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MoldovaConflict in Transnistria and Gagauzia
As the summer of 1990 advanced, the country's initially
inchoate political divisions transformed themselves into
competing governmental authorities. Delegates to city and
raion councils in Transnistria and in the Gagauz
region
met independently with their Supreme Soviet delegates and
called
for regional autonomy. Republic-level officials denounced
these
efforts as separatist and treasonable.
As efforts to reach some form of accord foundered, more
decisive measures were taken. On August 21, 1990, the
Gagauz
announced the formation of the "Gagauz Republic" in the
five
southern raioane where their population was
concentrated,
separate from the Moldavian SSR and part of the Soviet
Union. The
Transnistrians followed suit on September 2, proclaiming
the
formation of the "Dnestr Moldavian Republic," with its
capital at
Tiraspol, as a part of the Soviet Union.
It was under these circumstances that violence broke
out in
the fall of 1990. A decision by Gagauz leaders to hold a
referendum on the question of local sovereignty was
intensely
opposed by the republic's government and by the Popular
Front.
Rival political forces mobilized volunteer detachments to
defend
their competing interests by force. Adding to the
volatility of
the conflict between the Gagauz and the ethnic Romanians,
militia
forces from Transnistria entered the Gagauz region to
support the
sovereignty movement there.
In the Transnistrian city of Dubasari, the militia
seized the
city council building as part of its preparations for a
referendum on autonomy in the region. When the republic's
police
sought to retake the building, new forces were mobilized
from
ethnic Romanian regions as well as from Russian-speaking
regions.
In the ensuing conflict, three persons were killed and
dozens
more wounded.
Relations between the separatists and the republic's
government were characterized by mutual denunciations and
sporadic violence from late 1990 until early 1992, when
conditions took a sharp turn for the worse. As efforts
among
Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, and Romania to mediate the
conflict
floundered and as the Transnistrian separatists
consolidated
their position with the support of Russia's 14th Army,
pressure
built on President Snegur to take decisive action to
resolve the
conflict.
In late March 1992, Snegur declared a state of
emergency
across the republic, and soon afterward the government
made an
effort to disarm the separatists' militia. These efforts
were met
by armed resistance, which, by May 1992, had escalated
into a
full-scale civil war as weapons released to the
Transnistrians by
the 14th Army were used against Moldovan military units.
By the close of the summer, more than 300 people had
been
killed in the conflict, and more than 1,000 had been
wounded. A
large part of the city of Bender, which had become a focal
point
of the conflict, had been devastated; thousands of
refugees
flooded out of the region.
Data as of June 1995
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