Moldovan Schools in Transnistria - The 2004 Crisis

The 2004 Crisis

In the summer of 2004, the Transnistrian authorities closed four of the six schools in the region that taught Moldovan language using the Latin script, known as Romanian. Some of the 3,400 enrolled children were affected by this measure and the teachers and parents who opposed the closures were temporarily arrested for up to six hours. During the crisis, the Moldovan government decided to create a blockade that would isolate the disputed region from the rest of the world. The blockade was ineffective because of a lack of cooperation from Ukraine, led at the time by Leonid Kuchma. Transnistria retaliated with a series of actions meant to destabilize the economic situation in Moldova, in particular, by cutting the power supply from the power plants that were built in Transnistria in Soviet times. As a result, this crisis generated power outages in parts of Moldova.

A leading figure in the conflict was Elena Vasilievna Bomeshko, the Minister of Education for Transnistria. According to her, and official Transnistrian policy, the language is referred to as "Romanian" when it is taught in Latin script and referred to as "Moldovan" when Cyrillic script is used. Transnistria rejects accusations of anti-Romanian bias and defends its preference of Cyrillic for Moldovan as a way to maintain the original language, pointing to the fact as far back as the Middle Ages, Moldovan Bibles were always written in Cyrillic. While the Romanian language used the Cyrillic alphabet for centuries, it is no longer used in Romania. Cyrillic script is still used in some parts of Moldova, but only one newspaper (state-owned by Transnistrian authorities) prints a few hundred copies in Cyrillic.

The closed Romanian schools were reopened, after registering as private institutions with the Transnistrian authorities. Pressure from the European Union (a travel ban was introduced to 10 Transnistrian education officials) may have sped up the process., but they still have the status of "private schools" and consequently do not receive funding from the Transnistrian government. As publicized by the government in 2006, there are now 6,700 students at ten secondary or high schools. In the state financed system, there are 33 schools in Moldovan (Cyrillic script) of the total of 186 schools.

Many teachers and parents of students studying at Moldovan schools with Cyrillic script had contacted the Moldovan Helsinki Committee for Human Rights asking support to turn education in Romanian (Latin script), as the studies based on the Cyrillic script and Soviet curricula don't have any perspective and the children are unable to pursue higher studies anywhere. The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities has condemned the actions of Transnistrian authorities as a "linguistic cleansing".