Moldova has lost information war to Transdnestr: Moldavian press digest

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Moldavian experts and journalists show different views of the results of the referendum in Transdnestr

Moldavian politicians, experts and journalists continue commenting on the results of the Sept 17 independence referendum in Transdnestr. Almost all the voters of that breakaway region have opted for independence and possible accession into Russia, says Moldavskiye Vedomosti. Both before and after the referendum, the Republic of Moldova, the European Union, the OSCE and the western countries said that the voting was illegal and they did not recognize its results. “We do not recognize the results of the referendum. Yesterday will change nothing. The so-called referendum is a political farce by Smirnov (Igor Smirnov – President of Transdnestr — REGNUM),” says Moldavian Foreign and European Integration Minister Andrei Stratan.

“A whole generation of young people with different values has grown up in Transdnestr and Moldova. We chose Russia, they seek to join the EU and NATO,” the leader of the region Igor Smirnov said in his address to Transdnestrians. “Only a madman can try to put this together,” he added during a press conference in Tiraspol. Russia urged the West and the international organizations to recognize the referendum as “a fact of political life” and sent a group of MPs and NGO members to observe the voting. “The international observers have no remarks concerning the referendum,” the Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission Pyotr Denisenko said and urged the observers to also monitor the Dec 10 presidential election. “97%: now, it is for Russia to say its say,” Ukrainian observer, the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party Natalia Vitrenko said after the promulgation of the results.

“It is the personal business of each state: to recognize or not to recognize … We want them to recognize,” Transdnestr leader Igor Smirnov said after the voting. “The Transdnestr people sees its future only in cooperation with Great Russia.” Tiraspol hopes that the past independence referendum in Montenegro and the coming recognition of Kosovo will create a precedent for the recognition of Transdnestr and other separatist regions in the post-Soviet area, says the daily. Even though the western leaders say that one can’t apply the experience of the former Yugoslav autonomies to the unrecognized post-Soviet republics, the international media are beginning to more actively discuss this possibility. While the residents of Transdnestr are moving finally away from Moldova towards Russia, the Moldavian authorities are conducting NATO military exercises and are trying in vain to reduce the general excitement of their people over the possibility to get Romanian citizenship. Any man with good sense can see that Moldova is being torn to pieces. All Moldavian President Vladimir Voronin has proved to be able to is to call for “composure,” says the daily.

The referendum on the left bank has proved to be just a bubble, says Vremya. In the last 16 years they have held 6 referendums — all alike and none recognized – but, instead, Smirnov has got four more years of easy life. Political experts say that the last referendum had no single chance of recognition. The daily is not surprised: First, for being recognized, it had to be constitutional and sanctioned by the official authorities and the major international organizations – the UN, the OSCE and the EU. Second, those who are trying to allude to Kosovo and Montenegro for justifying the breakaway of Transdnestr are just cunning.

“First, because the Transdnestr conflict is not religious or inter-ethnic,” says political expert Roman Mihaes. Moreover, the status of Kosovo has not yet been finalized: under the UN Security Council’s resolution, the region is being controlled by the UN with the consent of Serbia, while Russia can block any UN SC resolution it doesn’t like. It is also stupid to refer to the internationally recognized secession referendum in Montenegro as the former Constitution of Serbia and Montenegro (2003) clearly said that Montenegro had the right to hold a referendum on secession from Serbia.

One more, the 6^th, independence referendum in Transdnestr has given the same results, says Komsomolskaya Pravda in Moldova. To be more precise, it has given no results. True, merely arithmetically, there are some results – 97% for independence and joining Russia. The very figure reminds us of the elections in the former USSR. As you remember, there, non-alternative candidates got exactly as much from the “unbreakable bloc of Communists and non-party men”; but, there was also dissidence there. At best, it was driven to kitchens, at worst, sent to camps or madhouses. When dissidence reached a climax, it broke out into the Supreme Council, into the streets and squares and the Soviet Union collapsed – despite all that 90 and more percent.

In Transdnestr, to be publicly dissident, for example, to support the accession of the region into Moldova is an official crime, an “anti-constitutional activity.” In Transdnestr, the constitutional order is protected by the State Security Ministry – one more sad analogy with the old Soviet times. The Ministry was quite active before the referendum. The history has shown that men in security agent uniforms campaign much more effectively than political technologists do. Under such conditions, one could as well vote for joining Mars, says the daily.

The referendum is over, the victorious fanfare has died down, the topic has gone off the air and we all have suddenly asked ourselves: “What next?” says Komsomolskaya Pravda in Moldova. Nobody in the world has recognized the referendum and its results (just a few Russian MPs don’t count). Even they in Tiraspol don’t risk to speak seriously about joining Russia. They in Moscow, too, perfectly understand that such precedents can not only provoke separatist moods in Russia itself, particularly, in the Caucasus, but can break the whole system of international relations and plunge the modern world into a chaos of uncertainty. Russia hardly wants it now that it has build up quite an impressive oil dollar muscular system. That’s why Moscow has not recognized and will, probably, not recognize the results of the referendum – something Chisinau has already thanked Russia and other mediator states for. Most probably, the past referendum will be just an argument during the peace talks – not a very strong argument as it has no international legitimacy. And everybody in Moscow and Tiraspol perfectly understands that the referendum does not mean that there is no more need of talks.

Moldavian political expert, Director of Chisinau Public Policy Institute Arkady Barbarosie says that the past referendum was “a folly.” In an interview to Novosti-Moldova he says: “What happened in Transdnestr was a folly of the Russian politicians.” “Now they say that the results of the referendum will not have legal force. People have voted for joining Russia, but Russia can’t receive them,” says Barbarosie. “Even though the people on the left bank have said ‘yes,’ the event can in no way be qualified as a referendum.” “Referendum is when well-informed citizens of democratic society freely express their will. There is no democracy in Transdnestr — even Russia admits it – well-informed citizens in an atmosphere of total propaganda is a nonsense, and, as far as I know, some voters on the left bank were pressured: for example, they said: if you don’t vote correctly, we will turn off your gas,” says Barbarosie. “They had no choice. The two referendum questions were just a show, the whole propaganda was for one of them.”

Concerning the consequences of the referendum, Barbarosie says that Russia does not need Transdnestr: it has even no geographic connection with that region, and it would be just one more region fully dependant on Russian subsidies. “In fact, the referendum was a kind of political look-out before the Dec presidential election in the region.” Nevertheless, Barbarosie agrees that the results of the “referendum” “may be used by Russia during the Transdnestr peace talks as a way to blackmail Moldova and Ukraine according to the principle: ‘the results have no legal force but the will of the people must be respected’.” Concerning the prospects of the peace process, Barbarosie says that, in order to attain results in the process, Moldova needs strong governmental position, a national reintegration strategy it could coordinate with the EU and Ukraine and lay on the negotiating table. “The Plan of Yushchenko” approved last year by Moldova, the EU and even Transdnestr with some provisos is “a weak document.” One of the victories in the process of “frozen conflicts” resolution was the last successful attempt of GUAM to put the issue on the agenda of the UN General Assembly.

There are many and various comments on the Sept 17 referendum in Transdnestr, says the vice chairman of the National-Republican Party of Moldova Victor Zosu in his article in Moldavskiye Vedomosti. I would rather not comment on the event as such (it is contrary to Moldova’s Constitution, that’s why, it has not been recognized), but there is a topic I can’t help mentioning. I would like to talk about something I have read, heard and seen in some media. The question is about the information effect of the “so-called” (so called by most of our national so-called mass media).

Let’s talk about “non-recognition” of the referendum. Everybody – even the organizers — knew it would not be recognized long before it was held. In fact, this event had a different purpose – something clearly formulated by the Russian Foreign Ministry: “the voice of the Transdnestrians must be heard in the world.” I slightly regret to say (I will say below what exactly I regret at) that they have met their purpose 100%. It is enough to say that EURONEWS broadcast a story about a referendum in Transdnestr (and the tone of the coverage was far from what Chisinau would like to hear). Add to this the presence some world leading news agencies and all leading Russian and Ukrainian mass media and you will understand that Moldova has lost one more battle in the information war between the two banks of Dnestr, says Zosu.

What I regret at is not so much this defeat (something I knew long before) but the dusty anti-Transdnestr clichés you could hear on Moldavian radio in the afternoon and on Moldavian TV in the evening. Clichés about bandit-separatists, about the totalitarian Tiraspol regime. They said that people were driven to polling stations at a gunpoint. They said the same during the armed conflict of 1992 when Chisinau was really crushed in information (and political-diplomatic) war, says Zosu.

How much retarded one should be to fail to invent anything new in as many as 15 years! Obviously, the present Moldavian authorities – all those red, orange, rose – are not ready to act adequately with respect to the Transdnestr conflict. They are equally clumsy in using information and political-diplomatic resources, says Zosu.

Meanwhile, after Sept 17 things have got even more complicated for Chisinau – not only because they in Tiraspol have said that they no longer want to built “common state” with the Republic of Moldova (formula from the Kozak Memorandum — a document dismissed by some Moldavian know-alls – they said there is no such concept in either the state law theory or the international legal practice). Russia’s decision to openly show to the whole world that it controls the situation in Transdnestr was not without purpose and was in no way out of mere “imperial ambitions.”

It was, undoubtedly, a response to the EU, who forced Moldova to introduce on Mar 3 a new customs regime at the Transdnestr section of the Moldavian-Ukrainian border and did it bypassing Russia. This is not the only reason though. It seems that Russia is preparing the world community for considering the Transdnestr problem right after it solves the problem of Kosovo (analogy with Kosovo does not imply just copying but, possibly, mechanically following the example). And it may well be considered and, most probably, in the wording proposed by Russia. I would rather not make forecasts, but it may so happen that in the near future Chisinau will be offered “so real a settlement scenario that the Kozak Memorandum will look just a pleasant memory to the third recognized president of the recognized Republic of Moldova.” (Moldavslkie Vedomosti)

Press-conference of the new head of the OSCE mission in Moldova

The new head of the OSCE mission in Moldova Louis O’Neill, who has replaced William Hill, gave a press-conference last week. He pointed out the progress in the mediation of the Transdnestr peace process. He said that the mediators have created real prerequisites for the resumption of the peace talks in the near future, reports Vremya.

O’Neill said that the OSCE does not recognize the referendum in Transdnestr and its results, reports Economic Review. He said that the referendum was one-sided, there were no democratic conditions for its conduct, voters were pressured and intimidated. As a result, the voting was not free. The organizers of the referendum ignored the opinion of the international community. The referendum questions were very complicated. The results of the referendum have proved that it was not democratic.

It is hard to believe that 97% could show unanimity in a free and democratic voting. O’Neill pointed out that the OSCE supports the territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova and advocates providing Transdnestr with a special status within the RM. Asked to comment on Russia’s position on the referendum, which is different from what the OSCE and the EU say, O’Neill said that the OSCE’s point is that Russia recognizes the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Moldova. The OSCE urges all the parties to the conflict to resume peace talks as quickly as possible. The OSCE Mission believes that they must come back to the negotiating table in order to discuss all problems.

It is extremely important to come back to talks and to move forward. There are good prerequisites for a mutually beneficial settlement, while the present situation does not benefit anybody, O’Neill said. He noted that the sides should discuss all issues pending since the stoppage of the talks in February: particularly, monitoring Transdnestr’s military-industrial complex, starting the OSCE mission for democracy assessment in Transdnestr and working out and approving confidence measures. Concerning the effectiveness of the “5+2” negotiating format (Moldavia, Transdnestr as parties; Ukraine, Russia, OSCE as mediators; EU, US as observers — REGNUM), O’Neill said that it is necessary to resume the talks — to give chance to this format – this requires political will which is being created now.

Independent Moldova reports O’Neill as saying that the OSCE gives priority to the withdrawal of Russian arms from Transdnestr. OSCE experts say that this process may be finished in some 6 months if the sides display political will – something the sides are not doing at present. On Aug 12 O’Neill personally tried to get to the ammunition depots in Kolbasnaya. The visit was coordinated with the Russian Defense Ministry and the commander of the Group of Russian Forces in Transdnestr (GRFT). However, Transdnestr officials did not let O’Neill in. So, he concludes that the GRFT has no authority over Transdnestr officials. Asked by IM correspondent if the Joint Peacekeeping Forces control the situation in the Security Zone and in neighboring areas, O’Neill said that, thank God, there has been no single armed skirmish in the Transdnestr region for already 14 years. However, the efficiency of control there is still an open question. What will the Transdnestrians get after the country’s reintegration? They will get something they don’t have now, something they have long been craving for: opportunity to live in a recognized subject of the international law. O’Neill sees no other alternatives for Transdnestr. The optimal way is special status of Transdnestr within the Republic of Moldova.