THE ILASCU TRIAL

White Paper of the Romanian Helsinki Committee drawn up by By Victor Barsan

The Aim The present work attempts to contribute to a better knowledge, understanding and dissemination of the truth about the situation of the "Ilascu group" (*) and implicitly about the situation of Transnistria. In recent years the public opinion and the political factors that are interested in the evolution of post-communist countries paid attention mainly to the conflicts in Yugoslavia and the Caucasian republics. The war in Transnistria, its consequences and its adjacent phenomena - among which the Tiraspol trial - were perceived superficially and without objectivity, when not completely overlooked. Even the US ambassador Madeleine Albright, a specialist in the political problems of the post-Soviet space, said - on the occasion of the press conference she held in Bucharest on January 17 1994 - that she could make no statement about the Transnistria problems, as she was not sufficiently informed.