Movement of Transnistrian Refugees threatens to besiege Chisinau City Hall

The Movement of Transnistrian Refugees will blockade the building of the Chisinau City Hall and go on hunger strike if the apartment building located on 11/3 Ginta Latina Street is not put in commission and not connected to the natural gas and heat supply systems by December 20, the Movement’s chairman Anatol Bazgu told a news conference on December 17. According to Anatol Bazgu, the local public administration does not want to implement the court decisions regarding the provision of dwellings to the internally displaced people from the eastern districts of Moldova in due time. According to the cited source, the authorities intentionally postpone the putting in commission of the block from Ginta Latina St for the reason that this summer it was occupied by 80 of the 160 families of internally displaced people that ask for apartments. Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca vehemently opposed this desperate attempt of the refugees that have lived with promises in unimaginable conditions for 15 years. Bazgu says that the City Hall intends to give 20 apartments from that block to other socially vulnerable families. The fear to lose a part of the apartments made the Movement of Transnistrian Refugees appeal to the court so that it sequestrates the building and afterwards 75 apartments separately. The court decision is irrevocable, Anatol Bazgu said. The Movement’s chairman accuses the members of the municipal commission for examining the documents and applications for dwellings filed by internally displaced people of not knowing the real situation. “For three years and a half we have fought with the City Hall, which ultimately declared war and involved us in confrontation,” the cited source said. According to Bazgu, the Government, which is obliged to provide the internally displaced people with dwellings, says that it has fulfilled its task by covering half of the costs of building the two blocks of flats intended for refugees and that the City Hall should further honor its commitments. At the same time, the City Hall says that the Government should fulfill its own Decision of December 20, 2004 by which it approved a plan of action for providing the internally displaced people with apartments by the end of 2007. The serious violation of the present legislation, of the international law norms and fundamental human rights, the non-observance of the international norms regarding internally displaced people and of other normative documents as well as the coldness in apartments and the lack of natural gas made the Movement members engage in protests, Bazgu says. The refugees intend to picket the Parliament, Government and City Hall in the near future. According to Anatol Bazgu, driven to despair the refugees plan to go on hunger strike.