Beslan attack victims mothers say Putin is culpable
As Beslan marked the one-year anniversary of the school siege he engineered, many of the victims` mothers are increasingly laying blame for the September massacre not on Mr. Basayev, but on Russian authorities. They are stoking controversy by demanding that top leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, stay away from this week`s service to commemorate the 331 victims, half of them children, who perished in the Sept. 1-3, 2004, terrorist attack. Their accusations have been fueled by leaks from two still-incomplete investigations, and evidence presented at the ongoing trial of the sole surviving terrorist, Nurpashi Kulayev. Both have raised sharp doubts about the official version of events. Witnesses at Mr. Kulayev`s trial have testified that Russian security forces, using flame-throwers and tanks against a school holding more than 1,000 hostages, may have been responsible for many deaths.
Others have fingered corrupt officials and inept police officers for allowing the terrorists to drive across a heavily guarded border and seize a school in the center of a large town. The mood of disbelief is not confined to victims` families. A countrywide poll conducted last month by the Moscow-based Public Opinion Foundation found that only 15 percent of Russians expect the official investigation, headed by Alexander Torshin, the deputy speaker of parliament`s upper house, to get to the bottom of what happened in Beslan. Another 20 percent think the commission will discover the truth, but keep it secret.
The official version holds that on Sept. 1, 32 terrorists linked to Basayev, a Chechen warlord, drove in a hijacked military-style truck from the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, evaded many police checkpoints, and occupied Beslan School No. 1. They took about 1,200 children, parents, and teachers hostage in the school`s gym, which the terrorists festooned with makeshift explosives. On the third day of the crisis, one of the terrorists` bombs accidentally detonated, prompting security forces to launch an ill-prepared 10-hour assault that succeeded in saving most hostages. According to officials, security troops took all possible precautions to protect civilians, but hundreds of casualties occurred when the gym`s roof, set alight by terrorist bombs, came crashing down.
But this picture is challenged by mothers - and many witnesses at Kulayev`s trial - who say there were at least 50 attackers, many of whom escaped. The terrorists made use of weapons and supplies that had been prepositioned in the school, suggesting an inside job, they said. Kulayev testified that the first explosion resulted when a Russian sniper killed one of the hostage-takers who was holding down a bomb-detonator with his foot. Under pressure from the mothers, Russian authorities also admitted that two T-72 tanks fired several cannon rounds into the school during the battle on Sept. 3, but say they did not shoot at the gym where hostages were held.
For Mr. Putin, whose popularity has been sliding for several months, the challenge posed by the Beslan mothers has been an embarrassment. The Kremlin last week countered by inviting the women to talk with Putin in Moscow on Friday, in the midst of the Beslan memorial services.
Susanna Dudiyeva, head of the mothers` group, says the women resent the timing of the summons, but, "We shall go to Moscow, overcoming our pain and offense," she told the online newspaper Gazeta. "We will ask our questions, and we expect to hear answers."
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