Moldova: Twitter or Color Revolution?

It’s called the Twitter Revolution, or maybe an SMS Revolution. “Protests of around 15,000 people against disputed legislative elections seemingly materialized out of nowhere on Monday and Tuesday in central Chisinau after an SMS campaign initiated by critics of the government,” writes the German newspaper, Deutsche Welle. “After protests turned violent on Tuesday, cell phone service in the areas surrounding the demonstrations was not available. Whether disruptions were initiated by authorities to stem protesters’ ability to communicate or if phone networks were overloaded by the massive crowds gathering in the capital of Chisinau remains unclear.”

	Protestors shout slogans at the government building in Chisinau, Moldova, Wednesday, April 8, 2009. Photo: Kirill Tulin.

But it wasn’t simply Twitter. Deutsche Welle tells us Facebook and YouTube were also pressed into service.

According to Daniel McAdams, writing for the LRC Blog, the idea of a Twitter or Facebook Revolution in Moldova is nonsense. “Moldova is among the poorest countries in Europe. The average monthly salary is approximately 2532 lei, which equals about US$230. Contrasted with the average US salary of approximately US$4,000 per month, this demonstrates the real poverty of Moldova.” McAdams then points out that a Twitter-friendly iPhone would cost a Moldovan 6,599 lei, or the equivalent of about two and a half times his or her monthly salary. Of course, that would put even a modest computer for Facebook and YouTube out of reach as well.

In other words, if Moldovans used Twitter iPhones and computers to spark demonstrations, the devices were provided by somebody outside of the country — for instance, the usual NGO suspects.

At the bottom of a Moldovan NGO web page leading the effort to overthrow the fossilized (and duly elected) communist regime in the country we discover credit given to the Internet Access Training Program (IATP), a program of the Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs (ECA) at the US Department of State and funded under the Freedom Support Act. “Digging a bit further, one can see on the website of the US Agency for International Development that the United States government, through cut-out organizations like the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute (NED),” writes McAdams.

“While both USAID and NED are civilian entities, they are largely controlled by the State Department and are indispensable instruments of U.S. foreign policy,” notes Jeremy Bigwood. Andrew Natsios, USAID’s former head, stated unequivocally in a widely distributed 2003 speech that even foreign USAID-funded contractors and NGOs “are an arm of the U.S. government.” And the role of the much smaller NED was made clear when Allen Weinstein, one of its founders stated in a 1991 Washington Post article that, “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

Although not reported by the corporate media, USAID and NED (along with the International Republican Institute and Freedom House) worked with the CIA, the Venezuelan mafia, and the State Department in the failed effort to overthrow Hugo Chávez.

F. William Engdahl writes the following about Freedom House:

Freedom House is an organization with a fine-sounding name and a long history since it was set up in the late 1940’s to back the creation of NATO. The chairman of Freedom House is James Woolsey, former CIA director who calls the present series of regime changes from Baghdad to Kabul, “World War IV.” Other trustees include the ubiquitous Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Clinton Commerce Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake. Freedom House lists USAID, US Information Agency, Soros Foundations and the National Endowment for Democracy, among its financial backers.

The ubiquitous Zbigniew Brzezinski was Obama’s foreign policy guru during the presidential campaign. Even before Obama entered the White House, the “Zbigniew Brzezinski faction of lunatic Russia haters… won the upper hand inside the secret councils of the Anglo-American finance oligarchy, displacing the hitherto dominant George Shultz-neocon faction,” Webster G. Tarpley explained last February.

 

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“It is not clear that the protests are organizing into an actual color revolution, but as the West and Russia are redrawing the lines of what is their turf, Moldova is a small piece each could vie for,” explains Stratfor. “Moldova is the perfect target for a pro-Western color revolution as seen in Ukraine and Georgia — especially given that Moldova’s European neighbor Romania is interested in seeing a regime change. Such a Western-backed uprising would not only be to break the Communist government but would also be targeted at Russia’s control over [Transdniestria] — particularly if a new Moldovan government can turn on Russian occupation of Moldova’s secessionist region of Transdniestria.”

 

Like South Ossetia, Transdniestria is mainly populated by ethnic Russians and there are approximately 2,800 Russian peacekeeping troops stationed there. “Russia is chiefly interested in keeping Transdniestria under its influence because of the breakaway republic’s strategic geographic position on the far side of Ukraine and on Europe’s border. This has kept the government in Chisinau continually in negotiations with Moscow and unable to completely shake its former Soviet master.”

“Why bother with all this? The same reason the US funded the other color revolutions. The same reason the US announced missile defense facilities in Poland and Czech Republic. The same reason the US has propped up and provided massive military aid to a creepily unstable Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia. Encircle Russia. Maintain the empire,” writes McAdams.

This encirclement takes on a dangerous element with the influence of Zbigniew Brzezinski, cofounder of the Trilateral Commission. As Webster G. Tarpley notes in  Barack H. Obama, the Unauthorized Biography, Brzezinski’s “criminal energy has only grown with the passing years when it comes to his lifelong obsession of destroying Russia.”

The hyped Twitter Revolution aimed at Moldova’s communist regime appears to be right out of Brzezinski’s playbook, even though president Vladimir Voronin seeks closer ties with the European Union and cooperation with NATO. He also desires friendship with Russia and the restoration of the Soviet Union, positions obviously at odds with Brzezinski’s lifelong obsession.

Finally, it is rather interesting the storming of the Moldovian parliament came at the same time as Obama’s two-day visit to Turkey. Behind Obama’s effort to mend fences with Muslims — he declared: “the United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam” — another objective lurked: Turkey’s role in providing routes for pipelines linking the West to the vast energy resources of the Caspian Basin, thus bypassing Russia.

It should not come as a surprise Obama’s support for an East-West corridor for oil and natural gas was drafted by none other than the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the main architects were Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft.

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8 Responses to “Moldova: Twitter or Color Revolution?”

1. sdjsdjsk Says:
   April 10th, 2009 at 7:27 am

   knights of malta

2. knightrom Says:
   April 10th, 2009 at 8:03 am

   Problem, reaction, solution:
   Problem: too forceful pro-Romanian voices
   Reaction: riots that Moldova has never seen before
   Solution: arrests of people, tortures, arrests of journalists, visas for Romanians that enter Moldova,…

   An interesting fact:
   A few days before the riots the the communist representatives were advised to take back the valuable things from their closets.
   Another one: a few of the wildest frontliners of the protesters were speaking Russian (like communists usually do)

3. guardia Says:
   April 10th, 2009 at 1:31 pm

   Moldova is a Romania land, take by rapture, stolen from Romania by Russia; unfortunately still under Russia dominacy; Russia moved there an important russian minority, as part of it’s policy of ethnic dillution.

4. HENRY BARTOS Says:
   April 10th, 2009 at 3:15 pm

   Who is Webster G !

5. John Says:
   April 11th, 2009 at 8:24 am

   The Moldavian political power is led by Russia. While the Moldavian population was highly Russianized over the last 50 years, they try now to deny and eliminate the Romanian identity of the vast majority of the Population.

   A country with high political and economic corruption, zero respect for international human rights standards, following the rules imposed from Moscow.

   The civilized world should raise the voice against a Russian dictatorship lab – as dangerous if silently accepted as the post WW2 silent acceptance of the communist hydra expansion in Eastern Europe.

6. Lisa Says:
   April 13th, 2009 at 12:28 pm

   Kurt here are some facts you didn’t share with your readers – The International Republican Institute (IRI) has never worked with the CIA or the Venezuelan mafia. Those are lies. If you heard it from someone they lied to you, if you made it up shame on you.

   If you or your readers want to read facts about IRI visit the Institute’s web site http://www.iri.org. But don’t make-up or repeat lies and rumors it is beneath you.

   On the site you’ll see the IRI does work in Moldova. The Institute works with political parties to develop and communicate issue-based platforms that address voters concerns. And guess who one of the parties is that IRI works with…the ruling Communist party.

7. Dinu Popa Says:
   April 17th, 2009 at 10:58 am

   What a simple-minded article! I’m originally from Moldova, people have acces to the Internet there, they have computers, there is a 3G wireless network, and young people are using Facebook and Twitter A LOT. Yes, they don’t use expensive iPhones, but technology in the urban areas is largely available. You are talking about a european country. We are smart enough to know how to use text messaging and that “extremely complicated” Twitter, and don’t need the intervention of some “secret agents” from abroad to teach us how to use technology.

8. Anika Says:
   April 21st, 2009 at 8:07 am

   I do want to point out one thing and would like to kind of “piggy back” off of Dinu Popa. Above, McAdams shared, “The idea of a Twitter or Facebook Revolution in Moldova is nonsense. Moldova is among the poorest countries in Europe. The average monthly salary is approximately 2532 lei, which equals about US$230.”

   “Revolutions” in general are usually started by well educated, middle to upper-class citizens. Think: Mao Zedong, Che’ Guevara. Many of these individuals I am sure like Dinu Popa said has access to the internet.