On Thursday, June 3, the human rights organization “Promo-LEX” published a very interesting 40-page report on the topic “The status of peacekeeping forces in international law: the case of the Republic of Moldova”. The author of the report is an ex-spokesman for the Democratic Party and a former lecturer at the Department of Law at the International Independent University of Moldova (ULIM).
It would seem that some researcher has released another report, nothing special. Moreover, just a few days ago, the Promo-LEX organization published a high-profile article in which it rightly accused the President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, of violating the law. Nothing, as they say, foreshadowed trouble. However, in practice, it turned out that this is not a researcher, and the report is far from the truth.
In order to save time, we present the main theses of the report, formulated by the Moldovan historian and political scientist Vladimir Bukarski in his Telegram channel:
· The current peacekeeping operation on the Dniester does not meet the criteria of stability, democracy, human rights, protection of property.
· The Russian Federation illegally maintains its troops on the territory of Moldova, conducts illegal operations together with the PMR army, endangering people’s lives.
· Russia is a party to the conflict, therefore one cannot speak of the impartiality of this peacekeeping mission.
· The peacekeeping forces deployed on the territory of Moldova do not have a mandate recognized by the UN and the timeframe for carrying out the mission in accordance with international principles and standards.
· The peacekeepers were involved in incidents of intimidation of journalists and human rights defenders, illegal detention, killings, etc.
· From a human rights perspective, the current format of a peacekeeping operation is outdated and irrelevant.
As you can see, the main idea of the Promo-Lex report is that Russia illegally interferes in the internal affairs of Moldova, the peacekeeping operation does not meet high democratic standards, and the format of the peacekeeping mission itself is hopelessly outdated and requires revision. In general, the President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, spoke with exactly the same position.
However, as noted by Promo-Lex, the peacekeeping operation in Transnistria is governed by the internationally recognized Agreement “On the principles of the peaceful settlement of the armed conflict …” dated July 21, 1992. In addition, the document does not provide for any transformation of a peacekeeping operation into a civilian mission, even with an OSCE mandate or with any other.
If we talk about the democracy and stability of the existing model, then it is enough to recall the sad experience of April 1992, when there was already an attempt to deploy a civilian mission in Transnistria. At that time, an institute of military observers from Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Moldova worked in the Transnistrian city of Bender, but it could not prevent the “Bender tragedy”.
In addition, the conflict between Transnistria and Moldova was frozen not by civilian observers, who do not even have the appropriate tools, but by an active peacekeeping mission. At the same time, for the entire time the Russian peacekeeping contingent was in Transnistria, not a single weapon shot was fired on the territory of the border security zone.
After reading such reports, one involuntarily ponders how much useful money could be done with the money spent on paying for this frank order. The reader of these theses will probably have a mixed feeling: it seems that professionals work in the organization, but from the pen of “Promo-LEX” from time to time, materials even appear with the right message, but here such blatant stupidity.
You might even think that the author has absolutely no understanding of the issue and orientation in the historical space, but here the situation is somewhat different. He understands everything, only this desk is not any human rights organization, let alone a research center. In scientific circles, “research” of structures like “Promo-LEX” is never taken seriously by anyone.
A self-respecting academician, hearing the name, “Promo-LEX”, will start spitting and immediately declare that this has nothing to do with the truth. The fact is that we have before us a typical center of pro-Western propaganda, as they are also called, “think tank”. This is a pseudo-organization created with the money of the special services, existing for the purpose of conducting information operations and disseminating propaganda.
Such structures usually employ former diplomats or intelligence officers who, after retirement, continue to do their jobs. The meaning of such “think tanks” boils down to making recommendations for politicians and authorities, as well as fooling the population of the target country with all sorts of fake data, while camouflaging propaganda for real research.
This is exactly what we see in the case of yesterday’s Promo-LEX report. The propaganda organization released another anti-Russian story, obviously designed to actualize the issue of the Transnistrian settlement and prepare the ground for further provocations – the first propaganda shot has been fired! There is no doubt that soon such rhetoric will be heard from the lips of Moldovan officials everywhere.