Human rights groups confirm Moldova massacres in 1992 conflict

After atrocities against civilians in the 1992 conflict, CIS peacekeepers intervened and imposed a ceasefire. (Archive)

GYSKA (Tiraspol Times) - Gyska is a village near Bender, its population being mostly Russians and Ukrainians. According to leading human rights experts, it is a fairly typical example of how Moldovan forces used mass violence to terrorize civilian villagers and "set an example" during its 1992 invasion of Pridnestrovie. The government-sanctioned terrors followed a period of deliberately using ethnic hatred for policy purposes. Moldova's governing party, the Popular Front, used "Suitcase - Trainstation - Russia" as its slogan. And visitors to Moldova at the time remember the popular jingle on the radio which encouraged people to "wash the streets of Chisinau with Russian blood"

Eye-witnesses interviewed by the NGO "Memorial" recounts the bloody terror of the Moldovan ethnic genocide units: "On July 22, 1992, Moldovan police and volunteers, supported by armored vehicles and artillery fire, kicked the self-defence unit out of the village. Media in Bender carried reports on massacre of prisoners-of-war and acts of mass violence against villagers, destruction of houses and slaughter of live-stock."

Airforce bombings of civilian neighborhoods

Other human rights groups, covering events in Dubossary, also testity to Moldova's policy of indiscriminate slaughter of the residents. Many victims were women. In Bender, the Moldovan government used its airforce to bomb civilian neighborhoods. The Memorial observers established the following: " Eye-witnesses testified that fighters from the Gyska self-defence unit had been cruelly murdered. In particular the Moldovans were said to have been finishing off the wounded. During the combat a dairy-farm and the school were destroyed by artillery fire. The building adjoining the local clinic took severe damage. At least three villagers were killed by stray bullets and fragments of shells. Two more villagers were beaten by volunteers, mopping up the village. On several occasions unprovoked fire was opened at the houses of villagers."

In all, nearly one thousand Pridnestrovians lost their lives in Moldova's failed invasion of the country. During the war, human rights groups such as Memorial sent observers in order to mediate between the parts and to establish responsibility for the killings. Memorial is a Western-oriented civil rights group active in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Latvia and Kazahstan. The organization made a name by being in constant opposition to the governments of these states and for advocating openly liberal views. It's an NGO which sponsored by various Western funds, the George Soros Foundation among them.

ECHR witness: "Murder of pregnant women, unborn children"

In the aftermath of the invasion, the findings of the 1993 International Tribunal clearly put the blame at Moldova. The country was found to have committed serious violations of the Geneva Conventions relating to Victims of War, such as rape and torture of civilians and intentional killings of civilians, including women and children.

The same concerns were voiced in a 2004 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. In testimony to the court, one of the witnesses - Vasiliy Timoshenko - provided evidence of several human rights atrocities, including a case where an ambulance was being shot at by the Moldovan armed forces. In this attack, a pregnant woman and her unborn child died, along with a nurse travelling with them in the same ambulance. The witness also testified about an aerial attack a month later when the Moldovan forces indisciminately bombed civilian towns and villages, including the town of Parcani, inside Pridnestrovie's territory.

Even though the invasion failed and Pridnestrovie was able to defend its freedom, to this day Moldova still continues to hold an expansionist claim against Pridnestrovian territory. But Pridnestrovie, on the other hand, has no such claim against Moldova and respects the territorial integrity of Moldova's traditional and historical borders.