Sunday Times August 28, 2005

Beslan mothers tell Putin: stay away

Mark Franchetti, Beslan

THE heartbreaking three-day vigil will begin at dawn. Thousands of wailing mourners are expected to gather this Thursday at Beslan's bullet-ridden School Number 1 to mark the first anniversary of Russia's worst terrorist attack.

Dressed in black, they will carry flowers and bottles of water as a symbolic way of quenching the thirst endured by their loved ones in the last hours before death.

Yet as the inhabitants of the nondescript southern Russian town come together to remember the 330 people — 171 of them children — who died after Chechen terrorists stormed the school and took more than 1,200 hostages, one man has been told to stay away: President Vladimir Putin.

The Committee of Beslan Mothers, a group of 150 women who lost children and grandchildren in the attack, has banned the Russian leader from the memorial service in protest at what they claim is a Kremlin-led cover-up of mistakes made during the siege.

The women, who have written three times to Putin pleading for a meeting but have so far received no reply, are demanding that several senior state officials be put on trial for criminal negligence.

They accuse the men — who include the local head of the FSB, the Russian security service — of failing to prevent the attack and of lying so blatantly throughout the siege that they compounded the danger faced by the hostages.

They suspect that two powerful explosions inside the school and a subsequent fire which killed many hostages could have been set off by the Russians, not the terrorists, as investigators claim.

The mothers have denounced the continuing trial of Nurpashi Kulayev, the only terrorist to have been caught alive, as a farce and are angry at what they regard as the incompetence of the rescue operation, arguing that many more people could have been saved.

"We don't want Putin here during the memorial," said Ala Khanayeva- Romanova, a former hostage whose daughter, Marianna, 15, died in the siege. "He and his state bureaucrats would come here only to try to rehabilitate themselves. He is not sincere and feels no grief. He should have come to save our children during the siege. It's too late now.

"The Kulayev trial, the investigation, it's all a smoke screen, a farce. It's a cover-up. We are fed up with this show. We want the truth and won't stop fighting until we know it."

Angered by the Kremlin's silence, Khanayeva-Romanova and dozens of other grieving mothers are planning a 1,000-mile protest march to Moscow to secure a meeting with the president. Last week they also briefly occupied the court where Kulayev is on trial.

Despite a year-long investigation, the identity of 12 of the 32 terrorists is still not known. A parliamentary inquiry set up reluctantly by Putin has repeatedly postponed the publication of its findings. In any case, most of the people of Beslan have already dismissed it in advance as a whitewash that will clear the security forces of any blame.

The women have compiled their own dossier condemning the authorities' handling of the attack. How, they demand to know, was a large group of heavily armed terrorists able to cross from Ingushetia to North Ossetia, where Beslan lies, and reach the town without being challenged by police? Five police officers are being tried for negligence, but victims' relatives believe they are scapegoats and want more senior figures to be investigated.

Throughout the siege, the Russian authorities lied about the number of hostages, claiming there were only 300 even after locals reported that at least 1,000 were inside. Survivors said that when the terrorists heard the official headcount on the radio they taunted their captives, saying the state had buried them alive.

Officials from the emergency headquarters set up to deal with the hostage crisis also said the terrorists had not made clear demands, but that negotiations with them were on course. Both claims were false.

Early on the second day of the siege, Ruslan Aushev, the former Ingushetian president, who was the only person allowed into the school, was given a list of demands to end the war in Chechnya signed by Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted terrorist, who claimed responsibility for the attack.

The paper was kept secret, however. And although he negotiated the release of 20 toddlers and children, Aushev was later falsely accused by some officials of colluding with the Chechens.

It has also emerged that the terrorists named four high-ranking state officials with whom they wanted to hold talks, but by the third morning none of them had come to the school. Frustrated, the gunmen — who had already executed several male hostages and dumped them out of a window — stopped giving the hostages water. Held in sweltering heat, they resorted to drinking their own urine.

"On the second day, we were all very thirsty," said Malik Kalchakeyev, 14, a former hostage who burst into tears as he gave evidence against Kulayev last week. "Women told us boys to pee into plastic bottles so the children could drink our pee. Small children, even babies drank it."

Investigators claim the gunmen deliberately set off bombs wired around the gymnasium in which the hostages were held, or that one fell to the ground accidentally. They say the explosions, on the third day of the siege, precipitated a gun battle with security forces that caused a fire, bringing down the gym roof on hundreds of hostages.

Others died in the crossfire. Many in Beslan believe the explosions were triggered by Russian forces. Kulayev, a 25-year-old Chechen carpenter, has testified they were caused by a sniper shooting dead a terrorist standing with his foot on a detonator. The Russians, who lost 12 elite anti-terrorist officers in the battle, have rejected the accusation.

Prosecutors initially denied eyewitness claims that the soldiers used flame throwers that could have set fire to the roof. Only recently, after residents presented them with empty shells, did investigators confirm that they had been used.

They denied the flame throwers could have caused the inferno as they say they are incendiary grenade launchers which create a small ball of fire lasting only a few seconds.

The relatives are also demanding that officials in charge of the rescue operation be investigated because there were only two ageing fire engines on site when the blaze broke out.

A year after the siege, two new schools have been built and money has poured into the town from the state and abroad. Yet reminders of the tragedy are everywhere — chief among them the old school building that remains as it was on the last day of the siege.

People in tears, including many children, visit every day, roaming the bullet-riddled corridors, writing messages to the dead on the walls, leaving flowers and bottles of water. The place where the terrorists executed the men on the first day is still marked by trails of dry blood. Clumps of black hair dangle from the ceiling above the spot where a female suicide bomber blew herself up.

The psychological scars run so deep that many children are terrified at the prospect of returning to school this week.

Makharik Tskayev, 4, one of the youngest survivors, still does not know his mother and sister were killed, because his father cannot bring himself to tell him. The little boy, who was hit by shrapnel, was in a state of panic when his grandmother signed him up to the local kindergarten. He said he feared "the men in masks" would be waiting for him.

"He is a difficult child now, often throwing tantrums," said Svetlana Tskayeva, his grandmother. "Whenever he passes a TV set showing a war film or shoot-out, he watches it mesmerised. He still asks about his sister and mother but we can't bear to tell him they won't be coming back and say simply that they are still in the school."

Since the Beslan attack, the Russians have intensified their hunt for Islamic rebels. In the spring they killed Aslan Maskhadov, the former Chechen president, and several other senior rebel commanders.

Basayev remains at large, however, and only recently defended his men's actions in Beslan in an interview in which he threatened further attacks.

The violence continues across Chechnya and in Ingushetia — whose prime minister narrowly escaped an assassination attempt last week. There have been more than 70 terrorist attacks since the beginning of the year in neighbouring Dagestan, a clear sign that the conflict is spreading.

"I used to have great respect for Putin," said Ludmilla Jimiyev whose son, Oleg, 15, died in the siege. "Even Oleg used to look up to him because, like the president, he loved judo. I hate the terrorists for destroying my life but with his policies Putin has failed us.

"His government only worried about killing the terrorists, not saving our children. That is why he doesn't want to meet us. Because then he would have to look into our eyes and would not know what to say."

THE QUESTIONS

Many questions asked by victims' relatives remain unanswered?


Why have investigators failed to establish the identity of 12 of the 32 Chechen hostage-takers?

Why did police not prevent a busload of heavily armed terrorists driving into the town?

Why did the authorities play down the number of hostages held during the siege?

Why did officials claim the terrorists had made no demands when they had, and insist negotiations had begun when they had not?

Did Russian forces trigger the final explosions by opening fire on the school?

Why were only two ageing fire engines stationed at the school?

Why have no officials been put on trial for their mishandling of the siege?