The August Putsch was not the most important factor in gaining independence – First President. Info-Prim Neo news story of 18 August 2006

Moldova’s first President, Mircea Snegur, says that the coup d’etat on August 19, 1991 in Moscow wasn’t the most important in obtaining the independence of the Republic of Moldova. Mircea Snegur told Info-Prim Neo that the independence of Moldova was prepared by political elites, intelligentsia and by the whole people long time before the putsch in Moscow. Mr. Snegur says that the process of obtaining independence started from the point when Romanian was declared state language, in 1989, the democratic elections in 1990 and the independence declaration. Moreover, Chisinau was against the referendum announced by Mihail Gorbaciov, through which soviet citizens had to plead in favor or against keeping USSR, Mr. Snegur says. “We were the single republic which boycotted the elections, which means clearly that we did not want to sign the new union treaty, almost identical to the one in 1922. The idea about the Independence Declaration came prior to the putsch, Mr. Snegur underlined. Referring to those 3 days of incertitude, the first president said that Moldova was the only republic which trenchantly pleaded against the coupe d’etat attempt. According to Mr. Snegur, at that time the leadership of the country decided to go against the orders from Moscow, because they understood that a coup d’etat is an attempt to establish dictatorship. “We followed every move of the military forces shifted on the territory of Moldova. We called for people from Chisinau to guard strategic buildings”. Several days after the putsch, Moldova was no longer a part of USSR. Mircea Snegur declared that the Declaration of Independence was not a spontaneous act as in the case of the other soviet republics. The putsch on August 19-21, 1991 created specific conditions for declaring the independence of the Republic of Moldova. On August 27, the Republic of Moldova celebrates the 15th anniversary of independence.