Fading To Black

Moldova did not "split" from Romania after WW2; at most it *was* split, by the occupying Soviet army and state. There was nothing voluntary about it.

1. You state that the communist government is genuinely popular, with approval ratings of around 45% while the opposition has around 25%. In fact, the communists are genuinely unpopular. The last major poll before the election gave them 35% versus 39% for all opposition parties combined, with 26% undecided. In Moldova, due to the climate of fear, opinion polls typically overstate communist support versus actual election results by between 5% and 10%. Also note that in the last election in 2005, 3/4 of the undecided vote went to the opposition.

2. A second very important issue is the roll played by the major western players - the EU & the US. Both came out with statements shortly after the election appraising it positively. In fact, the election was anything but free and fair and the result was clearly rigged, mainly through allowing multiple votes by Communist supporters. It very quickly became apparent to Moldova's opposition and their electorate that the result had been stitched up by the Communists and that the EU and the US were prepared to acquiesce, probably out of fear of Russia. This in turn led to desperation on the part of Moldova's youth, who had worked very hard to achieve a victory for the liberal parties of the opposition, had seen that result stolen from them, and had seen the EU and US fail to stand up for democratic values. Protest was their only option.

3. The main protest on Tuesday morning was a very peaceful affair attended by 30,000 young people. That protest ran from about 10am in the morning to around 1pm, when the opposition party organisers asked everybody to go home. The violence happened in the afternoon, and there is now increasing evidence that it was sponsored by the regime and its allies. On YouTube you will see videos of policemen breaking up concrete slabs for the vandals to use in their assaults on the Presidency and the Parliament, police supporting the young men who hoisted the Romanian flag, police presenting no real resistance to those trying to enter the two buildings, members of the Communist-allied PPCD among the instigators as well as a group of skinheads recently released from jail under an amnesty signed by the President.

4. The EU and the US need to atone for their sin of omission in failing to qualify the election as fundamentally flawed and in failing to deal properly with the terror and repression that has followed. An appropriate course of action would be to seek to establish a 1-year EU mandate over the country to allow pluralism and democratic institutions (especially a free media) to be restored, at the end of which fresh elections would be held. The EU & US could achieve this agreement through carrots and sticks - If the regime agrees, its leaders would receive an amnesty from prosecution, if they don't, charges will be brought against them in the ICJ, travel bans imposed and personal assets held in the West frozen.

Further, I want to point you to a couple of key issues. First, we in the West do not have much detailed information about what is happening in Moldova right now.

However, it is known that the number of protesters who stormed and damaged the inside of Parliament and the Presidency was very small. It would have been *trivial* for the Communist authorities to prevent the protesters from entering those buildings but they did not. This speaks volumes.

In fact, Mr. Voronin has given interviews in which he (essentially) said that he ordered the police to allow the protesters to enter those buildings. These are Voronin's own words, in an interview to the media, and you can verify them, for example here http://www.rian.ru/interview/20090408/167536093.html - this Russian news source is more likely to be pro-Voronin than against.

The opposition claims that it was not students who devastated those buildings, but planted provocateurs. If you are a journalist, this is a claim worth investigating. Other jouranlists did. Take a look at this picture, where "students" remove Moldova's flag from the Parliament and place an EU flag, while uniformed security forces look on. You can view this here http://www.jurnalul.ro/stire-externe/dovezile-provocarii-503961.html - the site explains where to find the videos - if you have a video you can be much more sure that it is not doctored.

Several journalists in Moldova took huge risks, and shot footage in the streets that raises crucial questions about who organized these acts of vandalism. These journalists have been arrested, beaten, and some have disappeared. If you are a journalist sitting in a comfortable chair in a Newsweek office in a country where the freedom of press can be taken for granted, you at least owe those journalists to take a look at their evidence.

How about this? This is a footage of a Moldovan security van, with a Moldovan license plate in front. But, the license plate in the back is from Transnistria??? http://www.jurnaltv.md/?article=2000

If you look at more of these internet videos, you can see that the journalists are agitated, and perhaps a little partial. You would be too, if police were beating you up while you were trying to report. But at the very least, you owe these journalists a little more research.

Finally, the Kremlin hasn't won anything yet. The opposition is still demanding a recount or revote, the (weakened) free press managed to put out enough evidence to raise doubts. It is shocking how little research you did, and how easily you are ready to jump to conclusions.

Mr. Matthews, you say <<Protesters set fire to government buildings, built barricades and some waved Romanian flags???an uncomfortable reminder that two thirds of the country is composed of ethnic Romanians and some wish to reunite with the neighbor, from which they split in 1940. >>

This is incorrect. Moldovans did not split from Romania. Stalin and Hitler made a deal, and then the Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Romania to surrender what is now the Republic of Moldova to the Soviet Union. You can verify this in any standard reference, such as Encyclopedia Britannica. It's surprising that a journalist writing an in-depth article on Moldova is not aware of the key historic events that can be found in any reliable encyclopedia.