Moldovan police recapture Parliament building after clashes (2nd Lead)

Apr 8, 2009, 9:45 GMT

Chisinau, Moldova/Moscow/Kiev - Moldovan police early Wednesday recaptured the Parliament building in Chisinau, which was occupied by demonstrators and set ablaze during deadly clashes in protests against the Communist Party's recent election victory.

Anti-riot troopers wearing armour and helmets arrested 10 to 20 protestors in the vicinity. The demonstrators, most of them students, offered no resistance.

By the time police recaptured Parliament and the adjacent presidential residence at around 1 am (2200 GMT), almost all of the demonstrators had gone home.

Paramilitary police took up positions in the centre of the city and were visible preparing barriers around Parliament and the presidential residence, as well as inside the buildings.

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin on Wednesday fingered Romania as complicit in the mass demonstrations, declaring Filip Teordescu, the country's ambassador to Moldova, persona non grata and ordering him to leave Moldova, the Infotag news agency reported.

'We have already arrested 118 organizers, and the wealthier ones have already left the country,' Voronin said, at a national security council meeting.

A crowd of several hundred anti-government protesters had gathered in central Chisinau by midday Wednesday, blocking traffic on the city's main thoroughfare Stefan de Mare street. Police made no move to interfere.

Security troops were posted at major intersections throughout Chisinau and at major road entrances to the city.

Traffic police were checking the identification of motorists driving into Chisinau, and, according to government officials, demonstrators attempting to enter the capital would be turned back.

Moldovan border police were blocking entrance into the country of all reporters. Transistrian police also refused to allow media to travel across Moldova into Transistria.

Public disturbances in Moldova began Tuesday evening when a crowd of as many as 20,000 had gathered in the central square, overrunning a pair of key government buildings and putting law enforcers to flight.

The violence in Chisinau left one woman dead from apparent smoke inhalation inside the blazing Parliament, Moldova-1 television reported. Demonstrators also broke into the presidential residence.

One wing of Parliament was badly damaged by fire. Demonstrators tossed office furniture and computers through smashed windows as high as six stories above the pavement and later built bonfires from the debris.

About 100 people were reported injured in the rioting, which erupted as the political opposition protested the Communist Party's recent election victory, alleging fraud.

Independent observers, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have contradicted the Moldovan opposition's allegations, describing Sunday's vote giving the Communists a strong parliamentary majority free and fair.

Opposition leaders late Tuesday appeared taken somewhat aback by the intensity and extent of the violence caused by their supporters, and aired live over Moldovan television.

Vladimir Filat, leader of the opposition Liberal-Democrat Party, accused the ruling Communists of intentionally avoiding a violent police response toward the protestors 'as a way to throw all guilt on the opposition.'

Voronin, also leader of Moldova's Communist Party, in Tuesday evening national television address condemned the opposition for instigating the civic chaos, the worst seen in the former Soviet republic in half a decade.

Later, in a meeting with Western ambassadors, he called on European Union nations to assist his government in restoring order.

'You yourselves [Western governments] gave this election the highest marks for transparency and fairness, ... and now we need your help in bringing calm back,' he said, according to an Infotag news agency report. Talks between opposition leaders and government representatives broke down Tuesday evening with opposition leaders demanding variously that Voronin resign his post, that the Sunday vote be repeated or that Moldova's Central Election Committee hold a recount.

Voronin's representatives reportedly rejected all the demands on the grounds that the committee had not yet released formal results of the election and, since international observers had already declared the vote clean and fair, there was no need to hold a new one.