Recently, our Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) was stricken by offensive & unsubstantiated accusations from an obscure company, with allegations on ‘infiltrated agents’ in the civil society organizations. Serving the purpose of denigrating us, their allegations have been rapidly sprinkled by media outlets and TV channels belonging to the ruling party. This calls us to release the following statement on behalf of the Administrative Board of our institute:
We note with a growing concern the increasing degree of power usurpation in Moldova, which is specifically seen through corrupt and selective justice, use of media controlled by the oligarchic groups to advocate an authoritarian model of governance, using some of the state institutions to bully political opposition, as well as their critics from the civil society. With this particular aim, we have been accused of hiring a security expert, who graduated a Russian School of Command Border guards (1994), manipulating facts that would denigrate Rosian Vasiloi, while in reality he worked with distinction for the Government, between 2007-2012, as a senior officer of the National Border Police. It is obvious that the extraction of personal data from the Border Police, which is still a militarized state structure with a special regime of data protection and security protocol, is already a criminal offense. These situations fall under the current Moldovan Criminal Code. The state of affairs is far more serious due to the lack of prompt response from the national authorities in charge with the protection of personal data, i.e. Ministry of Internal Affairs (MAI), Border Police, National Center for Personal Data Protection, General Prosecutor, Security and Intelligence Service (SIS). This incident shows the extreme vulnerability of public institutions and attests their use for political purposes, which dramatically affects the national security of the country and the democratic process in the Republic of Moldova.
Considering the breach of the Border Police Internal Files, we publicly call the Government to inform us about the actions undertaken to investigate all circumstances of this situation, about who broke up the internal security protocols of the Border Police risking to compromise the integrity of the Border Policy conditions, directly linked with the visa liberalization regime granted to Moldova by the EU. We firmly believe that there is no election or political interests that can justify risking the existing visa-free regime with the EU. Obviously, the only net beneficiaries of a diminished relation with European Union would be those foreign agencies, to which the defamation material refers, and their infiltrated agents pushing existing public authorities and political parties to break out the rules.
Respectively, we feel compelled by this disgraceful situation to revive the idea of adopting a lustration law in Moldova, following the example of many other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. We note here that a delayed lustration law has enabled old-Soviet nomenclatures and foreign special agents to control and even attempt to monopolize political agenda of the country’s major reforms, which resulted in serious degradation of the social and economic wellbeing of the country. We firmly believe that the worst economic and banking crimes in Moldova occurred largely in result of the involvement of persons with wide networks with foreign special services. Here is to be outlined "money laundering” crime of 23 bln $ (Russian Laundromat), the theft of 1 billion $ of the Moldovan banking system, as well as a concession of the "Chisinau" International Airport in the benefit of some obscure companies from Siberian region of the Russian Federation. Facts tell us that particularly these well-connected networks of foreigners with influence played a key role in undermining the national interests of Moldova, and are fairly well protected now by the oligarchic groups of the ruling party.
Our Institute is directly interested to support a lustration law that will help Moldova to win back its democratic credentials. We believe that lustration will help us to bring to justice the real villains and curb the "witch hunting games", which only seek to hijack the public agenda and cover real agents. We note with great regret that several political parties failed in what we believed to be actions by real foreign agents and the oligarchical groups, which are profiting from the lack of a functional and democratic state. Lack of lustration leads to a growing decline of political process and installation of a sort of Russian model "sovereign democracy", which run counter to the Association Agreement obligations of Moldova that demands rule of law institutions and representative democracy.
Based on this particular situation, IDIS advances the initiative of aligning Moldova to the best-model of lustration laws that would affect the entire society. We feel that the civil society in Moldova has a direct moral and civic obligation to become the driving force of this process. IDIS believes that the start of effective lustration should start from the following steps:
(1) Self-responsibility statements about the lack of commitment to special services by public figures,
(2) Public statements by organizations wishing to support the lustration process with regard to the names of persons who have been active in political police or other types in the past or present,
(3) Request for national legislation on the purposes and procedures required to conduct lustration in the state structure.
We appeal to all citizens of the Republic of Moldova to support this initiative. We ask all political parties in Moldova and public authorities to publicly support the lustration process in the Republic of Moldova.
Understanding the implications of this initiative, IDIS will launch its own internal lustration procedures, publicly and transparently, and in line with the standards applied in Central and Eastern Europe states.
IDIS Viitorul, August 20, 2018
