I have been occupying the position of the mayor for three years now and the problem of Transnistria is very painful personally for me. It is a problem that makes us and the whole population from the left riverbank of Nistru think and it began making think the entire government of our Republic. These problems are very serious, and very difficult to solve. From my point of view I would like to say that we bump into different problems concerning the village administration, and the public institutions from the territory of the town hall of Cocieri: goods shipment and transportation, financial-banc work, we are subdue in regard with gas and energy, we are subdued to Dubasari, which today practically doesn’t use the Moldavian ley and we are looking for different ways to pay our debts to them. The situation we find ourselves in is very difficult if we are speaking about stopping gas and energy delivery, we are looking for different methods on tensions over the Moldavian part which is today in Transnistria. Nevertheless, we are optimistic deep inside our souls and we hope to better, because all the population of Moldova will hear us, and the high officials will hear us too that we should make peace in Transnistria and everything will be nice and well.
Together with the Transnistrian conflict we have lost the administration of Todercani, the ex-kolkhoz “Patria” (“Homeland”), because a large part of the economy of this village has remained on the left side of the river Nistru together with the ex-complexes from Dubasari district. When I speak about the complexes I mean the zoo technical ones, the orchard that has been planted on money of all the farms, of those on the left side as well. Economically the investments have been made on the left river bank at that time more than on the right side of the river. I want to say that a cattle farm remained that was in Holercani too, but almost 500 animals remained in the complexes of the left side at that moment. Almost 800 of pigs remained there too… if we transform this in money that circulated at that time this would’ve gone up to 6 millions of Russian rubles. Many people from our farms have been working at that time on this side at these complexes and they have lost their jobs and material welfare. The kolkhoz had on its account at that moment some 12 millions, 6 millions of which were for this side.
I.M. – With the help of mediators or of the international bodies or NATO, OSCE, UNO, who could involve and solve the problem?
Of course I see the role here only through understanding; people have already begun to understand each other, because they have relatives on the both sides. The international organizations should bring their contribution for the unification of these sides from the both river banks too. They should do it in such a way that there wouldn’t exist anymore these dilemmas, these bridges, these control places, because it is the population that is at loss: both the left bank and the right bank of the river. People practically don’t see any perspective of developing further. The investors, well you see we live here in a very picturesque region… Some time ago the Republic of Moldova took the direction of developing the tourism, but now people just don’t want to come to this region.
As a native inhabitant of Dubasari of course, I come from Holercani, when the Transnistrian conflicted has started I have taken part in the events right from the first day and moments. I have spoken on the tribune in Dubasari, during all the united meetings of Soviet and during those of the district, as well as city meetings in order not to get to this conflict, because it has been obvious for a long time. On the 2nd of March 1992 I was occupying the position of the mayor of Holercani and I felt that evening that the police would be taken to Dubasari. In November, we have gone together and to tell you the truth I have taken part to all those moments, even to the armed conflict as a volunteer and I have even been shot. They do not pay the attention the people who have fought deserve. The people are seeking for a connection between the left and the right river banks all by themselves, but the government forgets about these kinds of things, because even during that time mistakes have been made, nevertheless it is difficult to find those tangential moments for uniting them back together.
I would like to begin with the affirmation that the problem of Transnistria can be solved out. In order to solve this conflict some essential moments have to be clarified here:
1. The essence of the regime that functions on the left bank of Nistru is determined by the means it has been established with. The establishment of this regime has been accompanied by violence, demagogy, misleading the population. The fact that this regime has been established through violence and misleading the population determines its political essence: it is a totalitarian regime. I would like to draw the attention to the fact that this is not an exaggeration; this corresponds to the reality from the left bank of the Nistru. We have the so- called MGB that removes from the start any political opposition that terrorizes the population that influences the pro-fascist youth organizations, that censors mass-media etc.
The so-called elections that are held on the left bank of the Nistru are a set-up show, because the same MGB summits before the elections the leaders of the industrial units, the local leaders and taking over the style of KGB from the soviet times it manipulates people in order to shut up people, in order to exclude any opposition and finally the elections take place according to the principle emitted by Stalin – it doesn’t matter how people vote, it matters who counts the votes. Therefore a conclusion can be drawn: if we deal with a totalitarian regime, what is the purpose of negotiating with this regime? To which he is accepted as being an equal partner with the constitutional power from Chisinau. If we consider the interests of the Republic of Moldova the reality has already proved for a period of more than ten years that these negotiations are meaningless. Because the negotiations are a perfect cover for their attempts to consolidate their position, these are convenient to the separatist regime only. There is another moment that is worth to be taken into consideration when speaking about this regime: we have to make public the interests that are being accomplished under its cover. We talk about criminal interests in the first place. The so-called the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic is just a political cover for an entire network of international organized crimes. There is evidence, there are facts, there are proofs that the volume of smuggling from this zone outruns at least half billion US$. I possess these documents and I can prove that this is not overreacting.
Thus, if we want to solve the problem we need to create the situation during which the criminal interests will not be realized, the totalitarian regime will be democratized and will be developed a certain formula of negotiations that would please the interests of both the Russian Federation and of the Ukraine which compete in this zone. When I speak about democratizing this regime I certainly do not mean creating NGOs with the participation of Igor Smirnov and of collaborators of the Ministry of Security. The criminal elements, starting with Igor Smirnov, that arrived together with the Kazaks and other criminal elements (the last two having been sent by the Russian federation in 1991-1992 in order to kill the citizens of the Republic of Moldova) on the territory of the Soviet Socialist Moldavian Republic in 1987 is territory have to be removed. Their state of freedom on the territory of the Republic of Moldova is incompatible with the notion of “state”. Therefore, the Russian Federation must provide correct conditions for their repatriation. It’s not about revenge or about chasing them as the Jew state was chasing the Nazi criminals in the entire world; it’s about removing these criminal elements from the territory. The formula of peace keeping forces must be definitely modified. What we have today, starting with the July 21st, 1992, is not a peace keeping force, but a force of preserving the conflict, force that has transformed in frontier guard troops of this separatist regime. It is necessary to have another peacekeeping force formula that would fill in the requirements of the United Nations’ organizations, but this is a very important moment that concerns the excessive militarization of this region. The Russian troops and the munitions from Colbasna must be definitely evacuated and the zone must be demilitarized under international supervision.
A key-question appears here: how to achieve this happy end. Because today we are witnessing the fact that these negotiations with the participation of guarantee countries – the Russian Federation and the Ukraine – and OSCE as a mediator aren’t working, probably, we don’t really have what to choose. For now there is single structure within which the political will is completed by the military potential. In the case of Transnistria the operation is not similar to that which has been performed in Iraq and there is no need of processing one similar to that from in Afghanistan. It is a practically symbolic action of the impact, meaning of the military factor, but as symbolic as it is this action must really take place in order to stabilize the situation in this transition period. When under international supervision this certain transition stage on the left bank of Nistru will be ensured and if Europe grants some financial resources for the realization of a Marshal plan for a united Moldova our small Moldova might overcome the crisis and will remember that it is situated in Europe not only geographically. I want to state a thing very important to me as a citizen of the Republic of Moldova: because of the violence, of the aggressive soviet principles combined with that “Homus-sovieticus” not a single special judicial statute is a basis for a special judicial statute. We can be malleable, we must be malleable, we must be democratic concerning the transition period for calming the situation and for reintegrating Transnistria within the territory of the Republic of Moldova, not only formally, but also from the psychological point of view. Of course, we can’t expect that over the night everyone there will speak Romanian, especially taking into consideration the fact that those vice-presidents in the parliament of the Republic of Moldova who do not know the official language. It would have been a non-sense to expect and require this but we must fairly admit: it is the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova; nobody has ever accused the Republic of Moldova of having a Constitution that is against the fundamental human rights, so dear inhabitants of Transnistria, your wish of having your human rights protected can be perfectly fulfilled by the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova.
The Republic of Moldova is an artificial state, created through the Molotov-Ribentrop pact; Stalin and Hitler are the parents, the founders of this state and this thing can be easily observed in people’s psychology and if we, under the excuse of solving the Transnistrian conflict, create something again artificial under the name of common state this will continually be not a state, but the headache of Europe and a place where people will run from the rest of the world. I want to draw the attention to the fact that there are no universal solutions to the conflict. What we have now in Moldova is on one hand a favorable situation for solving the problem and on the other hand, I have tried to draw the attention to the fact that it is dangerous to apply some models borrowed from other states. Moldova, an unitary democratic state, with a pretty flexible linguistic politics depending on the zone, but without any special judicial statute.