[Three occupations and two independences owing to hidden letter] Bessarabia, the Eastern Part of Stephan the Great’s Moldavia, the land of our ancestors and their successors, was joined to Russia under the Bucharest peace treaty of 1812 and became a Russian province. Historians say the fate of this piece of land situated between the Prut, Nistru, Danube and the Black Sea could have been different if a traitor greedy for Russian money had not been present at the peace talks in Bucharest. Dragoman Dumitrache Moruzi was paid a lot of money by Russians to hide a letter from Napoleon informing the Sultan about the start of his campaign against Russia... If the Sultan had known about Napoleon’s letter and the troubles expecting Russia, he wouldn’t have signed the document, ceding a part of Moldavia to Russia. A century later, Bessarabia faced attempts to be denationalized and colonized by Slavic population. However, during the First World War, Bessarabia was the first among the provinces to initiate the process of unifying the Romanian state so that on September 25, 1917 there was created the representative body – the Country’s Council, which elected Ioan Inculet as president. On March 27, 1918, at the Assembly of the Country’s Council that was attended by all the members of the cabinet of the Moldovan Republic, in a general enthusiasm the Romanian Prime Minister Alexandru Marghiloman proclaimed the independence from Russia and the union with Romania, which took place the same year. The independence lasted for only 22 years as Bessarabia was again annexed and attached to the USSR under the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in June 1940, will al the consequences of an occupation – assassinations, arrests, deportations, forced labor, dismembered families, and destroyed churches. After departing in 1941, the Soviet troops returned to this region in August 1944. Under Soviet regime, the Northern and Southern parts inhabited by Ukrainians and Romanians were transferred to Ukraine and Transnistria, Bessarabia joining the other Soviet republics as the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic. Under Stalin, many Russian ethnics were brought to the country, especially to urban areas. The richest Moldovans were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Communism collapsed at the start of the 1990s and Moldova declared is independence from the USSR in 1991. Now it comes of age ... [They wanted another independence for Moldova] One of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence Anatol Salaru said that in 1991 they wanted a free republic where the rights of the people are observed and every citizen, regardless of ethnicity, feels free, where the major freedoms are promoted in economy, the public life and the private life. “We did not dream of a country based on fear, police, dictatorship, non-respect for the human rights. We wanted and continue to want European values, not values promoted by Stalin that were forgotten by all the people,” Anatol Salaru said. Salaru stated that during 18 years of independence Moldova had headed, with small exceptions, towards the gradual loss of the political independence of the state, especially during the Communist government. “Owing to the Russian military presence in Transnistria, we can say that Moldova is only formally independent,” Salaru said. Another signatory of the Declaration of Independence, Anatol Taranu, said that on August 27, 1991 he was convinced that the independence will be reached in a record time, but this process has lasted for many years. “It is said, but nowadays we cannot state with certitude that Moldova is a fully independent state. Unfortunately, we continue to depend on a number of external and internal factors and have not achieved that quality that allows us to say that we have an independent state,” the MP in the first Parliament of Moldova said. Taranu has said that the struggle for the independence is not over yet as independence means a democratic state, but Moldova was democratic only declaratively. He voiced hope that the new political class will democratize Moldova in the shortest period of time possible and will lay the basis for true independence. “It is very important that we remove the authoritarian regime that stopped our movement towards a European civilization,” Anatol Taranu said. The first Speaker of the independent Moldova Alexandru Mosanu said that the Republic of Moldova has not yet managed to assert itself as a sovereign, independent and democratic state. In the anti-democratic and anti-Romania course promoted during eight years, the Communists have permanently stumbled on the Declaration of Independence. They even wanted “a new version” of this historical document. “Communists’ hostility towards the Declaration of Independence was also seen in their decision to substitute the Independence Day with the Republic’s Day so as to erase a historical event that they dispute from the people’s minds,” Alexandru Mosanu said, adding that he hopes the situation will change when the Democratic government takes over. [A fighter for national ideals imagined independence differently] Doctor of Economy Mihai Roscovan considers that after 18 years Moldova is yet a dependent country, especially on the Russian imperialism. From the very beginning, Moldova’s independence has been affected by many vices, imperfect, disastrous and corrupt governments, etc. It is very serious that the population has not yet realized what an independent country with democratic values means. Mihai Roscovan expressed his hope that the new political class is more pragmatic and perseverant and will succeed in establishing true values of freedom and independence, in reforming the society and taking the country out of the political and economic crisis caused by the Communists and will go towards Europe. [A political detainee hopes that ...] ...after many years of political decline and diminution of the democratic values, a real chance to gain independence again appeared in July 29. The former presidential adviser and present political detains Sergiu Mocanu said that Moldova now has only once chance to become a European state integrated into the European organizations. The new democratic government offers Moldova the chance of becoming a really independent country even if the Communists placed many ticking bombs under this government, Sergiu Mocanu said. [Independence seen by an adolescent from 1991] ”Though I had 13, I understood that it was a natural, normal step for the Moldovan people to be independent and free to decide their future,” the Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca has told the Agency. Dorin Chirtoaca, the nephew of the great fighter for the national ideals Gheorghe Ghimpu, said that he felt a great joy when the independence of Moldova was declared on August 27, 1991. “After many years of uncertainty and mistakes we must give the independence a new content, offer the Moldovan people the real chance of having a prosperous and decent living, and build a state where every person feels motivated to be citizen of Moldova,” the mayor said. [It was worse and worse in 18 years of independence. Not yet for the political elite] Independent consultant Benedict Moldoveanu said that during the independence years Moldova obtained an old-fashioned political class that carried the baggage of permanent failures – official language, reunion, independence, privatization, overcoming of Soviet poverty, democratization, independent press, human rights – the only real achievement being corruption as policy and betrayal as way of living, a non-repentant, conceited, uneducated, uprooted, scot-free political class aggressive inside and towards the electorate and servile towards its national ‘sponsors’. He said that this political elite ruined the possibility of directing the moral, social, economic and spiritual energy of the largest part of the population towards building the major and indispensable instrument for achieving its wills, protecting its security and reunifying the country divided by the terrorists that took refuge in Tiraspol and by their acolytes from the Russian political elite.