Moldova expelling foreigners

Two foreign citizens were expelled from Moldova today as the backlash from last week’s violence continues. Doru Dendiu, a journalist from the public station Romanian Television, was informed by the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration today that his accreditation was being withdrawn and that he would be required to leave the country. American Alex Grigorjevs, resident director of the Moldovan office of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), was called into the same ministry yesterday, and sentenced by a court to expulsion today.

Dendiu was charged with violating article 18 of the Moldova’s “Rules on the Accreditation of Foreign Journalists,” the Romanian Financiarul newspaper reports. That article requires journalists and their families to uphold Moldovan law and the Moldovan Constitution, as well as international professional standards. According to Dendiu, no specific causes for his expulsion were given. On April 9, several Romanian journalists were denied entry into Moldova.

Gregorjevs was expelled for visa violations, according to an article in the Chisinau newspaper Ziarul de Garda, a translation of which was posted on the Moldovan website Blogosfera.md. Costel Tanase, lawyer for NDI, noted that Gregorjevs had been trying to straighten out his visa problems for several months. Visas are issued by an office of the Moldovan Foreign Ministry.

The NDI is one of the four core institutions that make up the US National Endowment for Democracy. The NDI gained additional notoriety today when the Russian information agency RBC Daily cited a source in the Moldovan Information and Security Service as saying that Serb Danko Cosic, director of the Belgrade NGO ProConcept, was the “Yugoslav with documents from a North American organization” referred to by Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin as one of the organizers of the riots. Vornin was speaking in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais. An RBC Daily source in the Moldovan Foreign Ministry stated that Cosic has been taken into custody. According to the Romanian service HotNews.ro, Cosic was acting as an election observer for the NDI in Moldova.

RBC Daily cites a poll showing that Voronin’s popularity has risen 10 percent since the disorder after the April 5 elections, and his popularity has increased even among the young. Hostility toward the liberal opposition in Moldova is being observed, especially in the countryside. Rallies are being held throughout Moldova to make demands “to end provocations to riot and not entangle minors in dirty political games,” the Chisinau-based Omega news agency reports. According to that agency, demonstrations were held and declarations issued “in the majority of settlements” in Moldova, all of them condemning the disorder in the capital, and some of them condemning specific opposition parties and politicians.

The recount of the disputed parliamentary vote began at 8:00 a.m. today throughout Moldova, with 20,000 voting commission members and polling station personnel determined to finish the job by the end of the work day. Voronin is scheduled to address the country over live television at 7:30 p.m. local time, and he will likely reveal the results of the recount at that time.