Moldova: “Revolution, here we come!” Or who is to blame? (part 3)

Written by Guest blogger Dorina (in Chisinau/Moldova). Here are  part 1 and part 2 of her story! NEW: part 4

Soon after that the Presidency have been occupied, the protesters entered into the building, got on the roof and on the 1st level balcony and entered the cabinet of the Mr. Vladimir Voronin, the President of the Republic of Moldova and leader of the Communist Party. While entering the building the crowd was cheering “Oleg and Vova have stolen our Moldova” (Oleg as referring to the businessman Oleg Voronin the President’s son and Vova as referring to the President himself). The crowd got euphoric when they got pictures of the President and set them on fire. They also got out the flag of Republic of Moldova from the president’s office and got it down to the crowd.

On the other part of the street the protesters entered the Parliament building and a new wave of euphoria started when they got out furniture and equipment out of the building and set it on fire while pouring cognac into the fire from a bottle of cognac that somebody found in one of the cabinets of the Parliament. Then, they took out the door of the Presidency building and solemnly transported it above their heads, crossing the street, into the fire in front of the Parliament. See the photo stream here.

The situation was confusing, one could not realize what was really going on, and no leader of the groups  which were devastating both buildings could be identified. And it did not matter to them when the leaders from the opposition parties (Vlad Filat, Liberal Democratic Party or Dorin Chirtoaca, Liberal Party) were coming in front of them and asking them to abandon the rocks and stop the violent behavior and go back to the National Square (PNAM) in order to protest peacefully. It was at this moment when police forces directed the water jets into the crowd and Vlad Filat got under it and youth were not moving a centimeter towards PNAM.

I tried talking to some of the people out there on the streets protesting. My attention got some old people that were supporting the youth saying “my dear, it was about time that the communists get what they deserve”. Behind me an old man was saying to a young protester: “I understand and support your cause, but make sure that you (as in the youth) do not get hurt”. In this video you can see old people saying that “a long time ago this should have been done, they (the communists) have destroyed our churches, so let it burn so no trace of communist can be found, they have destroyed everything, our culture, they sent us to Siberia, it’s time they are sent to Siberia! I believe that there was electoral fraud, they went to villages and fooled people around” (this is a short translation of the video).

Asking around why are they here and what do they think is going on, I got the following answers: “I did not vote for the communists, neither did my friends nor my parents, so I stand here to say “NO!” to communists”, “I believe that the elections were rigged, I cannot believe that again, 3 times in a row communists get a majority of votes. I refuse to believe that!” and others told me similar opinions. When I was asking if it was the right way to destroy the buildings and get violent, some said that “it was about time”, “after the first rock that flew about my head I knew there is no turning back”. Most of the young people I talked to said that they are against the acts of vandalism that this protest turned into, but that they did not want the communists to rejoice in their so-called wining of election.

On the other side, on PNAM, people were peacefully protesting, saying “no” to acts of vandalism, calling for the protesters in front of the Parliament and the Presidency to join them in PNAM. At a certain point a big number of people were leaving the site of the Presidency and the Parliament and moving towards PNAM (it was around 4 PM when the reporter from “Vocea Basarabiei” was reporting this movement). In the meantime, the protesters have anchored on the Presidency the EU flag and on the first level balcony the Romanian flag.

Leaving the office to return to downtown my last update was that the leaders of the opposition went to negotiate with the President of Moldova, the Speaker of the Parliament and the Prime Minister. The opposition was there to demand a recount of the votes, but from the videos that we later saw when we got home was that the opposition was mostly explaining to the President that they had nothing to do with the violent acts and that they want that the accusation that they are in fact the organizers should be officially dropped. The citizens could not see a strong opposition demanding what it wants.

It was around 8 PM when almost all protesters were in PNAM, in front of the Government building, and only some of them were still vandalizing the 2 assaulted buildings. Until almost 10 PM people were cheering in PNAM and continued protests and were raising their hands when asked for voting for a civic coalition built only by non-governmental representatives and no political parties. It was around this hour that Vlad Filat, the president of Liberal Democrat Party addressed the crowd in PNAM saying that: “The Communists want to focus on the violent actions and move away from the fact that elections were rigged.” He also underlined that the police that was in a small number at the protest could not assure the public order. Dorin Chirtoaca, vice-president of the Liberal Party said that there were provocateurs among the young people that were first to throw with stones and made that a peaceful action turn violent. An interesting image that appeared today was the on the top of the building of the Parliament, where 2 young men were waving the EU flag, when zooming the picture, behind them 2 police officers were standing calmly watching this. The question is – were they protesting?

People that came downtown, on April 7th 2009 wanted one thing – a change, apparently nobody expected such a turn-out. So, who’s to blame and who’s behind all of this? Later after 6 PM a lot of the protesters had this question in their minds. No one knew what’s going on and no one had an answer. “For the moment it is a little victory” some of the protesters standing beside me in PNAM were commenting.

So far, the facts are that: we had no internet connection for several good hours, people from other countries could not visited sites hosted in Moldova and also Moldovan internet users did not have access to them. People in the countryside, that have access only to the national TV station TVM 1 were not informed about the events from Chisinau, it was only at 5.30 PM that the national television started covering the subject showing some people expressing themselves against the protests, but not talking to protesters to find out what they think, thus trying to manipulate public opinion. Moreover, access to Chisinau was limited, starting with 11 AM on April 7th, buses and cars were stopped, and people were questioned and searched. Most buses with students were sent back from where they were coming.  Mostly young students protested in their cities (in Ungheni and in Balti around 2000 gathered downtown), but the entries into the country at the Romanian border were impossible to cross for Moldovan students who were coming to support the protesters.

Another thing is that all protesters from PNAM went home until 1AM, on April 8th already, so did the last cameras and media representatives. Still some drunk people still stayed there, trying to make the cars go another way, trying to irritate the police force that was guarding the building of the Government and was behaving irrational due to the influence of alcohol. It was a couple minutes after 1 AM that several gun shots were heard in PNAM and people were running away. A witness of this told me that the police fired several shots in the air, people started running in different directions, and then police arrested several of them. Nobody knows so far what happened to them.

The question is: what will be the consequences?