News from Chisinau

The following account is from an email circulated by a Moldovan friend of mine who has been trying to keep everyone up to date on the developments in Chisinau:

So today's street protests have resulted in 100 victims at the emergency rooms (half of which were policemen). Not sure yet if there are any dead - the news are contradictory.

The situation is getting worse because:

1. The authorities in power are not doing anything to stop the fire at the Parliament. The firefighters are not even there even if the mayor has requested for their immediate intervention at the Parliament as well as for the police to protect our common assets and put an end to vandalism and pillaging.

2. The teenagers in the centre have started drinking heavily and are not under anyone's control.

3. The Communist party does not want to go for a recount of the ballots, which is further infuriating the masses.

4. The army has been asked to intervene in full - but I am not sure what this means. The night is here, so the army could take advantage of the protesters' tiredness and/or drunkenness to use violence against them and try to disperse the crowds (a potential scenario, given that something like this has been done in the past).

The good news is that the opposition leaders (mainly FIlat and Chirtoaca) are speaking the same language and are asking the masses to maintain their calm and protest peacefully. Unfortunately they are not allowed to express their views and call to peaceful protests on the Main Public TV station (which is still an arm of the Communist party and all throughout the election campaign has promoted only the views and "achievements" of the Communist party).

Most of the Moldovan news outlets have been closed down by the ruling communist party. The Moldova 1 news channel (public TV station) is now featuring a football game, while all the Romanian TV stations (main one being Realitatea TV) plus the Moldovan independent news media (TV7 and PRO TV, as well as news.yam.ro) are continuously streaming news from the centre.

Listening to Vocea Basarabiei now and the protesters are shouting:
- "Freedom"
- "Down with the communists"
- "We are not leaving from here"

Its 11pm in Chisinau. I am going to keep on monitoring the situation from the safety of my parents' apartment. It will be important to get some rest tonight and get a better idea of what the best course of action is in this very difficult situation, when one's civic duty calls for one to be on the streets supporting democracy, rule of law and fairness in this very poor but promising society that has endured a lot from from the various communist regimes since 1945.

The situation does not look promising, although I suppose we can hope that some good might yet come of it.