How Goes the Revolution in Moldova?

How Goes the Revolution?

 Chisinau Burning

It looks like the democracy is hitting the fan in the capital of Moldova today. Sunday's elections resulted in a victory for the ruling Communist Party, and a protest planned for Tuesday morning has now turned violent. Apparently military units are now arriving in downtown Chisinau and protests are being planned or taking place in other cities as well (I have read about Balti and Ungheni so far).

A number of bloggers are covering events, mostly in Romanian (the language spoken by most of the population in Moldova, where Russian is also spoken by many), and according to the Telegraph, Twitter was a key organizing tool for the protesters today.

Here is a link to what seems to be the most active Twitter feed for following events in Chisinau,** although according to this post (which also has some videos and is being regularly updated), there are rumors that Twitter has been blocked in Moldova - not sure if they would actually be able to do that. Another report is that internet access from the country has been blocked, although I'm not sure that's accurate. According to one Twitter-er following the feed, the service has become the "new CNN."

Natalia Morari, a Moldovan journalist and activist who was famously barred from entering Russia last year, has been involved in organizing some of the protests and has posted photos from a peaceful protest by some 15,000 people on Monday and an account of how it was initially organized - by six people, organizing everything using only tools available on the internet, under the slogan "I'm not a Communist!"

Chisinau Burning

Now, apparently, the organizers of Monday's demonstration may be facing criminal charges and are consulting with attorneys. Further developments to follow, no doubt, at Morari's blog.

Another Moldovan blogger, Nicu Popescu, has lamented the end of Moldova's history of non-violent protests in a long and interesting post which I unfortunately haven't time to translate, and has posted a call for EU High Representative for Foreign Policy to come to Chisinau and mediate:

My suggestion is that the EU should promote a "new deal" between the government and the opposition that could include some of the following elements.

• recount of the votes with strong international monitoring, and the recognition of the re-counted votes by the opposition.
• the dismissal of the the minister of interior who has been central to many pre-electoral abuses and harrassment of the opposition and the media. the new minister of interior should be appointed by after consensus between the government and the opposition.
• initiating a process of police reform under the supervision of EU advisors, possibly extending the mandate of the EU Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine.
• Vladimir Voronin, the incumbent president (at the end of his second term) should respect the Moldovan constitution and retire from politics after his second term with guarantees for future immunity from prosecution. The Communist party elects a new leader, who might enjoy a majority in the parliament. There might be a Communist government (if the recount confirms their victory), but without Voronin.
• The broadcasting licenses of existing independent media, particulaly PRO TV (the only TV channel independent from the government) should be extended. A decision on that is pending.

One can only hope that cooler heads will prevail.

http://www.scrapsofmoscow.org/2009/04/chisinau-burning.html

Some fairly alarming photos from today have been posted here and here - below is one from the latter photoset, titled "Moldova has Awakened."