Moldova: Anti-government protest stirs fears of more unrest

CHISINAU, Moldova — A new anti-government protest in Moldova’s capital Tuesday stirred fears of more unrest after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to demand that the country’s new pro-Western government fully subsidize citizens’ winter energy bills and to “not involve the country in war.” The protest in Chisinau was organized by a group calling itself Movement for the People and supported by members of Moldova’s Russia-friendly Shor Party, which holds six seats in the country’s 101-seat legislature. Shor Party leader, the exiled Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, accused police of trying to “thwart the peaceful rally.” “Fighting one’s own people is the last refuge of tyrants and the beginning of their downfall,” Shor, who is named on a U.S. State Department sanctions list as working for Russian interests, said in a statement Tuesday. In carrying out the plan, she said, the culprits would “rely on several internal forces, but especially on criminal groups such as the Shor formation and all of its derivatives.” The Shor Party also initiated a series of anti-government protests which last fall rocked Moldova — a European Union-candidate member since last June — as it struggled to manage an acute energy crisis after Moscow dramatically reduced natural gas supplies. The protest also comes a day after Moldova’s Intelligence and Security Service, SIS, said it had expelled two foreign nationals who were caught carrying out “subversive actions” to destabilize Moldova.