Romania

Twitter revolution – no coup d’etat but big drama anyway

Twitter revolution did not change government in Moldova but created big drama instead including a couple of conspiracy theories and “fast-track” mini enlargement of EU with one million new EU citizens while Moldova possibly losing a quarter its citizens with same deal. So a relatively small improvised demonstration can lead its (mis)use for possible purposeful utilization of multidimensional aims of different players.

In my post "Twitter Revolution-Case Moldova" I described a bit implementation and motivations about events occurred after 5th April elections in Moldova. Conclusions about elections itself are in my post "Election in Moldova – Nato Perspective blocked”.

Some random pickings from Moldovan twitters about situation are describing situation afterward:

…about 200 people was arrested and nobody know where they are now...communist president had a meeting will all school and university deans, and told them that they'll be fired if police catch one of their students at protest….also they close borders with Romania, and don’t let international journalists to enter in country. 3 journalists was denied entry in airport…2 Moldavian journalists disappeared after they filmed undercover police beating students...while in Chisinau people was protesting and fighting, national tv had on a documentary film...

On the other hand demonstration has been characterized also as an act where

youth, paid by older internationally-acting manipulators with money, alcohol and drugs, seized a presidential office, planted a Romania’s flag on a president palace and set on fire country’s parliament, demanding inclusion as a province in Romania.”

Conspiracy 1

The first conspiracy theory came public April 14th by Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review. According its sources flags of Romania and EU over Moldova’s presidential office building were run up by employees of Moldavan secret services. The Flags of Romania and the European Union which have been run up on April 7, over the building of the Moldova’s presidential office during the protest actions against falsifications of parliamentary elections, were raised up at presence of a policeman, a source in the Information and Security Service (SIS) of Moldova told news agency Regnum April 14th. According to the source, the flag of Romania overt the building was raised by an employee of the SIS. (Source AXIS)


Conspiracy 2

Few days later April 16th Moldavian President Vladimir Voronin expressed totally opposite conspiracy theory claiming that nine Serb nationals took part in organising the coup d’état in Chisinau, adding that the Moldavian secret service has information that the unrests were headed by former ‘resistance’ fighters. President Voronin said he had a photograph of a Serbian citizen who he claims is working for the Americans. – We have it all on tape and we can identify all the animals who were attacking the police – Voronin said.

Speaking in an interview for the Spanish daily El Pais, Voronin said nine Serbian citizens and several Romanian agents have been registered in Chisinau.

Danko Cosic from Serbia, the director of a non-governmental organisation “Prokoncept”, who was an observer in Moldavia during the elections, said that the country does not even have nine Serbs in it. – They showed the photograph Voronin speaks of. I am on that photo. They took the photo in front of the presidency building. I took no part in any violence. For sure, whoever is taking part in violence is not holding his hands in his pockets – Cosic concluded. He also said that the story of President Voronin is very illogical. – Nine Serbs could not organise a riot. There was me and another young man there – Cosic said. (Source AXIS)

Hasty consequences

There are growing social forces in Moldova seeking reunification with Romania for nationalist reasons and as an easy path to EU membership. Already between 10% and 20% of Moldovans have Romanian, and by extension EU, passports. The fear of Romanian expansionism frightens Transnistria away from reconciliation, while the “Kosovo precedent” gives its arguments for independence more weight.

Romanian President Traian Basescu told the Romanian parliament that he would fast-track Moldovans for Romanian citizenship following riots in the Moldova (Source DW)  . Fast-tracking citizenship to some 1m people next door in Moldova, in effect giving EU citizenship to a quarter of the population of Europe’s poorest state.

EU institutions are appalled (Source euobserver) at Romania's proposal to give citizenship. The website quoted an unnamed EU official as describing the plans as "frightening."

To make issue more complicate one should also note that at same time Russia is trying to draw Transdniestr into its orbit by giving out passports to (Moldovan) citizens living in this breakaway republic.

My perspective

From my perspective few points I would like to highlight, such as

  • If it is true that Moldovan government had purposeful utilization of demonstration I would claim this to be a double stupidity: First to implement this kind of action when you actually have almost landslide win in the election and second to be caught in the act of fabrication. The April 5 parliamentary election may have been flawed, but not to the degree the opposition claims.

  • Was “Twitter revolution” an attempt of another so-called "colored revolution," or simply an expression of rage by young people who demand to live better lives? There are certainly specific individuals in Moldova who are interested see unification with Romania as the easiest way into the European Union. Looting of government buildings seems more hooliganism than a plan to take control of the country or to bring about "regime change by force.

  • One question is if using social networks with modern technology very democratic way in politics? This tactic suits mainly in urban areas by people – mostly younger generation – who are familiar with modern communication means and have infrastructure supporting them.

  • Many in breakaway Transdniester are watching the recent events in Moldova with satisfaction, in that the unrest and violence only serve as a further reason why they should not agree, in the wake of Kosovo's independence, to once again become a part of Moldova.

  • For over a decade, Transdnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia had strong cases for independence, even stronger than Kosovo's (My comparison Kosovo-Transdnstria in article “Transdnistria Follow-up. Today they have de facto independence, even if it is not recognized. And if now some Moldovans or wannabe Romanians are demanding border changes - after Kosovo - how can they be denied this? 

  • The whole mess now in Moldova makes EU's position challenging;  what is its position about this kind of mini-enlargement, how implement new European Partnership (EaP) program on the ground, how deal with secessionist Transdnistria, Gagauz and maybe more regions, what kind of cross-border activities to support?

And the next color will be ...?

More my views in my BalkanBlog!

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Election in Moldova – NATO perspective blocked

Last week-end Moldova had parliamentary elections.The ruling Party of Communists won so no big change in politics is expected.Elections in EU’s border have however some significance as the new leadership will be the counterpart during period after EP elections influencing e.g. enlargement, partnership and security questions.Before Moldova (FYRO) Macedonia already had their voting and many ways very important elections in Ukraine are coming later.


Moldova is one of the frontlines of “battlefield” of interest spheres between EU and Russia, between U.S. and Russia and between future energy political deals.It is also a test for international law, conflict management and territorial sovereignty.

Elections

As many as 50 per cent of Moldovan eligible voters cast their ballots for the Party of Communists (PCRM). Thus, the ruling party won a landslide victory leaving the other three political parties that made it to parliament far behind. Three other parties managed to pass the 6 per cent threshold required to enter the legislature - the Liberal Democrat Party with 13.9 per cent, the Liberal Party with 13.9 per cent and Our Moldova Alliance with 10 per cent.Liberals have demanded Moldova’s reunification with Romania. All three are in favour of closer ties with the European Union, free-market policies and pursuing NATO membership. The Communists (PCRM) are pro-EU, anti-NATO and less market-friendly.

The other formations failed to clear the six-per-cent threshold. The Social Democratic Party - which proposed (Infotag 20 March 2009) to pass the Transnistrian region to the Russian Federation into a concession for 30 years -grabbed 3.71 per cent of the votes, the Christian Democratic Popular Party 3.02 per cent, the Democratic Party 2.97; the Moldovan Centrist Union 2.76 per cent and the European Action Movement 1 per cent. The other parties and independent candidates mustered less than one per cent.

The Central Election Commission (CEC) has reported voter turnout was 59.52%, i.e. 1,543,966 persons, of whom 14,838 people voted at polling stations opened in foreign countries.

The April 5 parliamentary elections in Moldova met many international standards and commitments, but further improvements are required to ensure an electoral process free from undue administrative interference and to increase public confidence, the International Election Observation Mission said in a statement, on Monday, April 6, at a news conference.

Transdnistrian question

Moldovans share a linguistic and historical heritage with Romania, but its Transdniestria – aka Pridnestrovie aka Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica (PMR) - region broke away in Soviet times because it feared Moldova would unite with Romania. Most of Moldova was once part of its western neighbour.Transdnistria has practically been independent – if not recognized – state already over 17 years. Short historical representation one may find from here

On March 18 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted Moldovan President Voronin and Transnistria's President Smirnov at the Barvikha residence near Moscow. The three signed a Russian-drafted joint declaration. Apparently panicking in the run-up to the April 5 elections, Voronin has hoisted the white flag of surrender on Transnistria in return for a pre-election endorsement from the Kremlin. However March 25th he refused to go to Tiraspol for a meeting with Smirnov.A day earlier Transnistrian republic announced slapping a travel ban on a whole number of Western (EU and U.S.) officials. Smirnov stated that this was Tiraspol’s reply to the European Union Council of Ministers’ decision to extend for another 12 months, until February 2010, the travel ban on top Transnistria officials. (Infotag 25.3.2009)

Within the meeting the participants were to evaluate the functioning of the eight work groups created to elaborate the confidence-building measures between Chisinau and Tiraspol in the social-economic and humanitarian domains and to single out new tasks related to this.

Post-election protest

Violent protests have broken out in Moldova after the ruling Communist Party was elected on Sunday.About 10,000 - some sources claim over 30,000 - demonstrators gathered on a central square in Moldova's capital Chisinau to protest against the newly elected government. Some had waved European, Romanian and Moldovan flags from the roof of the president's offices.

Some of the protesters are demanding Moldova's reunification with Romania, while others are chanting "Down with the Communists!" Some protesters stormed the Moldovan parliament and presidential office and set fire to furniture.Traffic along the city's thoroughfare has ground to a halt, but police say they have the situation under control. One woman died and about a hundred people were hurt after protesters.

Some possible consequences

Moldova’s parliament will select a new President as Mr Voronin is not eligible according law to be reselected anymore.However he probably will get new influential post – maybe PM or Speaker of Parliament – so his policy will continue.This means no to NATO, no to reunification with Romania, some but not full cooperation with EU, continuing decline of GUUAM (cooperation body supported by US energy giants and military-industrial-complex) and frozen situation with separatist regions.

Talks about solution for Transdnistria/PMR will probably continue in 2+1 format (Moldova and PMR as parties, Russia mediator), possible result will be delivered to official “western backed” 5 (Moldova/PMR, Russia, Ukraine, OSCE)+2 (U.S. and EU) process.

If the talks are leading to unlikely scenario to pursue the federalization of the Republic of Moldova then also it is expected that the demands of transforming Gagauzia region from autonomy to republic will increase.

Notwithstanding the outcome of Moldova/PMR talks the separatist region will continue its life as state – Transdnistria has all statehood elements, its economy is relatively good with export to over 100 countries and it can manage without UN seat. If EU recognize the reality it could remove the visa ban and start pragmatic cooperation.

A Follow-Up 8.4.2009

 

According BalkanInsight.com – online publication of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network -  Moldova's president Vladimir Voronin today accused Romania of involvement in the violent protests which have swept Chisinau. Moldova has also decided to expel the Romanian ambassador and to introduce visa requirements for its Western neighbour.

 

Moldova was part of Romania from 1918 to 1940 until it was annexed by the Soviet Union. Moldova became independent in 1991 and the two countries share the same ethnic and linguistic background. Relations between the two countries have deteriorated under Vladimir Voronin’s Presidency. In 2007 Moldova stopped Romania from opening two consulates in the country, claiming Bucharest was trying to lure Moldovan citizens.


More about topic one may find from my earlier articles:

Balkans and Failed States Index

Different aspects of freedom, wider human rights and civil liberties, democracy, economical, social and other kind of development are hard to implement if the state is failing or already failed. If an outstanding problem occurs, such as food crisis or a devastating hurricane, the world’s weakest states are the most exposed when crisis strikes. In the Failed States Index, FOREIGN POLICY and The Fund for Peace rank the countries where state collapse may be just one disaster away.

Founded in 1970 and now published by the Slate Group, a division of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC, in Washington, D.C., FOREIGN POLICY is the premier, award-winning magazine of global politics, economics, and ideas. Their challenging “mission is to explain how the world works—in particular, how the process of globalization is reshaping nations, institutions, cultures, and, more fundamentally, our daily lives.”

Failing State?

Failing state is defined by authors of index as follows:

A state that is failing has several attributes. One of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.

The 12 indicators (used in Index/AR) cover a wide range of elements of the risk of state failure, such as extensive corruption and criminal behaviour, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalized persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures, brain drain, and environmental decay. States can fail at varying rates through explosion, implosion, erosion, or invasion over different time periods.

The twelve Indicators

The rank order of the states is based on the total scores of the 12 indicators. For each indicator, the ratings are placed on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being the lowest intensity (most stable) and 10 being the highest intensity (least stable). The total score is the sum of the 12 indicators and is on a scale of 0–120. Countries that have scores lower than 30 are categorized as Most Stable, countries that have scores more than 90 are considered as Critical, the scores between them indicates that a state is In Danger, Borderline or Stable.

The 12 indicators are divided into three groups and are following:

Social Indicators: 1. Mounting Demographic Pressures 2. Massive Movement of Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons creating Complex Humanitarian Emergencies 3. Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Group Paranoia 4. Chronic and Sustained Human Flight

Economic Indicators: 5. Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines 6. Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline

Political Indicators: 7. Criminalization and/or Delegitimization of the State 8. Progressive Deterioration of Public Services 9. Suspension or Arbitrary Application of the Rule of Law and Widespread Violation of Human Rights 10. Security Apparatus Operates as a "State Within a State" 11. Rise of Factionalized Elites 12. Intervention of Other States or External Political Actors The numbers above are correlating with columns in Failing State Index table below.

The Index

From original Failed State Index (more in original story ) I have selected following countries to my modified table:

  • Balkan states
  • Top 3 and Worst 3 in the world
  • U.S. as old superpower
  • BRIC countries as rising superpowers

An finally here is the Index: __''FailedStateIndex''__/mod.AriRusila

Final notice

This article - and statistics behind it - and my earlier article “Freedom in Balkans” are complementary to each other - same problems are viewed from different perspectives. However in general all rankings which I have quoted are representing more or less anglo-american point of view - its values and research methods. If rankings were made e.g. by some byzantine institute the results could be differ - the viewpoint and tradition for example regarding democracy are not one to one with western views. If these limitations are noted so I anyway think that discussion about findings in different countries could be valuable material for further development.

Freedom in Balkans

Political freedom is usually described as the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression. Often word “Liberty” - the condition in which an individual has the ability to act according to his or her own will - has been connected to freedom and social anarchists see negative and positive liberty as complementary concepts of freedom.

Freedom House is an independent nongovernmental organization based in USA that supports the expansion of freedom in the world. Freedom House’s definition of freedom is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The Declaration includes freedom of religion, expression, and assembly; freedom from torture; and the right to take part in the government of his or her country.

With these limitations – US organisation and definition of freedom – the survey anyway tells something also about Balkans.

Global perspective

The Freedom in the World survey provides an annual evaluation of the state of global freedom as experienced by individuals. The survey measures freedom—the opportunity to act spontaneously in a variety of fields outside the control of the government according to two broad categories:

  • Political rights enable people to participate freely in the political process, including the right to vote freely for distinct alternatives in legitimate elections, compete for public office, join political parties and organizations, and elect representatives who have a decisive impact on public policies and are accountable to the electorate.
  • Civil liberties allow for the freedoms of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy without interference from the state.

The Center for Religious Freedom was a division of Freedom House for 11 years. In December 2006, the Center moved to the Hudson Institute so data over this aspect will be found from there.

As an outcome of Freedom House’s survey is e.g. country reports, tables and charts and especially “Map of Freedom” which also can act as interactive tool to reach data collected.

FreedommapMOF2008.pdf

Balkans

The results of last survey vary quite a lot by country. Below I collected a table of results in Balkans from Freedom House’s 2008 publication adding to last column the score from religious survey 2007 of Hudson Institute. Each pair of political rights and civil liberties ratings is averaged to determine an overall status of “Free,” “Partly Free,” or “Not Free.” Those whose ratings average 1.0 to 2.5 are considered Free, 3.0 to 5.0 Partly Free, and 5.5 to 7.0 Not Free.

Country.....................Status...Political Rights..Civil Liberties..Religious freedom

  • Kosovo* .........Not free..............6.......................5......................4
  • Albania..........Partly free............3.......................3....................na
  • Macedonia**.Partly free............3.......................3......................4
  • BiH***...........Partly free............3.......................3......................na
  • Montenegro...Partly free............3.......................3.....................na
  • Serbia................Free..................3.......................2......................4
  • Romania.............Free.................2........................2.....................3
  • Croatia...............Free.................2.......................2.....................na
  • Bulgaria..............Free..................1.......................2......................3
  • Slovenia..............Free..................1......................1......................na
  • As province/territory under UNSC resolution 1244
    • FYROM
      • Bosnia-Herzegovina

Freedom of the Press in Balkans

A free press plays a key role in sustaining and monitoring a healthy democracy, as well as in contributing to greater accountability, good government, and economic development. Freedom House has been monitoring threats to media independence and their annual survey tracks trends in global press freedom and draws attention to countries or regions where such freedom is under threat.

I collected data related to Balkans from the 2008 edition of Freedom of the Press published by Freedom house and the situation is as follows (Rank among 194 countries):

Country..................................Rating...................Rank

  • Slovenia........................... 23....................... 46
  • Bulgaria............................ 33....................... 76
  • Croatia............................. 36....................... 78
  • Montenegro...................... 38....................... 81
  • Serbia............................... 39....................... 84
  • Romania........................... 44....................... 94
  • Bosnia-Herzegovina......... 45....................... 97
  • Macedonia (FRY)............... 47......................100
  • Albania.............................. 50...................... 105
  • Kosovo (as UNSC 1244)....na....................... na

The country status related freedom of press was in Slovenia free, all the others got status partly free.

Some conclusions

The Freedom House’s ratings are maybe giving too good picture about freedom in anglo-american-West European countries. Despite there undoubtedly is wide formal freedom e.g. in media the business “laws” are guiding the mainstream media to uncritical approach so that profits and advertisement incomes are not in danger.

The freedom ratings with political rights, civil liberties, religious and press freedom were not so bad in Balkans especially against the turbulent background of modern history. Naturally there is challenges ahead and work to do. The only peculiarity was the result of Kosovo which is ranked as ‘not free’ and received scores the same as Sudan, Chad and Egypt in terms of political rights and civil liberties. Odd because UNMIK was send Kosovo to introduce democratic standards and human rights in its protectorate. If the result is this so the mission must have failed disastrously and lessons learned should fast to be applied in future missions of crisis management.

More my articles over Balkans and Caucasus one may find from my Archives:Blog

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