Moldova's Communist ex-President Vladimir Voronin can be accused of many things. But a lack of consistency is not among them.
To many, his recent jibe at Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc appeared incomprehensible for the head of the largest party -- granted, a Communist one -- of a new European country. More precisely, Voronin earlier this week appealed to the European Union to "condemn" Boc's statement at the United Nations General Assembly in which he said Romania does not recognize the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 24, 1939, better known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
Voronin was irritated that Boc's statement was "humiliating" to Moldova's statehood, he argued -- thus appearing to concede that Moldova owes its very existence as a state to that infamous Soviet-Nazi pact.
The secret protocols of the pact provided for a division of spheres of influence between the Soviets and the Nazis, of course. More specifically, the Russians got Hitler's approval for invading and annexing eastern Poland, the Baltics, and Romania's eastern province of Basarabia, which forms most of present-day independent Moldova.
Beyond Voronin's demand that the European Union condemn an official from a member country for rejecting the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact -- might Voronin want the EU to recognize the Nazi-Soviet deal? -- the statement represents an implicit admission of his own party's illegitimacy. For Voronin has remained faithful to his Communist credo -- no matter how absurd it might sometimes sound -- that the Soviet invasion and occupation was, in fact, a liberation for Moldova, as he told RFE/RL in 2005.
-- Eugen Tomiuc
To many, his recent jibe at Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc appeared incomprehensible for the head of the largest party -- granted, a Communist one -- of a new European country. More precisely, Voronin earlier this week appealed to the European Union to "condemn" Boc's statement at the United Nations General Assembly in which he said Romania does not recognize the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 24, 1939, better known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
Voronin was irritated that Boc's statement was "humiliating" to Moldova's statehood, he argued -- thus appearing to concede that Moldova owes its very existence as a state to that infamous Soviet-Nazi pact.
The secret protocols of the pact provided for a division of spheres of influence between the Soviets and the Nazis, of course. More specifically, the Russians got Hitler's approval for invading and annexing eastern Poland, the Baltics, and Romania's eastern province of Basarabia, which forms most of present-day independent Moldova.
Beyond Voronin's demand that the European Union condemn an official from a member country for rejecting the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact -- might Voronin want the EU to recognize the Nazi-Soviet deal? -- the statement represents an implicit admission of his own party's illegitimacy. For Voronin has remained faithful to his Communist credo -- no matter how absurd it might sometimes sound -- that the Soviet invasion and occupation was, in fact, a liberation for Moldova, as he told RFE/RL in 2005.
-- Eugen Tomiuc