Opposition party holds protest meeting in Chisinau

The Our Moldova Alliance (AMN) organised a protest meeting in the Chisinau downtown under slogan AMN against Spiritual and Material Poverty in Moldova on March 12. Taking part in the meeting against present governing regime in Moldova were AMN leaders, representatives and supporters of this party from different districts of Moldova. The speakers called against communist governing regime that they describe as faulty. AMN leader Serafim Urecheanu criticised the Moldovan Party of Communists (PCRM), which is ruling Moldova since 2001, saying that the situation of Moldovan population has worsened. He noted that more and more citizens leave the country in order to earn money for first-need products from „firms led by acting governors.” He also noted that PCRM representatives lied when they have promised salaries of 300 dollars because the law on salary until 2008 stipulates wages of about 1,700 lei for budgetary employees. According to Urecheanu, the communists are not sincere when they speak about European integration of the country because they block up the implementation of the Moldova-E.U. Action Plan. The AMN leader noted that this party is the only real opposition capable to overturn the „communist roller” and invited the participants in the meeting „let’s send communists to the garbage pit of history.” Natalia Ciobanu, representative of the young wing of AMN, said that the five years of communist governing have been lost and youths suffered the most because the government was incapable to adopt policies on youths. Another leader of young members of AMN, Sergiu Baltaga, said that Moldova has made the fame of the poorest country in Europe in five years of communist governance, a county which organises „national festivals and drinking bouts.” The chairman of the Union of Writers, Mihai Cimpoi, spoke about problems faced by culture and artists after the PCRM reached the power. Anatol Petrencu, chairman of the Moldovan Association of Historians, criticised the fact that the acting government is trying to introduce the integrated history in education at all costs. He stressed that similar precedent attempts have challenged protests. The participants in meeting carried the flags of Moldova and AMN (blue sun on a yellow background), as well as yellow balloons with the symbol of AMN and banners against communists. They also carried banners accusing PCRM of setting up dictatorship and bad management of national economy. The participants in meeting adopted a critical resolution against PCRM, demanding the dismissal of the acting government. According to organisers, about 5,000 persons from most of Moldovan districts attended the meeting. Veaceslav Untila, first deputy chairman of AMN, said that AMN will organise a protest meeting on the day of the first anniversary of re-election of Vladimir Voronin as chief of state on April 4, 2005.