Sixteen years ago today, on 2 September 1990, Pridnestrovie, or Transdniestria as it is also known, unilaterally declared its independence and established Tiraspol as the new republic's capital. It has its own flag, currency, police and border control, passports, constitution, parliament, a president, judiciary and a proudly independent people. Only international recognition of its statehood is still missing.
In the streets of Tiraspol today, residents are saying "Happy Birthday!" Not to each other, but to their country, now a healthy 16 year old. On this day today, sixteen years ago, Pridnestrovie declared its independence and refused to take orders from the central Communist authorities of Chisinau, at the time the capital of MSSR, Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and part of the Soviet Union.
Ostensibly, the reason for independence was a language law and increasing threats from rising nationalism in Moldova. "But," says columnist Michael Garner, "the bigger picture was freedom and the individual thirst for liberty encouraged by the heyday of perestroika and glasnost."
Pridnestrovie, as it is known for short, declared its independence on September 2, 1990, during the general breakup of the Soviet Union.
Located to the east of the Republic of Moldova, between the Dniester River and Ukraine, the new republic - whose full name is Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica - established full sovereignty over a fixed territory of 4,163 sq km with a total of 816 km of defined, demarcated borders and nearly 600,000 inhabitants.
The country is a de facto independent state, lacking a de jure or formal recognition of its statehood. For the past 16 years, Pridnestrovie has been a separate nation-state in every sense but one: It can not have any embassies abroad because few other countries, save for other de facto states, recognize its independence. The rest of the world cling to a legal fiction that Pridnestrovie is still part of Moldova. Although in reality, as local politicians like Grigorii Maracutsa are quick to point out, Pridnestrovie was never part of Moldova at any time in history.
" - Historically, Pridnestrovie was never part of Moldova. It was also never a formal part of Romania. The two countries were forced together by gunpoint in the MSSR, but that was not a separate country, it was part of the Soviet Union," says Maracutsa.
In the breakup of the Soviet Union, both Moldova and Pridnestrovie withdrew from this forced and unnatural union.
" - When the current Republic of Moldova declared independence, in August 1991, Pridnestrovie had already left and had been independent for the better part of a year," says the former Speaker of the Pridnestrovie's parliament, an ethnic Moldovan.
The record bears him out. Pridnestrovie declared independence on 2 September 1990, nearly a year before Moldova did. By the time the Republic of Moldova got founded, Pridnestrovie was already on the outside and had governed itself independently for a year. And, just so that there couldnt be any misunderstanding, Pridnestrovie's parliament even reaffirmed its declaration of independence on 25 August 1991, two days before Moldova did. This time, both of them - Pridnestrovie and Moldova - as independent countries and not Soviet Union republics.
Self-rule has paid off for the citizens of Pridnestrovie where per-capita GDP and standard of living is slightly higher than in neighboring Moldova.
Today, Pridnestrovie has succesfully constructed a viable nation state. Despite its lack of outside recognition, it is a fully self-governing and independent republic with a complete set of working government institutions: Parliament, Central Bank, Courts, its own Constitution, an Army, Police, Border Patrol, Health Service, Education System, and a Tax Collection administration. Earlier this year, it got a human rights Ombudsman.
Its biggest struggle, former Speaker Maracutsa recognizes, is the disdain of the international community. Commentators from abroad delight in calling the country as "black hole" and even go so far as declaring it a "non-country."
Researcher Michael Garner sifted through some of the commentary and calls it "delusional".
" - Who are they kidding? Anyone who comes to PMR can see that it is a self-governing success story with all the attributes of statehood. It is not a failed state in any sense of the word, but a coherent community with a strong sense of identity. A "non-country" would be something like Kosovo, which is neither here nor there in terms of statehood and is under a U.N. protectorate. But that is not the case of PMR where the local government is in charge of its own affairs; which is by the way the first and most important characteristic of statehood."
Garner confirms that a country can perfectly well be a country under international law even if it doesnt have international recognition from other states:
" - Recognition is simply not a test of statehood. States can (and do) exist without being fully recognized by other states. Article 3 of the Montevideo Convention states that ?The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by other states and this is the world's foremost treaty governing the creation of states under international law."
The Montevideo Convention sets out four requirements for a country to achieve statehood under international law: A permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the ability to relate to other states. Pridnestrovie meets all four requirements.
Sixteen years ago, Pridnestrovie unilaterally declared independence. Its independence was not recognized by Moldova or by the rest of the world, but its population took it seriously and that - says Maracutsa - is what matters the most.
As the most widely used method of state creation under international law, the vast majority of the world's current nations came into being through unilateral declarations of independence similar to that of Pridnestrovie and its two neighbors, Moldova and Ukraine, all three invoking the right to decide their respective futures ?without external interference and in keeping with the ideals and aspirations of the people. That last sentence, by the way, is borrowed from Moldova's own declaration of independence.
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