Bendery, November 10 / Novosti Pridnestrovya/ The main theme of discussion at the Joint Control Commission meeting held in Bendery was the incident that took place on November 4 in the Kochieri, Novo-Malovata as well as Rogi human settlements’ area. As appears from the Joint Military Command report, at about 4:30 p.m., Pridnestrovian border guards patrol detained a truck loaded with firewood, which was driving in Moldova’s territory direction.
Meanwhile, from the submitted driver’s documents, it followed that the cargo destination was the Katerinovka village of the Kamensky district. The truck was blocked by border guards. They demanded that the driver proceeds to the border authorities for further investigation. He refused to do that.
The truck was driven by a police officer in active. Sooner his colleagues arrived at the accident scene together with the Novo-Malovata village residents, who weren’t sober-minded and came into conflict with the border detachment, the border authorities’ employees, and arrived at Pridnestrovian police. They attempted to take the detained driver away, and a video camera was ripped off one of the border guards’ uniforms, one of the policemen attempted to escape with it, but he didn’t succeed, then the device was returned. Civilians claimed to be combatants in the 1992 hostilities and threatened to use weapons to protect the truck. It took several hours for the Police Commissioner, who arrived to calm down these people and take them away from the incident scene.
According to the Joint Military Command’s decision, a military commandant and a military observers group arrived at the incident scene and questioned participants in the conflict. The Joint Control Commission and the Joint Military Command intervention defused the situation. The incident was completely resolved only in the afternoon on November 5, when the fine and customs duty was paid by the detained citizen. Then he was released along with the truck and cargo.
Particular attention during the meeting was attracted by the participation in the such incident of the serviceman of the Peacekeeping Forces’ Moldovan contingent.
According to the JCC’s co-chairman from Pridnestrovie Oleg Belyakov, he, without the Joint Military Command’s decision, arrived directly at the scene and started to put pressure on our law enforcement officials and practically engage in a certain physical confrontation with them. However, all this doesn’t correspond to the Peacekeeping Forces’ member status. Any actions of military personnel in the Security Zone, including those of a collective nature, to separate the conflicting parties can be taken exclusively by the Joint Military Command decision, Oleg Belyakov noted.
According to the Pridnestrovian delegation’s head, such a situation cannot but cause certain concerns.
Currently, the Moldovan servicemen entered into a confrontation. Tomorrow, for instance, a Pridnestrovian serviceman will enter into the same confrontation, and so on. It turns out that this’s no longer a Joint Peacekeeping Force, it’s each peacekeeping component that will decide individually what actions to take in any conflict situation. This’s incorrect. That’s exactly what the Joint Control Commission was working on to resolve the such issue today. However, understanding from the Moldovan side wasn’t found by us, the JCC’s co-chairman from Pridnestrovie Oleg Belyakov reported.
The Pridnestrovian delegation stated the incident, and it expressed serious concern about the incident’s certain aspects. Particularly, according to the statement, the Moldovan policeman’s indecent behavior and his appeal to his leadership for protection almost led to a conflict between the law enforcement agencies of the parties in the Security Zone.
