In 1989, when the law of the official language has been adopted, our school started to teach in Latin alphabet on the 1st of September 1989. We have studied using the Latin alphabet in school up to 1992. In 1992, after Transnistria has been occupied forced, with the help of the 14th Army artillery battalion that belonged to Russia, all the schools with teaching in Romanian language have been compelled to start teaching with Cyrillic alphabet. Among these 47 schools has been the School 1 from Grigoriopol.
Armed Kazaks had come into the school and started shooting with automatic guns Kalashnikov the letters of the Latin alphabet. The principle of that time, Mrs. Saiinsus Claudia, has been fired from her position and in her place, as a principle of the school a military came, Ivan Arsenev. All the teacher staff that had tried to oppose to this has practically been kneeled and imposed such conditions that they didn’t have a choice: they had either to continue working and execute their orders, or they could be fired.
During that period I had worked as a teacher of Romanian language in a Russian school and because I didn’t want to listen to those orders I have been fired and practically since 1992 up to 1996 I didn’t have a job. This was one of their methods to isolate people who had opinions different than their own, people who didn’t want to submit to separatism. In 1996 a law was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of Transnistria, according to which it is allowed to open some non-governmental schools in Transnistria, with teaching in any language: English, French, etc Romanian was among them too.
We, I mean the parents, having found out about this law but having not read it because it has been hidden far away from people’s eyes, started to organize this kind of school. We gathered 640 petitions from 720 children that were in school, petitions from parents who wanted their children to study in Romanian language. The local authorities instead of trying to solve out this problem began to stop this wave of national rebirth applying force and with the help of the Kazaks who had come from Russia and who circled the school, threw the children and the teachers with the initiative out of it and had arrested me and other three teachers who had been more active.
We have been kept in a prison from Tiraspol for a week and one night they threw us outside and sent us home. They didn’t bother to ask if we had any money to depart, they simply threw us in the street and later they had fired me from my work place, i.e. in 1996 I was restored back in my position as a teacher but on the 26th of September of the same year I was fired again. The parents and the teachers made a claim to the Ministry of Education from Kishinau, Mr. Gaugas was the minister back then, according to which they were asking to be allowed to use secretly the Latin alphabet in school teaching.
Their petition has been accepted and for a period of five years we brought books for the school in Grigoriopol and the risk was big because teachers assumed responsibility. Because there were no school books and even today they are lacking, there are no books at least in Cyrillic alphabet, the Transnistrian authorities do not publish such books, they brought some old books somewhere from Odessa. The books were 20-25 years old and they put them in front of the children for them to study from these manuals but we, with the help of the parents brought every year books published in Kishinau.
And even though the teachers receive a symbolic payment for their job in September our school will celebrate six years of being a clandestine school. Last year there has been made a new attempt with the international organizations of OSCE and UNO, where has been discussed the problem of the Transnistrian authorities that do not allow the native inhabitants study in the alphabet they want to use. The Transnistrian authorities sustained that it was not the fact that they are not allowed to do this but that there no such people, that is everybody in Transnistria want to study in Cyrillic alphabet, answer which seems to be absurd.
As I was present at this meeting I told that our petition from 1996 is registered here and sent to the Ministry, and now we addressed with the request to be allowed to use the Latin alphabet, as it is stipulated in the national curriculum of the Republic of Moldova. Beginning with the last year, from 2001 till now, we are in a permanent conflict with the Ministry of Education from Tiraspol and with the local authorities. They are doing everything in their power to stop the opening of this school. In regard with the bail-countries, I would like to say we are not at all satisfied by them, because they do not solve out the problem and practically do not involve in solving the existing conflict. We have addressed more than one petition to the president of the Russian Federation and to the president of Ukraine and we haven’t received any answer. After this we addressed a petition to the ambassadors of Russia and Ukraine, which are bail-countries for solving the existing problem.
Regretfully, we haven’t received any answer from them either and that is why I think these countries do not perform their duty and we, who are suffering, don’t trust them anymore. I think that the country government and the Council of Europe and the other European countries maybe should draw a higher attention to this Transnistrian conflict, because this is the main problem: the violation of the human rights and mainly the child’s rights! The children are afraid to write and even hold a book written with Latin alphabet, because he or she might be hit or the book may be torn, destroyed by anyone. For ten years these children live with this fear. They are frightened everyday that someone might be punished.
I think that this is an extremely deep problem and it should be taken some urgent measures as quickly as possible in regard to this problem so that it would be solved during the nearest time. It is no longer possible to live with this nightmare and fear anymore! Talking about Chechnya, the Chechens are terrorists, them who are the Kazaks who have come from Russia and Ukraine? Aren’t they the same terrorists? And why are Russia and Ukraine the bail-countries in this conflict since everybody knows that Smirnov is a citizen of Russia who governs this ghostlike country which is Transnistria? I cannot believe that Putin is not capable to take some rough measures in regard with his citizens. The most painful fact is that the government doesn’t have a serious attitude towards the problem! Even today we don’t know the official position of the government of the Republic of Moldova towards the problem of Transnistria. This fact concerns all the citizens of the Republic of Moldova: what is their position towards this problem!
We had some meetings concerning the school: there have been four meetings with the prime-minister and every time they promised to solve the problem in the nearest time, but till now nobody has given us a concrete answer, as we asked every time the following question: we would like to know what is the position of the government of the Republic of Moldova towards the seven schools from Transnistria, plus the Boarding School from Tighina and what will be done by the government of the Republic of Moldova so that beginning with the 1st of September these eight schools begin the education process normally. We don’t have the answer to this question for now.
M.S. Has been discussed: about the meeting with the prime-minister in regard with the problem of the schools in Transnistria.