The head of a consultancy organization denies creating a network of NGOs loyal to Chisinau

The chairman of the “Caraseni” consultancy and training organization, Gheorghe Caraseni, denies the information spread by the Transnistrian press according to which he had planned to create a network of NGOs loyal to Chisinau on the left side of Nistru. Caraseni declared on Wednesday, May 17, at a press conference that the organization he heads is implementing the project „development of Moldovan NGOs”. The goal of the project is to offer strategic support to the civil society in order to strengthen management and self administration abilities. On May 12, Caraseni went to Tiraspol were he had to lecture a course, the second already, in front of several NGOs from Transnistria. 3 persons approached and introduced themselves as intelligence officers. They asked Caraseni to follow them to an office where they explained him that his actions disturbed an organization of veterans that participated in the armed conflict from 1992. The officers explained that they can not ensure him any security and advised him to leave the region and to summon these NGOs on the right bank of Nistru. Caraseni mentioned that he was not expelled from Transnistria as the local press asserts, the authorities did not interdict him to stay in the region and he was not threaten, qualifying these declarations as aberrant. The quoted source specified that the organization he heads is independent and only this single project is financed by the US embassy. He specified that he did not yet decided were the next seminars with the NGOs from Transnistria will take place and if he will ever pay visits to Tiraspol. The Transnistrian Press-Agency Olvia-Press reports that the organization he heads activates under the auspices of US embassy and the goal of the trainings is to create a network of NGOs on the left bank of Nistru that would be loyal to Chisinau. In March 2006, the Transnistrian security services arrested a citizen of the Republic of Moldova accusing him of espionage in the favor of Chisinau.