Moldova commemorates its heroes

The persons killed in the war for defending Moldova's independence and territorial integrity are commemorated on March 2. Eighteen years after the end of the war, this day was officially declared the Memory Day. The armed conflict on the Nistru started on March 2, 1992, when the Transnistrian paramilitary forces attacked the Moldovan Police Commissariat in Dubasari. The young state Moldova entered the war unprepared and without army. Police officers and volunteers who had neither fighting experience nor military equipment fought with the rebels supported by Russia's 14th Army. Moldova's first President Mircea Snegur told Info-Prim Neo that the history of this war started on August 27, 1991, when the first Parliament voted for Moldova's independence. This fact aroused dissatisfaction on the left bank of the Nistru and all the constitutional institutions there were expelled. On March 2, 1992, when Moldova became a U.N. member, troops of the Transnistrian Guard and units of Kazakhs attacked the police station in Dubasari, which was the last institution in Transnistria controlled by the constitutional authorities. The war that started on that day was the only war in the world in which a country attacked by established armed forces was defending itself with police forces. “Owing to the combatants, Moldova could not be defeated by the Russian forces, mercenaries and Kazakhs and remained an independent states,” Snegur said. Mircea Snegur is sure the Transnistrian separatists survived due to the support offered by Moscow. The chairman of the Russian State Duma Ghennady Seleznyov in 2002 said that Russia provoked the conflict “in order to hinder Bessarabia's union with Romania.” Since 1992 until 1996, 150 units of military machinery had been transferred to the separatist forces from the Russian military unit deployed in the Transnistrian region. General Ion Costas, Minister of the Interior during May 1991- February 1992, said the Russian and Kazak soldiers caused havoc and terror. The people who were in favor of Moldova's integrity were mistreated, killed and thrown into wells or the Nistru. However, the Russian mass media reported that the Moldovans were killing peaceful, innocent people. Former political detainee Ilie Ilascu stated for Info-Prim Neo that the war of 1992 wasn't a conflict between the two banks of the Nistru, but aggression by Russia on Moldova. It is the separatist groups and the Russian forces who started the war, Ilie Ilascu said. The head of the National Union of Independence War Veterans Eduard Maican said the Moldovans in 1992 fought with supreme sacrifice. According to him, there are yet many black spots in that war that are to be elucidated. Brigade general in reserve Nicolae Petrica thinks Moldova should ask about US$2 billion lei from Russia for keeping its military bases on Moldovan land. “Russia can have military bases in Transnistria, as the Americans have in many countries, but they should pay rent for this,” Petrica said. The Nistru war had lasted for several months. The ceasefire agreement was signed in Moscow in July 1992. According to the Union of Independence War Veteran, 386 Moldovans were killed in the war.