Moldovan police recapture parliament building after clashes

Apr 8, 2009, 12:24 GMT

Chisinau, Moldova/Kiev - Moldovan police recaptured the parliament building in Chisinau on Wednesday morning, which was occupied by demonstrators and set ablaze during deadly clashes in protest 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 Tuesday), almost all of the demonstrators had gone home.

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

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin on Wednesday accused Romania of being 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.

'We know that behind the disturbances stand certain groups from Romania,' Voronin charged.

Moldovan law enforcers by Wednesday reportedly had detained more than 200 people suspected of planning the assault on the two government buildings.

Police were still searching for Gennadie Brega, an ethnic Romanian journalist alleged to have led a Moldovan youth group called 'I am an anti-Communist', but he was thought to have gone into hiding in the Romanian embassy building in Chisinau, said Valery Gurbulia, Moldova's Prosecutor General.

Gurbilia identified a second Romanian journalist, Natali Morar, as also wanted for questioning by Moldovan police, Gurbilia said.

Romania's government was quick to reject Moldovan allegations of Bucharest's complicity in the Chisinau protests, with MP Laszlo Borbley, chair of the Romanian parliament's foreign affairs committee, calling Teordescu's ejection orders 'totally groundless.'

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. Uniformed police took up positions next to dozens of Chisinau schools and universities, and were ordering students to stay away from the city centre.

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. Transnistrian police also refused to allow media to travel across Moldova into Transnistria.

Romanian citizens, previously allowed to enter Moldova after a passport check, would soon need to purchase visas at 35 Euros each, Voronin said.

Moldova was a Romanian province until 1940, and since Moldova's 1991 independence Romanian citizens have been able to travel in Moldova freely.

Moldova's public disturbances 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 as free and fair.