establish calm after the ransacking of Moldova’s parliament last week following claims that parliamentary elections were rigged in favour of the Communists.

Some 5,000 protesters gathered in Chisinau’s main square on Sunday, summoned by the strains of pop music that all but drowned out a choir singing to the Palm Sunday procession in front of the capital’s Orthodox cathedral.

Iurie Leanca, a former minister from the Liberal Democrat party, one of three opposition parties that contests the results of last Sunday’s elections, said: “The aim is to focus on the civil rights violations. Young people have been beaten in police stations ... Some parents still can’t find out where their children are.”

It emerged on Sunday that one protester had died in police custody. The interior ministry denied opposition claims that the man had been beaten and blamed the death on gas used for crowd control.

“The more they beat us, the stronger we become,” said Vlad Filat, Liberal Democrat chairman. “The more they violate our human rights, the stronger is our will to fight.”

The government says 252 people have been taken into custody since Tuesday, and 121 have been placed under house arrest. Charges have been filed against 286, while 17 minors were cautioned.

Ala Meleca, interior ministry spokesman, said claims of police brutality had not been investigated, since none had taken place.

A senior official in the prime minister’s office attacked the European Union’s “passivity” in the face of last week’s rioting.

“If Moldova turns into Belarus, it will be the EU’s fault,” the official told the Financial Times, drawing a parallel with the authoritarian former Soviet state that enjoys close relations with Moscow. The official also criticised the conciliatory tone of Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, who last week labelled the storming of parliament “unacceptable” while stressing the importance of the right to peaceful protest.

Foreign observers signed off on the elections, in which the ruling Communist party won 49 per cent of the vote, but the opposition claims biased media coverage, ballot stuffing and travel restrictions skewed the outcome.

Peaceful protests turned violent last Tuesday, culminating in the storming of the parliament and presidency buildings in central Chisinau.

Communist party officials accuse the opposition of fomenting unrest with the aid of neighbouring country Romania.

Additional reporting by agencies in Chisinau

* * *

MOLDOVA STARTS RECOUNT AS OSCE SEES ABUSES
The Associated Press (US)
16 April 2009

Moldovan authorities began a recount Wednesday of votes cast in the country's disputed April 5 parliamentary elections, an official said.

Iurie Ciocan, a spokesman for the Central Election Committee, said results would be announced Friday. Initial results showed the Communist Party with about 50 percent of the vote.

In Vienna, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said it had verified some claims that authorities abused demonstrators who protested the election results. The organization requested access to detention facilities and a meeting with a prosecutor.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek will also visit Chisinau on April 22 to assess the situation, the Moldovan president's office said Wednesday. The Czech Republic currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

Also Wednesday, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said it would extradite two Moldovans suspected of organizing anti-government protests last week.

Gabriel Stati and Aurel Marinescu are being held in Odessa, where they were detained Thursday, said Yuriy Boichenko, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office. He said the two men might be handed over Thursday. Stati is the son of Anatol Stati, one of Moldova's richest men, whose investments in oil have contributed to his estimated wealth of $2.63 billion.

Chisinau's mayor Dorin Chirtoaca claimed Wednesday that a second person had died from beatings that he suffered in detention after the April 7 protests. Moldovan prosecutors said they would investigate the death of Ion Tibuleac, 22, who was buried Saturday.

* * *

U.N. CALLS FOR RESTRAINT, PEACEFUL DISSENT
UPI (USA)
April 14, 2009


The United Nations has called on security authorities in Moldova to show restraint following an outbreak of violence in recent protests.

U.N. officials in Moldova echoed a call Monday from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for police to maintain order but show restraint from taking actions that might provoke more violence.

Following Moldova's parliamentary elections on April 5, young protesters took to the streets of the country's capital, Chisinau. The protests turned violent and prompted a call from the United Nations for protesters to dissent peacefully, the United Nations reported.

Ban called on leaders in Moldova to resolve differences through constructive dialogue in order to avoid ongoing unrest.

"Citizens must exercise their rights in a peaceful manner, and for their part, authorities must exercise restraint in policing demonstrations and guarantee fundamental human rights, including the right to physical and psychological integrity and the right to freedom of opinion, expression, association and assembly," the U.N. news release said.

* * *

MOLDOVA DETAINEES ABUSED, SAYS UN OFFICIAL
By Thomas Escritt, Financial Times (UK)
April 14 2009

Hundreds of young people detained after anti-government protests in Moldova have been subjected to "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment and denied access to legal advice, a United Nations official says.

Detainees described being beaten with clubs, water bottles, fists and feet, according to a confidential report that includes evidence provided by the UN human rights adviser in the country and seen by the Financial times.

The report says there is abundant evidence prisoners were being held in inhumane conditions with 25 to 28 individuals in 8m-square cells, denied food and given only limited access to water and basic sanitary facilities.

Hundreds of young people in Chisinau were arrested last week after protests against the outcome of elections 10 days ago turned violent when a group of protesters stormed the parliament and presidency buildings, setting the former ablaze. The protesters claim the Communist party, which won 49 per cent of the vote, stole the election.

The government declined to comment on the report, but referred to an earlier statement by the interior ministry that there would be no investigation into police brutality since no such cases had taken place.

Edwin Berry, the UN human rights adviser, said he had not written the report but confirmed it was based on evidence he gathered during a prison visit made on Saturday. "I did see evidence of acts of cruel and unusual punishment," he said.

The report is based on a visit to a single detention centre. A delegation consisting of Mr Berry and representatives of the country's National Preventative Mechanism on Torture, an officially sanctioned group of human rights organisations, was denied access to two other jails, in spite of legislation that allows them to conduct unannounced visits to any detention centre.

The report says detainees were "brought before a judge in blocks of six" and "collectively charged . . . [by means of] a template document. At no time did [the] detainees have access to a legal council".

Moldova's Constitutional Court on Sunday agreed to stage a recount of last week's election after thousands of people took to the streets to protest against alleged police brutality and mass arrests.

The recount takes place on Wednesday.

The communists, who are popular with older people and the many Slavic-speakers marooned in the former Soviet Republic after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have presided over eight years of strong growth in Moldova, a country of 4.4m sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine.

The communist president, Vladimir Voronin, has said last week's violence formed part of a Romanian-backed attempted "coup" and he has questioned the loyalty of the many Moldovans who hold dual Romanian citizenship.

* * *

MOLDOVA EXPELLING AMERICAN HEAD OF NDI OFFICE
Interfax (Russia)
Apr 15, 2009

A Chisinau court ordered on Wednesday that American Alex Grigorjevs, resident director of the Moldovan office of the U.S. National Democratic Institute, be expelled
from Moldova, his lawyer Costal Tense said.

On Tuesday, two Moldovan policemen arrested Grigorjevs at his office in central Chisinau and took him to court, Tanase told Interfax.

"After a personal identification procedure, he was handed a summons to court for Wednesday. On Wednesday, the court ruled that Alex Grigorjevs must leave Moldovan territory as he has been in the country without permission," Tanase said.

The lawyer confirmed that Grigorjevs' permit for residence in Moldova expired in September 2008.

"However, in August he asked for his residence permit to be extended. The authorities did not respond. He advised the Moldovan foreign minister, Andrei Stratan, about this, and Stratan confirmed that everything would be all right," Tanase said.

The lawyer said he would appeal the ruling.

Grigorjevs has been posted on Moldova since the NDI's Moldovan office opened in 2004.


* * *

EU ACCUSED OF TURNING BLIND EYE OVER MOLDOVA
By Thomas Escritt, Financial Times (UK)
April 15 2009

Vlad Filat, leader of one of three parties that are challenging the results of Moldova’s parliamentary elections has accused the European Union of turning a blind eye to mounting evidence of human rights abuses in the country.

Concern is growing for Natalia Morari, the Russian journalist who organised last Tuesday’s protest using social networking sites and SMS texts. Ms Morar, who has been in hiding, was reported arrested on Tuesday. “I’m in a holding cell going to court in 45 minutes,” she told the Financial Times by text message. Her whereabouts are not now known.

Mr Filat, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat party, said the European Union’s response to mass arrests of opposition protesters in the wake of the elections had been inadequate.

“We understand that there are geopolitical realities and that they have to engage with Voronin [Moldova’s Communist president], but the serious human rights abuses we have seen over the past 10 days are more urgent,” he told the Financial Times in an interview.

The accusation came ahead of the electoral commission’s announcement on Wednesday evening of the results of a vote recount which opposition parties dismiss as a tactical feint by the Communists.

The opposition says electoral rolls were padded out with the names of the dead and people who left Moldova long ago. Attempts to vet the electoral rolls were halted by a court decision on Tuesday evening.

Moldova’s ruling Communist party won 49 per cent of the vote on April 5 in an election opposition parties say was stolen.

Peaceful student protests that began on Tuesday rapidly descended into violence when an apparently small and unrelated group stormed the parliament and presidency buildings, setting the former ablaze. The government admits some 300 protesters have since been arrested, but the opposition claims more than 1,000 are in jail.

Mr Filat said concern about driving Moldova’s government closer to Russia was overshadowing concern for the detainees, many of whom have been beaten, according to a UN report.

“There are politicians who are concerned about values and rights and politicians who care about strategy and geopolitics in Brussels. But how can US and EU politicians talk about geopolitics when their policies are based on very different values,” Mr Filat said.

Statements from Brussels so far have condemned last Tuesday’s violence. “The important thing is to get the political process back on track,” an EU official in Chisinau told the Financial Times.

Moldova is divided between speakers of Moldovan, a variant of Romanian, and Slavic-speakers, many of whom were marooned in the former Soviet republic of 4.4m after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Mr Voronin, a former Soviet general, maintained good relations with Moscow until a split over the future of the breakaway province of Transdnistria in 2005. The opposition parties, which are supported by Moldovan speakers, say the Communists’ commitment to European integration is only rhetorical.

* * *

ROMANIA TO TAKE SITUATION IN R. MOLDOVA TO ECHR, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Financiarul (Romania)
April 16, 2009

Romania will address the ECHR with respect to limiting the right to the free movement of the Romanian citizens in the Republic of Moldova and it will also call on the European Parliament for an inquiry, President Traian Basescu told the public television TVR late on Tuesday.

'You can be sure there was no joke in the speech I delivered (to the Parliament - editor's note) when I said we'll notify the international courts. The restriction of the right to the free movement of the Romanian citizens, the violation of the agreement between the EU and Moldova will be one of the topics we'll put forward to the ECHR.

The Romanian citizens were deprived of a right they had, the Romanian citizens were searched, the Romanian journalists were deprived of the right to do their job', Basescu stressed.

He said Romania will notify the ECHR with respect to the Moldovan authorities' attitude towards the Romanian journalists, since 'what happened to the Romanian journalists in the Republic of Moldova - they were arrested, detained, searched, some were denied entry to the Republic of Moldova - are things we are going to present the ECHR'.

The president also said Romania was likely to ask for an inquiry by the European Parliament. 'Maybe it is too early and not too political to speak of the second move we plan to make. We want a European inquiry by the European Parliament, where the foreign policy commission or the plenary sitting can make such a decision. We are trying to carry out both alternatives and I hope tomorrow I'll manage to hold the exploratory talks', he added.

Basescu pointed out the main goal of Romania is that the abuse be found against the Romanian citizens or those who have double citizenship; the issue in Chisinau is to certify the seats of the parliamentarians who have double citizenship - Romanian and Moldovan, he underscored.

'This is another reason why we'll go to the ECHR. The Romanian citizenship is not a second rate citizenship. It is European citizenship. The citizens who have such citizenship should not be discriminated', he said.

Basescu added there is not yet a full evaluation of what is going on in the neighbouring country.'
At that meeting to which I invited the foreign minister and the prime minister, the day after the Chisinau events, one of the things we established as being a priority was that we be informed about how many citizens who have Romanian citizenship are there in the jails of the Interior Ministry in Chisinau. Not even today have we got an answer from the Chisinau authorities', Basescu said.

The president stressed that Romania's attitude towards the Republic of Moldova was temperate in the past as well, when two clerics and two diplomats had been expelled.

'There are attitudes and actions of the Chisinau Government to which we did not respond. It takes the acceptance of both sides to build a curtain. Can you image how things would have got complicated if we had matched our answer and had expelled the Moldovan ambassador, if we had introduced a visa tax for the Moldovan citizens seeking to come to Romania', Basescu said.

* * *

ROMANIA SLAMS VORONIN ATTEMPT TO RAISE ‘IRON CURTAIN’
By Mihai Barbu, Nine o'Clock (Romania)
April 15, 2009

Romania will not give R. of Moldova President Vladimir Voronin the opportunity to raise an iron curtain over Prut River, President Traian Basescu said on Monday evening after a meeting at Cotroceni Palace with education trade unionists.

“He himself can decide or try to raise an iron curtain over Prut River. We will not give him the opportunity to do this, because we will have a European behaviour, a responsible behaviour, not to President Voronin, but to the four million Romanians who live in Moldova, the four million Romanians, citizens of the Republic of Moldova, who are part of this people,” Basescu said.

He added that he kept silent over the topic so far, in spite of opposition parties’ criticism, because he wanted to have an overall view of what happened in the R. of Moldova. “I thought that giving a rushed response to President Voronin was exactly the kind of game he wanted to draw us in,” he said.

Basescu refused to make further comments, saying he would address all issues related to the Moldova events and the “ungrounded accusations Chisinau authorities, including Voronin, brought against Romania,” in his Parliament address.

Chisinau last week was gripped by violent protests against the ruling Communist Party’s victory in the legislative elections. One person was killed, dozens were injured and over 200 were arrested following a day of clashes between demonstrators and police, in which protesters stormed the parliament building and President Voronin’s offices. The opposition insisted that the legislative elections, which were won by the Communists, were rigged and asked for a repeat of the ballot.

Voronin directly accused Romania of being behind the protests and immediately moved to expel the Romanian ambassador to Moldova and to introduce visas for Romanians. Romania rejected the allegations as “provocation”, but underlined that it will not take similar measures against Moldovan diplomatic personnel in Bucharest.

Geoana: Romania must redefine its position in Moldova ties

Meanwhile yesterday, during a debate on the Moldova events, Senate Speaker Mircea Geoana underlined that Romania should redefine its position in the current international context and in its ties with the Republic of Moldova. Geoana said Romania is somehow isolated in the EU and underlined that this is proven by the weak response of European states to anti-Romanian attitudes in Chisinau.

“The neighbour we have the best ties with at the moment is the Black Sea. We have an obligation to the Republic of Moldova and it is high time we redefine our position to these events,” Geoana said. He added that Romania is facing difficult ties with both Moldova and Russia at the moment.

Geoana also said that both at Brussels and Washington, there is low interest in regional developments, not only in R. of Moldova, but also in Ukraine and Georgia, which are also facing a difficult period.

The debate was also attended by FM Cristian Diaconescu, the head of the Social-Democrat Party’s National Council, Adrian Nastase, the head of the Senate’s foreign affairs committee, Titus Corlatean and several politicians, analysts and NGO representatives.

Nastase, a former foreign minister and prime minister, criticized President Basescu for the current ‘poor state’ of Romania’s foreign policy and said he expected the head of state’s Parliament address, scheduled later on Tuesday evening, to be an “image exercise, some sort of hysteric circus”.

A similar opinion was voiced by ex President Emil Constantinescu, who said in an interview to RFI that Romania’s neighboring policies have failed and that Basescu’s speech in Parliament would only be meant to impress the public. “In my opinion, the president doesn’t know what to do, neither he nor the government has any kind of strategy” regarding Moldova, he said. In an earlier statement, Constantinescu protested the “repressive and illegitimate” actions taken by Moldovan authorities to repress opposition demonstrations and called on Amnesty International, the Council of Europe and the OSCE to intervene. Also yesterday, Chamber of Deputies Speaker Roberta Anastase said she decided to sent a letter to her EU counterparts, to draw attention on the events in Chisinau, which “proved the undemocratic nature” of Voronin’s rule. Anastase voiced deep concern over the actions of the Moldovan government and the country’s democratic perspectives.

She also criticized the authorities’ “brutal and abusive” actions against demonstrators and the measures taken against foreign journalists. Her comments came as on Monday evening, a spokesperson for the PSD, Cristian Dumitrescu, said his party was going to ask the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations to dispatch missions to R. of Moldova so as to clarify all allegations of human rights violations.

Tension still high in Moldova

The three largest opposition parties in Moldova – the Liberal Democrats, the Liberals and Our Moldova Alliance, yesterday demanded that the April 5 polls be cancelled and new elections be held, saying they have enough evidence to prove that the elections were rigged. “We checked the lists of voters and found that several people who died years ago or who have been living abroad for a long time were on these lists,” the head of Liberal-Democrats, Vlad Filat said.

The votes will be recounted today, at the request of President Voronin. Opposition parties charge that Voronin hopes the communists will obtain one more seat in Parliament after a recount, so as to be able to impose the next president.

Meanwhile, allegations of abuse and violence against people detained following last week’s protests continued. The family of a young man who was arrested and beaten up by police agents said they were going to sue the Chisinau police, while the head of the Moldovan Center for Human Rights said that three children, who were also detained, without their parents’ knowledge, were “put under a lot of pressure.”

Chisinau Mayor and Liberal leader Dorin Chirtoaca said that the Moldovan police are trying to hide the ‘ill treatment’ detainees were subjected to, by moving them from Chisinau to other police offices across the country or to unknown locations.

In an online discussion with HotNews readers, Chirtoaca said those who commit these severe acts against citizens should be tried for crimes against humanity at The Hague.

On Monday evening, the Moldovan Foreign Ministry withdrew the accreditation of a correspondent of the Romanian public television to Chisinau. The decision was heavily criticized by the Romanian public TV channel.

* * *

MOLDOVAN OPPOSITION TO BOYCOTT RECOUNT, CALLS FOR NEW VOTE
AFP (France)
April 14, 2009

Leaders of Moldova's main opposition parties said Tuesday they would boycott a recount of disputed legislative elections, calling it a sham and demanding a new vote.

"The recount is a farce which the Communists thought up in order to legalize violations that occurred during the election," Serafim [Urechian], head of the Our Moldova party, told reporters.

"The opposition will not participate in the recount," he added, speaking at a joint press conference with leaders of two other opposition parties.

The leaders of Our Moldova, the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democratic Party called instead for a repeat of the disputed April 5 election in Moldova, an impoverished former Soviet republic wedged between Ukraine and Romania.

This week, elections officials said they would conduct the recount Wednesday and finish it in one day, while Moldova's Communist President Vladimir Voronin said the recount would restore stability.

Together the three opposition parties won about 35% of the vote, compared to about 50% won by the Communists, official results showed.

But allegations that the Communist Party had falsified the vote sparked street demonstrations last week, including one in which young protesters stormed and ransacked parliament.

The opposition says that voter lists included dead people and Moldovans working abroad.

* * *

MOLDOVA PRESIDENT CALLS FOR AMNESTY FOR PROTESTERS
Reuters (USA)
April 15, 2009

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin urged legal authorities today to proclaim an amnesty for people detained while taking part in anti-communist demonstrations, except for criminals and repeat offenders.

''I call on the competent bodies to carry out a general amnesty and call for an end to all forms of prosecution against participants in street protests,'' Voronin said in comments broadcast before a televised address to the nation.

''Representatives of the criminal world and repeat offenders must remain in prison.'' About 200 people were detained after violent protests last week against alleged vote rigging in an election won by the Communists, and international groups have since accused the authorities in the ex-Soviet state of mistreating detainees.
---------
OUT NOTE: reports from the ground say that today, April 16, no one was released from the police custody.

* * *

LEADER OF MOLDOVA'S 'TWITTER REVOLUTION' IN HIDING
Telegraph (UK)
April 16, 2009

A woman who helped organise the protests that rocked Moldova last week has gone into hiding after the "Twitter revolution" forced a recount of the general election.

Natalia Morar, 25, was behind a flash mob that ended with 20,000 people storming the parliament building in the country's captial Chisinau.

She now fears she will be arrested for her role in the unrest, which left parliament buildings damaged.

Miss Morar, told the Guardian she had not slept for two nights and was moving from one apartment to the next in an attempt to outwit the authorities.

Reports said police had ordered she be placed under house arrest.

"They have staked out my house and my mother's," she told the paper, speaking from a secret location.

"They entered my apartment without a search warrant. If they find me they will arrest me – and what happens then, no one knows. I haven't spoken on the phone or gone online for two days for fear of being traced."

The protests began after a conversation between Morar and six friends in a cafe in Chisinau on April 6.

"We discussed what we should do about the previous day's parliamentary elections, which we were sure had been rigged," she said.

The elections brought a larger-than-expected victory for the incumbent Communist party.

"We decided to organise a flash mob for the same day using Twitter, as well as networking sites and SMS."

With no recent history of mass protests in Moldova, "we expected at the most a couple of hundred friends, friends of friends, and colleagues", she said.

"When we went to the square, there were 20,000 people waiting there. It was unbelievable."

On Tuesday, the demonstrations continued into peacefully. But later that day protesters stormed the parliament building and the presidential palace opposite. Fire broke out in one wing of the parliament, and the young protesters damaged computers and office furniture.

"Not only did we underestimate the power of Twitter and the internet, we also underestimated the explosive anger among young people at the government's policies and electoral fraud," she said.

Miss Morar, who is banned from Russia for opposing the Kremlin, believes Moldova's powerful neighbour was involved in the vendetta against her: "It was when Russia expressed strong support for Moldova's position on the elections, and condemned the protests, that they started targeting us."

The results of the recount will be announced on Friday.

* * *

TWO MOLDOVAN SUSPECTS OF ORGANIZING CHISINAU RIOTS EXTRADITED FROM UKRAINE
Kyiv Post (Ukraine)
April 16, 2009

Moldovan citizens Gabriel Stati and Auren Marinescu suspected of funding the Chisinau riots have been extradited from Ukraine, Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksandr Shynalsky told Interfax-Ukraine.

"They are already in Moldova," he said.

Stati and Marinescu were seized in Odesa on April 9. Moldovan police wanted them "for actions aimed to seize power in violation of the Moldovan constitution". The riots in Chisinau occurred on April 6-7.

* * *


MOLDOVAN CAPITAL’S MAYOR SPEAKS AGAINST COMMUNISM
By ELLEN BARRY, New York Times (USA)
April 13, 2009

The 30-year-old mayor of Chisinau, Dorin Chirtoaca, told a crowd of around 3,000 in the city’s central square on Sunday that Moldova’s youth had rejected Communism because they “understand that their future has been stolen.”

Last week, after anti-Communist rallies culminated in a violent raid of government buildings in Moldova, authorities arrested hundreds of participants and cracked down on high school and college classrooms across the country. Those who gathered on Sunday were mostly in their 40s and 50s, many carrying candles from morning church services.

During last week’s demonstrations, “the young people threw out portraits of Voronin and Lenin and others because they have come to hate them,” Mr. Chirtoaca said to shouts of applause, referring to Moldova’s 67-year-old Soviet-educated president, Vladimir Voronin. “They understand that their future has been stolen. They understand that their votes in the parliamentary elections were stolen. Regimes that use terror end badly.”

Mr. Chirtoaca, elected two years ago on an anti-Communist platform, called for a moment of silence in memory of Valeriu Boboc, 23, who died Wednesday after participating in demonstrations on Tuesday. His parents have said that his death was caused by a beating at the hands of the police.

Moldova’s Interior Ministry released a statement on Sunday saying an autopsy showed that Mr. Boboc had a broken rib, but that his death had not been caused by the injury. “Doctors think that the young man was poisoned by unknown substances,” the statement said, according to Interfax. “Prosecutors are ready for an international probe in order to exclude other interpretations of this fact.”

Meanwhile, Moldova’s Constitutional Court on Sunday authorized a recount of the results from the April 5 parliamentary elections, as well as a verification of voter lists, allotting nine days for its completion. Preliminary results released April 5 showed Communists getting about 50 percent of the vote, which would give them enough leverage to select the next president unilaterally — a bitter disappointment to young people eager to shake off Communist rule. The results set off large anti-Communist protests last Monday and Tuesday.

The crowd that gathered on Sunday was striking for its absence of students, who have been severely sanctioned for participating in the actions last week. Aurelia Pospai, 62, a university instructor, said the state Ministry of Education on Wednesday ordered faculty members to sign a document promising to prevent their students from participating in rallies. She said she hoped to send a message that the protest movement was not confined to the young.

“Since 1984, we were fighting against Communism,” she said. “And now we have fallen back into it with this regime. We want them out even more than the young people do.”

* * *

MOLDOVAN GENERATION GAP STOKES POLITICAL FEUDS
By MANSUR MIROVALEV, AP (USA)
April 12, 2009

With one-quarter of the population working abroad to eke out a living, impoverished Moldova has become a country of the young and the very old.

It's a generation gap that has split the country politically — and violently.

The elderly, who look to Moscow for leadership and are nostalgic for the Soviet past, recently voted to return Communists to power. The young, rallied by text messages and Twitter and eager to join Europe, seized and trashed parliament and the country's presidential offices in response.

The unrest continued Sunday, as 3,000 anti-government protesters gathered in downtown Chisinau to call for the government to resign.

Some Moldovans say the absence of working-age adults, less embittered than the old and more practical than the young, is to blame for turning the parliamentary contest into a clash of generations.

Ion Covali, a 61-year-old retired trucker, voted for the victorious Communists because he believes capitalism has only brought his once-proud country poverty and humiliation — a point driven home by the world economic crisis.

"We used to be a magnet, everyone in the Soviet Union envied us," Covali said, as wrinkles on his face smoothed into a frail smile. "But now we live in a dump."

Covali's grandson, 19-year-old Ion Covali, was among thousands of youths who took to the streets after the April 5 vote. Demonstrators alleged widespread voting fraud and called for new elections.

For the younger Ion, who didn't bother to vote, the protests were exhilarating. "Everything was so unexpected," the university student said. "And everyone was high on this sudden freedom."

Nina Bondarenko, a 60-year old schoolteacher, said Moldova's elderly — who built their lives during the Soviet era — still cling to the myths of Communism. "Soviet children were drilled into believing white was black and vise versa, and they have become ... today's pensioners," she said.

The younger generation, she said, are free to think for themselves. But the country's youth have grown up without parental supervision, leaving them feeling both bold and abandoned, Bondarenko said.

"The schools are filled with children whose parents are abroad, and many children protest it any way they can," she said.

Wednesday's protests, among the largest Moldova has seen since March 2002, ended with 193 people arrested and almost 100 injured.

Sergei Roscovanu, a taxi driver who recently returned from working in Ireland, is neither a student nor a pensioner. The 25-year-old said he didn't know whether to blame the protesters or the Communists for the unrest.

He is certain of one thing: Moldovan society has suffered because so many live abroad. "We have been bled dry by the exodus," said Roscovanu.

The 1991 Soviet collapse transformed Moldova into one of the poorest countries in Europe. Up to a fourth of the population of 4 million work in the European Union or Russia and their remittances amounted to almost 40 per cent of Moldova's GDP, according to the World Bank.

"There is a growing conflict between grandparents and grandchildren," said Anatoly Petrenko of the opposition group European Action.

The elections left the Communists with 60 out of 101 seats in parliament, one short of being able to name a replacement for President Vladimir Voronin, who in 2001 became Europe's first democratically elected communist head of state.

On Friday Voronin, who is stepping down after two terms, ordered a re-count of votes calling for a resolution of Moldova's "political dead-end."

While older Moldovans tend to regard Russia as their country's chief ally, many youth look west to Europe and neighboring Romania, which shares close linguistic, ethnic and historical ties with Moldova. Many protesters called for unification with Romania, a member of the European Union and NATO.

Voronin, meanwhile, has accused Romanian authorities of supporting the violent protests and of helping the opposition organize the revolt.

Older Moldovans like to reminisce about the days when Moldova was a jewel in the crown of the Soviet Union. The tiny republic had thriving agriculture, and Covali recalls driving trucks loaded with Moldovan fruit, vine and cigarettes to central Russia and Siberia.

After the 1991 Soviet collapse, the world turned upside down for the pensioner's generation. Sitting at an oak dinner table at his crammed apartment in the capital, Chisinau, Covali pointed at the pictures of his two sons, Corneliu and Marius, who work at a fish cannery in Portugal to support their families.

Now the world's economic downturn, he said, threatens even this tenuous economic lifeline.

"I voted for Communists because they promise stability amid this capitalist crisis," Covali said. "They are far from perfect, but they are better than these opposition crybabies that squabble between themselves instead of serving the people."

Young Moldovans, meanwhile, live in a world of electronic gadgets and computers, swiftly changing fashion trends and multicultural influences.

Many have traveled or worked abroad and resent that their impoverished country is ruled by the aged elite that seeks closer ties with Russia and still calls itself Communist.

Communism is unfashionable among youth here. "It's just a brand for the old people," sneered Roman Lobov, a 22-year old university student with closely cropped hair.

If anything, the recent protests may have aggravated Moldova's yawning generation gap.

"The revolt only boosted communists' ratings," said Svetlana, a middle-aged saleswoman at a bookstore in central Chisinau, who refused to provide her last name, saying she fears pressure from nationalists.

"Many of my friends were indifferent to voting, but after what happened they said they will vote for Voronin," she said.

Of course, not all of the young supported the protests. Neither do all elderly Moldovans back the Communists.

But prospects for a reconciliation of Moldova's divided generations appear slim in the short run, said young Ion Covali, wearing a black coat and white-blue jeans.

He was standing outside a movie theater with a marquee advertising both Hollywood and Russian blockbusters, another symptom of his country's split between East and West.

"We need changes so much," he said, "but sometimes I think they will come only after the older generation is gone."

Useful Background

Posters exhorting citizens to vote - "Your vote counts!", Chisinau, April 12

There is an interesting interview with Dmitri Furman in the Nov-Dec 2008 New Left Review, in which Furman analyzes the "Imitation Democracies" in the post-Soviet world. Ideally this analysis would be read in conjunction with some reading about Virtual Politics, which covers the process part of the equation, but a few portions of Furman's article stood out as relevant to a full understanding of what's been happening in Chisinau lately.

Furman, in his initial taxonomy of post-Soviet states, avers that Moldova is in good company:

A purely regional subdivision does not, in my view, bring out any especially significant post-Soviet characteristics. It would be better instead to class these states according to their type of political development, which produces the following three groupings. First, countries in which power has several times been transferred to the opposition through elections, and which we can consider as being squarely on the path of democratic development. These are: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, to which we might add Moldova—though this is a more complicated case, developing in its own distinctive fashion.

Second, countries in which power has never been transferred to the opposition, or indeed to anyone not nominated by the authorities themselves. There are four of these: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, ruled today by Nursultan Nazarbaev and Islam Karimov, both former First Secretaries of the cp Central Committee of their respective republics; Turkmenistan, ruled by Saparmurat Niyazov, also a member of the Soviet nomenklatura, until his death in 2006, when the presidency was handed to one of his comrades-in-arms; and Russia, where power has twice been transferred—but to men designated by their predecessors. These are what I have termed ‘imitation democracies’, characterized by a huge disparity between formal constitutional principles and the reality of authoritarian rule.

Thirdly, in between these two paths of development—democratic and authoritarian—lies a large group of countries which have, as it were, switched between the two. There are seven of these: Ukraine, Belarus, the three Transcaucasian countries—Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan—and in Central Asia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. They have followed highly varied trajectories.

Furman also describes the trajectory of "imitation democracies," in a passage which suggests that those Moldovans who are fighting right now to keep their country from becoming one are doing the right thing:

Where does this all lead? In the end, to crisis and collapse. Increased control over society means the atrophy of ‘feedback mechanisms’. Once elections become pure fiction and the media are on a tight leash, the authorities lose all sense of what is happening in the country. The strengthening of control leads, ‘dialectically’, to a loss of control. The quality of the elite deteriorates, due to systematic promotion of the weakest and most servile. Corruption reaches monstrous proportions. Legitimacy disappears, since there is no alternative ideology and democracy itself becomes an increasingly transparent fiction. Moreover, as societies develop, the psychological bases for imitation democracy are eroded. What had seemed incredible freedom in 1991—for example, the ability to travel overseas—has now become the norm, and it becomes more and more difficult for new generations to be satisfied with imitation democracy.

And Furman then describes why Moldova stands out as somewhat unique in his categorization - sort of like the Baltics, but not really:

Moldova’s trajectory has been highly distinctive. It is the only post-Soviet country where the reaction to the anti-Communist revolution of 1989–91 brought the Communists back to power; not Communists ‘repainted’ as democrats—those are in power everywhere—but real ones. At the same time, it is closer to stable democracy than all the other post-Soviet countries except the Baltic states and Ukraine. How did this happen? Moldovan society is deeply divided over the question of national self-identification: who are the Moldovans—Romanians or a separate people? What is today called Moldova was formerly part of a princedom vassal to the Ottoman empire, torn from the rest of the historical Moldovan principality as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–12; thereafter, as Bessarabia, it formed part of the Russian empire, and its predominantly peasant population developed very differently from that on the other side of the frontier.

At the end of the 1980s, movements emerged advocating ‘reunification’ with Romania, and in the following years, the matter of national identity became the organizing question of Moldovan political life. The resultant divisions prevented the Moldovan elite from consolidating around the president, as elites elsewhere did, in order to prevent the Communists from coming to power. The ‘alternativeless’ regime in Russia, for example, was founded on the principle of excluding the Communists—with full support from the West, which backed Yeltsin’s coup of 1993 and the very dishonest elections of 1996. But the Moldovan example indicates that the Communists were capable of accepting the democratic ‘rules of the game’—and shows that a democratic victory for the Communists is not necessarily a catastrophe for democracy. There was also a strong subjective factor at play in Moldova, in the person of the level-headed Communist leader Vladimir Voronin.

Moldova and Information Wars

An interesting translation from today's JRL:

Nezavisimaya Gazeta
April 15, 2009
Editorial: "Campaigns and Wars: A Thing or Two About Information Policy"

Right now it's too soon to judge how much events in Moldova might exacerbate the information conflict between Russia and the West. There are substantial grounds for thinking there won't be any exacerbation. First, the attack upon and fire set at the parliament building is an obvious delict that does not offer a multitude of interpretations; second, both sides know full well that Voronin is not a pro-Russian figure; and finally, third, the prospect of Moldova joining Romania with the inevitable secession of the Dniester region is hardly inspiring to any sane person.

It would seem that in war as in war all means are good and you can quibble over anything. In fact, spontaneity and omnivory are signs more characteristic of a propaganda campaign, a more obviously local and short-term phenomenon.

That's not how it is in areal information war. Dilettantes sometimes think that its goal is to convince the opponent. However, that is the second goal both in time and importance; in fact, the top goal of an information war is to convince your own side. And only afterward to present this indestructible ideological unity to your opponent as an irrefutable argument in your debate.

The two phenomena we're talking about are utterly unalike in their very organization. A propaganda campaign is carried out by a limited circle of professionals and aimed outward from the beginning. There is no 'our side' here by definition. If you're convinced of what you're doing, fine; if you're not but you look convincing, that's not bad either. War is a deeply structured affair. Here each side has its headquarters and command points, a decent-sized army of mercenaries, abroad array of transmission belts to bring orders to subordinates and dependents. But the main thing is this: in no 'hot' war have so many volunteers participated as are now battling on the information fronts. Formally, these are the millions of participants in forums and blogs, but in essence it is everyone who has ever gotten into a conversation about the theme under discussion rather than about sports or the weather.

If we understand the goal of an information war as changing our opponent's mind, then it is hard to understand who is supposed to debate whom and in what language. Debates go on between countries, too, of course, but all these are faint streams on the backdrop of runaway domestic tsunamis going to and fro.

The information noise of politicians, the media, debating political experts, public figures, writers, artists, and even high school and university students is what creates the specific principles in accordance with which reality is understood and demonstrated. It is from this stock that the soft power of the state is extracted -- as an element of competitive advantage. Which ceases to be competitive if it is subordinated to the goals and means of the information war.

In very recent history we can distinguish three information wars between the West and Russia: the second Chechen war, the events surrounding the orange revolution, and 8 August 2008 in South Ossetia. All the rest -- Yukos, Litvinenko, and so forth -- are examples of classic propaganda campaigns.

It is wrong to think that there is one big war and the above mentioned are merely episodes in it. There is no total permanent war. Most of the time over the course of the last two decades, a pluralism of opinions in both camps has predominated over their uniformity, which is characteristic for war.

But what is most interesting is that all three instances developed according to completely analogous scenarios. A visible unity of the 'developed world' was achieved with respect to the subject of disagreement, and it was presented to Russia without visible effect, inasmuch as Russia had the opposite consensus. As we know, a whale and an elephant cannot fight each other. Due to a total mismatch of discourse.

Moreover, those who brought Russia human, material, and moral losses -- the Chechen fighters, the oranges, or Saakashvili -- subsequently made the West blush many times for the fact that it had ever supported them.

Could it be time to stop consolidating public opinion against one another? That is, might it be time for the elephant and whale to stop their attempts to butt heads?

A Map With a Story to Tell

I know this isn't particularly substantive, but please bear with me. Perhaps the coolest thing I was able to bring back from my most recent trip to Chisinau was the map taxi drivers - at least Russophone taxi drivers - use to get around the city. I've seen it used before, and the cabbie I ended up buying it from told me there was a place where I could buy a copy, but since I was leaving the next day I prevailed on him to sell me his.

The map with one fell swoop eliminates all of my questions about why some cabbies in Chisinau still use Soviet-era street names. The reason, quite apparent if you look at the full-size images of the pages below (here and here), is that the map itself is replete with Soviet-era names. In all (I've reproduced below only the title page and the page showing downtown), it's a riot of names of offices and restaurants in two languages and two alphabets - exactly the sort of thing that makes Moldova such a fascinating place to visit when you have somewhere else to go home to, but can make it a challenging place to live when you don't.

IMG_1381, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

IMG_1380, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

What's in a Name?

Old Orhei Monastery, July 31, 2005

Many were eager to dub last week's protests in Moldova the "Twitter Revolution." Leaving aside for a moment the fact that it's probably improper to strain to find in provocateur-instigated mob violence parallels to the color revolutions of a few years ago, if one seeks a name for the events in Chisinau, there would seem to be better monikers at hand.

Last week I noted a couple of the ones making the rounds - "#pman Revolution" and "Orphans' Revolution," a coinage which got another mention in this interesting post by a foreigner living in Moldova - and mentioned that I regard the tag I've been using to aggregate posts on the situation in Moldova, "Grape Revolution," as tongue-in-cheek and probably not the best name of the ones out there.

From the outset, the peaceful protesters on April 6th wanted to have a Candle Revolution - burning candles to mourn what they saw as the death of Moldovan democracy. At the demonstration on Sunday the 12th, I saw several people at the back of the crowd trying to keep the meme alive by lighting votive candles in plastic cups on the sidewalk. It didn't look like they were having much success. Gusts of wind kept blowing out the candles and tipping over the cups.

A couple of the other appellations which have been circulating in the Russian-language coverage of events in Moldova are somewhat indicative of Russians' tendency to look down their noses at Moldovans.

The first of these is the moniker "Mamaliga Revolution," after Moldova's polenta-like national dish. The Transdniestrian propagandists at LivePMR wasted no time in rolling out a post under this name. An item on Moldovanova earlier this year had this meditation on the idea of a Mamaliga Revolution:

Mamaliga, as we know, is tasty and pleasant while it's hot. When it gets cold people usually feed it to their dogs.

Calling the violence of last week a "Mamaliga Revolution" doesn't quite work, however, if one believes the riots were truly spontaneous - you see, one of the fundamental bits of conventional wisdom tossed around by those who hew to the view that the Moldovan people are politically passive is that "mamaliga doesn't explode" ("мамалыга не взрывается").

Another sobriquet that's been making the rounds in Russian mainstream media as well as online is "Tile Revolution" ("кафельная революция"), a reference to Russians' apparent belief that, since many of the Moldovans in Russia do construction work (and are regarded in the ethnic hierarchy of post-Soviet migrant workers as semi-skilled enough to be given the painting and tile-laying parts of the jobs), that must be what all of them do.

I first heard about this one from an ethnic Russian who lives in Chisinau. He was dismissive of the term, saying of his co-ethnics in Russia, "they'll say anything to put someone else down." A quick Yandex search shows that "Tile Revolution" - an appropriately derisive way to refer to Moldovans, and uppity Moldovans especially, at least from Moscow's point of view - seems to have received an official imprimatur, having appeared in the headline of this story on state-run news program Vesti. Komsomol'skaia Pravda also dropped this phrase in a somewhat interesting, if biased, roundup of Russophone blogs from Moldova, which is, however, missing links to the blogs in question.

The Coming Storm?

Woman selling daffodils on the local equivalent of Palm Sunday,
April 12, about a block away from the opposition's peaceful protest.

The dire financial situation into which Moldova appears to be headed is an important part of the background to last week's events. It may explain why Moldova's Western partners initially appeared willing to take a hands-off posture and let Voronin make his own way out of last week's political crisis if he could - in these tough times, even the US is less disposed to get involved, and perhaps everyone would prefer to deal with a known quantity than with a fractious opposition.

The article below describes just how unfortunate the coincidence of political and financial crises could be for Moldova, although the last line sort of buries what could turn out to be the lede:

Moldova burdened with $1bn budget shortfall (Financial Times)
By Thomas Escritt in Chisinau

Published: April 15 2009 01:33 | Last updated: April 15 2009 01:33

Moldova could face a severe financial crisis later this year, if it fails to cover a $1bn budget shortfall, creating the prospect of unpaid salaries and heightening the political tensions in the country following contested election results 10 days ago.

The country, already Europe’s poorest, with a gross domestic product per capita of just $1,800, is dependent on some $2bn a year in remittances from residents abroad, which amount to a third of the country’s GDP.

Bleak conditions in Romania, Russia, Ukraine and southern Europe, where most of the Moldovan diaspora is to be found, mean remittances fell 28 per cent year on year in January.

Three quarters of Moldova’s tax revenues come from import-related indirect taxes, including value added tax, and imports have fallen 50 per cent year on year as Moldovans feel the pinch. Government revenues would fall to $2bn on current trends, leaving Moldova dependent on external financing.


“You have small, shallow domestic securities markets ... so to finance the deficit you only have external financing or you have to revise the budget,” said Johan Mathisen, the International Monetary Fund’s representative in the country.

A transition country with a low credit rating, Moldova has very limited access to commercial credit markets abroad, while there is no government in place to revise a $3bn budget drawn up before the impact on the crisis became clear.

An IMF delegation is due to arrive in the capital Chisinau next week to begin talks over the shape of a support package to replace a long-running agreement signed in 1995.

But Moldova has nobody to negotiate a deal. The results of elections 10 days ago, in which the ruling Communist party won 49 per cent of the vote, are contested by opposition parties who say the Communist victory was bought fraudulently. With the political process bogged down in recounts and ballot checks, it could be autumn before a new government is formed.

But with the political process at a stalemate that may drag on into the autumn following contested elections 10 days ago, there is no government to trim government spending or negotiate the terms of an international support deal.

Moldova’s economy has performed strongly under eight years of Communist stewardship, doubling in size to $6bn last year from $3bn in 2005, with public debt at only 18 per cent of GDP. But salaries are still low, with a policeman earning just $120 a month. And with the atmosphere already tense following the elections and the violence that followed them, a caretaker government could be forced to turn elsewhere for help.

Privately, western officials in the capital Chisinau suggest Russia may be waiting in the wings to offer financial support.

Propaganda

When I boarded the Air Moldova turboprop in Vienna for my connecting flight to Chisinau last Friday (talk about a small world - seven people on the plane, I knew one of them and he knew two of the others), the reading material available for passengers left no doubt as to how the Moldovan government was spinning the events of April 7.

Below are the two pages of coverage from state-run Moldova Suverana (a newspaper we had occasion to discuss last summer when it ran a hatchet-job piece on American NGOs in Moldova) - the paper had only four pages in total and the other two were business announcements, classifieds, etc. The front-page headline is "The Opposition's Latest Vandalism Will Cost Us 300 Mln Lei," and the stories along the right-hand side discuss Voronin's conversations with the Presidents of Russia and Lithuania and the Russian Duma's support for the Moldovan authorities.

MS's second page of coverage highlights, among other things, photos of opposition leaders Chirtoaca and Filat supposedly organizing the riots and - rather unbelievably - photos of destruction in Chisinau in 1941 when it was retaken by Romanian forces, inviting readers to draw a comparison between the devastation wreaked by a fascist army and the riots in downtown Chisinau on April 7th.

Further down and continuing below the cut is coverage from Vremea, a Russian-language newspaper which doesn't seem to have a functioning website at the moment (the URL on the front page leads to a blank page). The bulk of the paper is devoted to what it calls a "Chronicle of a Failed Putsch."

IMG_1371, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

IMG_1372, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

IMG_1373, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

IMG_1374, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

IMG_1375, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

IMG_1376, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

IMG_1378, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

IMG_1379, originally uploaded by lyndonk2.

The last page, of course, is not about Moldova, but its slams on Georgian and Ukrainian leaders assist one in pinpointing the paper's editorial stance.