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Valery Klimenko, popular Chisinau councilman, points out a gross lack of commitment to minority rights in his native Moldova

CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - Councilman Valery Klimenko, a popular Moldovan politician and member of the Municipal Council of Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, says that minority rights are not protected in his country. In what amounts to ethnic cleansing, minorities are blatantly excluded from official life, ignored in the job market, and discriminated against by Moldova's Communist Party government.

Speaking to an international audience at the recently concluded human rights conference organized by Pridnestrovie's parliament, Klimenko compared human rights and minority protection between Moldova and Pridnestrovie, which broke off from the Moldavian SSR in 1990 during the general breakup of the Soviet Union.

" - The facts speak for themselves," said Klimenko: "The rights of ethnic minorities are trampled upon in Moldova. The legislation which is supposed to protect minority groups is blatantly ignored by the authorities."

In Moldova, by law, the representation of ethnic minorities among government officials must correspond to their percentage representation among the population at large. Data released from Moldova's 2004 census reveal that 75.8% of the population are Moldovans, with nearly a quarter of the population made up of various ethnic minorities.

" - So, if they follow their own law, you would think that 25% of government officials are minorities. Right? Well, think again," says Klimenko, himself a member of an ethnic minority.
" - In reality, less than 0.5% of Moldovan officials are not Moldovans."

More than 99.5% of high-level government jobs are held by ethnic Moldovans, and Klimenko warns of the consequences of this discriminatory policy:
" - Moldova are using all means to liquidate the mere concept of ethnic minorities, and everything that it stands for."

Former Voronin-aide calls Moldova's human rights farce "a sham"

Klimenko is not the only Chisinau-based insider who is now going public and revealing the human rights abuses taking place under Moldova's Communist government.

Former presidential adviser Victor Doras is today one of the most vocal critics of the deterioration of human rights standards in Moldova.

" - Moldova carries out a sham, an imitation of human rights guarantees," declared Victor Doras. The former influential aide to Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin knows the regime from the inside and friends say that he was disgusted by what he saw. As reported in the press, he pointed out that Moldova is today under intense scrutiny by the European Union:
" - Everything that goes on in Moldova in regards to human rights is well known to the European officials. But from Brussels, we hear nothing but silence as they look the other way. The problem is that the European Union sets new standards for the promotion of human rights, but also maintains the right to interpret them."

Having left government service, Doras is now free to criticize the regime which he was a part of not long ago. Today Victor Doras is Chairman of the European Institute in Moldova. He is also a founding member of the Council of Monitoring the Transnistrian Conflict (CMTC), a group of NGOs and "Transnistria watchers" in Moldova. The group is led by Roman Mihaes, Chairman of "Moldova Europeana Unita", and was founded in 2005.

As an expert on Pridnestrovie, or Transnistria as it is called in his native Moldova, Doras is in a unique position to compare the human rights situation on both sides of the Dniester. Pridnestrovie - or Transdniester, as it is also called - has made marked improvements in recent years, and is fast approaching European standards in human rights protection and minority rights. In contrast, Moldova - Europe's poorest country - is going from bad to worse, with US experts calling it a failed state and The Economist stating categorically that "nothing seems to be working in its favour."

Using a 'Moldova for Moldovans' policy, the country - which was classified as a failed state in 2006 - even demoted the section of its Ministry of Education which dealt with ethnic minority educational issues, classifying it as a low level office without a serious budget and notable for its lack of power to affect any change. A government contact in Chisinau assured Tiraspol Times that the agency is now merely a front to keep up appearances, and that it exists in name only.

From 1940 until 1990, Pridnestrovie and Moldova were joined in an administrative entity called the Moldavian SSR as part of the Soviet Union. During the fall of the Soviet Union, the two split up and returned to their natural, historic state of being separated. Pridnestrovie has a majority Slav population, and speaks Russian. Moldova is populated mostly by ethnic Romanians or Moldovans, who speak a variant of Romanian. Traditionally separate, at no time in history has Pridnestroie ever been part of an independent Moldovan state.

See also:
» Moldova newspaper ban and closing violates free expression, says European Court of Human Rights [1]

On the web:
» Moldova: Model to follow ... or human rights disaster? [2]