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.