Romanian paper warns EU of election violence in Moldova
A Commentary by George Damian in his article in Ziua: "A Deaf Europe for a Crushed Bessarabia"
"Some drug addicts have taken to the streets and are ready to steal our 650-year-old statehood. Beat them black and blue!" That was the kind of message sent to the forces of order in the Republic of Moldova on 7 April. We could all see what its result was on television: the demonstrators had been chased for three days in Chisinau. Young people were taken from the streets and beaten up. They were badly beaten when illegally detained, on their way to the place of detention, and when they arrived to the place of detention. Some of them were beaten to death.
President Voronin awarded the brave men who had gathered in groups of 10 to beat some dangerous 16-year-old kids. Voronin then granted amnesty, pardoning the young people illegally taken from the streets and not tried, as well as the people who committed the abuses. We will never know who was guilty if Voronin and his communi! sts stay in power. But the truth is slowly starting to come to light: we have found out how the elections were rigged, who placed the European Union flag on the Presidency and Parliament buildings in Chisinau (communist Vladimir Turcan, as a 17-year-old boy could not have gone past the secret services' men), who brought the trucks loaded with stones to Chisinau (where you normally do not even find a piece of paper on the ground, let alone thousands of big stones!).
It took the European Parliament three months to condemn all those terrible atrocities that occurred at the eastern border of the European Union. The European Parliament only condemned the violation of human rights on the left bank of the Prut River on 7 May. The opposition managed to get some peace at about the same time, after the organizers of the "coup" stopped chasing the Liberal leaders, whom they wanted to send to prison. International protests made Voronin understand that he could not expel the media and rule with a club in his hand.
The Liberal opposition in Chisinau managed to get united against the communist dictatorship, and no traitor voted for Voronin's puppet, Zinaida Greceanii, the woman who had told Bessarabian mothers that she would shoot their sons. Voronin carefully prepared the early elections. He set the election date for 29 July, in the middle of summer, when European and international institutions (that have almost lost their power of influence, anyway) are on holiday. It seems that Voronin counts on lack of reaction from the international community and from the European bodies. The new European Commission in not likely to meet before 2 October, when it will have been decided what treaty would govern the European Union. The European Parliament is still trying to create its structures and to start taking action. The OSCE does not have much to say now, after having declared that the elections held on 7 April were correct and democratic.
Voronin is quietly preparing his club-bearers. The Communist media in Chisinau is full of messages that incite to hatred and violence. Statements like "Good people, throw stones at the opposition leaders!" can be heard every day, on all television channels. The European Union will again have the bad luck of being confronted with the hotbed of instability called the Republic of Moldova, this time in the middle of summer, when European bureaucrats are on holiday. Its only response to the cries of the people clubbed by Voronin's militiamen will come under the form of a dry message: "We are not able to defend democracy and human right at the moment, due to the fact that we are away on holiday. Please try again in autumn, after the referendum in Ireland!"
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