On behalf of Press Now, I visited the self-proclaimed republic of Transnistria(TMR, short for ‘Transnistrian Moldovan Republic’) from the 24th till the 27th of june 2003. I stayed in Chisinau, capital of Moldova. Away from there, I visited cities like Tiraspol, Bender and Ribitna in Transnistria. It is rather easy to pass the borderline, where in a small primitive semi-permanent building some security- and custom-officers watch over the original, from the former Soviet-Union inherited values of their socialist republic.

Transnistria is called by critical observers a socialist reservation and a soviet-museum with half a million people as prisoners. In a conflict study published by Humanitarian Initiatives it is also ‘a separatist entity that opens the way for smuggling and criminal networks on a scale that subverts the state and threatens the neighbouring countries’. According the study ‘such an entity may be easily drawn into terrorism’.

After the Soviet troops were evacuated from this region, they left behind big amounts of ammunition and armament. A considerable part was stored in Transnistria. According to investigators in Moldova ‘this fact created favorable conditions for illegal trade of armament en ammunitions to hot spots like Caucasus, the former Yugoslavia and Chechnya’.

Transnistria is a presidential republic, almost comparable with the cold times in Albania under Enver Hoxha and the Nicolae and Elena Ceaucescu-epoch in Romania. In capital Tiraspol reigns Igor Smirnov together with his sons and a handful of separatist loyalists, who still mourn about the collapse of their socialist Utopia. President Igor Smirnov appointed his son as head of the State Customs Committee. Smirnov junior also rules the firm Sheriff – a huge enterprise that monopolizes the Transnistrian economy with legal and illegal activities. Sheriff controls the market in tobacco, alcohol, gasoline and owns telecommunications. The company owns a printing-house, once had a newspaper, owns the cable in Transnistria, has a TV-channel – according to an observer of the OSCE ‘Sheriff has money, has good equipment, does rather well in journalistic way, has quality but everything in conformity with the Smirnov-ideology.’

Situation in media
I am afraid, there is no independent press in Transnistria at all.
There are at most some journalists who constantly try to explore the limits how far they can go.
Almost all media are under the influence of the state.
Also the so-called independent newspapers – meant are the newspapers not owned by the governement – are controlled by the ministry of State Security, Transnistrian’s own KGB.

The editors/owners of the newspapers – all weekly’s because daily’s don’t exist – I visited like Profsoyuznie Veste in Tiraspol, Novaya Gazeta in Bender and Dobrii Deni in Ribnita, are full of good intentions. But they have to be prudent. They can indeed publish all the cruelty about the war in Iraq. They are allowed to write articles about the drought and the problems for agricultural farming. May be they even can run stories about the dying villages and other problems of the migration of tenthousands of people yearly. But it is impossible to write about the relation of the Smirnov-family and the company Sheriff, the smuggling, the fraud and the mysterious killings of state-investigators and criminals.

Everytime when journalists stick their neck out too far, the government respond with threats, confiscation or even with closing down of a newspaper. Lawsuits are the order of the day. Like Ludmila Kovali from the (Unions) weekly Profsoyuznie said: ‘I feel myself at home in the court house.’ Besides she and her colleagues have to fight the biased employees of the state owned printinghouses who sometimes don’t accept copy that is too critical. So it happens that printing of newspapers is refused. Printing in Moldova is possible but then again it is uncertain if the circulation of newspapers is allowed to pass the borderline.

In general newspapers in Transnistria look indeed awful bad. Paper, printing, lay out, photo’s – there is not any attraction. The best looking newspaper I saw was Dobrii Deni in Ribitna from Serghei Kotovskii – descendant of a family of journalists. His father and mother were journalists, his wife is and now he prepares his daughters for the job. Dobrii Deni is a typical city and family-weekly. Rather good-looking, professional produced, with items that haunt and entertain readers, with many pictures, reportages and small-newsreports.

Like the other cities in Transnistria, Ribitna has de decreasing population, from 90.000 ten years ago, till 60.000 now. Also due to a bad economic situation, circulation of newspapers felt dramatically. Thank to a system of own streetsellers – unique in the republic – Dobrii Deni still has a circulation of 7000 copies. That means, it is one of the biggest weekly’s in the country. Novaya Gazeta sells about 1000 copies, the newspaper of Lumila Kovali about 2000.

Journalistic cooperation between Dobrii Deni and a weekly in Rezine – a sister-town on the other bank of the river in Moldova – is very close and intensive. Regularly they work on joint projects and publish each other articles.
For the rest, cooperation between Dobrii Deni and the other not governmental owned media in Transnistria does hardly exist. Kotovskii (‘I am Russian, I am a communist but I don’t like the criminals in Tiraspol’) mistrusts his collegues Andrei Safanov en Grigori Volovoi from Novaya Gazeta. Safanov because he was once minister of education in the Smirnov-government and Volovoi who once worked as a member of parliament together with Smirnov.

The distrust is mutual. When I discussed a possible support of Press Now as, suppose, a premium on joint projects and cooperation, the owners of Novaya Gazeta consider theirselves as the best candidate. But Kotovskii thinks, the owners of Novaya Gazeta are journalists on occasion. First they are politicians. And so on.
Like the other so called independent newspapers Dobrii Deni has been faced these days for the fourth time with a lawsuit – 15.000 dollar is at stake now.
Moreover, Serghei Kotovskii has been confronted with a loss of 6000 dollar when his bank, where he had an account, collapsed.

Conclusions
Support from Press Now to the media in Transnistria is not simple at all. Financial injections, by example, in printing-facilities are risky because of the constantly danger of confiscation by the government.
Besides, by the rivalry and infighting of the journalists, it will be extremely difficult to find the right place where to establish a printing-machine. I have asked Ludmilla Kovali to think about a possible solution. She promised me to handle a preliminary proposal the end of august via Angela Sirbu in Chisinau to Press Now.
Specialists told me that Sheriff is a very business-like company, without scruples and not cheap. You can always use their printing-plants, they don’t control your journalistic work, – the only condition is you have to pay.

Financial help on a structural base for the so-called independent media will be difficult by the uncertainty of the survival of the newspapers, the unreliable political climate in Transnistria and the lack of logistics for money-accounts. I have asked Safonov and Volovoi to formulate their ideas about a joint project – together with newspapers in Transnistria ans Moldova. They hesitated, because they think the joint project – Novaya Gazeta – is already there. But at the end they promised to develop in the end of august a proposal they will handle via Angela Sirbu to Press Now.

For the time being, I think that individual support – by example financial help in paying lawsuits, fines, confiscation or an unexpected bankrupcy, problems through no faults of reporters or newspapers– will be great importance. I remember myself that Press Now did the same during the crisis in Albania.
It is also good to consider project support. The weekly’s Dobrii Deni and Novaya Gazeta put allready much attention to common projects with newspapers in Moldova. Financial support to these forms of cooperation will stimulate other newspapers to do the same. At the end this will bring mutual understanding for the ideas and problems on both banks of the river.
I also discussed the idea to bring the best articles about joint projects, from the different newspapers together in a monthly magazine. Such a Transmoldovan magazine should easily become a test-garden for new journalism.

Everyone I met, likes the idea of training. As I realized, journalism in Transnistria is still very much the same as in the old times when reporters were the mouthpieces of the party-dinosaurs. Newspapers are neither fish nor fowl. If we can teach our colleagues in Transnistria to make attractive newspapers, to show them how to write good reports and reportages – media soon will grab attention of readers and the audience. The OSCE in Chisinau and Tiraspol will offer us room and facilities, they promised. For the journalists in Transnistria, training also will widening their horizon, now ending between Romania and Ukraine. I also found out that not only the colleagues in Transnistria deserve attention. Like OSCE’s Matti Sidiroff warned: ‘Don’t forget the Moldovian journalists.’ Because the situation in Moldovia is not enlightning at all. There are a lot of titles of newspapers but only a very few of them will be selected to enter new times. So why not train them both? They will soon understand they need each other.

Until so far no foreign partner nor NGO is engaged with training Transnistrian journalists. The US-embassy I visited, has assisted some media-outlets with loans and money on an incidental scale(see appendix). DFID, related to the British embassy, is only interested in studying the situation(idem). OSCE embraces the idea of joint publications and training and will offer all their help.
The most active partners now are the Independent Journalism Centre from Angela Sirbu(project ‘building bridges of communication’) and the weekly TIMPUL in Chisinau (project ‘journalists are shaking hands’) operating with support of Press Now.

(NB: Because time was too short, I did not find time to do research about radio-journalism. But because print is the mother of all journalism, conclusions are the same)

Recommandations
– Press Now starts a journalistic training in Tiraspol and Chisinau for journalists from Transnistria and Moldova. To make newspapers more attractive, training will also focus on management and lay-out. The OSCE will supply room and facilities.

– Press Now offers financial support in individual projects, in order to guarantee the survival of newspapers who suffer from problems through no fault of them.

– Press Now offers financial support in special journalistic projects between newspapers from both sides of the river. The newspapers will publish articles in which they try to report in an objective way about the situation in both countries. The newspapers in Transnistria and Moldova will run each other stories.

– Press Now supports the idea of a monthly in which an anthology of the best articles are brought together.

– All the support offered by Press Now ought to improve journalistic quality and will at the same time strengthen ties and stimulate cooperation between journalists in Transnistria and Moldova

– Press Now considers the possibility of investing money in small printing-facilities in Moldovia in the border-region, in order to help Transnistrian newspapers who have been refused bij local printing houses. Press Now will not hesitate to offer financial help to use the facilities of the Sheriff-organisation.

– Press Now looks for a solid cooperation with the weekly Timpul in Chisinau and the Independent Journalism Centre

RUDIE VAN MEURS
Consultant, July 4, 2003

Appendixes

A: Projects US-embassy
B: Peace building framework from DFID
C: Program project TIMPUL, ‘journalists are shaking hands’.

Meetings during visit:

June 24, afternoon:Grigori Volovoi from Novaya Gazeta and founder of the Independent Association of Journalists in Transnistria at the Independent Journalism Centre.
June 24, evening: Angela Sirbu, special interest her project Building Bridges of Communications – an attempt te promote by journalistic cooperation, mutual understanding between journalists from Transnistria, Gagouzia and other parts of Moldova.

June 25 visit to Tiraspol.
Meeting with Ludmilla Kovali, together with her husband Vladimir Kovali editor of the weekly Profsoyuznie Vesti, originally founded by the trade unions and still guarded by the unions.
Meeting with Iurii Kukol, from the Bulletin of economic and legal information, a dull publication with facts and figures and only interested for some economists and managers who don’t want to be lost in the bureaucratic jungle.
Visit to Bender.
Meeting with Andrei Safonov and Grigori Volovoi, founders and editors of Novaya Gazeta Weekly in their editorital office, a small appartment in the centre of the town.

June 26 visit tot Ribnita
Meeting with Serghei Kotovskii(53), journalist who works for different Russian newspapers, TV, Tass, joined his father who was editor in chief of Dobrii Deni weekly and took over the newspaper after it was closed down in 1991(during war). Originally 24.000 circulation in a town with 90.000 inhabitants. Now the town has 60.000 people and the newspaper dropped to 5 to 8.000(depends to the season)
In Chisinau meeting with Serghei Kotovskii, deputy-editor at Timpul, together with his reporter Nathalia Cojocaru , who handled a by Press Now accepted proposal ‘Journalists are shaking hands’ – a cooperation program between journalists from Chisinau, Transnistria and from the southern Moldovian region Gagauzie

June 27 in Chisinau:
Meeting with Oazu Natoi, political analyst, who published documented articles about smuggling through the black holes. Tabacco, alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline – sometimes from the EU – arrive via Moldova in Transnistria where custom-stamps are used for succesful smuggling. According to Natoi yearly hundreds of milion of dollars evade in this way.
Meeting with Matti Sidoroff, member of the OSCE-mission in Moldova – it was his last day in office: ‘There is no independent media and there is no really good media in Transnistria.’

Meeting with Aleisha Woodward, since some months secretary for media and culture at the US-embassy. I explained her what kind of NGO Press Now is. I got the impression that she was eager to got information from me. She handled me a list with six projects, supported by the US since 1996.
Meeting with Silvia Apostol from DFID, the development branche of the British embassy. Until so far they have not done concrete projects.