The President’s wish to award Transnistrian paramilitaries and Russian peacekeepers harms and undermines the sovereignty and inviolability of the Republic of Moldova, experts of Promo-LEX Association say in an analysis. According to them, the President’s intention cannot be explained from juridical viewpoint and a large part of the population treats his gesture as provocation aimed at the victims of the 1992 war and defiance of the legal norms, IPN reports.
According to the analysis authors, the conferring of awards on representatives of foreign military forces and paramilitary groups by a Moldovan citizen to the detriment of the sovereignty and territorial inviolability of the Republic of Moldova, but in the interests of another state that keeps its occupation forces on Moldova’s territory will be regarded as illegal. The message of President Dodon, where he says he will award Transnistrian military men if these want, reveals that the conferring of awards is rather a suggestion made by the President, who recognizes this way the status of the illegal paramilitary forces, such as the Transnistrian ones.
Under the Penal Code, the organization and management of an illegal paramilitary force and participation in such a force represent an offense. The Prosecutor’s Office is dealing with several criminal cases concerning the activity of illegal military groups on Moldova’s territory, but no sentence has been yet given. The law on state awards provides that the state awards of the Republic of Moldova include orders, medals, jubilee ones as well, honorific titles that are conferred in gratitude and appreciation of merits of private individuals and legal entities in times of peace or during military operations. Another article of the law says the state awards are withdrawn when the awarded person commits acts that run counter to the Constitution.
The analysis says the President’s gesture continues the division of society. Igor Dodon should know that the pullout of a foreign army and munitions from Moldova’s territory, regardless of his personal or party sympathies, is not only an international commitment assumed by the Russian Federation by the Agreement of 1992 and the Resolution of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly of Istanbul of 1999, but also an obligation by the Russian Federation according to the international law and the provisions of the Moldovan Constitution, which stipulates that any foreign state is obliged to withdraw the military troops at the simple request of the Republic of Moldova. Recently, the Constitutional Court pronounced a judgment on Moldova’s neutrality, reiterating that the deployment of any troops and military bases led or managed by foreign states on the territory of the Republic of Moldova is unconstitutional.
The experts also said the President’s insistence to support Russia’s aspirations in the Transnistrian region would lead to a new conviction at the ECHR. “It is well known that by the military presence of the Russian Federation, by economic and political support for the Transnistrian administration, Russia wants to further maintain a powerful influence on Moldova. Therefore, the Moldovan President’s insistence to support these aspirations by his actions is ambiguous as Moldova’s positive obligations to protect and guarantee the human rights all over its territory will be violated and the Government of Moldova could be again convicted by the ECHR,” says the analysis.
The experts of Promo-LEX consider a reconciliation process is fundamental for the peaceful resolution of a conflict. However, public discussions should be held before taking a decision as to the appreciation of the role of the Russian peacekeeping contingent and Transnistrian forces in keeping peace.
President Igor Dodon on July 22 said he was ready to confer state awards on Moldovan, Transnistrian military men, if these wanted, and on Russian peacekeepers on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the creation of the peacekeeping mission in Transnistria to show appreciation for the peacekeeping mission. On July 26, the President signed and made public the decree to award representatives of the Republic of Moldova and of the OSCE Mission to Moldova. In a posting on a social networking site, he said proposals were submitted for awarding participants in the peacekeeping operation on behalf of Russia and Ukraine, but the awards could be conferred only with the consent of the countries these represent.
