ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

with the Transnistrians on that level before except through the OSCE Mission, and
Washington agreed it was worth making the effort from a bilateral standpoint. Smirnov
was, of course, a thug but I had experience in dealing with those from Belgrade. He was
not even a Moldovan. He had come to Transnistria from Russia after the Soviet break-up
and led the secession effort, and afterward he turned the territory into a big moneymaking
machine. You have to understand that, while the war had its origins in some real
ethnic tension that arose when the Soviet Union broke up, by 1998 the ethnic component
of the conflict was kept alive artificially. Relations between Romanian and Slavic
speakers were much improved. There was no real threat of unification between Moldova
and Romania. Transnistria still existed because it was turned into an economic fiefdom
for Smirnov, his family and his cronies. I used to call it Europe’s biggest duty free shop.
It was basically a big staging area for smuggling operations. Enormous amounts of
money were made by smuggling goods into Ukraine and Moldova proper through
Transnistria to avoid taxes and customs duties. Many people in both Moldova and
Ukraine were complicit in this and made money from it.
Q: How did this work?
PERINA: The basic scenario was something like this. A shipment of goods would come
into the port of Odessa marked as destined for Transnistria. The Ukrainians would allow
it to pass duty free to Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria. Then it would be smuggled
across the border back into Ukraine or into Moldova without payment of any duties. This
was relatively easy to do. Moldova had no checkpoints because it did not want to imply
that Transnistria was a separate country. As for Ukraine, there were many entry points
along the lengthy border. People on the Ukrainian side who were in on the scheme also
paid off customs officials, and so on. With high duty items like cigarettes and liquor, the
profits were enormous but many commodities besides these were also smuggled. I heard
estimates of hundreds of millions of dollars generated through such a scheme. Clearly
many people in Moldova and Ukraine were involved and had a vested interest in keeping
this going, including very high-ranking people in the Ukrainian government. That is a
major reason why it was so difficult to get Ukraine to put pressure on Transnistria.
But getting back to Smirnov, when I arrived and Lucinschi was president of Moldova, the
conflict had become fairly benign. There were still formal talks to resolve it but the
tensions were low. In fact, Smirnov sometimes actually visited Chisinau from
Transnistria. I first met him at a Russian Embassy reception that he was attending. The
relationship between Transnistria and Moldova became much tenser after Voronin
became President. In any case, Smirnov was hardly isolated, and we saw no benefit in
avoiding talking to him. I received the Department’s concurrence to have some meetings
and try to persuade him to find a resolution to the conflict. This had to be done carefully
because Smirnov was of course looking for ways to make any contact with Westerners
look like recognition of an independent Transnistria. During my first visit to Tiraspol, the
Transnistrians wanted to have television cameras, a formal lunch and so on. I refused all
this and said I would only come for a meeting and no protocol functions. The
Transnistrians agreed because they wanted a dialogue. Altogether I met with Smirnov
about half a dozen times during my tour. They were frustrating talks.
98