Moldova and Transnistria

We often make jokes about the Americans, who can’t even find their own country on a globe. A lot of people in Europe would not find Moldova or Transnistria. They even might never have heard about Transnistria at all.

So lets look at a very brief history of Moldova. It one was a part of Romania, fell under the power of the Ottomans then the Russians. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Bessarabia (as it was then called) proclaimed independence from Russia in 1918 reunited with Romania the same year. Transnistria did not join Romania and formed the Moldavian ASSR.

According to Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union forced Romania to transfer authority over Bessarabia to Russia and annexed it. Transnistria was then joined with it and formed the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Moldova moved towards independence from 1988 on and in August 1991, Moldova declared its independence as part of the CIS. Transnistria, which is the part east of the Dniester River, having large groups of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, claimed independence from Moldova in 1990. A brief military conflict between Moldova and Transnistria in 1992 ended with Russian forces intervening on the Transnistrian side, which helped to secure Transnistrians independence till today. The Russian troops still remain in Transnistrian.

Moldova did not unite with Romania in 1991 either, which itself joined NATO in 2004 and the EU this year. Therefore the conflict in Moldavia and Transnistria, so small it might be, has a larger effect than one would think.

Transnistria is thought of being a safe haven for smuggling. Especially for arms, human beings and laundering of money. Over 20’000 tons of ammunition as well as a lot of arms are ‘guarded’ by over 2’000 Russian soldiers, who are willing to sell arms to any buyer. In Chechnya, they even sold arms to the guerrilla they were fighting. The West is especially interested in the disappearance of surface-to-air missile launchers, something every decent terrorist wants to get his dirty hands on.

The article in the NZZ was about the border between Romania and Moldova, which is now the outer EU-border. As Romania wants to join Schengen, they guard it very well, which causes family ties between those close countries to suffer.

Also Romania de jure offers any Moldavian the citizenship of Romania, but because it fears an invasion of thousands Moldavians, they have only five judges working part time on these cases. Therefore there are over 800’000 Moldavians (about 20 percent of its population) wanting to become Romanian citizens, but only very few citizenships were granted.

Personally, I think that Russia once again shows its inability as a state to act according to international law and to be, what I call it, a good state. I do not think, that Russia is an evil state per se, but I believe, it tries to compensate its weak position, the lose of its former might with any petty deed.