Community on Prut River demands signing of Small Traffic Convention

The residents of Costuleni, a large village in Ungheni district on the bank of the Prut River, demands the government to sign unconditionally and with all speed the Convention on Small Cross-Border Traffic. The petition was formulated in the resolution which culminated a rally organized in the village by the European Action Movement (MAE) in support of the convention. MAE president Anatol Petrencu told a news conference on Wednesday that Romania's proposal a year ago to sign the Convention was a test for Moldova's Communist government, which it failed, despite calling itself an advocate for European integration. In fact, the European countries have long ago forgotten what borders and barbed wire are like, acknowledging the right of their citizens to freedom of movement. The Convention would allow the citizens residing on either of the banks of the Nistru, within 50 kilometers from the border, to freely enter the other country. If the Communist government wanted the agreement signed, it wouldn't condition the signing on a basic political treaty with Romania, bearing in mind that Romania was the first to recognize the independence of the Republic of Moldova in its current borders, says the MAE president. Anatol Petrencu is sure that the intention of the official Chisinau to dictate conditions to Romania stems from the desire to humiliate its neighbor, to delay or even to reject the signing of the Small Traffic Convention. Petrencu says that after a number of political groups failed to make the government sign that convention, the population in the border area has decided to make its voice heard. The resolution adopted at the recent rally in Costuleni reads that “the current government ties the signing of the convention to a condition of political nature, which has no connection to the humanitarian essence of the document”. In addition, the villagers claim that in order to conceal the unwillingness of the government to sign that agreement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration is saying that it will ask the Romanian Government to declare the entire territory of Moldova, including Transnistria, a border area. “The leadership of the Moldovan MFA knows that this is the prerogative of the European Commission, yet they are using different bolshevist tricks in an effort to mislead the public opinion. The communist, anti-national and anti-human forces which are ruling this country for almost a decade are afraid that the Moldovans, while traveling abroad to democratic countries, will understand by comparison in which country they are living in and will stop voting for the Communists”, the resolution reads. Corneliu Prepelita, Ungheni district councilor and a MAE member, told reporters that after adopting a number of decisions in the public interest, the Council and especially the councilors representing democratic parties have been threatened and dragged through courts. A relevant example is the decision of the Council to remove the barbed wire along the Prut. The Balti Court of Appeals ordered the Council to annul it. Yet the judgment will be appealed against in European courts. Another example is the Council's resolution on the unconditional signing of the Small Traffic Convention. In both cases the Administrative Control Division interfered, intimidating the local councilors and demanding them to annul the decisions which annoy the central government. The European Action Movement plans to hold a series of meetings in the riverine communities as well as in Chisinau to demand the government to sign the Convention on Small Cross-Border Traffic.