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Grigore Mărăcuţă, an ethnic Moldovan and one of the founding fathers of PMR

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Grigore Mărăcuţă, 63, is considered the founding father of the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica, along with Igor Smirnov and Alexander Caraman. Like Caraman, a former vice president, he is an ethnic Moldovan who was born in Transnistria. For the first 15 years of PMR's existence, he served as Speaker of Parliament, one of the top 3 jobs in the republic, side by side with the president and the vice president. Today, that post is held by opposition politician Yevgeny Shevchuk from the Renewal party, but Mărăcuţă is still active in politics. He is a Member of Parliament and head of the Commission of Interparliamentary Relations, a foreign policy position. In this interview, he gives his thoughts on Pridnestrovie's independence landslide, and what the referendum results mean for the future.

Was the customs crisis with Moldova and Ukraine the final straw that lead you to push for the independence referendum?

" - The customs crisis, which we immediately felt as an economic blockade against us, was certainly one of the factors that lead us to re-evaluate our relations with Moldova and our future prospects for co-operation, and lead us to the conclusion that we needed a referendum to decide the issue once and for all. It is important to understand the population here, how we are and how we, as a unified people, react to pressure: The more you push us, the more we will resist."

So it would be better not to push you?

" - It would be best to negotiate and to consider our opinion, to understand our view of the issues and try to see things from our side, too. This did not happen. Instead, on March 3 of this year, our very existence was threatened by outside forces using heavyhanded pressure tactics. Our economic survival was at stake. Everyone thought that we would only last a few weeks, or months at most. From 1990 and until this year, we have been negotiating with Moldova on and off. Plans, projects of plans, agreements, concepts for settlement status. But now, as I see it, we have exhausted all possibilities and spent all of the polite words and there is still no understanding with Chisinau. We want certainty about our future, and holding a referendum is a means to that end."

In Tiraspol, experts developed several proposals. But Chisinau never took them into account. Is that because they won't listen to "Pridnestrovian separatists"?

" I don't know, but that might be the case. Let us assume that our proposals are not to the liking of Chisinau. But as we have seen in the negotiation process, nothing is to the liking of Chisinau. Even the plans which the OSCE and other foreign experts and advisors proposed have been rejected time and time again by Chisinau. What happen to the 2002 OSCE plan? Why did Chisinau turn it down? Or the Kozak memorandum which was negotiated and apparently agreed upon, until then all of a sudden Chisinau changed its mind just hours before signing. Then there is last year's Yushchenko proposals, from Ukraine. In private, Chisinau has already rejected that, too. They are not pursuing any of the points in that plan. They still pay lip service to it, but that is all. Look at their actions. Don't let Moldova deceive anyone, they are cunning. But we can not wait for them to make up their mind on what they want to do."

But Moldova claims that they are handling the customs documents quickly, easily, transparently. True?

" - Well, that is what they want the rest of the world to believe. In reality, don't be too quick to make that conclusion. I can give an example of what happened recently here. One of our largest companies, the famous Kvint Distillery which makes brandy, applied for Moldovan customs documents so that they could break the blockade and start to export their products again. But when Moldova saw that the paperwork was needed for exports to Russia, they refused to process the forms. They said "Russia is not buying our wine, so they won't get your cognac either." What do you think? I'll be honest, I am at a loss for words to describe this stance by Chisinau..."

But, what does Moldova gain from trying to stop your exports?

" - That is something which I can't understand. But that sort of behavior fosters no mutual respect or any kind of understanding between the two sides. I am sure that Moldova's Western backers feel the same way. Actions like that are not welcome anywhere. We have to put a stop to it, and put this legal limbo behind us. If someone wants to continue to suffer the whims of Chisinau, that is their problem. But we've had it. Enough is enough."

So was a referendum chosen as one of the ways to break the deadlock?

" - Let's not beat around the bush, the referendum in Pridnestrovie had more important goals than just restoring a free and fair customs regime so that our companies can produce and export their goods. Moldova keeps saying that they can not sit down at the same table and negotiate on an equal basis with Tiraspol's bandits, smugglers and drug traffickers, which is how they view the highest political leadership in PMR. They have said over and over again in the past that they don't want to take the opinions of the elite into account, but that they only want to listen to the will of the ordinary people who live here. Well, now they have it. The ordinary people have spoken. They went to a referendum, voted, and made their wish perfectly clear. So now the ball is in Moldova's court. I am a citizen of PMR and an ethnic Moldovan, and I'm proud that my people voted for freedom."