The Transnistrian conflict - is it really over?

[Image source]

Vladimir Socor had two articles in the Friday, April 13th (!) Eurasia Daily Monitor about a potential rush to a settlement of the long-unresolved secessionist conflict in Moldova. In the first article, "Voronin Pressured to Accept Russian Plan for Transnistria," he laid out some details of a settlement plan apparently negotiated directly between Moscow (by Security Council Deputy Secretary Yuri Zubakov) and Chisinau. Socor reported that Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin had been presenting the plan at policy conferences with a small number of top officials" where he "read out the salient points from a set of Russian-language documents."

Here's what Socor wrote on April 13 about how finalized the deal looked then:

Procedurally, it is envisaged that Russia and Moldova would first agree among themselves on how to proceed, whereupon they would officially inform the other members of the official negotiating format (the United States, European Union, OSCE, and Ukraine) and request their endorsement. In this way, the 5 + 2 format’s circumvention would be crowned with a fait accompli on Russian terms.

Socor concluded:

While Lavrov’s MFA handles the negotiations in the 5 + 2 format and has driven them into deadlock, Chisinau wishes to believe that Zubakov’s Security Council team is more flexible and less “dogmatic” than the Russian MFA.

Clearly, the Russian side does not negotiate in good faith through either of these two channels. Zubakov’s primary goal is apparently to misuse his channel in order to erode and degrade Chisinau’s package-deal proposal, adding conditions and procedures that would ultimately nullify its value.

In the second article, "Moscow Now Seeks to Tempt Voronin into Dissolving Parliament," Socor describes what might have to happen for the proposed settlement to be finalized and some of the consequences of moving forward with Russia's apparent plan:

The Russian side now seeks to tempt Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin into dissolving the parliament and changing or breaching the constitution for the sake of a settlement that seems illusory in any case.

The Communist Party controls 56 seats in the 101-seat parliament. This number falls short of the two-thirds majority necessary for changing the constitution. Dissolving the parliament in order to hold anticipated elections would also be an anti-constitutional move. Under Article 85 of the constitution, the parliament could only be dissolved if it fails to elect the head of state within three months, to confirm the government within three months, or to adopt legislation during a three-month period. None of these conditions obtain, however.

To circumvent the constitutional safeguards, some inner-circle members are advising Voronin to dismiss the government and instruct the Communist parliamentary majority to refrain from confirming a new government or enacting legislation during three months. The president would then dissolve the parliament and see to the election of an obedient one. An almost seduced president seems at times to believe that it would be a matter of political will and a test of his team’s strength to proceed along this path, while presidential lawyers would find some appropriate formula for forcing anticipated elections.

Moscow’s proposals also run counter to Moldova’s law on citizenship, which does not permit citizens of another country to be elected to parliament or serve in government. Tiraspol’s nominees to those positions would almost certainly be citizens of Russia, with loyalties focused on that country, not Moldova.

In the week since these two articles appeared, there have been a number of reactions in print and around the internet discussing the possibility that settlement - on mostly Russian terms - may be at hand.

Moldovan journalist Dumitru Minzarari posted a translation of one of the Socor pieces ("Voronin Pressured") into Russian on April 16 with the following introductory comment:

Rumors about the "Zubakov plan" discussed in the article have been circulating in the Moldovan political elite for some time.

There are a couple of quite interesting comments at that post analyzing the situation and breaking down the existence of two plans - one, the "package deal," which official Chisinau may be prepared to implement; and the other, the "Zubakov Plan," which would seem to require many more concessions on the part of Moldova. Here's a machine translation.

Minzarari posted on the next day his analysis of the situation surrounding the conflict resolution process during the week of April 6-11 - very interesting reading and serious analysis, although I'm afraid I don't have time to translate this one from Russian either and can only provide another machine translation (if anyone can recommend a better one, I'm all ears).

The post discusses some of the factors behind Russia's eagerness for a settlement, among them a goal of being known as a "stabilizing factor" in the CIS. That would certainly be a change. There are a couple of interesting comments at the post as well - check the machine translation if you don't know Russian but can decipher robot-English. In the second comment there, Minzarari concludes that "Chisinau uses the potential assistance of the West quite feebly. And not because they don't know how to use it - they don't want to."

The Economist's Edward Lucas posted his evaluation of the proposed settlement's prospects for success on April 19th:

It will be hard for outsiders to block the deal; they may not even bother to try. If they did, they might be called wreckers, given that both sides want it. Yet Mr Voronin's plan means that Russia has, for once, trumped the West.

Blogger Lucia Candu evaluated the situation from Moldova as follows:

This initiative is another "suprise-suprise!" action which is not being open to public debate. Until recently, available information seems to come from leaking unofficial sources. Politicians , experts and bloggers have already experessed their opionions on something that the wider public has not been properly informed about.

Kosmopolit has a negative take on the proposed settlement as well, and concludes, "All in all, a very “Russian” settlement plan…"

Jibs of Steady State commented on that post with his take on Russia's ability to resolve this and other post-Soviet conflicts - on Russia's terms:

I had this gut feeling that when Russia wants, it can settle conflicts - at a high price for Moldova though. I am sure similarly Russia could resolve with a single swipe the South Ossetian conflict, maybe even Abkhazian (would be harder though).

As long as the deal takes the country back to USSR, it will work overnight.

He also posted his own reaction to the plan at Steady State.

In all, the modus operandi in secretly negotiating and hastily revealing this "deal" appears similar to the one used by Russia to try to force a settlement on its terms in 2003 with the Kozak Memorandum, which was also negotiated outside of the official process and would have resulted in a settlement advantageous to Russia.

The so-called Zubakov Plan, however, does not yet appear to be a fait accompli. A Moldovan parliamentary leader has spoken out against it, and it will be interesting to see the public reactions in Chisinau and the reactions of the other participants in the formal negotiating process in the coming days. Western reaction and public outrage helped to scuttle the Kozak Memorandum several years ago - we'll see what happens this time.

Not surprisingly, Socor's analysis is not optimistic:

[Voronin] and his team calculate that Putin could only deliver a settlement, however “imperfect,” to Moldova during the next few months, before the presidential election campaign enters its main phase in Russia. They are being led to believe by Zubakov and others that Putin craves the laurels of an international peacemaker as he exits from the presidency; and that he would be clement to Moldova on the terms of settlement, if Moldova facilitates such an exit for him.

Moldova is negotiating under multiple pressures, some generated by Russia and some self-generated. Moscow and Tiraspol are stonewalling the negotiations on Transnistria. Russia’s politically motivated embargo has pushed Moldova to the brink of recession; while Moldova’s own failure to attract investments and diversify its export market is aggravating the Russian embargo’s impact. The president and the Communist Party badly need to come up with some achievements to show in next year’s parliamentary election campaign. [...]

Thus, Voronin seems very keen on reaching a bilateral accommodation with the Kremlin, given the less than two years to go in his final presidential mandate. He is worried about his place in the country’s history, if he fails to effectively address the country’s main problems -- deep poverty and the Transnistria conflict -- toward the end of his eight-year presidency. Thus he seems tempted to stake on Putin for illusory solutions on both counts.

Tiraspol, Moldova (near the bus station), Aug. 7, 2006.

I've spent way too much time this weekend thinking about Transnistria, but somehow it's much more interesting than preparing for next week's classes and the exams soon to follow...