3.01
Under the eye of Lenin terror has free reign. It can be heard in the rare voices from Transnistria.
3,14
They held a pistol to my head and said:
If you want to live or we can shoot or drown you and throw you into the Nistru or
you will never set foot on Transnistrian territory again neither in the city or any other place in the region.
They are ruffians who do not care about human life.
3.51
Exploring Europes black hole. What happens in this phantom state? We have one reference: an arrest warrant from Interpol against this man, Dimitri Soin. He is an officer in the MGB, a local division of the former KGB, the Russian secret service. He is said to hide in Tiraspol, the capital of the self proclaimed republic of Transnistria.
4.16
The journey starts in Moldova. In the capital Chisinau one can find most information about Transnistria. Claus Neukirch from the Organisation for Safety and Cooperation in Europe, about Dimitri Soin:
4.34
Claus Neukirch:
OSCE
He is an officer in the Transnistrian KGB.
He is very active in organising people for the independence of Transnistria in a very aggressive way. Of course all this is fed by the economic hardship in the region and the fact that the conflict between Moldova and Transnistria still continues.
5.03
In the evening we contact some local colleagues and immediately get a tough unambiguous warning. Everything is possible in Tansnistria; and everything can go wrong as well.
A cameraman tells us how he was arrested in Transnistria and held for two weeks without any explanation. He does not want to tell his story openly.
5.25
What do we know about this small country? Hardly anything. We only know that it has a conservative communist appearance.
5.50
On our way to Transnistria. It is not the only separatist area in a poverty-stricken Moldova. Gagauzia for example, is another part of the region that seceded itself as well. The city Comrat is in the hands of ethnic Turkish people.
4.54
The border between Moldova and Transnistria. The small country is still at war with Moldova. Fourteen years ago fierce fighting took place.
Later Transnistria seceded to slowly but surely change into a criminal free state. A free state not recognised by anybody. Our chauffeur Nicu has, with much effort, arranged a car with shuttered windows.
6.41
Formally this country does not exist.
6.46
Subtitle:
Tiraspol
6.51
Poverty expresses itself in the same stereotypical ways as in Moldova. Only here you see new buildings everywhere. They always have the same name: Sheriff.
7.05
After the warnings of colleagues it is clear that we have to operate carefully here. But there are police everywhere.
7.14
Policeman:
What are you doing here?
Driver:
-They are correspondents.
7.24
Formally this is the only legitimate reason that we are here. A military parade. We have permission for precisely one day to film in this small country.
Nostalgic sentiments are being fed. Here the hardliners of the regime are coming together.
7.48
It looks like time stood still for 50 years.
7.50
Children singing:
Forwards!
We are singing at the parade and we are bringing flowers to our soldiers.
8.15
Voice:
Welcome to the president of the Transnistrian Republic, President Igor Smirnov.
8.19
Igor Smirnov, the president, is the spider in the web. Together withll of the Sheriff buildings. This means the lions share of the economy.
What we witness here is a peculiar mixture of rigorous informal economic development and former-communist propaganda.
8.46
Woman:
This medal is the Order of Honour for my contribution to the realization of the republic. I have been in the trenches to defend the republic. So my testimony is not something like hearsay. I have experienced all this personally. I am an eye witness.
They were very cruel. I have seen them cutting of all parts of male prisoners you can cut off. The ones from over there on the Moldovan side.
And now they want peace, talk about reunification, but we cannot be with enemies. Our resentment is against the leaders of that country, not the people.
9.30
Transnistria chooses to follow a sole direction. It considers the rest of the world to be its enemy. Except, interesting enough, the other separatist areas in the region and Russia and the Ukraine.
9.47
Voice:
Following you see the delegation from Gagauzia and the delegation from Abkhazia and then the delegation from the republic of Southern-Ossetia
The delegation of Russia and the Ukraine.
10.06
We hope to meet Dimitri Soin here also, the man Interpol wants for murder. He is said to lead a group of young people who take Che Guevara as an example. Their domicile is not hard to find. Immediately we run into Soin.
10.26
He does not exactly give a hunted impression.
And he does not have a problem with receiving Western television.
10.34
Soin:
Say Hi to the foreign television
Che Guevarra or death!
10.43
This man, whom the whole world is looking for, apparently does not have any fear at all.
10.46
Soin:
Look at the youngsters. We have to be careful they do not catch a cold in this wet weather. But it is a nice sight, isnt it? It is good to see this in Tiraspol, dont you think?
10.59
Soin stirs up the nationalistic feelings amongst the younger generation. He started a politic party which is more nationalist than president Smirnovs. If Smirnov ever wants to make peace and submits to the international legislation Soins doom is sealed.
Soin wants to frustrate this at any cost.
11.19
Soin:
I do not say that we grab the power by violence.
But if there is no other option we may have to.
11.30
At the parade you see the part of the people that support the leaders. You only hear people speak Russian. In Transnistria there was also a language conflict that was settled in 1992 to the benefit of the Russian inclined people. With Smirnov as their leader Transnistria wanted to secede itself from Moldavia. It was all grist that came to the separatist mill when Moldavia sailed a more and more Western orientated course.
What happens in the rest of this small country behind the facade of the parade? How does the population deal with this fate? Is there no resistance? If we leave the scene of the parade and by doing so leave the protection of our permit, there is hardly anyone who wants to have anything to with us.
Relaxed we drive around. In fact we are now filming illegally in a country that formally does not exist. Just to approach people does not seem wise. Not for us, but also not for them.
Anyway, before you know it you are driving out of this small country again. There isnt a single checkpoint along some of the roads. Suddenly we are back in Moldova.
12.59
There we meet with the critics that can explain the phenomenon of Transnistria, amongst them are the victims. They describe an extremely brutal regime.
One of them is Serghei Ostaf. Out of necessity hes already spent more than ten years away from his beloved native soil for over ten years, after he and his whole family were driven out of Transnistria.
13.20
Serghei Ostaf:
They use various methods to force people to leave. From the most simple method like psychological force, sounds, threatening phone call, up to direct threats, personally, summons to come to the bureau or to Securitate and it was said very clearly ... if you will stay here, if you keep repeating the same message, doing the same things, you will probably be dead by tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
But also very real physical actions, like throwing stones through your window or destroying parts of your house, the gate was pulled out of the ground and thrown down, and so many more ways to exercise their influence. Physical as well as psychological.
Not everyone can stand that kind of pressure.
14.36
The majority of the Romanian speaking population from this area has moved to the river Nistru.
Sergheis parents as well, they were teachers. When they wanted to defend the Romanian speaking students in their primary school, they had to suffer for it.
15.01
Serghei Ostaf
My father was the director of the Moldovan school then and supported the parents of the children of this school to educate in Latin alphabet. This option was clearly expressed by the parents of these children ... and there are thousands of children in that town, Slobozia. He continuously received threats and was treated like a person who is a threat to the authorities in this region. Subsequently my parents were forced to leave the region. In the first place because they lost their jobs and in the second place because in this region they would not be employed anymore as teachers.
There is a lot of people who disappear, either because they have a descending opinion or they stand up for what I was just talking about, or other causes. This is one of the tactics we know. They already been used during the Soviet period.
16.09
Transnistria has its own stamps, passports and money. But unfortunately these are not accepted in any other country. The small country isolates itself more and more.
16.54
There are hardly any commercial relations; the country has isolated itself. How does it derive its revenue? Very simple, says the former minister of Moldovas Defence department: weapons.
17.05
I. Costas
Former Minister of Defence
Ammunition for throwing mines, grenades, rocket systems, Kalashnikov, anti-tank grenades, all of these are made in Transnistria and are being exported an mass to different countries. This used to be the reality and of course a lot of weapons and ammunition have been exported under different pretexts.
Cement was to be delivered, but more than half of the cement transport existed for more than half of ammunition and weapons. These exports were for Caucaz Area, Middle East, Iraq, Iran and other countries that were in conflict. Including Africa.
18.01
Soin also shows up here. It is said that he deals in components for nuclear bombs. Nonsense, he says.
18.11
Soin:
All this nonsense about weapons. In the Moldovan media and in the Sunday Times was an article that I am dealing in nuclear warheads. What nonsense. Anyone who would have a look around can see such a thing is impossible.
18.37
He would like to add the way he sees himself, as a leader of his movement.
18.46
Soin:
Because Interpol is looking for me I can only move around here in my own country. Tiraspol is my safe haven. In that sense I am like Yassar Arafat, who in the end only had his own residence in which to move around.
19.19
Subtitle:
Sheriff
19.32
Meanwhile Sheriff owns everything, supermarkets, and petrol stations . the local football club is called Sheriff.
The home base of this club is the Sheriff Sports Complex, which costs 200 million euros.
We do not get through the gate.
20.03
Driver:
Good afternoon. This is a camera crew. They would like to have a look around.
- That is forbidden.
20.14
In hotel Aist, five hundred metres from the location where the parade is continuing, we come across that other source of illegal revenue.
According to the Moldovan Police a Transnistrian network in woman-trafficking is operating from here. Without any doubts a thorn in the flesh of the region. But even these human traders are protected by the authorities in Tiraspol and according to the Helsinki Committee they do not even flinch to arrest police officers from Chisinau.
20.45
Stefan Uratu
Chief Helsinki Committee in Moldova
Recently police officers were arrested in Tiraspol. The police had to round up a network of human traders. The core of the network is in hotel Aist.
They were preparing to round up the criminal network.
Eventually Tiraspol did not want to give up the network, or perhaps for a huge sum of money So they had the policemen arrested. Later they made it impossible to continue with the investigation and to arrest the people involved and later they released them.
21.35
Subtitle:
On their own request the names of some of the people involved are changed...
21.34
All went wrong when Florin, a Moldovan inspector, was arrested by his own Transnistrian colleagues, detained, ill-treated and doped with injections. He works at this police station, but does not want to come out.
In the evening we nevertheless meet with Florin. He tells us about a world that looks like another planet. Nowhere is woman-trafficking is as extensive and violent as it is here, in Transnistria. Florin does not want to appear before the camera. His superior will not allow it.
22.07
Vitalie:
When I called home, to my parents, the men held a knife to my throat.
22.15
The victims themselves do talk.
Women who fell into the hands of Transnistrian gangs. The ones who were able to escape are telling their story at the Moldavian relief organisation La Strada. Brutal practises that will stay unpunished. Testimonies.
22.39
Ivana:
I immediately understood that I could not escape, they were very strict, we were often tied up, without food, without water, they hit us, forced us to have sex with different different persons. I was losing my mind. I became pregnant and realised that, under the circumstances, I could never keep the child. The ill-treatments and the blows, it was unbearable. They hit us without compassion.
22.22
All women now say: How could I have been so naïve. But at the time Most of the cases are women who were in urgent financial problems and because of their hopeless situation wanted to believe the beautiful stories.
23.37
Vitalie:
I decided to go because my husband was ill end we did not have money for the treatment.
His niece told me she knew a job for me.
23.23
Next women fall in the hands of gangs and are locked up or taken abroad. Without papers they are totally dependent. What follows is unscrupulous.
24.03
Vitalie:
When I tried to refuse a customer I was beaten very badly. I did work under such circumstances for three months. When the police took us, they came and bought us back and hit us again in the house.
24.24
According to the women the police are playing along.
24.30
Vitalie:
Once I tried to escape together with another girl, but they had my papers and the police arrested us. Then they called him. They were connected. They rang him, he came and took us ... Then they beat us up badly.
24.50
Ivana
They made me do things they really hit me badly and separated me from of the other girls. A week after the ill-treatment I lost my baby. I had a miscarriage.
I did try to escape, Imanaged to get outside, but I did not know anybody so I started running. At a certain moment a car came up from behind. it was the boss with a few of his people, I could not go anywhere, I just ran. The car was behind me; I ran, and the next moment they drove over me with the car. After that moment I do not remember anything. I woke up in a hospital, my legs were broken, my waist, my spinal column After being treated and nursed I stayed in a monastery. The nuns took care of me for seven months.
26.15
I saw with my own eyes how a girl died. I saw how they took out a gun. That was the first time of my life I saw something like that. And they shot her because she cried that she wanted to go home. They said, You want to go home? They shot her while we were standing next to her.
26.35
Vitalie:
There was a case with my friend who did not come back alive.
They took her; she never came back. She was found next to the road with fragments of glass in her body, totally cut up
26.53
Not only women fall victim. Lots of citizens also who do things that do not agree with the people in power.
27.03
Stefan Uratu:
Helsinki Committee in Moldova
At the moment there are more then 240 people on the list of missing persons. There is one member of the Committee missing since 6 March, 1992. He never came home and until today nobody knows where he is. The same happened with a lot of other people.
In the village of Kitskan for example, more than 10 people are missing and in three years more than twenty people have been murdered four girls have been raped.
27.37
Soldier:
I ask you to stop filming.
Voice:
I am from a human rights organisation and I have the right to do this.
27.48
To find out something of what is happening in Transnistria, some brave co-workers from human rights organisations travel to the area. Often they are already provoked at the border. These are pictures made by the Helsinki Committee.
In March Maxim Belinski from the Committee wanted to attend a law-suit in Tiraspol to see to a fair trial. He was refused admittance by the judge. When he walked out he was kidnapped by three men.
28.18
Maxim Belinski:
Helsinki Committee in Moldova
They pushed me in the car by force, pulled a bag over my head and told me that I should not move otherwise they would kill me. They held a gun against my head. Then they tied my arms behind my back. After approximately ten minutes we got out of the car and the bag pulled off my head and I saw that we were on the bank of the river Nistru. My arms were tied and I had a cloth over my mouth. They started to beat me and kick me in my stomach. To the questions they asked I had to answer in a walkie-talkie, so they had an apparatus, you saw them reporting, so they asked why I was concerned with that law-suit, wherefrom and since when I was operating, or questions on the activities of the Committee and other questions. Who our contacts were in the Transnitrian region and particularly in Tiraspol.
29.26
Then the men threatened to shoot Maxim through the head or to drown him.
29.35
Maxim Belinski:
Helsinki Committee in Moldova
I had reason enough to believe that it was serious, because there has been enough cases like this that bodies were found in the Nistru, sometimes made heavier with stones so they would not float. A few months later these bodies were found decomposed. After I said that I would never come back, they took my bag with my documents and left me there in the snow. If they already do things like this to members of the Helsinki Committee you do not want to know what they would do to ordinary citizen that do not yield to the people in power.
30.25
Europe does not realize the seriousness of the arms trade in Transnistria says the former minister of defence.
30.35
Ion Costas
Former minister of defence
Of course the international and European community are not aware of the reality in the production and delivery of weapons in the Transnistrian area. There is in no evidence. The attention of the international governments has completely disappeared. That is the reality.
30.55
Serghei Ostaf:
Unfortunately reality is sad and it is getting worse. Many people are leaving. There is despair, well I do not know if people still have hope in this region. All my cousins have left already. My mother has six brothers and sisters, none of their children still live here. They all left, one went to the Czech Republic, another to Canada. They have spread all over the world. If nothing changes. I can see a great despair and no future in this region, if no acceptable and civilized circumstances are being created.
It is an emotional message, because it has to do with what my family and I have gone trough. In my thoughts I have never left this region, because it is a part of me. This region mainly made me who I am. I believe in a better future, therefore, it is necessary for the European countries to become aware
Of what is happening here we can only see the tip of the iceberg. The truth is that things are way more serious and unacceptable for a bit of land that geographically is positioned somewhere in European space.
33.00
Transnistria, it appears to be a country where things can take place unheard of in todays civilized world. Without anybody stopping it.
33.09
Vitalie:
I am not human, I am merchandise. Yes It is terrible It is terrible to become to end up in a situation where you do not know if you will be sold tomorrow of the day after. You will never forget that.
Under the eye of Lenin terror has free reign. It can be heard in the rare voices from Transnistria.
3,14
They held a pistol to my head and said:
If you want to live or we can shoot or drown you and throw you into the Nistru or
you will never set foot on Transnistrian territory again neither in the city or any other place in the region.
They are ruffians who do not care about human life.
3.51
Exploring Europes black hole. What happens in this phantom state? We have one reference: an arrest warrant from Interpol against this man, Dimitri Soin. He is an officer in the MGB, a local division of the former KGB, the Russian secret service. He is said to hide in Tiraspol, the capital of the self proclaimed republic of Transnistria.
4.16
The journey starts in Moldova. In the capital Chisinau one can find most information about Transnistria. Claus Neukirch from the Organisation for Safety and Cooperation in Europe, about Dimitri Soin:
4.34
Claus Neukirch:
OSCE
He is an officer in the Transnistrian KGB.
He is very active in organising people for the independence of Transnistria in a very aggressive way. Of course all this is fed by the economic hardship in the region and the fact that the conflict between Moldova and Transnistria still continues.
5.03
In the evening we contact some local colleagues and immediately get a tough unambiguous warning. Everything is possible in Tansnistria; and everything can go wrong as well.
A cameraman tells us how he was arrested in Transnistria and held for two weeks without any explanation. He does not want to tell his story openly.
5.25
What do we know about this small country? Hardly anything. We only know that it has a conservative communist appearance.
5.50
On our way to Transnistria. It is not the only separatist area in a poverty-stricken Moldova. Gagauzia for example, is another part of the region that seceded itself as well. The city Comrat is in the hands of ethnic Turkish people.
4.54
The border between Moldova and Transnistria. The small country is still at war with Moldova. Fourteen years ago fierce fighting took place.
Later Transnistria seceded to slowly but surely change into a criminal free state. A free state not recognised by anybody. Our chauffeur Nicu has, with much effort, arranged a car with shuttered windows.
6.41
Formally this country does not exist.
6.46
Subtitle:
Tiraspol
6.51
Poverty expresses itself in the same stereotypical ways as in Moldova. Only here you see new buildings everywhere. They always have the same name: Sheriff.
7.05
After the warnings of colleagues it is clear that we have to operate carefully here. But there are police everywhere.
7.14
Policeman:
What are you doing here?
Driver:
-They are correspondents.
7.24
Formally this is the only legitimate reason that we are here. A military parade. We have permission for precisely one day to film in this small country.
Nostalgic sentiments are being fed. Here the hardliners of the regime are coming together.
7.48
It looks like time stood still for 50 years.
7.50
Children singing:
Forwards!
We are singing at the parade and we are bringing flowers to our soldiers.
8.15
Voice:
Welcome to the president of the Transnistrian Republic, President Igor Smirnov.
8.19
Igor Smirnov, the president, is the spider in the web. Together withll of the Sheriff buildings. This means the lions share of the economy.
What we witness here is a peculiar mixture of rigorous informal economic development and former-communist propaganda.
8.46
Woman:
This medal is the Order of Honour for my contribution to the realization of the republic. I have been in the trenches to defend the republic. So my testimony is not something like hearsay. I have experienced all this personally. I am an eye witness.
They were very cruel. I have seen them cutting of all parts of male prisoners you can cut off. The ones from over there on the Moldovan side.
And now they want peace, talk about reunification, but we cannot be with enemies. Our resentment is against the leaders of that country, not the people.
9.30
Transnistria chooses to follow a sole direction. It considers the rest of the world to be its enemy. Except, interesting enough, the other separatist areas in the region and Russia and the Ukraine.
9.47
Voice:
Following you see the delegation from Gagauzia and the delegation from Abkhazia and then the delegation from the republic of Southern-Ossetia
The delegation of Russia and the Ukraine.
10.06
We hope to meet Dimitri Soin here also, the man Interpol wants for murder. He is said to lead a group of young people who take Che Guevara as an example. Their domicile is not hard to find. Immediately we run into Soin.
10.26
He does not exactly give a hunted impression.
And he does not have a problem with receiving Western television.
10.34
Soin:
Say Hi to the foreign television
Che Guevarra or death!
10.43
This man, whom the whole world is looking for, apparently does not have any fear at all.
10.46
Soin:
Look at the youngsters. We have to be careful they do not catch a cold in this wet weather. But it is a nice sight, isnt it? It is good to see this in Tiraspol, dont you think?
10.59
Soin stirs up the nationalistic feelings amongst the younger generation. He started a politic party which is more nationalist than president Smirnovs. If Smirnov ever wants to make peace and submits to the international legislation Soins doom is sealed.
Soin wants to frustrate this at any cost.
11.19
Soin:
I do not say that we grab the power by violence.
But if there is no other option we may have to.
11.30
At the parade you see the part of the people that support the leaders. You only hear people speak Russian. In Transnistria there was also a language conflict that was settled in 1992 to the benefit of the Russian inclined people. With Smirnov as their leader Transnistria wanted to secede itself from Moldavia. It was all grist that came to the separatist mill when Moldavia sailed a more and more Western orientated course.
What happens in the rest of this small country behind the facade of the parade? How does the population deal with this fate? Is there no resistance? If we leave the scene of the parade and by doing so leave the protection of our permit, there is hardly anyone who wants to have anything to with us.
Relaxed we drive around. In fact we are now filming illegally in a country that formally does not exist. Just to approach people does not seem wise. Not for us, but also not for them.
Anyway, before you know it you are driving out of this small country again. There isnt a single checkpoint along some of the roads. Suddenly we are back in Moldova.
12.59
There we meet with the critics that can explain the phenomenon of Transnistria, amongst them are the victims. They describe an extremely brutal regime.
One of them is Serghei Ostaf. Out of necessity hes already spent more than ten years away from his beloved native soil for over ten years, after he and his whole family were driven out of Transnistria.
13.20
Serghei Ostaf:
They use various methods to force people to leave. From the most simple method like psychological force, sounds, threatening phone call, up to direct threats, personally, summons to come to the bureau or to Securitate and it was said very clearly ... if you will stay here, if you keep repeating the same message, doing the same things, you will probably be dead by tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
But also very real physical actions, like throwing stones through your window or destroying parts of your house, the gate was pulled out of the ground and thrown down, and so many more ways to exercise their influence. Physical as well as psychological.
Not everyone can stand that kind of pressure.
14.36
The majority of the Romanian speaking population from this area has moved to the river Nistru.
Sergheis parents as well, they were teachers. When they wanted to defend the Romanian speaking students in their primary school, they had to suffer for it.
15.01
Serghei Ostaf
My father was the director of the Moldovan school then and supported the parents of the children of this school to educate in Latin alphabet. This option was clearly expressed by the parents of these children ... and there are thousands of children in that town, Slobozia. He continuously received threats and was treated like a person who is a threat to the authorities in this region. Subsequently my parents were forced to leave the region. In the first place because they lost their jobs and in the second place because in this region they would not be employed anymore as teachers.
There is a lot of people who disappear, either because they have a descending opinion or they stand up for what I was just talking about, or other causes. This is one of the tactics we know. They already been used during the Soviet period.
16.09
Transnistria has its own stamps, passports and money. But unfortunately these are not accepted in any other country. The small country isolates itself more and more.
16.54
There are hardly any commercial relations; the country has isolated itself. How does it derive its revenue? Very simple, says the former minister of Moldovas Defence department: weapons.
17.05
I. Costas
Former Minister of Defence
Ammunition for throwing mines, grenades, rocket systems, Kalashnikov, anti-tank grenades, all of these are made in Transnistria and are being exported an mass to different countries. This used to be the reality and of course a lot of weapons and ammunition have been exported under different pretexts.
Cement was to be delivered, but more than half of the cement transport existed for more than half of ammunition and weapons. These exports were for Caucaz Area, Middle East, Iraq, Iran and other countries that were in conflict. Including Africa.
18.01
Soin also shows up here. It is said that he deals in components for nuclear bombs. Nonsense, he says.
18.11
Soin:
All this nonsense about weapons. In the Moldovan media and in the Sunday Times was an article that I am dealing in nuclear warheads. What nonsense. Anyone who would have a look around can see such a thing is impossible.
18.37
He would like to add the way he sees himself, as a leader of his movement.
18.46
Soin:
Because Interpol is looking for me I can only move around here in my own country. Tiraspol is my safe haven. In that sense I am like Yassar Arafat, who in the end only had his own residence in which to move around.
19.19
Subtitle:
Sheriff
19.32
Meanwhile Sheriff owns everything, supermarkets, and petrol stations . the local football club is called Sheriff.
The home base of this club is the Sheriff Sports Complex, which costs 200 million euros.
We do not get through the gate.
20.03
Driver:
Good afternoon. This is a camera crew. They would like to have a look around.
- That is forbidden.
20.14
In hotel Aist, five hundred metres from the location where the parade is continuing, we come across that other source of illegal revenue.
According to the Moldovan Police a Transnistrian network in woman-trafficking is operating from here. Without any doubts a thorn in the flesh of the region. But even these human traders are protected by the authorities in Tiraspol and according to the Helsinki Committee they do not even flinch to arrest police officers from Chisinau.
20.45
Stefan Uratu
Chief Helsinki Committee in Moldova
Recently police officers were arrested in Tiraspol. The police had to round up a network of human traders. The core of the network is in hotel Aist.
They were preparing to round up the criminal network.
Eventually Tiraspol did not want to give up the network, or perhaps for a huge sum of money So they had the policemen arrested. Later they made it impossible to continue with the investigation and to arrest the people involved and later they released them.
21.35
Subtitle:
On their own request the names of some of the people involved are changed...
21.34
All went wrong when Florin, a Moldovan inspector, was arrested by his own Transnistrian colleagues, detained, ill-treated and doped with injections. He works at this police station, but does not want to come out.
In the evening we nevertheless meet with Florin. He tells us about a world that looks like another planet. Nowhere is woman-trafficking is as extensive and violent as it is here, in Transnistria. Florin does not want to appear before the camera. His superior will not allow it.
22.07
Vitalie:
When I called home, to my parents, the men held a knife to my throat.
22.15
The victims themselves do talk.
Women who fell into the hands of Transnistrian gangs. The ones who were able to escape are telling their story at the Moldavian relief organisation La Strada. Brutal practises that will stay unpunished. Testimonies.
22.39
Ivana:
I immediately understood that I could not escape, they were very strict, we were often tied up, without food, without water, they hit us, forced us to have sex with different different persons. I was losing my mind. I became pregnant and realised that, under the circumstances, I could never keep the child. The ill-treatments and the blows, it was unbearable. They hit us without compassion.
22.22
All women now say: How could I have been so naïve. But at the time Most of the cases are women who were in urgent financial problems and because of their hopeless situation wanted to believe the beautiful stories.
23.37
Vitalie:
I decided to go because my husband was ill end we did not have money for the treatment.
His niece told me she knew a job for me.
23.23
Next women fall in the hands of gangs and are locked up or taken abroad. Without papers they are totally dependent. What follows is unscrupulous.
24.03
Vitalie:
When I tried to refuse a customer I was beaten very badly. I did work under such circumstances for three months. When the police took us, they came and bought us back and hit us again in the house.
24.24
According to the women the police are playing along.
24.30
Vitalie:
Once I tried to escape together with another girl, but they had my papers and the police arrested us. Then they called him. They were connected. They rang him, he came and took us ... Then they beat us up badly.
24.50
Ivana
They made me do things they really hit me badly and separated me from of the other girls. A week after the ill-treatment I lost my baby. I had a miscarriage.
I did try to escape, Imanaged to get outside, but I did not know anybody so I started running. At a certain moment a car came up from behind. it was the boss with a few of his people, I could not go anywhere, I just ran. The car was behind me; I ran, and the next moment they drove over me with the car. After that moment I do not remember anything. I woke up in a hospital, my legs were broken, my waist, my spinal column After being treated and nursed I stayed in a monastery. The nuns took care of me for seven months.
26.15
I saw with my own eyes how a girl died. I saw how they took out a gun. That was the first time of my life I saw something like that. And they shot her because she cried that she wanted to go home. They said, You want to go home? They shot her while we were standing next to her.
26.35
Vitalie:
There was a case with my friend who did not come back alive.
They took her; she never came back. She was found next to the road with fragments of glass in her body, totally cut up
26.53
Not only women fall victim. Lots of citizens also who do things that do not agree with the people in power.
27.03
Stefan Uratu:
Helsinki Committee in Moldova
At the moment there are more then 240 people on the list of missing persons. There is one member of the Committee missing since 6 March, 1992. He never came home and until today nobody knows where he is. The same happened with a lot of other people.
In the village of Kitskan for example, more than 10 people are missing and in three years more than twenty people have been murdered four girls have been raped.
27.37
Soldier:
I ask you to stop filming.
Voice:
I am from a human rights organisation and I have the right to do this.
27.48
To find out something of what is happening in Transnistria, some brave co-workers from human rights organisations travel to the area. Often they are already provoked at the border. These are pictures made by the Helsinki Committee.
In March Maxim Belinski from the Committee wanted to attend a law-suit in Tiraspol to see to a fair trial. He was refused admittance by the judge. When he walked out he was kidnapped by three men.
28.18
Maxim Belinski:
Helsinki Committee in Moldova
They pushed me in the car by force, pulled a bag over my head and told me that I should not move otherwise they would kill me. They held a gun against my head. Then they tied my arms behind my back. After approximately ten minutes we got out of the car and the bag pulled off my head and I saw that we were on the bank of the river Nistru. My arms were tied and I had a cloth over my mouth. They started to beat me and kick me in my stomach. To the questions they asked I had to answer in a walkie-talkie, so they had an apparatus, you saw them reporting, so they asked why I was concerned with that law-suit, wherefrom and since when I was operating, or questions on the activities of the Committee and other questions. Who our contacts were in the Transnitrian region and particularly in Tiraspol.
29.26
Then the men threatened to shoot Maxim through the head or to drown him.
29.35
Maxim Belinski:
Helsinki Committee in Moldova
I had reason enough to believe that it was serious, because there has been enough cases like this that bodies were found in the Nistru, sometimes made heavier with stones so they would not float. A few months later these bodies were found decomposed. After I said that I would never come back, they took my bag with my documents and left me there in the snow. If they already do things like this to members of the Helsinki Committee you do not want to know what they would do to ordinary citizen that do not yield to the people in power.
30.25
Europe does not realize the seriousness of the arms trade in Transnistria says the former minister of defence.
30.35
Ion Costas
Former minister of defence
Of course the international and European community are not aware of the reality in the production and delivery of weapons in the Transnistrian area. There is in no evidence. The attention of the international governments has completely disappeared. That is the reality.
30.55
Serghei Ostaf:
Unfortunately reality is sad and it is getting worse. Many people are leaving. There is despair, well I do not know if people still have hope in this region. All my cousins have left already. My mother has six brothers and sisters, none of their children still live here. They all left, one went to the Czech Republic, another to Canada. They have spread all over the world. If nothing changes. I can see a great despair and no future in this region, if no acceptable and civilized circumstances are being created.
It is an emotional message, because it has to do with what my family and I have gone trough. In my thoughts I have never left this region, because it is a part of me. This region mainly made me who I am. I believe in a better future, therefore, it is necessary for the European countries to become aware
Of what is happening here we can only see the tip of the iceberg. The truth is that things are way more serious and unacceptable for a bit of land that geographically is positioned somewhere in European space.
33.00
Transnistria, it appears to be a country where things can take place unheard of in todays civilized world. Without anybody stopping it.
33.09
Vitalie:
I am not human, I am merchandise. Yes It is terrible It is terrible to become to end up in a situation where you do not know if you will be sold tomorrow of the day after. You will never forget that.