Roundup of blog coverage

[image source]

Picking through the online detritus, here are some of the reactions to the events in Chisinau from bloggers around the world:

Alina Stefanescu has a number of posts at her Totalitarianism Today and Romania Revealed blogs. One of them gets my award for headline of the day - "The Moldovan government is smoking crack and trying to convince others to smoke it as well."

Eternal Remont observed that - based on the violent behavior of the protesters - "This ain't no color revolution."

Kosmopolito posted some exclusive photos as well as the third part of a serial post by a guest blogger writing from Chisinau.

The unrest seems to be spawning new monikers daily (note that my use of "Grape Revolution" as a tag for these posts is pretty tongue-in-cheek - I needed a tag to keep all of the posts about the protests together, and that just happened to be the one I chose) - UN Dispatch tries out "#pman Revolution," and Dumitru Minzarari mentions (in a great post which has also attracted some worthwhile comments) another name that is apparently being used:

Now the communists and their Eastern “partners” are building a huge media myth to discredit the pure ideals of Moldovan youth willing nothing more than freedom and respect for their rights. Their protests were labeled the “Orphans’ Revolution” because under the Communist government close to a third of Moldovan citizens (their parents) went abroad to earn money for a living.

Minzarari has another post where he translates a Russian blog post that posits there may have been a deliberate decision by the authorities to allow the protesters to loot government buildings, presumably so that the protests would take on the character of a riot and their political demands would be discredited. If that was the plan, it may have worked. Somewhat relatedly, Minzarari also has an article at TOL dated April 7th about the Transnistria settlement process and headlined "Moscow Is Still the Master."

Sean has a post up focusing on the role of youth in the protests, noting that "unlike the innocuous colors of orange, tulip, and rose, the Moldovan youth appears to favor blood red."

I would be remiss if I didn't also point out GVO's main post so far on the situation in Moldova.

The "Updates" post at the Neighborhood blog by Nicu Popescu should be a good place to go for news.

Popescu has a couple of good posts at his Romanian-language blog, discussing the merits and effectiveness of non-violent protest and the degree to which Voronin has become a liability and a "factor of instability" for Moldova. I've taken a stab at translating portions of the latter post.

"The prospect that the Communist victory could lead to a situation where Voronin would remain the de facto head of state for another 4 years...is one of the key causes of the violent protests," writes Popescu. "During the 8 years of his presidency Voronin was seen as a symbol of stability, but today he has become the main factor in polarizing society." Popescu suggests that Voronin gracefully leave the political stage with a guarantee of immunity from prosecution - a la Yeltsin, I suppose - and continues:

The violent protests in Chisinau symbolize most of all that whatever stability there was in recent years has come to an end. Moldova is facing a turbulent period in which world economic instability, internal political cleavages and the personality of Vladimir Voronin could shatter the Republic of Moldova's fragile statehood.

Another outstanding Moldovan blogger (and, like the others, a proper specialist in real life), Alexandru Culiuc, has a post noting that he's seen a spike in traffic in recent days even though he hasn't had anything to say about the events in Chisinau. I translated a part of his post, in which he refuses to weigh in on the events of the week other than to pose a disturbing question:

Having access to a relatively limited set of sources of information, it is difficult for me to give a balanced assessment of the situation. Nevertheless, I daresay that the phrase "Revolution in Chisinau," which aboundes in the headlines of news items on Romanian websites, is inappropriate. It is quite possible that after some time has passed the recent events in downtown Chisinau will come to be characterized rightly as the greatest man-made calamity Moldova has endured since the war in Transnistria. And just like with the conflict in Transnistria, no one is to blame and no one takes responsibility - everyone points their fingers at each other. Will the outcome really be so disastrous? I don't know, but I don't think we'll have long to wait for an answer to that question.

In the Russian blogosphere, "'Color Revolution' in Moldova" is the number one blogged about topic according to Yandex, which counts over 3,700 posts on that theme in the past three days. Here is one which is at least somewhat humorous in places, although it displays an attitude of condescension toward Moldovans which is all too typical among Russian bloggers.

Natalia Morari, one of the organizers of the initial, peaceful proitests and a popular topic of discussion in the Russian blogosphere in her own right, resurfaced Wednesday with another post justifying the protest organizers' actions, which has already attracted over 900 comments. If they are anything like the comments to other recent posts, they probably contain numerous vicious personal attacks on her and surprisingly few messages of support.

Some commenters seem to be questioning Morari's political judgement - like this one, who wonders why Morari wore an "I love Obama" T-shirt to a rally in Chisinau, "knowing that color revolution activists are forever facing accusations of being pro-American puppets. And in that situation, to give your opponents such a tasty morsel..."

Morari's husband, fellow New Times journalist Ilya Barabanov, is apparently also now in Moldova and posted a wild-eyed and completely incredible (by which I mean, not credible) rumor of weapons being flown into the country from Russia and transported from the airport to downtown Chisinau in ambulances.