Police retake Moldova parliament

After a night of rioting by young protesters, the Moldovan police seize the parliament building from the demonstrators.

Police guard the looted and burning parliament building in Chisinau today.

Moldovan police today seized control of parliament from young protesters who had stormed and ransacked the building after anger against a Communist election victory boiled over into violence. The protesters had smashed windows and hurled office furniture from the top floors of building onto the ground below, in the worst political violence in recent years in Europe's poorest country wedged between Ukraine and Romania.

In the early hours of the morning, the police seized the building and arrested a dozen remaining demonstrators, before clearing the square in front of parliament of the remaining demonstrators. However the protesters - whose action has been instigated by youth activists rather than established political forces - vowed to keep on demonstrating until the weekend's legislative elections are ruled invalid.

"The young people, I think, have simply lost patience. This chaos is to say that we simply need something better," said one of the protesters, Andrei, aged 21. According to the organisers, 15,000 people have turned out in demonstrations over the last two days, taking the established anti-Communist opposition by surprise and limiting their control over events. "What is going on in Chisinau is a spontaneous action by protesting young people," said Vlad Filat, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, one of three main liberal opposition parties in Moldova.

"We have tried to take the situation under control and not allow excesses," he said. "We are not scared of arrests or intimidation. The people do not want to live like this and want to live free and without fear." Some 100 people, including both protesters and police, were injured in clashes, which also saw demonstrators storm the presidency, the head doctor at Chisinau's emergency hospital said.

Television earlier reported a girl had died of asphyxiation in parliament which burst into flames during the clashes but this was later denied by hospital sources. The Communist president Vladimir Voronin, Moldova's strongman over the last eight years who had been due to step down after serving a maximum two consecutive terms, warned protesters the government would respond forcefully. "We will show that in Moldova there is a power which will act strongly to protect the country's statehood from a handful of fascists drunk on anger trying to cause a coup d'etat," he said in a televised address.

* AFP