Moldova: Model to follow ... or human rights disaster?

The picture of present-day Moldova is dismal. The economy has ground to a halt and its rural people survive by subsistence, remittances and tiny welfare payments or pensions. With near total unemployment — or employment below subsistence wages — they conduct their transactions almost entirely by barter. The registered daily income of 80% of the population is below $1 per day.

Moldova's government consists of old-style Communist Party officials whose only experience in state planning dates from Soviet times. Instead of working to solve the problem, the Communist Party instead imposed censorship and prohibits the press from criticizing the authorities. As early as 2003, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe warned that "recent trends [in Moldova] clearly indicate that the ruling party insists in keeping the mass media under strict control."

Since then, the situation has gone from bad to worse. The international Committee to Protect Journalists, a European human rights group which monitors the lack of freedom of press, says that "Moldova is plagued by a corrupt communist government" and reports that Moldova applies censorship to both local and foreign media. U.S.-based Freedom House downgraded the country: "Given the ongoing deterioration in media freedom in Moldova, the rating for independent media worsens from 4.75 to 5.00."

Setting a bleak per-capita record, Moldova has already lost more than 30 cases at the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR). Another 200 applications have been lodged by desperate Moldovan citizens, still waiting to be heard.

Although formerly one of the most wealthy parts of the former Soviet Union, Moldova is today officially the poorest country in Europe. With nearly total unemployment, the registered daily income of 80% of the population is below a dollar per day. This fact can explain why desperate people sell their organs for money and sex trafficking is rampant. Moldovan prostitutes are now the country’s main export.

Moldova's own statistics show that 10,000+ people leave the country each month never to return. In the past, Moldova was trading with Russia and was valued for their agricultural resources and products. After independence this situation changed drastically. The population became the poorest in Europe although foreign aid created a new class of prosperous Moldovan politicians. While Moldova squandered and floundered, on the other side of the Dniester river, independent Pridnestrovie slowly but surely moved towards prosperity.

Organ trafficking is so common that authorities turn a blind eye to it ... and sometimes participate in the lucrative trade. In the south of Moldova, entire villages exist where every single inhabitant has been "under the knife" as part of the illegal organ trade. Some die in the process. But in Menzhi, Kagule and Chimishlii, the local leaders defended the trade by saying: Either we sell our organs or we starve. In the rough world of today's Moldova, those are often the only two alternatives left to a people whose kleptocratic elite has all but forgotten the plight of the population in the countryside.

Most of Moldova’s impoverished population tend to associate their woes with the failed policies of Romanization. The only thing Romania offers which has any appeal is its citizenship (usually bought with bribes from its embassy in Chisinau) and a passport which means the possibility of escape to the West.

According to a UNICEF survey, “90% of Moldovans aged between 18-29 would like to leave the country …only 9% said they would like to live in Moldova.” Freedom House says: "Some 800,000 inhabitants of Moldova have left the country to pursue a better life elsewhere, and the majority of the country's remaining population lives in poverty."

As a 2005-report from the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels points out, an important source of foreign income for Moldova are guest worker remittances from the large number of Moldovans working abroad, most of them either in the EU or in Russia, and many of them illegally. The country lacks basic infrastructure such as paved roads in large areas of the country. Subsistence farming and the barter of basic staples has become the means of survival for a large share of the people remaining in Moldova.

On top of this, the World Bank and IMF have been refusing to disburse any more loans. In 2003, the World Bank described Moldova's system of governance as suffering from "chronic political instability and volatility" and, as such, to be "among the weakest in the region." In private, World Bank officials call Moldova a "basket case" and a clear example of a "failed state". Even so, Moldova’s ruling Communist Party expects the country to join the EU at some time in the future.

By June 2006, things had gotten so bad in Moldova that it appeared on the Failed State Index, a select list of places with serious problems. In its ranking, Moldova scored even worse than Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America and not exactly a beacon of human rights or quality of life.

The index was compiled by US researchers working for the Fund for Peace, an independent research organization, and Foreign Policy magazine, published by the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, DC. Economically, Moldova ranked equal to Afghanistan and Sudan ... and, shockingly, much worse than most of the failed African countries on the list! In terms of human rights, it tied with Eritrea for the "honors" of an equally terrible human rights record; just a step below Cambodia and Sierra Leone.

While Tiraspol recognizes that it, too, has problems, they pale in comparison to the woes of Moldova. And when Chisinau criticizes us for our shortcomings, we know that they are right. But we also know that instead of demonizing Pridnestrovie, they should get their own house in order first. As the US Failed State Index confirms, Moldova hardly has the moral standing to lecture Pridnestrovie on how to run a country: In terms of state failure, it is right up there with Afghanistan, Eritrea, Nicaragua and Sudan...

Moldova holds a dubious world record: The country is today the leading haven for pedophiles and for traffickers who earn fortunes enslaving underage kids in a brutal international sex trade. The United States Department of State verified the fact and pulls no punches in its annual report on human rights violations in Moldova:

"The country was a major country of origin for women and children trafficked abroad for forced prostitution and men and children who were trafficked to Russia and neighboring countries for forced labor and begging. The country was also a transit country for victims trafficked from Ukraine to Romania. Women and girls were trafficked to Turkey, Cyprus, Italy, Hungary, and the Balkan countries for prostitution. NGOs reported recent cases of victims trafficked to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Women and girls reportedly were trafficked to Italy and Greece through Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and Albania. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), victims have increasingly been directed to Asia, Russia, Turkey, Western Europe, and the Middle East. The IOM reported that the country was the main origin in Europe for women and children trafficked for forced prostitution."

What was that again? Forced prostitution. Children. Forced labor. The "main origin" in Europe for women and children trafficked for forced prostitution. And this is what you think that Pridnestrovie should join?

Moldova's government knows that children are highly sought after for the sex trade: The IOM reported that, of the victims they have assisted, 40 percent were minors at the time of their initial trafficking. The sex trafficking in minors takes place with the assistance of government officials who make the major share of the income from the trade.

The U.S. State Department's report on Human Rights abuses in Moldova affirms that "trafficking of children for the purpose of sexual exploitation" remains a problem, calling it "very serious" and confirming that Moldovan authorities simply turns a blind eye and refuses to arrest of prosecute anyone: "There were reports of involvement by some government officials in this trade; however, authorities opened investigations against only low-level government officials and did not arrest or prosecute any officials during the year. [...] Low- and high-level government officials were involved in, or routinely turned a blind eye, to trafficking crimes; however, no high-level officials were prosecuted during the year."

In the same report, the U.S. State Department confirms cases of torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment in the hands of the Moldovan authorities: "police employed cruel and degrading arrest and interrogation methods and that guards beat prison inmates."

Amnesty International reported that one detainee, Oleg Talmazan, suffered a heart attack in March 2004 but was not hospitalized for almost two weeks even though emergency ambulance personnel recommended immediate hospitalization. Other detainees reported being denied food and water and being held in underground facilities without medical care, fresh air or ventilation, or appropriate sanitation.

Torture was legal in Moldova for 14 years, from 1991 to mid-2005. It is still widely used. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) reported several cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of prisoners and detainees. For example, as confirmed by the American authorities, the local Helsinki Committee for Human Rights reported that Petru Calamanov, who was sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest, was beaten and interrogated without a lawyer several times during his detainment. He was was tortured, shocked with electric wires and beaten with an iron bar on the bottoms of his feet. Moldova denied Calamanov's lawyer and Helsinki Committee representatives permission to visit him.

Instead of real deeds aimed at restoring confidence between the parties, the Communist Party leadership of Moldova accuses Pridnestrovie of a lack of democracy and talks about the necessity of exporting Moldova's very special brand of democracy to Pridnestrovie. But according to America's Freedom House, "the country has failed to make substantial progress in building a stable democracy".

In contrast, in Pridnestrovie, a number of successful referenda have already firmly established the legitimacy of the republic as a country where the rule of law and the government's legitimacy is recognized, if not always by foreigners then certainly by the citizens of the country.

Yet Pridnestrovie gets criticized by the state of Moldova for having, according to them, a "shady reputation". This is the very same Moldova where censorship is denounced by the Committee to Protect Journalist, which the World Bank considers a corrupt bottomless sinkhole, which the UN confirms that 90% want to leave, which the IOM calls the major origin for sexually exploited children, and which the U.S. State Department confirms as using torture. The same Moldova which still has not implemented even the basic set of recommendations of the Council of Europe on reaching democratic standards.

As the failed state of Moldova continues to unravel, Igor Smirnov, Pridnestrovie's current president, speaks for many when he says that:
" - Our neighbors should pay more attention to promotion of the democratic process at home."

It is little wonder that Pridnestrovie is not too eager to join the country which has the blackest human rights record of any country in Europe. Moldova made itself known for its gross violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, for having prisoners of state, for intimidating local and foreign journalists, for closing down of opposition newspapers, for its secret police, corruption, and sex trade trafficking in minors. Politically, it is hard to call the country a democracy: Because till now, Moldova still hasn’t implemented the Council of Europe recommendations for bringing the situation in the country up to the democratic standards. The consistent implementation of the Council of Europe recommendations can bring the Europe's last remaining Communist regime into sync with established, democratic norms.

Will it ever happen? Pridnestrovie is not holding its breath but continuing on its own road to freedom, better living standards, increased democratic governance and a consolidation of its 1990-independence.

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