CHISINAU, November 22 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian Embassy in Moldova expressed concern over insults of the Russian-speaking population by a nationalist teacher.
"Numerous statements and letters from not only Russian, but also Moldovan citizens, public organizations of compatriots and business circles have been forwarded to the Embassy in the past few days, which condemn the situation that developed at a Beltsy vocation training school. It caused a protest in the civil society. All the mass media in the republic covered this incident. They unequivocally stated that nationalism would fail in Moldova," the Embassy said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Last Friday, a video was placed on the Internet showing vocational training school teacher Viktor Kravchenko insulting the Russian-speaking population in Russophobic rant, demanding that the ethnic Russians be expelled from the country.
"A number of statements said such manifestations of nationalism with respect to the Russian-speaking population regrettably happen at some educational institutions in other regions of the republic and Moldovan mass media," according to the Embassy.
"While Russia and Moldova are moving along the way of strengthening and developing varied cooperation, such demarches becloud the process of the rapprochement of our countries and peoples, contributing to the cultivation of nationalist and extremist views and various forms of intolerance. Such manifestations are alien to the multi-nation Moldovan society," the Russian diplomats said expressing the hope that "the Moldovan authorities would henceforth give a proper opinion of such incidents and hold the persons responsible who permit themselves to do such things."
The Russophobic video caused a public outcry and Deputy Education Minister Igor Grosu apologized to the pupils and their parents.
Chairman of the parliament commission for human rights and ethnic minorities, leader of the Vozrozhdeniye /Revival/ Party Vadim Mishin said "we forwarded an official letter to the government demanding that the Russophobe teacher be fired and banned from teaching, and that a criminal case be opened over the incident. We won't let the matter rest until the authorities take concrete adequate measures in the struggle against the inciting of ethnic strife in the country" .
He urged schoolchildren and their parents to report all the ethnic strife incidents to the parliamentary commission.
"We won't leave the Russian-speaking populating of Moldova without protection; a hotline or a specialized web site will be opened in the near future to take people's complaints," he underlined.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, a special presidential envoy for the Dniester region, who was on a visit to Moldova, commented on the incident thus: "It is not by accident that I invited to our delegation special presidential representative for relations with compatriots Alexander Babakov, who is a native of Chisinau. He will take the necessary measures."
Dniester leader Yevgeny Shevchuk expressed concern, too. "We're hoping that Moldova will perfect the mechanisms to prevent such incidents in the future," the leader of the self-proclaimed republic said.
He said such sentiments were in Moldova in the early 1990s, when ethnic clashes took place. They provoked a mass exodus of Russian-speaking residents and the Dniester region conflict, which still remains unresolved.