Transnistrian refugees threaten to picket Chisinau City Hall

The Transnistrian refugees will picket the Chisinau City Hall on March 24 in protest against the way that the lists of internally displaced people from the eastern districts of Moldova that are to be provided with apartments in the second block for refugees located on Nicoale Milescu Spataru are drawn up, Info-Prim Neo reports. The refugees are dissatisfied with the fact that the local authorities refuse to include Nicolae Cebotari, who is a first degree invalid, participant in the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident, veteran of the Nistru war, knight of the Stephan the Great order, in the given list. Anatolie Bazgu, the president of the Movement of Transnistrian Refugees, told a news conference on Monday that at its March 20 meeting, the working commission that examines the documents of the refugees refused to include Nicolae Cebotari in the list, saying that he was already provided with an apartment by the state. He also said that the acting mayor of Chisinau Vlad Cotet threatened to settle accounts with him if he organized protests related to this issue before elections. “Vlad Cotet asked me to remain after the meeting and told me he is backed by a political force that will win the elections and will settle accounts with me,” Bazgu said. Anatolie Bazgu insists that the veteran has the right to improve his living conditions. “The apartment in which Cebotari’s four-member family lives has two rooms and is located at the seventh floor in a block that does not have wheelchair access. As a first degree invalid, he is entitled to one more room of 10 square meters,” the president of the Movement of Transnistrian Refugees said. Nicolae Cebotari said that it is rather difficult for him to move within the limited space of his apartment. “We live together with our two children in an apartment that is 27 square meters in area. When moving, the wheelchair destroys everything around. I would like that the commission came and helped me climb the stairs during several days and then tell me if I have the right to better living conditions,” Cebotari said. His wife Valentina complained she suffers from a renal disease and cannot lift the wheelchair up the stairs anymore. At the same time, the acting mayor of Chisinau Vlad Cotet said that Nicolae Cebotari has not been excluded from the list. “I, as member of the commission, together with Dumitru Stoicev, the head of the housing assistance division, voted for including Cebotari in the list. The other members of the commission voted against, but this does not mean that he was removed from the list as his case will be reexamined,” Cotet said. As regards the threat, Vlad Cotet said that the accusations leveled against him are groundless. The refugees are also discontented with the fact that the Chisinau administration did not transfer the tranches for 2008 and 2009 to the economic entities that build the block situated on Milescu Spataru Street and the construction works could be stopped. They are also concerned that the first block has not been yet registered at the Chisinau Cadastre Office. In 2004, the Government decided to build apartments for internally displaced people during 2005-2007. The Chisinau Municipal Council allocated land on which to build two apartment blocks. The first block of 80 apartments located on Ginta Latina Street was put in commission in March 2008, while the second from Milescu Spataru Street, which also has 80 apartments, is to be completed in December 2009.