Anti-Communism Commission Unearths Daily Genocide Cases

The 'Special Troika' of the Autonomous Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (AMSSR, 1924-1940), consisting of the interiors minister, the prosecutor general and the secretary general of the then Communist Party, was deciding the execution of 50 to 230 persons on a daily basis, according to documents recently unearthed by the Commission for the condemnation of the totalitarian communist regime in Moldova from the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, – the Commission's secretary Mihai Tasca has told Info-Prim Neo on Saturday, February 20, when the Commission held a meeting. “Despite earlier studies, the Moldovan society is not aware of many things about the totalitarian regime”, says historian Elena Postica, member of the Commission. “My team is studying the anticommunist resistance movement in Bessarabia in the post-war period, in particular the protests of the students and intellectuals in the 70s, when they stood up to defend the national values and paid the price”, she added. The Commission members said they are now expecting the declassification of the archives at the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) to be able to prove that people in the 80s were being admitted to mental facilities for having dissenting opinions. This is the second working meeting of the Commission for the assessment of the totalitarian communist regime, a task-force set up one month ago by the acting president, Mihai Ghimpu. Sergiu Musteata, the chairman of the Moldovan Historians Union, and also a member of the Commission, says the first variant of the Commission's report could be ready in April. The Commission considers holding an international academic conference in May to debate issues related to the assessment of Europe's totalitarian regimes. Under the presidential decree establishing the Commission, it is to periodically inform the society about its findings, which will be used to compile a study and an analytical report containing a historical, political and legal assessment of the totalitarian communist regime in Moldova. Proposals concerning this task shall be submitted to the president of Moldova by 1 June 2010.