Uncle Spielberg
Well-known member
LI's opinion is no more valid than ayone elses although he has a nasty habit of trying to make people look or seem stupid. He has a rather over inflated opinion of himself I fear.
Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊
Russian Siege Over
- Thread starter Tom Hark Preston Park
- Start date
Sorrel
Well-known member
Surely your argument is not based on atrocities at all, but on history, culture and nationality allowing people who live in a region the right to self-determination.
Otherwise, your argument is just one of opinion of whose atrocity is worse. Your answer to why people should not be against the Chechen cause is that the Russians have committed worse atrocities in the war there. Does this mean that if the Chechens committed a worse atrocity than the Russians you'd back them?
I doubt it, and therefore we have to fall back on history. Looking at a summary of the history of Chechnya it seems to me that the cause of the present conflict is the behaviour of the free Chechens in 1999. Here's the BBC news summary of the timeline:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/2357267.stm
It says for 1999 "1999 July/August - Chechen fighters clash with Russian troops on the Chechnya-Dagestan border; Chechen rebels stage armed incursions into Dagestan in an attempt to create an Islamic state." This doesn't sound to me like the actions of a country keen to live in peaceful co-operation with its neighbour.
Clearly many civilians have been killed by the Russian army, but if the school siege doesn't mean that the Chechens are wrong, then Russian atrocities don't mean that the Chechen's are right either.
Many of the people fighting the Russians are fanatical Islamic fighters who clearly have no interest in any of the Western values that I believe are important in society. I don't want them to win, and if there has to be a choice between them and the Russians, then I'd rather the Russians won. Of course, even better would be a peaceful solution that allowed people to live how they wanted throughout the region - but I don't think always saying that the Chechens are in the right is the way to achieve that.
Last edited:
Duncan H said:
Agree totally.
It appears to be quite a popular thing to do at the moment - flagellate the west, blame without reservation the behaviour of western countries for whatever has gone wrong around the world. Whatever happened to a considered and balanced opinion?
Interesting point about support for whoever has committed the least horrific atrocity. Undoubtedly this goes on and it creates a climate where hate breeds hate. If our sole conversation is about why these people did what they did in Beslan, then aren't we in a way giving them a justification for doing it.
Did it work in Iraq though? Most westerners think that the Allied invasion was a worse crime than any Saddam had committed - otherwise they wouldn't be against the war, would they?
Tom Hark Preston Park
Will Post For Cash
- Jul 6, 2003
- 72,249
- Thread starter
- #124
NSC as a whole has absolutely nothing to feel ashamed about on this thread. Well apart from myself maybe, who initially reported the breaking of the siege as good news after seeing little kids being brought out by the military in the first live reports, little realising there were many many more inside being raped and inhumanely killed by the hostage takers. Let's repeat one of those words there. RAPED. What conflict in the history of the world makes that a right thing to do. 'He started it first sir' is not a response. If you rape fifteen year old pupils in a school gym, then you just lost any moral high ground you may or may not have had. Game over. You're a scumbag.
Irrespective of the local squabble in the region, which in global terms represents nothing more handbags-at-ten-paces than the Albion v Palace, just about everybody on here voted with their hearts and rightly deplored the murder of a schoolful of innocent children as A BAD THING.
Anybody care to argue with THAT point?
Irrespective of the local squabble in the region, which in global terms represents nothing more handbags-at-ten-paces than the Albion v Palace, just about everybody on here voted with their hearts and rightly deplored the murder of a schoolful of innocent children as A BAD THING.
Anybody care to argue with THAT point?
smudge
Up the Albion!
Wonder if the highly intelligent Mr LI is watching the children being buried on the News?
London Irish
Well-known member
smudge said:
And why are you wondering that? Is it because you think you are more "against" the death of these children than me?
London Irish
Well-known member
Zebedee said:
I defy you to find anyone who has. Being against shooting children is not difficult.
London Irish
Well-known member
Good post Duncan, a genuine attempt to lift the latter pages of this thread out of its simple-minded sentimentalism and towards some understanding of an appalling political situation.
First off, just to correct you on one thing, no, I don't form my view on the solution to the conflict on who has committed the "worst" atrocities. In a bloody and vicious war like this one, it is inevitable that both sides will commit them. It is important to stand back from these and look at the history of how this conflict has evolved to discover if there is a "right" side and if there is any obvious solution to the constant killing.
Russian domination and slaughter of the Chechens is not new, it goes back to Tsarist times. It took nearly a century of war for the Tsarists to conquer the Chechens. The domination continued more or less uninterrupted when Russia was ruled by the Stalinists. In 1944, Stalin famously deported vast numbers of Chechens to Kazhakstan.
Fast forward to 1990 and the Soviet regime is collapsing. Back then, most people in Britain if they'd have heard of Chechyna would instinctively had supported the freedom of the Chechen population from the Red Army. Simple one, innit, nasty communists versus downtrodden occupied population of one million people. Gotta back them Chechens, whoever the hell they are.
Fast forward to 2004. Russia led by Putin, and now according to Six-yard punisha on this thread, Russia is part of the "west" and we've all discovered the Chechens are Muslims. Oh dear. Aren't a lot of these Muslims terrorists? Tricky one, this. Maybe we won't support them against the Russians any more as the Russians aren't communists any more. Maybe the Russkies aren't so bad after all, better than those Muslim terrorists any way!
That's the history of the last 14 years for the simple-minded.
The real history is this. Like many of the former oppressed nationalities within the USSR, Chechyna gained its freedom when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Red Army withdrew in 1991 after the failure of the Moscow coup.
A Chechen nationalist by the name of Dudayev takes over as president and fills the void left by the retreating Russian army. Was he a nice guy? Not particularly, the economy is privatised, mafias spring up everywhere like in Russia, the Chechens don't have a happy time of it but at least they are misgovernered by one of their own, not by Russian troops.
But, big problem for the Chechens! Russia had never accepted independence, they had only been forced into it in a moment of weakness after the fall of the Soviet Union.
With Yeltsin in charge, in 1994 Russia decides to grab Chechyna back. A savage and brutal war follows, "Russia's Vietnam". Huge loss of Chechen life defending their country, well over 100,000 of them die heroically. Much of Chechyna and Grozny was devastated by the war. It's a stalemate, Russian army also suffers huge losses and Yeltsin suffers loss of popularity back in Russia given the number of Russian soldiers shipped back to their mothers in coffins.
So in 1996/7, Yelstin is forced to compromise and an independent Chechen government led by Aslan Maskhadov is elected and a fragile ceasefire holds. But there is little reconstruction of this shattered country, the only economic activity is oil trafficking and gun running. In this vacuum, fundamentalist Muslim bandits, the Wahhabite, gain influence through their money from oil trafficking and they succeed in imposing the Sharia Law on Maskhadov's government, as referred to by Duncan. So yes, even with Russian troops temporarily defeated, things are pretty shit for the Chechens.
But Duncan is wrong in suggesting that the second Russian-Chechen war in 1999 was initiated by the activities of extreme Muslims. The key event was the appointment by Yeltsin of a new Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. Putin came in with a hardline policy of reviving Russian military power and influence in the world. So the first step in that was to have another go at crushing the Chechens.
Using the small-scale events outlined in the BBC timeline as a pretext, Putin sent the Red Army back into Chechnya to establish Russian domimance once again. The Russians had learned from their first failure and this time succeeded by adopting the traditional American tactics of taking over a country, avoid ground fighting, just bomb the hell out of them from the air. That's what they did. Grozny was obliterated. All Chechens fled, 600,000 refugees scatter to other parts of Chechyna or neighbouring countries.
This is the situation we have today. Chechyna is an occupied country, a puppet Russian regime in charge. The legitimate president of Chechyna, Maskhadov, is still alive and fighting the Russians today. The Chechen army was bombed to pieces by the Russians, all that is left for them is small-scale acts of defiance, ie. "terrorism".
So why do Russia and Putin want to control another country, Chechyna?
Partly it's a regional power game. Putin wants to rebuild Russian military and strategic might in the world. He wants to intimdate all the small neighbouring countries that used to be part of the Soviet empire into accepting Russian diktat once again. But it's not just about restoring Russia's imperial influence, there are also hard economic reasons.
Chechnya is a route to the Black Sea and has huge strategic importance for the flow of oil through pipelines. Oil remains forefront in Putin's mind as his troops conduct their slaughter campaign.
The latest, dreadful events in Beslan are but a drop in the ocean of the blood split over the last 15 years. Estimates are harzardous, but about a fifth to a third of all Chechnyans have been slaughtered in this time. The Russian army has also taken untold casualties.
Why is there not much condemnation of Putin by the West? Because all Bush and Blair's concern for human rights is total bullshit. They are supporting Putin in the same way Bush Snr and Thatcher supported Saddam Hussain 20 years previously, he's a useful ally at this current time.
They regard him as doing a good job in Russia, he's cracking down on too much democracy, OK, he's not perfect on allowing western business to operate freely but he's better than Yeltsin and certainly better than the Russian opposition, made up of a lot of the ex-communists.
While the West obviously had a lot of hand-wringing qualms previously about Putin's genocide in Chechyna, September 11 generally changed all that. Putin was then able to paint the Chechens as Muslim terrorists and has had a good press internationally since as our ally in the "war against terror".
So what of the future?
The fallout from Beslan can go two ways.
Putin can use it to intensify his war of occupation against the Chechens. This would be a historic tragedy for a people long since forgotten by the rest of the world. These are a people that make the Palestinians look lucky.
The other way offers some hope: that this dreadful event can educate vast numbers of people in the west about Russia's appalling record in Chechyna. We should pressure our elected representatives to call on Blair to oppose the Russian occupation (not that he will of course, he's too busy with his own Middle East occupations).
The Chechens have a RIGHT to self-determination. All Russian troops must withdraw and Maskhadov must be restored to his righful role as president.
To prevent the country from once again coming under the influence of fundamentalist Muslim bandits, a huge UN-led economic reconstruction programme must be established, paid for by the world's rich nations and by Russian war reparations. This would establish a viable state apparatus that could guarantee a functioning civil infrastructure and free economic activity. It is only by giving the Chechen people the rule of law and jobs that they will then turn their back on the simplistic dogmas of Islamic fundamentalism.
To argue, as some appear to do so on this thread, that Chechen sympathy for such fundamentalism justifies the continuing Russian genocide, is utterly reprehensible.
The Chechens deserve their freedom. Unconditionally.
First off, just to correct you on one thing, no, I don't form my view on the solution to the conflict on who has committed the "worst" atrocities. In a bloody and vicious war like this one, it is inevitable that both sides will commit them. It is important to stand back from these and look at the history of how this conflict has evolved to discover if there is a "right" side and if there is any obvious solution to the constant killing.
Russian domination and slaughter of the Chechens is not new, it goes back to Tsarist times. It took nearly a century of war for the Tsarists to conquer the Chechens. The domination continued more or less uninterrupted when Russia was ruled by the Stalinists. In 1944, Stalin famously deported vast numbers of Chechens to Kazhakstan.
Fast forward to 1990 and the Soviet regime is collapsing. Back then, most people in Britain if they'd have heard of Chechyna would instinctively had supported the freedom of the Chechen population from the Red Army. Simple one, innit, nasty communists versus downtrodden occupied population of one million people. Gotta back them Chechens, whoever the hell they are.
Fast forward to 2004. Russia led by Putin, and now according to Six-yard punisha on this thread, Russia is part of the "west" and we've all discovered the Chechens are Muslims. Oh dear. Aren't a lot of these Muslims terrorists? Tricky one, this. Maybe we won't support them against the Russians any more as the Russians aren't communists any more. Maybe the Russkies aren't so bad after all, better than those Muslim terrorists any way!
That's the history of the last 14 years for the simple-minded.
The real history is this. Like many of the former oppressed nationalities within the USSR, Chechyna gained its freedom when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Red Army withdrew in 1991 after the failure of the Moscow coup.
A Chechen nationalist by the name of Dudayev takes over as president and fills the void left by the retreating Russian army. Was he a nice guy? Not particularly, the economy is privatised, mafias spring up everywhere like in Russia, the Chechens don't have a happy time of it but at least they are misgovernered by one of their own, not by Russian troops.
But, big problem for the Chechens! Russia had never accepted independence, they had only been forced into it in a moment of weakness after the fall of the Soviet Union.
With Yeltsin in charge, in 1994 Russia decides to grab Chechyna back. A savage and brutal war follows, "Russia's Vietnam". Huge loss of Chechen life defending their country, well over 100,000 of them die heroically. Much of Chechyna and Grozny was devastated by the war. It's a stalemate, Russian army also suffers huge losses and Yeltsin suffers loss of popularity back in Russia given the number of Russian soldiers shipped back to their mothers in coffins.
So in 1996/7, Yelstin is forced to compromise and an independent Chechen government led by Aslan Maskhadov is elected and a fragile ceasefire holds. But there is little reconstruction of this shattered country, the only economic activity is oil trafficking and gun running. In this vacuum, fundamentalist Muslim bandits, the Wahhabite, gain influence through their money from oil trafficking and they succeed in imposing the Sharia Law on Maskhadov's government, as referred to by Duncan. So yes, even with Russian troops temporarily defeated, things are pretty shit for the Chechens.
But Duncan is wrong in suggesting that the second Russian-Chechen war in 1999 was initiated by the activities of extreme Muslims. The key event was the appointment by Yeltsin of a new Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. Putin came in with a hardline policy of reviving Russian military power and influence in the world. So the first step in that was to have another go at crushing the Chechens.
Using the small-scale events outlined in the BBC timeline as a pretext, Putin sent the Red Army back into Chechnya to establish Russian domimance once again. The Russians had learned from their first failure and this time succeeded by adopting the traditional American tactics of taking over a country, avoid ground fighting, just bomb the hell out of them from the air. That's what they did. Grozny was obliterated. All Chechens fled, 600,000 refugees scatter to other parts of Chechyna or neighbouring countries.
This is the situation we have today. Chechyna is an occupied country, a puppet Russian regime in charge. The legitimate president of Chechyna, Maskhadov, is still alive and fighting the Russians today. The Chechen army was bombed to pieces by the Russians, all that is left for them is small-scale acts of defiance, ie. "terrorism".
So why do Russia and Putin want to control another country, Chechyna?
Partly it's a regional power game. Putin wants to rebuild Russian military and strategic might in the world. He wants to intimdate all the small neighbouring countries that used to be part of the Soviet empire into accepting Russian diktat once again. But it's not just about restoring Russia's imperial influence, there are also hard economic reasons.
Chechnya is a route to the Black Sea and has huge strategic importance for the flow of oil through pipelines. Oil remains forefront in Putin's mind as his troops conduct their slaughter campaign.
The latest, dreadful events in Beslan are but a drop in the ocean of the blood split over the last 15 years. Estimates are harzardous, but about a fifth to a third of all Chechnyans have been slaughtered in this time. The Russian army has also taken untold casualties.
Why is there not much condemnation of Putin by the West? Because all Bush and Blair's concern for human rights is total bullshit. They are supporting Putin in the same way Bush Snr and Thatcher supported Saddam Hussain 20 years previously, he's a useful ally at this current time.
They regard him as doing a good job in Russia, he's cracking down on too much democracy, OK, he's not perfect on allowing western business to operate freely but he's better than Yeltsin and certainly better than the Russian opposition, made up of a lot of the ex-communists.
While the West obviously had a lot of hand-wringing qualms previously about Putin's genocide in Chechyna, September 11 generally changed all that. Putin was then able to paint the Chechens as Muslim terrorists and has had a good press internationally since as our ally in the "war against terror".
So what of the future?
The fallout from Beslan can go two ways.
Putin can use it to intensify his war of occupation against the Chechens. This would be a historic tragedy for a people long since forgotten by the rest of the world. These are a people that make the Palestinians look lucky.
The other way offers some hope: that this dreadful event can educate vast numbers of people in the west about Russia's appalling record in Chechyna. We should pressure our elected representatives to call on Blair to oppose the Russian occupation (not that he will of course, he's too busy with his own Middle East occupations).
The Chechens have a RIGHT to self-determination. All Russian troops must withdraw and Maskhadov must be restored to his righful role as president.
To prevent the country from once again coming under the influence of fundamentalist Muslim bandits, a huge UN-led economic reconstruction programme must be established, paid for by the world's rich nations and by Russian war reparations. This would establish a viable state apparatus that could guarantee a functioning civil infrastructure and free economic activity. It is only by giving the Chechen people the rule of law and jobs that they will then turn their back on the simplistic dogmas of Islamic fundamentalism.
To argue, as some appear to do so on this thread, that Chechen sympathy for such fundamentalism justifies the continuing Russian genocide, is utterly reprehensible.
The Chechens deserve their freedom. Unconditionally.
Wow, thanks for that, it has filled up a lot of holes in my rather crap knowledge of the subject.
But, this being NSC, what we want to really know is "Does Putin's wife spit or swallow"?
But, this being NSC, what we want to really know is "Does Putin's wife spit or swallow"?
Uncle Spielberg
Well-known member
You really do think people care about your opinions don't you LI 
Uncle Spielberg
Well-known member
Just one question LI
Do you totally and unreservedly condemn and deplore what happened in Beslan and state their is no justification whatsover for it.
We disagree on all thing political but at least I can see the arguments for the anti Iraq war. Some people on here who I also disagree with but have utmost respect for such as Tom Hark has written a wonderful post above.
I can sympathise with his anti Iraq war arguments the same as yours. He puts it across with his heart however you put it across with a history lesson, for further example read above and try and make yourself look intellectually and morally superior of which you are not in either case.
Do you totally and unreservedly condemn and deplore what happened in Beslan and state their is no justification whatsover for it.
We disagree on all thing political but at least I can see the arguments for the anti Iraq war. Some people on here who I also disagree with but have utmost respect for such as Tom Hark has written a wonderful post above.
I can sympathise with his anti Iraq war arguments the same as yours. He puts it across with his heart however you put it across with a history lesson, for further example read above and try and make yourself look intellectually and morally superior of which you are not in either case.
Sorrel
Well-known member
I agree with LI in that if "a huge UN-led economic reconstruction programme [could] be established" then Chechyna should gain independence, with a free and fair consitution. Without it I feel that the country would revert to a similar situation that was around in 1999, which is (IMO) understandably unacceptable to Russia.
But I don't think it's going to happen. Almost everywhere in the region would benefit from such an investment - the Kurds, the Georgians, etc - and giving it to the Chechens would (seem to) reward terrorism over peaceful methods.
Therefore the first stage for starting this plan is for the Chechens, and their supporters, to renounce terrorist methods. Without doing this they will never get widespread support, no matter what the Russian army has done in the past, or is doing now.
But I don't think it's going to happen. Almost everywhere in the region would benefit from such an investment - the Kurds, the Georgians, etc - and giving it to the Chechens would (seem to) reward terrorism over peaceful methods.
Therefore the first stage for starting this plan is for the Chechens, and their supporters, to renounce terrorist methods. Without doing this they will never get widespread support, no matter what the Russian army has done in the past, or is doing now.
m20gull
Well-known member
I thought this thread was about terrorism, not a history lesson on Chechnya. As usual with history it looks different depending on whose perspective you take and when you start counting. Chechnya is not an independent nation, it is part of Russia. There is more than one 'elected' leader than Mashkodov.
It is easy to gloss over 'small-scale incidents' but when they are occurring in a strategically significant area they were always designed to provoke a reaction. And there is a difference between small-scale resistance and terrorism. I can actually tell the difference between freedom-fighters and terrorists. Chechens fighting Russian Armies/Police/Politicians (ie agents of the State) are freedom-fighters. People of diverse nations killing INNOCENT children as advertising for their cause are terrorists and to be despised. If they want to advertise their cause and die for it, then I suggest that they chain themselves to the railings outside Western embassies in, let's say, Pakistan and practice self-immolation. Instant publicity for their cause and sympathy.
All Beslan will do is to give the Russians an excuse for further repression and increase the toll of violence.
And yes, I do sympathise with the cause of Chechen independence but don't believe that blowing up theatres, civil airliners or schools is a way of achieving it. The peaceful way would have been for the Chechens to accept the autonomy given to them by Russia and demonstrate their ability to peacefully co-exist with their neighbours.
It is easy to gloss over 'small-scale incidents' but when they are occurring in a strategically significant area they were always designed to provoke a reaction. And there is a difference between small-scale resistance and terrorism. I can actually tell the difference between freedom-fighters and terrorists. Chechens fighting Russian Armies/Police/Politicians (ie agents of the State) are freedom-fighters. People of diverse nations killing INNOCENT children as advertising for their cause are terrorists and to be despised. If they want to advertise their cause and die for it, then I suggest that they chain themselves to the railings outside Western embassies in, let's say, Pakistan and practice self-immolation. Instant publicity for their cause and sympathy.
All Beslan will do is to give the Russians an excuse for further repression and increase the toll of violence.
And yes, I do sympathise with the cause of Chechen independence but don't believe that blowing up theatres, civil airliners or schools is a way of achieving it. The peaceful way would have been for the Chechens to accept the autonomy given to them by Russia and demonstrate their ability to peacefully co-exist with their neighbours.
REDLAND
Active member
Russia Admits It Lied On Crisis
Washington Post | September 6 2004
The Russian government admitted Sunday that it lied to its people about the scale of the hostage crisis that ended with more than 300 children, parents and teachers dead in southern Russia, making an extraordinary admission through state television after days of intense criticism from citizens.
As the bereaved families of Beslan began to lay their loved ones to rest Sunday, the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya network aired gripping, gruesome footage it had withheld from the public for days and said government officials had deliberately deceived the world about the number of hostages inside School No. 1.
"At such moments," anchor Sergei Brilyov declared, "society needs the truth."
The admission of an effort to minimize the magnitude of a hostage crisis that ensnared about 1,200 people, most of them children, marked a sharp turnabout for the government of President Vladimir Putin. In previous crises with mass fatalities, such as the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in 2000 and the 2002 siege of a Moscow theater, officials covered up key facts as well, but afterward never acknowledged doing so.
"It doesn't suit our president," a Kremlin political consultant, Gleb Pavlovsky, said on the broadcast. "Lies, which really acted in the terrorists' favor, did not suit him at all. Lies were weakening us and making the terrorists more violent."
The broadcast included no apology and referred only to the most blatant misstatement by officials, the claim that only 354 hostages were inside the school. It did not acknowledge that the hostage-takers had demanded an end to the war in Chechnya or that the government continues to give conflicting information about whether any of the guerrillas remain at large, who they were and how many were killed.
Nor did it did mention that many residents of Beslan have been outraged that the government now appears to be understating the death toll, which stood officially at 338 Sunday night, although nearly 200 people are still unaccounted for.
As for the hostage-takers, Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said authoritatively on Saturday there were 26 of them, and all had been killed. On Sunday, he said there were 32 -- 30 of them dead -- and bragged about the capture of one "member of the gang" who was to be charged in court on Monday.
Putin made no public comment Sunday on the deadliest terrorist attack of his presidency, and no senior member of his government has commented publicly since the siege began at 9 a.m. Wednesday. A day after the president vowed in a televised address to take unspecified new security measures in response to the killing of "defenseless children," the Kremlin was silent on what those steps would be.
Sergei Markov, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin, said the deadly outcome of the school standoff had left Putin at a loss for how to respond beyond the former KGB colonel's instinct to strengthen police powers and centralize control over government institutions. "They don't know what to do," he said. "Vladimir Putin didn't explain in detail what will be happening."
Speaking before the Sunday night broadcast of the state television news program "Vesti", Markov said it had been clear that the government had engaged in a clumsy coverup. "Everybody understands they are lying," he said. "Everybody can do the math and know there were more than 1,000 people inside the school."
The Kremlin sought to distance Putin from the deceptions through Sunday's broadcast, in which the anchor chided "generals and the military and civilians" for failing to act "until the president gives them ideas of what to do." Pavlovsky, the political consultant, said Putin had given Russia's political system "a no-confidence vote" for its handling of the crisis.
Such statements could never be aired unless the Kremlin directly ordered them, according to political analysts here. Criticism of the president is never broadcast on state television, the continuing war in Chechnya is almost never mentioned and even mild questioning of government policy is not allowed without approval from the Kremlin.
"Nothing happens on Rossiya television without the permission of the Kremlin," commentator Andrei Piontkovsky said.
In Beslan, many residents have directed their anger not only at Putin but at the regional leader, Alexander Dzasokhov. In an effort to dispel those concerns, Dzasokhov made a televised visit Sunday to hospitalized children and apologized for failing to protect them adequately.
"I fully understand my responsibility," said Dzasokhov, the president of North Ossetia, the region near Chechnya where Beslan is located. "I want to beg your pardon for failing to protect children, teachers and parents."
For many families in the town, there was not yet time for political recriminations as they searched for missing relatives and buried those who have been found. But people have grown increasingly despondent, acknowledging that many bodies were burned beyond recognition in an explosion that caused most of the casualties.
"We keep receiving complaints from relatives saying they haven't found the bodies," said Lev Dzugaev, an aide to Dzasokhov who gave the now-discredited total of hostages during the standoff.
At the Beslan House of Culture, which has been a gathering point for families throughout the crisis, volunteers taking down names of the missing said the figure stood at 190 as of Sunday afternoon. Many families have left not only names but snapshots, such as one of a little girl celebrating New Year's wearing a snow princess dress and surrounded by boys in white rabbit costumes.
All along Beslan's Pervomaiskaya (1st of May) Street, people were burying the dead Sunday. The tops of wooden caskets stood upright outside the large ornate gates of walled homes, signaling a house of mourning. Clusters of people, men and women walking separately, hundreds in all, moved up and down the long, potholed street. The wails of those who were grieving joined the cries of those farther down the street until, in some moments, it sounded like all of Beslan was in tears.
At 103 Pervomaiskaya St., the body of 75-year-old Rimma Kusova, wrapped in plastic and covered by a thin orange blanket, lay on a table in the home she had shared with her husband and two grandchildren. Her husband, Timur, stood outside, inviting visitors to view the badly disfigured corpse.
Kusova had taken her grandson, Azamas, to school when both of them were seized. The boy escaped; she did not.
Timur, who is a retired factory worker, said he lost his only daughter to renal failure when she was 16 and his son, the boy's father, to an injury he received as a soldier in the Soviet army that fought in Afghanistan. "I'm the only one now," he said.
Across the street, at number 100, the relatives of 42-year-old Irma Zagoyeva had just come back from the morgue after spending more fruitless hours looking for her body. Zagoyeva had accompanied her 6-year-old son Chermen to his first day of school. He made it out. "He said his mother fell down and didn't move," Zagoyeva's sister-in-law said. "That's all he remembers."
The body of Elza Guldayeva, 36, was brought home to number 52 on Saturday. Relatives were waiting Sunday afternoon outside a courtyard draped with vines for the body of her daughter, 12-year-old Olesya, to arrive. Guldayeva's husband was at the hospital with the couple's seriously injured second daughter, 11-year-old Alina.
"They killed our women and children," said Felix Guldayeva, a cousin. "Our women and children."
A large crowd stood outside 44 Pervomaiskaya St. Felix Totiyev, the family patriarch, stood with a cane beside two velvet-draped caskets for his two granddaughters, Lyuba, 10, and Anna, 8. Four more of his grandchildren were missing. From within the house, a constant moan of grief emerged.
At number 35, Batraz Tuganov lay dead under a silver and white sheet and dressed in a jacket. His head was still covered with a bandage. A single man, he was executed during the siege. His 72-year-old mother, Valentina, sat by the body, wordlessly accepting the hugs of the women who surrounded her.
Tuganov had driven two children and a mother to the school last Friday morning, relatives said. He decided to walk into the school courtyard with them.
At number 30, the funeral was over. Volodya Khodov, 10, who was shot in the chest, was buried Sunday afternoon, and a series of tents covering tables were set up on a side street for the mourners to drink and eat from. Volodya's mother, Zifa, was one of 25 hostages released during the siege with an infant. But she was forced to leave behind Volodya and his younger brother.
Still, there was one piece of good news for this family to savor: Volodya's younger brother survived.
Washington Post | September 6 2004
The Russian government admitted Sunday that it lied to its people about the scale of the hostage crisis that ended with more than 300 children, parents and teachers dead in southern Russia, making an extraordinary admission through state television after days of intense criticism from citizens.
As the bereaved families of Beslan began to lay their loved ones to rest Sunday, the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya network aired gripping, gruesome footage it had withheld from the public for days and said government officials had deliberately deceived the world about the number of hostages inside School No. 1.
"At such moments," anchor Sergei Brilyov declared, "society needs the truth."
The admission of an effort to minimize the magnitude of a hostage crisis that ensnared about 1,200 people, most of them children, marked a sharp turnabout for the government of President Vladimir Putin. In previous crises with mass fatalities, such as the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in 2000 and the 2002 siege of a Moscow theater, officials covered up key facts as well, but afterward never acknowledged doing so.
"It doesn't suit our president," a Kremlin political consultant, Gleb Pavlovsky, said on the broadcast. "Lies, which really acted in the terrorists' favor, did not suit him at all. Lies were weakening us and making the terrorists more violent."
The broadcast included no apology and referred only to the most blatant misstatement by officials, the claim that only 354 hostages were inside the school. It did not acknowledge that the hostage-takers had demanded an end to the war in Chechnya or that the government continues to give conflicting information about whether any of the guerrillas remain at large, who they were and how many were killed.
Nor did it did mention that many residents of Beslan have been outraged that the government now appears to be understating the death toll, which stood officially at 338 Sunday night, although nearly 200 people are still unaccounted for.
As for the hostage-takers, Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said authoritatively on Saturday there were 26 of them, and all had been killed. On Sunday, he said there were 32 -- 30 of them dead -- and bragged about the capture of one "member of the gang" who was to be charged in court on Monday.
Putin made no public comment Sunday on the deadliest terrorist attack of his presidency, and no senior member of his government has commented publicly since the siege began at 9 a.m. Wednesday. A day after the president vowed in a televised address to take unspecified new security measures in response to the killing of "defenseless children," the Kremlin was silent on what those steps would be.
Sergei Markov, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin, said the deadly outcome of the school standoff had left Putin at a loss for how to respond beyond the former KGB colonel's instinct to strengthen police powers and centralize control over government institutions. "They don't know what to do," he said. "Vladimir Putin didn't explain in detail what will be happening."
Speaking before the Sunday night broadcast of the state television news program "Vesti", Markov said it had been clear that the government had engaged in a clumsy coverup. "Everybody understands they are lying," he said. "Everybody can do the math and know there were more than 1,000 people inside the school."
The Kremlin sought to distance Putin from the deceptions through Sunday's broadcast, in which the anchor chided "generals and the military and civilians" for failing to act "until the president gives them ideas of what to do." Pavlovsky, the political consultant, said Putin had given Russia's political system "a no-confidence vote" for its handling of the crisis.
Such statements could never be aired unless the Kremlin directly ordered them, according to political analysts here. Criticism of the president is never broadcast on state television, the continuing war in Chechnya is almost never mentioned and even mild questioning of government policy is not allowed without approval from the Kremlin.
"Nothing happens on Rossiya television without the permission of the Kremlin," commentator Andrei Piontkovsky said.
In Beslan, many residents have directed their anger not only at Putin but at the regional leader, Alexander Dzasokhov. In an effort to dispel those concerns, Dzasokhov made a televised visit Sunday to hospitalized children and apologized for failing to protect them adequately.
"I fully understand my responsibility," said Dzasokhov, the president of North Ossetia, the region near Chechnya where Beslan is located. "I want to beg your pardon for failing to protect children, teachers and parents."
For many families in the town, there was not yet time for political recriminations as they searched for missing relatives and buried those who have been found. But people have grown increasingly despondent, acknowledging that many bodies were burned beyond recognition in an explosion that caused most of the casualties.
"We keep receiving complaints from relatives saying they haven't found the bodies," said Lev Dzugaev, an aide to Dzasokhov who gave the now-discredited total of hostages during the standoff.
At the Beslan House of Culture, which has been a gathering point for families throughout the crisis, volunteers taking down names of the missing said the figure stood at 190 as of Sunday afternoon. Many families have left not only names but snapshots, such as one of a little girl celebrating New Year's wearing a snow princess dress and surrounded by boys in white rabbit costumes.
All along Beslan's Pervomaiskaya (1st of May) Street, people were burying the dead Sunday. The tops of wooden caskets stood upright outside the large ornate gates of walled homes, signaling a house of mourning. Clusters of people, men and women walking separately, hundreds in all, moved up and down the long, potholed street. The wails of those who were grieving joined the cries of those farther down the street until, in some moments, it sounded like all of Beslan was in tears.
At 103 Pervomaiskaya St., the body of 75-year-old Rimma Kusova, wrapped in plastic and covered by a thin orange blanket, lay on a table in the home she had shared with her husband and two grandchildren. Her husband, Timur, stood outside, inviting visitors to view the badly disfigured corpse.
Kusova had taken her grandson, Azamas, to school when both of them were seized. The boy escaped; she did not.
Timur, who is a retired factory worker, said he lost his only daughter to renal failure when she was 16 and his son, the boy's father, to an injury he received as a soldier in the Soviet army that fought in Afghanistan. "I'm the only one now," he said.
Across the street, at number 100, the relatives of 42-year-old Irma Zagoyeva had just come back from the morgue after spending more fruitless hours looking for her body. Zagoyeva had accompanied her 6-year-old son Chermen to his first day of school. He made it out. "He said his mother fell down and didn't move," Zagoyeva's sister-in-law said. "That's all he remembers."
The body of Elza Guldayeva, 36, was brought home to number 52 on Saturday. Relatives were waiting Sunday afternoon outside a courtyard draped with vines for the body of her daughter, 12-year-old Olesya, to arrive. Guldayeva's husband was at the hospital with the couple's seriously injured second daughter, 11-year-old Alina.
"They killed our women and children," said Felix Guldayeva, a cousin. "Our women and children."
A large crowd stood outside 44 Pervomaiskaya St. Felix Totiyev, the family patriarch, stood with a cane beside two velvet-draped caskets for his two granddaughters, Lyuba, 10, and Anna, 8. Four more of his grandchildren were missing. From within the house, a constant moan of grief emerged.
At number 35, Batraz Tuganov lay dead under a silver and white sheet and dressed in a jacket. His head was still covered with a bandage. A single man, he was executed during the siege. His 72-year-old mother, Valentina, sat by the body, wordlessly accepting the hugs of the women who surrounded her.
Tuganov had driven two children and a mother to the school last Friday morning, relatives said. He decided to walk into the school courtyard with them.
At number 30, the funeral was over. Volodya Khodov, 10, who was shot in the chest, was buried Sunday afternoon, and a series of tents covering tables were set up on a side street for the mourners to drink and eat from. Volodya's mother, Zifa, was one of 25 hostages released during the siege with an infant. But she was forced to leave behind Volodya and his younger brother.
Still, there was one piece of good news for this family to savor: Volodya's younger brother survived.