Citizenship and assimilation

The former Soviet republic of Moldova, with a population of just over 4 million, remains one of the smallest post-Soviet republics. It is also the poorest country in Europe, with a dilapidated infrastructure, outmoded agricultural techniques, and about one-fourth of its working population that does not technically work in Moldova.

In 2001, President Vladimir Voronin, of the Communist Party, became President; his government recently was re-elected, but not without triggering violent spasms of unrest in the capital of Chisinau that forced a recount reiterating the Communists' victory.

It is also the site of a peculiar form of separatism, east of the river Dniester, which is populated by a sizable number of ethnic Ukrainians and Russians, along with Moldovans, but which is controlled by former Soviet political elites that played the nationalism card just before Moldova became independent in August 1991.

Really, though, the conundrum over the 'Trans-Dniester Moldovan Republic' is a thinly-disguised squabble between the Moldovan authorities and the ex-Soviet elite in Tiraspol, who preside over an enclave of Soviet-style decorum and bravado, complete with rampant organized crime, illicit weapons dealing, human trafficking, and minimal central authority. The "president" of Trans-Dniester, Igor Smirnov, runs the place as his personal fief, with his two sons running a good deal of the breakaway state's business.

Moldovans, historically, have ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties with neighbouring Romania; between 1918-1940, Romania and Moldova were one country, and it was following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1940, followed by the insanity of the Second World War, that Moldova became a part of the USSR. Few politicians in post-1989 Romania have been keen on nurturing irredentism in Moldova, given the country's nasty poverty and the instability it harbours with Trans-Dniester.

The Romanian government, however -- along with Russia -- has long been accused of meddling in Chisinau's affairs. Curious, then, that the Romanian government has been making it easier, as of late, for Moldovans to acquire a Romanian passport, much to the chagrin of the Moldovan authorities. Romania's President, Trajan Basescu, says he wishes to avoid a new "iron curtain" from falling between the two countries, but one cannot help but wonder if this is just an alternative to the mud-slinging, territory-altering prospect of somehow reunifying the two countries together. The last time this possibility emerged was right in 1990-1991, but Romania was nowhere near its current level of stability and economic prospects, let alone EU and NATO membership, at the time.

"This mass granting of the Romanian citizenship is a way to assimilate the Republic of Moldova...We see it a threat to the statehood, a threat to the integrity and sovereignty of our country." Or so says Vladimir Turcanu, a Moldovan MP. More than 100,000 Moldovans have Romanian passports already, and there are another 20,000 applications in the pipeline (though President Basescu cited a figure of 650,000 envelopes at the Romanian embassy in Chisinau).

If this all keeps up, Moldova may well become a closer rendition of post-Soviet Armenia, another poverty-mired country in which one-third of its population has left the country for a better life abroad since 1991. Eighteen years of supposed nation-building and identity-fostering will have been in vain, and a country will have virtually vanished, to be replaced by...what?