Conflict Cables Series: Transdniester, October 1991

These three cables cover a fateful month in the development of the Transdniestrian conflict and Moldova's post-Soviet development in general.  This was the period when Igor Smirnov, who would go on to lead what became the secessionist Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic for 20 years (so far), was released from the custody of Moldovan authorities and allowed to return to Tiraspol.  The first cable below goes into interesting detail about the problems presented by "the Trans-Dniester" and Gagauzia, as well as potential border issues with Ukraine.

This was also a month when President Snegur was forced to cancel a visit to the U.S. due to unspecified domestic "political problems."  As the second cable below shows, the visit was intended to familiarize U.S. business and political leaders with Moldova, something the Moldovan government is still working on today.  The second cable also contains a number of statements from official Chisinau about how Moldova saw its future status at that moment in time. 

Tiraspol Blockade Ended; Moldova Avoiding Confrontation with Secessionist "Republics" (Oct. 4, 1991)

Moldovan President to Visit U.S. October 19-24 (Oct. 11, 1991)

Moldovan President Snegur Cancels U.S. Visit (Oct. 18, 1991)

For more about the "Conflict Cables" series, see this post.

Conflict Cables Series - Inaugural post

In the spring of 2008, I filed a number of requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the State Department, asking for cables related to the initial "hot" stages of the conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdniester which have, over the years, come to be known first as "frozen conflicts" and nowadays as "protracted conflicts."  The FOIA process took a couple of years, but in 2010 I finally received two large packages with documents responsive to my requests.  I am uploading them to Scribd and highlighting some of the more interesting ones on this blog.

Unlike the Wikileaks cables, these documents were all obtained legally through the FOIA process, but that doesn't make them any less interesting.  Although I can't promise a juicy revelation in every one, I am pretty sure that most of them were previously classified and unreleased and therefore potentially have new information of interest to researchers interested in these conflicts.  In addition, a number of them mention one of the conflicts in the context of broader issues of the US approach to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 [image source - RIA Novosti]

Protest rally in Tiraspol, Sept. 1991; the sign reads, "Ukraine and Russia, defend your citizens!"

The batch of cables I am going to upload first was received in response to my request for documents related to the Transdniestria conflict.  Below are the first two cables in this batch.  In the first one, paragraph 11 describes a visit by U.S. officials to Tiraspol, where they met with Igor Smirnov, then Gorispolkom (city council) Chairman, as well as the "recently named chairman of the 'Supreme Soviet of the Trans-Dniester Republic'...and a number of other people whose functions were not entirely clear."  "Smirnov treated pol[itical] off[icer]s with a degree of suspicion reminiscent of the Cold War days, asking why American diplomats were interested in coming to Tiraspol, and refusing to accept the standard replies."

The second cable provides a brief assessment of the political situation in Moldova in the fall of 1991: "The Moldovan government is steering a careful course between the Scylla of the breakaway Trans-Dnister and Gagauz 'republics' and the Charybdis of militant pan-Romanian nationalists."

Increasing Political Polarization in Moldova (April 12, 1991)

Moldova: A Fragile Stability Endures, but for How Long? (Sep 28, 1991)

The Return

[image source]

It's hard to believe it's been almost four months since I posted anything here.  The fourth quarter of last year was filled with work, work and work, but that's no excuse. Scraps of Moscow is back for 2011 and hoping to provide better content than ever with a new series of posts to be launched over the weekend.  My focus, as before, will be on the "protracted conflict" areas in the post-Soviet space, with other topics to be covered including the domestic politics in Moldova and Russia - both of which promise to be interesting this year.

In the meantime, I was remiss last year in not sharing any of my non-blog writing about the region, which included some thoughts on Karabakh as well as co-authored opinion pieces on "Why Moldova Matters" (Russian version) and on Transdniester (Russian version).  If you're interested in a longer read, an article I co-authored with a mouthful of a title - "Acquiring Assets, Debts and Citizens: Russia and the Micro-Foundations of Transnistria's Stalemated Conflict" - was published in the Fall 2010 issue of Demokratizatsiya but is unfortunately not available online.

I'm still trying to figure out how to usefully integrate some of the content from my Facebook wall into this space - an friend recently referred to it as my "Facebook blog," which is accurate given the amount of links posted and comment discussions that erupt there.  I guess the simplest way is just to be less lazy and do a three-sentence blog post when I see an interesting article instead of a one-sentence comment with a shared link on FB.  Stay tuned...