Fate of Declaration of Independence – opposing views

It is over four months of the April events, but the people do not yet know exactly what happened to the Declaration of Independence, which is the principal document confirming that Moldova became an independent state on August 27, 1991. The president of the Association “Parliamentul’ 90” Pantelei Sandulachi was the first to speak about the destruction of the Declaration of Independence. He made reference to a very reliable source from the Parliament. He said then that when the safe where the document was kept was opened, there was only ash. On July 15, about three months after the April 7 protests, Moldova’s outgoing president Vladimir Voronin confirmed that the original Declaration of Independence had burnt together with 80% of the legislature’s archive. Earlier yet, the Communist MP Mark Tkaciuk said the original hadn’t bunt as it was in Bucharest. Contacted by Info-Prim Neo, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, Anatol Taranu said that this case must be examined by a special commission that would determine how the document was kept and would identify the persons to blame for its destruction. Considering this document another victim of the vandalism sparked by the Communist government, Taranu said that even if it had burnt, Moldova did not lose its independence. The first Head of Parliament Alexandru Mosanu, who read the document at the Great National Assembly Square on August 27, 1991, does not believe that the document was destroyed. He said that if it was true, the head of state and the then speaker Marian Lupu were to make a public statement and to convene a commission to probe the case. The Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca also doubts that the Declaration of Independence was destroyed. “There were only reports, not yet an official confirmation so that we could seriously discuss this issue,” Chirtoaca said. The former presidential adviser, politician Sergiu Mocanu expressed his certitude that someone wanted that more documents burnt in that fire. He yet questions the destruction of the declaration and considers it was a stratagem by the Communists to distract people’s attention. The former deputy speaker Vladimir Turcanu, who entered the Parliament on the Communist ticket, said that the Declaration of Independence can be recovered in five minutes, which, according to opinion leaders, is a confirmation that the document was neither destroyed nor stolen by “Romanian occupants”. Journalist Arcadie Gherasim considers that Communist leaders’ statements about the fate of the Declaration of Independence shows that they planned to destroy the document that confirmed Moldova’s separation from the Soviet empire, but are afraid to do so because they got lost in their own hypothesis.