Religion and perspectives on democratic governance in Moldova

I am making the final steps in a study on the symbiosis between the Church (Eastern Orthodox) and the State, comparing Russia and Moldova. For the purpose of my research I view Church as a political institution in the society rather than a religious practice. Although the study of religion, as an area of inquiry, is not part of my research interests, that particular topic is of an interest to me, as it aims at looking at the factors that affect the political development in a transition country.

My preliminary findings show that Church in Russia and Moldova has played a [significant] role in the consolidation of authoritarian practices, and in the hindering of democratic development. As I was looking at some recent events, my attention was drawn to few posts in the Internet, that

Coming out of the blogging hibernation

I did not blog for a few months. It was a very busy summer, and a tragic one, as I had a family bereavement. As I started getting messages inquiring whether I intend to get back to posting, I am writing this one to confirm that: yes, I do intend to blog actively again. I did not decide yet if I am going to blog in English, or if I will switch into Russian/Romanian.

My posts will probably become more technical, as I started a PhD program in Political Science, and obviously my academic and research interests will influence my style of writing here. For the time being, for people interested in what is going on in Moldova, and who would like some perspectives that are different from what mainstream media is offering, I would suggest to check Dialog.md web-site. I wrote many things from what is posted there, although most of the times it was on behalf of the Dialog.md editorial team.

I will get back soon. Peace.

April 2009 Elections in Moldova: What it Took Communists to “Win”?

On the wave of continuous accusations launched by opposition parties and civil society organizations that the Parliamentary elections in Moldova (April 2009) were rigged, and that ODIHR/OSCE Observation Mission failed to do its job, I would like to get back to an article of mine, published by Transitions Online on 4 December 2008. That piece emphasized few ideas that months latter proved to be somewhat prophetic. Among them was the idea that OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights elections observation methodology became an archaic relic of the post-Cold War period, when the West was eager to teach the hungry-for-democracy post-Soviet countries how to run the electoral process.

However, since the mid 90s that methodology did not change, while the “naive” politicians in post-Soviet countries started to use state-of-the-art PR and social engineering techniques, which allowed them to fool the West, ODIHR, and use election process for legitimizing the continuous stay in power of their regimes. Obviously, with each additional electoral cycle that way of running elections lead to the annihilation, little by little, even of the primitive checks and balances that started to take shape in the political systems of some former USSR republics. But I won’t say a word more – here comes that article.

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Elections: False Hope

by Dumitru Minzarari
4 December 2008

Voting is losing its utility and value in ex-Soviet countries as rigging elections becomes routine practice for incumbent governments.

Elections have long been the flagship of the West’s democratization efforts worldwide. The West continues to see elections as a litmus test for measuring the advance of democracy in a country. This view has held even when significant resources invested into the liberalization of ex-Soviet

The pinnacle of humiliation: Police asks upkeep money from the parents of detained protesters

I have never thought in my life that I will be witnessing the law-enforcement agencies in my country behaving like terror squads, kidnapping people from the streets, putting them into custody with blatant violation of their rights and every single line of the Constitution, beating them till they turn black with bruises, breaking their bones, and using other frightening methods of “investigation”.

Local media not controlled by the Communists reported cases of young protesters being beaten up with plastic bottle full of water, to avoid visual recognition of phisical abuses, and that sentences were voiced for groups of protesters, inside police offices with no proper legal procedure, based on their wounds and bruises. The worse were you beaten, the longer the sentence, so that when you are put free, your body does not reveal the signs of cruel battering, stated a freed protester.

Female protesters which were incarcerated at the same time as their male fellows were forced to undress and were physically abused, according to Ziare.com.

There is one more thing that stroke me – and left me speechless. Unimedia reports, quoting Evenimentul Zilei, that police has asked the parents of protesters, who were kidnapped from the streets by people in civilian and  ended up in the police custody, that they pay the police the upkeep of their children in prison. The amount they request is MDL 5.9 (~$0.5) per day, and according to the police should cover the meal, which was described by a detained protester (Ion Cretu) as “sheer water- tea” and “boiled substance good only to feed pigs”.

Just to release you of any doubts – FT published yesterday an article, which reports that Marian Lupu, the Communist speaker of the former Parliament, has admitted the brutality of the police over the last days.

The post was written based on that Unimedia article. I could not embed this video into the post, but I advice you to watch it.

Person watch it

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A third young dead men linked to the 7 April anti-communist protests

It seems that the body count continues. Unimedia reports that a third dead body of a 26 year young men was brought by the police to his parents in the town of Soroca, in a hermetically sealed coffin, as the body was already decomposing. According to Unimedia, the mayor of Soroca town, Victor Sau, stated that police refused to provide any explanations on the reasons behind the decease of the young Eugen Tapu, and that according to the papers he died on 7 April, the day when police begin the mass arrests of young protesters (they reportedly arrested around 200 people that day).

Ziarul de Garda wrote that the Tapu family did not have a lawyer. Below that article, the user parisian said in his comment that a doctor, called to take care of the police wounds had seen in the neighboring room around 30 dead bodies of young people. According to the parisian, the doctor was threatened that if he speaks about what he has seen, his life will be short. While that kind of hearsay is to be taken very careful, the fact is that at least 10 young protesters were declared missing, which means in the next days we may learn about more deceases.

According to these two media outlets, and the comments below the articles, police claimed the last two dead young protesters committed suicide.

Amnesty International: Hundred of young protesters tortured in Moldova’s prisons

That’s the link to the post on the Amnesty International web-site. Comparing to the reports that the local human rights watchdogs provide on the terrifying treatment the protesters are exposed to, that AI report is just a drop in the ocean. I would like to quote two excerpts from the AI article:

“They beat us like animals. I thought they would beat us until we were dead. It is very hard when you are innocent.”

Anatol Matasaru was reported to have been forced by the policemen who were beating him to lick their boots so that they would stop.

I have no words to add. Just one more thing – while president Voronin has announced the amnesty of all protesters detained after the anti-communists rally last week, except those with criminal past, he did not say a word about launching investigations into “allegations of inhuman treatment” of young protesters.

The Moldovan “Andijan” and the forthcoming “Karimov effect”

I realize there will be people insisting the parallel is not accurate, and maybe even misleading. Without any offence, I’ll advice those to get informed better about what happened in Moldova during 6-9 April 2009, and in the days following the mass youth anti-communist protests.

You might say well, it is really not possible to compare the two cases. However, in my view both the Uzbekistan’s Andijan massacre in May 2005 and the Moldova’s anti-communist protests in April 2009 have one common thing – people protested against an authoritarian government, defending their rights, resisting against the misuse of power by the incumbent government. Only time will reveal all the atrocities committed against the young protesters. Though, even the small evidence collected by the civil society groups and domestic human rights watchdogs is terrifying. Two young people are dead, tens missing, hundreds are imprisoned in conditions that the superficial visit of a UN envoy have found “cruel, inhuman or degrading”. And the UN visitor was not allowed to enter two other detainees’ facilities, which we can certainly expect to have even worse conditions.

This is a Moldovan “Andijan” which takes place at the border of the European Union, and under the indifferent eyes of the Western ambassadors stationed in Moldova. Regardless many revealing videos and photos that the local media has made public, the EU ambassadors, these wannabe champions of human rights and freedom, have not yet reacted. They are waiting, exactly the way they did after the elections were

Moscow is Still the Master – the complete version of the TOL article

That is a more complete version of the “Moscow is Still the Master” article, published by the Transitions Online recently.

Moscow is Still the Master

A hazy statement designed in the Kremlin exposes the flaws in the conflict-resolution format for Moldova’s separatist territory.

Moldovan presidents have always been notorious for their personal approach to negotiations with Moscow, resulting usually in sound, long-lasting, and humiliating diplomatic defeats. Their Soviet-type leadership style – all three were former high-level apparatchiks – partly explains this foreign policy behavior. Historic feelings of inferiority toward the Kremlin have plagued the Moldovan political class since the country gained independence in 1991.

Eighteen years later, the lame-duck president Vladimir Voronin who is loosing his office after the 5 April parliamentary elections in Moldova, has stepped on the same rake. On 18 March, less than a month before elections won by his Communist Party yesterday, he signed a common declaration with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the secessionist Transdniester leader Igor Smirnov. Quickly tagged

Is Russian TV Channel preparing another disinformation on Moldovan protests?

Today I answered to the questions of “Russia” TV Channel on the recent youth anti-communist protests. Apparently the interview will be imputed into a bigger special edition on Moldovan anti-communist protests to be aired tomorrow evening. There are few curious things about that particular interview – the Russian journalist was too much insistent to get it, when I was not able to meet them yesterday, his colleague sent a crew to meet me today. As I am not the biggest newsmaker in Moldova, and not even the medium-sized one, that persistence has puzzled me.

That is not everything. The Russian journalist was very much eager to film me next to a computer and I was initially even suggested that we go to an Internet cafe for that purpose. As the Moldovan protests were nicknamed by some Western observers “Twitter revolution”, and as the main topic of the interview was supposed to be “the role of Internet on mobilizing the Moldovan protesters”, one may draw the conclusion that “Russian” TV Channel would like to cook another big

Facebook still blocked in Moldova in the aftermath of anti-communist protests

Update: all web-sites that were blocked to my knowledge, including Facebok, were possible to access starting Monday, 13 April 09.

I was more than happy to wake up today and realize that the access to my blog was not blocked any more. Other web-sites that were blocked or flooded during the protests days like unimedia.info and blogosfera.md became also accessible.

Then checking few more sites, I realized being too quick to make judgments. I tried to log onto Facebook, and the browser page would always face me with the “server not found” text. Then I went to hidemyass.com, and voila! – I was on the Facebook. So, this site is still being blocked for Moldovan users (at least for those using my provider services).

Here I found another post in Romanian, confirming the claims I posted previously that Russian social networking site Odnoklassniki.ru has blocked the attempts of Moldovan users to inform and organize themselves before and during the protests.

So, if you want to get access to sites which are not possible to view from Moldova, use proxy servers, get informed, and continue to inform others.