Chisinau, Moldova – Amsterdam
In April world cameras briefly focused on Moldova as over 20,000 people hit the streets protesting the outcome of the parliamentary elections, which supposedly gave a landslide victory for the ruling communist party.
ex Ponto Magazine nr.11
The mainly youthful protesters have given the events the nickname ‘twitter revolution,’ pointing to the latest fad in web communication tools.
“I came today because we care! I have responded to the SMSs and the messages on internet that today we have to protest against unacceptable election results” said a first year university student.
Moldova, Europes’s poorest country, seems to be the last stronghold of the Communists in the region. The landlocked tiny piece of land at the doors of the European Union has revealed one of its paradoxes: while it has slow internet access and relatively few Twitter users, it was thanks to ICT and modern social network tools that thousands of youth took to the street one day after the communists’ apparent elections victory.
Some reports also indicate that Moldovans abroad played an important role by participating in the protests remotely by helping to keep the story alive via Twitter.
The twitter revolution?
Despite its nickname, participants of the protests were not just youths. Reports on traditional media, together with mouth to mouth communication have attracted pensioners, middle aged and working class people, many of whom are unemployed.
“We are fed up with this regime, this is a dictatorship. Why do they block mobile communication, Internet and cable TV? We want a recount of the votes, we want the truth!” said a 59-year- old teacher.
Only one OSCE (the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) election observer, UK parliamentarian Baroness Emma Nicholson, said that she thought the report was “much too optimistic.” Besides that, the OSCE’s election monitoring gave the elections a positive report.
From speaking to Moldovan people, however, the complaints on wrongdoings are numerous.
“The elections are fraud. My neighbours’ apartment has been empty for the last seven years since they emigrated to Italy. But at least five of their names were on the election lists, and they were supposed to have voted,” said a man among the protesters.
By now the opposition said that it discovered about 20,000 suspicious votes after examining voter lists from ten administrative provinces, which makes up to about 25 per cent of the total number of polling stations, reported Imedia, the former team of BBC Moldovan Service, befor it was stopped last year
While the dominantly young protesters poured in to the centre of Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, the event was peaceful in the beginning.
 Who is behind the protests?
Neither the opposition nor official organiser claimed the demonstration. The slogans shouted were simple and clear: “Away with the Communists!” “The elections are fraud”. There have been no speeches, no declarations or no written official demands. A huge mass of people stood between the parliament house and the president’s building, which faces one another, for hours and waited for the authorities to respond.
“The opposition parties had informed that there would be protests but not before the check of the voters lists and the recount was done. They wanted to have proves of the falsified elections first”, said Nicolae Negru, media and political analyst.
The ruling party was mum in the beginning. “President Voronin is ignoring all this. Ignoring any kind of dissent is his strategy; it means that this does not exist!” The silence however, did not last too long. What started as a spontaneous peaceful dissent ended in a vandal act directed by few hooligans, who, according to the majority of the reports, have been instructed to provoke the violence.
“They guy who put the European flag on the parliament building is the same who put the flag on the presidential building. The police were with him, seemingly guarded, rather than escorted, him to the roof. He has not been stopped by anybody!”, said Chisinau mayor Dorin Chirtoaca in an interview during a public meeting on the central square in the capital.
The hooligans where supposedly incited to start vandalism on the second day of the protests. The mayor (Liberal Party) was elected last year in the local elections where the liberals (one of the 3 opposition parties) won a majority of votes in the capital and in half of the rest of the country.
Repression on its way
The riots and the looting of the parliament and the presidential buildings have been widely shown within and outside Moldova. The EU has condemned the violence. President Voronin’s declaration on national TV that “police will take this time all necessary measures” has been well heard.
Inside, the regime repressed its people, while on the outside the president blamed Romania for this “coup d’état” and declared its ambassador persona non grata. This well known political rhetoric is aimed to appeal his supporters “Voronin needs to find a guilt party. Blaming Romania he hits the whole ideology of language, identity, sovereignty, and the opposition in one blow”, said a political journalist.(*)
The arrests of more than 200 youth followed right after. Parents of the arrested youth have been kept outside of police stations without any access to information to their children. Other parents have been called by police or had their children punished at school
“My son has said that today police have visited his school and have thoroughly investigated who have been absent on the day of the protest. The absentees will be punished!”,said one mother.
“The police called all families to keep their children at home otherwise there is punishment for the parents”, said another woman about her relative in Balti, the country’s second biggest city in the North with a Russian ethnic majority council. The youth has been silenced.
The access to lawyers and human rights defenders is almost non-existent. “They should stop torturing and repressing the youth. Nobody can visit the people arrested. Me as mayor of the city could not enter the police commissariat. I asked the commissioner of Chisinau to let me in. I am his superior and he refused,” said Chirtoaca.
Also the brutal repression of the media is unprecedented in the country. A number of journalists have been abducted and had their materials confiscated. Independent and international media have covered violence of human rights, and attacks against journalists.
“They asked us not to take pictures: we showed our accreditation cards. Nothing helped. They kept detaining people and put them in to cars; not saying who they are. We kept asking ‘who are you and why are you kidnapping people?’” said Alina Radu, director of Ziarul de Garda, and independent investigative weekly.
“A young female reporter said that one of the men threatened her ‘I will rape you if you continue to take pictures’!” Radu said.
Moldova has been struggling to gain more openness and democracy since independence in the beginning of the 1990s. However, according to Radu, this KGB style repression is the worse since independence. “I have been working as a journalist for the last 20 years. I covered the war in 1992 and nothing was as bad as it is now.”
 Democracy Moldovan way and EU geopolitical agenda
The war in Georgia last summer and the energy interests of the EU in the Caucasus region turned Moldova in to an increasingly strategic country. A possible renewed regional conflict with Russia did not appear desirable. With some confidence democratic movements -- the youth, the middle class and the developing civil society -- looked at these elections as an important event that could have changed the course of the country.
Thus, many Moldovans were disappointed when the Communists claimed victory for a third term.
“All expected the EU and western countries to support Moldova but they have not. They put stability in the first place and they put democracy and liberty on the second place. That is a pity. We expected more help. Especially in the context of Georgia and Russia war and Russia pressure on our country”, said Nicolae Negru.
In the context of stability in the region it is impossible to predict any scenario with certainty. But political wrangling in neighbouring Ukraine, the mass protests in Georgia demanding the resignation of Saakashvili, and the global economic crisis has increased the temperature in the region.
It is clear that the EU “prefers stability with the Communist. But it is a false instability as it is not based on independence of media, on respect of human rights or on the independence of justice,” Negru said.
“This is window-dressing democracy. That is why young people started to manifest,” added Negru.
On the verge of bankruptcy
The slow and limited economic development of the country is another major problem. Moldova needs the EU for possible support for its economy. Currently the country survives thanks to remittances from workers abroad making up 36.5 percent of its GDP (gross domestic product), according to the World Bank. By now more than 1.5 millions have left the country.
Joining the EU gives to many the perspective that they will find a job but also that there will be investment from abroad to Moldova. “The communists promised 300.000 work places but did not keep those promises. I have almost finished university and I have no perspectives of a job in this country”, said a young student at the protest.
“After 20 years of developing we are damaged. Now we are in danger, we do not know what to do. In the 1990s there was more enthusiasm after all those years of Soviet Union. We believed in democracy and freedom. But now after fighting in the street for freedom, my family is here, my children are here, my colleagues are here, and we do not see any perspective for the future”, said Radu.
After two terms of the ruling party the confidence that the economic health of Moldova will improve dropped drastically. The country has nothing to offer “Without a political change lot of people will leave. The youth say that they have nothing to do here anymore if the Communists stay in power”, said Negru.
Similar to other former Soviet republics like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, Moldova is on the verge of bankruptcy. Out of a population of close to four million, excluding those who have left the country, most are either pensioners or very young. As more younger people leave, Moldova threatens to be a country filled by the elderly.
While Moldova has made a big step backwards in the democratic process, a new agreement could be reached in the course of this year. The opposition parties and the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), have demanded "an independent and thorough investigation of all allegations of violence be started immediately, and that those responsible for these violations be brought to trial", in full co-operation with the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights and its Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
It also recommended the immediate start of "an independent, transparent and credible inquiry into the post-electoral events", declared Pace in their resolution 1666 end of April.
The Netherlands is one of the countries urging that human rights
should be pivotal in a future EU-Moldova agreement. However, the leverage power of the EU to make regimes like Moldova adopt human rights values is questionable. So far the delicate relationship with Russia and the dependence of the EU on foreign energy has made the EU instruments for democracy weak tools.
For some, the historical events after the elections are signs that this is the time to fight. For others the Moldovan system is totally spoiled and has revealed to be still in the old KGB style.
Note:
(*) Moldova belonged once to Romania. It became a soviet republic in the 1940s. The issue of the language and of the identity has been always an issue. The pro Russian regime attacks that part of Moldovans who feel themselves ethnically Romanian and all those who are against Russia influence. Anything against the regime is considered an enemy. Pro EU supporters are considered pro Romania, and Romania is blamed for being behind the liberal movement. It is often convenient to have an enemy slogan, in so doing the real problems are not tackled: poverty, underdevelopment, emigration, social inequality, poor health and education system and lack of transparency and rule of law.
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