Pridnestrovie minority MPs recall beatings and attacks in Moldova Parliament

1990: Shortly after coming out of the hospital, Igor Smirnov announced there was no point in returning to Moldova's Parliament

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Exactly 18 years ago today, Igor Smirnov and two other minority members of Parliament ended up in the hospital. On 22 May 1990, Igor Smirnov and his two colleagues were present at a session in Moldova's Parliament in Chisinau, to which they had been elected as official representatives of communities in Pridnestrovie.

Igor Smirnov, Anna Volkova and Victor Arestov had been elected by voters in Tiraspol and other left bank towns and cities to represent the left bank in Moldova's Parliament; then still known as the MSSR Supreme Soviet.

They had been elected on 25 February 1990 in what was a victory against the official candidates of the Communist Party, and started working in Moldova's Parliament in Chisinau in March. By April, the physical violence against them had already started.

At the time, neither Moldova nor Pridnestrovie had yet declared independence, respectively. Pridnestrovie would do so in September of 1990, and Moldova only one year later - in August of 1991. But in May 1990, both were still part of the Soviet Union and together in an artificial entity which Stalin had created in 1940; the "Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic."

Pridnestrovie and Moldova together in a single Parliament

This "MSSR" had its seat of government in Chisinau, and it was to the SSR parliament that Smirnov, Volkova and Arestov had been elected. But even before Moldova left the Soviet Union through an unilateral declaration of independence, some 65% of Parliament was already in the hands of anti-Russian, anti-Soviet forces. And to them, it didn't matter that Smirnov was not elected from within the Communist Party: He was an ethnic Russian, and not a Moldovan, so he was in their eyes the enemy.

Igor Smirnov recalls how he and the others attempted to participate in a joint state with Moldova eighteen years ago as an elected MP:
" - I remember how we went to Kishinev (Chisinau, in Moldova - ed.) to attend those sessions. We used to return home instead of staying for the night there in a hotel. Our delegation from Tiraspol went there by car, a Toyota, and we didn't discuss politics on the way home. We were listening to music in the car instead, or to jokes by Hazanov, a famous humorist at the time," says Igor Smirnov, today the President of Pridnestrovie. By the time they were driving home each night, they had been saturated with enough politics for one day.

" - When you had heard plenty of speeches of the members of the nationalistic Popular Front, you had no desire to comment them as if you had been absorbed in mud up to the neck..."

" - They were breathless with hatred towards people of other nationalities, called upon 'to put the foreigners in their place' and 'turn the screws on them'," remembers Igor Smirnov.

Beatings of Pridnestrovie lawmakers

Leaving Parliament on the evening on 22 May 1990, the minority MPs from Pridnestrovie were ambushed and beaten outside the Parliament building by Moldovan supporters of the majority coalition.

" - On May 22, a crowd of many thousands of people were able to roll us out to a flat cake," remembers Igor Smirnov laconically.

The three ended up in the hospital where forensics determined that they had suffered internal damage. Nikolai Fech, writing in PMR History, Vol II, notes that forensic examinations confirmed the severity of the attacks on MPs Igor Smirnov, Victor Arestov and Anna Volkova from Pridnestrovie.
He notes that "despite of indications of the damage, the investigation by law-enforcement agencies of the MSSR led to nothing, as one would expect, and the criminal investigation was soon shut down."

Igor Smirnov says that the violence against him and his fellow minority lawmakers was planned inside Parliament itself and that Moldovans added fuel to the fire by stirring up inflammatory rhetoric.

" - Actor Mihai Volontir, in the parliament as a deputy his face was distorted with malice and he cried out about the cursed 'Russian occupants!'"

" - Whenever you tried to talk to the Popular Front MPs you could see the darkness in their eyes. They just became blind with rage: 'We are Romanians, but you are occupants so get out of here!' And that's all!"

" - More impressions?.. We were met and accompanied with spits, kicks and howling of people standing near the building of the Supreme Soviet of the MSSR," says Igor Smirnov. "What did it testify to? It only showed that they had no arguments, so they used their fists..."

No voice for minorities

What was worse, however, was that Moldova's 65% Popular Front majority would not let the minority have a say in the shared republic's future. Igor Smirnov and his colleagues from Pridnestrovie were ignored and not even given the right to speak.

" - To my mind, inside the Parliament, in the hall, everything had been predetermined before the opening of the session," he remembers. "We were not allowed to even open our mouths. We made some attempts to make a speech. Despite the refusal, we tried to do it again and again. But all our attempts were in vain, as a rule. If we managed to put in some words, they were not taken into consideration while voting."

Historian Vladimir Solonar, in his book The New Russian Diaspora, has documented in detail how beatings of the minority Russian-speaking deputies at the entry to Moldova's parliament became a common occurrence in April and May of 1990.

Shortly after coming out of the hospital after the May 22 attacks on him and his two colleagues, Igor Smirnov publicly announced that there was no point in returning to Moldova's Parliament anymore to finish his term there. It wasn't because of the physical violence against the lawmakers from Pridnestrovie, but because the minority rights of Pridnestrovie's electorate were never taken into account.

" - What can I tell you about taking into consideration of the minority?! What was left for us to do in such a parliament?" wondered Igor Smirnov.

Pridnestrovie had been part of Russia since 1792 and many ethnic Russians who are born there can date back their families hundreds of years on the land. They do not consider themselves occupants in any sense of the word. Pridnestrovie has never been part of Romania at any time in history, and has never been part of any independent Moldovan state either. It has always had a majority Slavic population, made up mostly of ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians. Ethnic Moldovans also make up a large part of the population, but they have always been a minority.

See also:
» Dynamics of the Moldova / Transdniestria ethnic conflict (1988-92)
» Moldova's ethnic-based independence movement and the River of Blood
» The shared - and not so shared - history of Pridnestrovie and Moldova

On the web:
» Background facts: Mistreatment of ethnic minorities in Moldova, 1988-92