Transnistria - Forced Move in Russian Schools

The Moldovan authorities didn’t keep the promise of finding a solution for the Romanian high-schools, "Lucian Blaga" in Tiraspol and "Evrica" in Rabnita. They said they would find a solution until September 13 for the high-schools the Transnistrean military police occupied a few months ago.

During the last days, the situation of the two high-schools’ pupils has changed for the worse. Now, they are not allowed to take classes on the Nistru bank either. Against their will, the children are being transferred to the Transitrean schools with a Cyrillic writing teaching, and the separatist authorities threaten their parents saying they would get fired. Many parents have been arrested and convicted, and the teachers are forced to the military police headquarters, where they are sent to Court according to the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code.

PROTESTS. The lady manager of the Rabnita high-school, Eugenia Halus, told us yesterday that she doesn’t believe any promise of the Chisinau officials anymore. The manager of the Tiraspol high-school, Ion Iovcev, threatened that he, together with the pupils, their parents and the teachers, would go to Chisinau and they would protest in front of the Moldovan Government headquarters and at the Russian Federation Embassy. "We will try to make justice our own way, because we are convinced we cannot count on anyone", said Eugenia Halus. "We don’t expect anything from the Government anymore. They permanently ask us to wait a little more…But we cannot do that any longer. What is for sure is that finding out a solution for this problem is not something we can do. Voronin and Tarlev know this too", added Eugenia Halus.

ALTERNATIVE. A more complicated situation one can find in the "Lucian Blaga" high-school. Until now, more than 30 pupils out of the 550 here have already transferred to the School no. 22. Here they are taught in the Cyrillic way of writing. In order to attract the pupils left out of school, the separatist administration in Tiraspol has recently initiated the "Moldovan high-school", whose image is presented as positive by the proseparatist press.

INTERVENTION. These days the chief of the OSCE Mission in Moldova, William Hill, asked Igor Smirnov to keep his promise concerning the registering in the region of the schools with teaching using the Latin writing. The separatist administration seems to have decided not to react to the messages from the international organizations.