Să ne reamintim, tovarăși, rețeta Libertății ȘI Democrației. (memorare, memorare)
We are closely watching the developments ahead of the upcoming general local elections to be held in 898 Moldovan residential areas and municipalities on November 5. The election campaign is in full swing; candidates are presenting their programmes and trying to win over voters.
The republic’s central authorities are also actively involved in the process, although in their own way. As their main slogan, the Moldovan leadership continues to use the claim about a non-existent “Russian threat,” to distract public attention from their own incompetence as leaders.
The State of Emergency Commission and the Information and Security Service of Moldova continue to purge the country from any form of dissent by persecuting political opponents in a wave of repressions that have nearly reached a tipping point.
On October 30, Moldovan officials suspended licences of six television channels that allegedly promote foreign interests. President of Moldova Maia Sandu is a citizen of Romania and yet the interests of other countries are promoted by Russian channels? Are you certain this makes sense? A citizen of Romania, being the leader of Moldova, has renamed the Moldovan language as Romanian. And yet, Russian channels are said to be promoting foreign interests. It is a looking-glass world. These people cannot be so certain that any fake news will do.
The Moldovan officials have blocked 31 news portals. All of them are claimed to be used for waging an information war against the Republic of Moldova and distorting information. Let me remind you that several days prior to that, on October 24, 22 Russian-language news websites were blocked.
These steps have already provoked a reaction inside Moldova. They have been called an abuse of the media space and another attack on independent media and the freedom of speech. Indicatively, even the local pro-Western non-government organisations expressed concern about the situation and questioned whether this sort of interference in the media is commensurate. Meanwhile, this and other incidents of grave violation by Chisinau of its international commitments to protect the rights of the media, being downright abuse of the very principles of the freedom of speech and the freedom of access to information, are characteristically ignored by competent international bodies. We understand why. These international bodies, including the OSCE with its set of authorised and specialised agencies, only operate for the sake of appearances. They simply keep the description of authorised and specialised, receive enormous funding, go on business trips, use their mandates (though it isn’t clear to what end) and hang out in office cafeterias. What happened to the infamous OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Teresa Ribeiro? They used to say they were practicing “quiet diplomacy,” except the results of this pseudo-activity turn out to be loud, scandalous and vociferous.
The Moldovan officials do not stop at infringing on the freedom of speech. On October 29, candidate for mayor of Chisinau Diana Caraman of the Communist Party was denied participation in television debates only because she was speaking Russian. And this despite the fact that 80 percent of Moldovan residents speak and use the Russian language on a regular basis. The absurdity is in something else, if we get back to the language. So, one cannot speak Russian. Why not? Six months ago, speaking Russian was prohibited because one was supposed to speak Moldovan. And now they are supposed to speak Romanian? How far will it go?
What is this if not linguistic discrimination and violation of the basic principles of democracy, rights and freedoms?
I recently learned that the sign language used by people with hearing impairments has country-specific schools. I used to think there is one sign language that is understood by all users everywhere. But apparently, as there are different spoken languages, there is also a significant difference between the sign languages in different countries. If a sign language belongs to the Soviet or Russian school, will it also be subjected to total discrimination?
I have spoken to members of non-governmental organisations that deal with the rights and opportunities for people with hearing impairments. This form of discrimination already takes place. Can you imagine how low the world has fallen? So many days have been spent, so many statements and press releases have been issued, so many NGOs have been created in the past decades to protect human rights. Every aspect has been shaped into videos, resolutions, commemorative dates, you name it – and yet, the reality is quite the opposite. People are losing rights every hour, deprived by the countries that are part of the organisations that developed the human rights agenda.
How does this agree with President Sandu’s notorious promises made back when she was running for president, which is to preserve the status of the Russian language in the country? It does not agree at all. She deceived people. She claimed she would promote harmonious coexistence of different cultures, languages, beliefs and views in Moldova. And now it has come to persecution based on ethnic, national and ideological factors.
Interestingly, the Russophobic orientation of the Moldovan leaders’ domestic political course has substantially grown after Chisinau received the EU membership candidate status. Why? Because Brussels does not want EU members whose citizens like Russia. It is just another homework task for Maia Sandu to complete in an effort to pander to the West. She was tasked with riling up Russophobia in the country. But Russophobia has never existed there. It is an artificially created nationalist environment that comes from the current Moldovan leaders. Nobody in the country (speaking of the overwhelming majority of citizens) has ever adopted such attitudes. Maia Sandu is a disgrace and a threat to the Moldovan nation.
This president believes that the republic’s European integration is possible without Transnistria, or in part, without consideration for the country’s territorial integrity. She also announced that, to solve the Transnistria problem, it is necessary to get rid of the self-proclaimed officials in Tiraspol and destroy the 5+2 negotiation format by excluding Russia and strengthening the role of the EU. Such statements are extremely dangerous to the stability in the region. Perhaps she does not realise that. Although I believe that she does, and it is exactly what they want from her, to create another site of chaos on the post-Soviet territory.
The lawlessness, the rabid Russophobia, the repressions against the media and the opposition have become the norm for Moldovan officials. The people of Moldova, who remember the promises Sandu made before she was elected, can see this and know very well that nobody gave her a mandate to such off-limits behaviour.
I wonder about the opinion of the monitoring missions, specifically, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. When they see channels being blocked and the media and political space being purged, how will they report it?
[…]
Let me give you a historical example of how the external interests, goals and objectives are being fulfilled in the domestic space of sovereign states. We always say that Maia Sandu does all of this not because the Moldovan people want it, but because she follows orders from outside. One may ask, how it is possible to give orders from outside? How does the West manage to pull off such schemes? Here’s a historical example. Especially since official documentary confirmation of this case has appeared just recently.
The United States of America makes regular interventions in other’s internal affairs, confident in its impunity and license to do whatever it pleases. They are not even embarrassed to admit this, if only when it comes to past events. At the present stage, they believe they should refrain from declaring direct involvement in domestic political events in a number of countries, at least for the time being.
But when the events in question become history, they assume they can talk openly. Seventy years after the coup in Iran, the US Central Intelligence Agency has admitted responsibility for the removal of the legitimate government in Tehran in August 1953. Historians, political scientists and experts have written about this earlier, arguing that the coup was the work of American and British specialists in exporting “democracy”. But now the CIA has confessed and even recorded a podcast about those events.
The CIA intervention in Iran was called Operation Ajax. It began with a months-long broad propaganda campaign against elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh who pursued an independent policy in the interests of the Iranian people. That certainly could not have suited the United States. They planted biased articles that accused him of all manner of evil: corruption, atheism, communist sympathies, anti-monarchist views (Iran was ruled by the Shah at the time). As you can see, they did what they always do, starting with a massive and large-scale campaign. It has been years; they are interfering in different countries today, but the approach remained the same. To orchestrate the coup, the Americans generously financed the military, but also bribed the Islamic clergy supporting the Shah and hired figures from the underworld. On August 19, 1953, the legitimate prime minister was overthrown.
However, as further events showed, Washington and London won a Pyrrhic victory. The US and UK’s flagrant interference in Iranian affairs eventually contributed to triggering the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
The scenario used in Iran in 1953 is very reminiscent of what happened in Ukraine in early February 2014. We remember everything and can remind everyone else.
President Viktor Yanukovich, who led Ukraine until October-November 2013, was legitimately elected twice. The first time he won the vote, he was prevented from actually taking office, and a third round of voting was invented. That was crazy, but they did it. When he won a second time, they had no other choice but to inaugurate him. For three years, Yanukovich led Ukraine being not just accepted – he symbolised hope and a new democracy in Ukraine. He attended EU summits and everyone took pictures with him. He was the West’s best friend – but only until the moment he said he needed some time (six months or so) to evaluate all economic consequences of integration with the EU. It was a big step to take. He had to figure it all out. He never said he was refusing to integrate with the EU, just asked for time to figure out how to do it with minimal costs for Ukraine. In an instant, he was labeled a corrupt official and strangler of freedoms. He was not accused of communism, but he was erased from Western politics. In one day, in one second, a person who, like Vladimir Zelensky now, was welcomed at every political event and EU summit, was thrown down from his high pedestal. That blatant interference by the West brought a neo-Nazi regime to power in Kiev, and turned the country into an instrument of Washington’s aggressive policy. The immediate aftermath was different, but the essence was the same – a disruption of the internal development of the state, of natural processes and the course of history. That was followed by complete disintegration, society and state institutions in disarray. Each country resists this kind of external influence in its own way. There were worse scenarios – take Libya, which literally collapsed and ceased to exist as a state entity, became a territory with a grim future and a difficult present. This was a little sketch of how they go about it. (sublinierile mele)
SL:
Question: You took part in a meeting where the recent events in Dagestan were discussed. During that meeting, President Vladimir Putin used the words “root of evil” with regard to the United States for the first time. How do we deal with a root? Do we dig it up? What should we do with it?
Sergey Lavrov: There are other methods, including the use of chemicals, we do not necessarily have to dig up a root. It is possible that President Putin used this term for the first time; however, he had repeatedly said that the United States is the main actor (as it is now customary to say) that aims to destabilise any region of the world.
I recently read comments analysing current developments. A foreign politician said that when they discuss the foreign policy of the West and the United States, it would be wrong to talk about double standards. They have only one standard: we are the boss around here, and we do whatever we want. If we are unable to achieve a result in any particular region, we will destabilise the situation there and fish in murky waters.
If we look at all of America’s reckless undertakings around the world over the past 50 years, since the Vietnam War, we will see that the US has not benefited any country or region in whose affairs it interfered.
This only serves to confirm a conclusion that I just voiced: it is in their interests to destabilise all and sundry. After that, the United States will print a huge amount of dollars and wait for someone to come begging for these dollars in the hope that the US will “help” them again. Those who count on such assistance should recall the sad experience of all leaders of countries that had relied on the United States. As soon as the situation changed, Washington remorselessly left those leaders to their own devices and launched a new stage of its selfish policy.
Question: Speaking about the root and chemicals, won’t they accuse us of getting ready to use chemical weapons? There are many different fantasies circulating.
Sergey Lavrov: This is a figure of speech, so let them draw conclusions in accordance with their level of education. (sublinierile mele)