Anatol Salaru: Moldova did not make progress in strengthening its independence and sovereignty

One of those that contributed to the national revival, MP in the first democratic Parliament, vice president of the Liberal Party, Anatol Salaru, says that during 17 years of independence, Moldova has not made progress in strengthening its independence and sovereignty. On the contrary, except short periods of time, the things degraded to a gradual but evident loss of the state’s political independence, especially during the governance of the Communists. The politician has told Info-Prim Neo that Moldova’s sovereignty has been permanently affected by the Russian military presence in Transnistria and nowadays we can bluntly say that Moldova is independent only formally. In reality, Moldova is a satellite of Russia that follows its policy and obeys its geopolitical and geostrategic orders. "I think that this complete obedience to Russia reached a limit. An internal policy change is desperately needed in order to radically change Moldova’s orientation – withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Independent States and joining of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Only such an essential change can insure Moldova’s security and a civilized and prosperous development,” Anatol Salaru said. Speaking about the declaration of Moldova’s independence in 1991, Salaru said that it meant the accomplishment of a fundamental aspiration of the Romanian people in Bessarabia – definitive liberation from the Soviet occupation and gaining of the most important rights and freedoms as regards the development and assertion of the authentic national and cultural identity. “Now we can say that the events in the former USSR followed a logic path to dismemberment and separation of the Soviet republics from the Soviet empire. We, the Moldovans, would have followed the same historic path and logical course of separation from the USSR, as we could return to the motherland Romania, from which we were tore by the occupation of June 28, 1940. The Declaration of Independence adopted the Parliament redirects Moldova to this course and to Europe, according to the past and present aspirations of the Moldovan Romanians,” said Anatol Salaru, the founder of “Alexei Mateevici” Cenacle, a forum of free and national ideas. The cenacle meant tens of thousands of people gathered on the Classics’ Alley, at the Summer Theater, in the Great National Assembly Square; awakening of the civic courage; political and patriotic declarations that contributed to the beginning of the “Moldovan revolution” of the end-80s.