Beslan school siege
The Beslan school siege (also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or the Beslan massacre)[2][3][4] was a terrorist attack that started on 1 September 2004. It lasted three days, and involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 people as hostages, (including 777 children)[5] ending with the deaths of 334 people, 186 of them children,[6] as well as 31 of the attackers.[1] It is considered the deadliest school shooting in history.[7]
The crisis began when a group of armed terrorists occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of Russia) on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were members of the Riyad-us Saliheen, sent by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded Russia withdraw from and recognize the independence of Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building.
The event had security and political repercussions in Russia, leading to a series of federal government reforms consolidating power in the Kremlin and strengthening the powers of the President of Russia.[8] Criticisms of the Russian government's management of the crisis have persisted, including allegations of disinformation and censorship in news media as well as questions about journalistic freedom,[9] negotiations with the terrorists, allocation of responsibility for the eventual outcome and the use of excessive force.[10][11][12][13][14]
Identity of hostage-takers, motives, and responsibility[edit]
Responsibility[edit]
Initially, the identity and origin of the attackers was unclear. It was widely assumed from Day Two that they were separatists from nearby Chechnya, though President Putin's Chechen aide Aslambek Aslakhanov denied it, saying "they were not Chechens. When I started talking with them in Chechen, they had answered: 'We do not understand; speak Russian.'"[131] Freed hostages said that the hostage-takers spoke Russian with accents typical of Caucasians.[16]
Though Putin had rarely hesitated to blame Chechen separatists for past acts of terrorism, he avoided linking the attack with the Second Chechen War. Instead, he blamed the crisis on the "direct intervention of international terrorism", ignoring the nationalist roots of the crisis.[132] Russian government sources initially claimed that nine of the militants in Beslan were Arabs and one was a black African (called "a negro" by Andreyev),[133][134] though only two Arabs were later identified.[40] Independent analysts such as Moscow political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky said that Putin tried to minimise the number and scale of Chechen terrorist attacks rather than exaggerate them as he had done in the past.[22] Putin appeared to connect the events to the U.S.-led War on Terror,[76] but at the same time accused the West of indulging terrorists.[135]
Official investigations and trials[edit]
Kulayev's interrogation and trial[edit]
The captured suspect, 24-year-old Nur-Pashi Kulayev, born in Chechnya, was identified by former hostages as one of the hostage-takers. The state-controlled Channel One showed fragments of Kulayev's interrogation in which he said his group was led by a Chechnya-born man nicknamed Polkovnik and by the North Ossetia native Vladimir Khodov. According to Kulayev, Polkovnik shot another militant and detonated two female suicide bombers because they objected to capturing children.[183]
In May 2005, Kulayev was a defendant in a court in the Republic of North Ossetia. He was charged with murder, terrorism, kidnapping, and other crimes and pleaded guilty on seven of the counts;[184] many former hostages denounced the trial as a "smoke screen" and "farce".[55] Some of the relatives of the victims, who used the trial in their attempts to accuse the authorities, even called for a pardon for Kulayev so he could speak freely about what happened.[66] The director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, was summoned to give evidence, but he did not attend the trial.[19] Ten days later, on 26 May 2006, Nur-Pashi Kulayev was sentenced to life imprisonment.[185] Kulayev later disappeared in the Russian prison system.[186] Following questions about whether Kulayev had been killed or died in prison, Russian government officials said in 2007 that he was alive and awaiting the start of his sentence.[187]
Investigation by federal prosecutors[edit]
Family members of the victims of the attacks have accused the security forces of incompetence, and have demanded that authorities be held accountable. Putin personally promised to the Mothers of Beslan group to hold an "objective investigation". On 26 December 2005, Russian prosecutors investigating the siege on the school declared that authorities had made no mistakes whatsoever.[188]
Torshin's parliamentary commission[edit]
At a press conference with foreign journalists on 6 September 2004, Vladimir Putin rejected the prospect of an open public inquiry, but cautiously agreed with an idea of a parliamentary investigation led by the State Duma, dominated by the pro-Kremlin parties.[189][190]
In November 2004, the Interfax news agency reported Aleksandr Torshin, head of the parliamentary commission, as saying that there was evidence of involvement by "a foreign intelligence agency" (he declined to say which).[191] On 22 December 2006, the Russian parliamentary commission ended their investigation into the incident. Their report concluded that the number of gunmen who stormed the school was 32 and laid much of the blame on the North Ossetian police, stating that there was a severe shortcoming in security measures, but also criticizing authorities for under-reporting the number of hostages involved.[192] In addition, the commission said the attack on the school was premeditated by Chechen terrorist leadership, including the moderate leader Aslan Maskhadov. In another controversial move, the commission claimed that the shoot-out that ended the siege was instigated by the hostage-takers, not security forces.[193] About the "grounded" decision to use flamethrowers, Torshin said that "international law does not prohibit using them against terrorists."[194] Ella Kesayeva, an activist who leads a Beslan support group, suggested that the report was meant as a signal that Putin and his circle were no longer interested in having a discussion about the crisis.[75]
On 28 August 2006, Duma member Yuri Savelyev, a member of the federal parliamentary inquiry panel, publicised his own report which he said proves that Russian forces deliberately stormed the school using maximum force. According to Savelyev, a weapons and explosives expert, special forces fired rocket-propelled grenades without warning as a prelude to an armed assault, ignoring apparently ongoing negotiations. In February 2007, two members of the commission (Savelyev and Yuri Ivanov) denounced the investigation as a cover-up, and the Kremlin's official version of events as fabricated. They refused to approve the Torshin's report.[73]
Trials of the local police officials[edit]
Three local policemen of the Pravoberezhny District ROVD (district militsiya unit) were the only officials put on trial over the massacre. They were charged with negligence in failing to stop gunmen seizing the school.[195] On 30 May 2007, the Pravoberezhny Court's judge granted an amnesty to them. In response, a group of dozens of local women rioted and ransacked the courtroom by smashing windows, overturning furniture, and tearing down a Russian flag. Victims' groups said the trial had been a whitewash designed to protect their superiors from blame.[196] The victims of the siege said they would appeal against the court judgement.[197]
In June 2007, a court in Kabardino-Balkaria charged two Malgobeksky District ROVD police officials, Mukhazhir Yevloyev and Akhmed Kotiyev, with negligence, accusing them of failing to prevent the attackers from setting up their training and staging camp in Ingushetia. The two pleaded innocent,[198] and were acquitted in October 2007. The verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court of Ingushetia in March 2008. The victims said they would appeal the decision to the European Court for Human Rights.[199]
Criticism of the Russian government[edit]
Allegations of incompetence and rights violations[edit]
The handling of the siege by Vladimir Putin's administration was criticised by a number of observers and grassroots organisations, amongst them Mothers of Beslan and Voice of Beslan.[200] Soon after the crisis, the independent MP Vladimir Ryzhkov blamed "the top leadership" of Russia.[201] Initially, the European Union also criticised the response.[202]
Critics, including Beslan residents who survived the attack and relatives of the victims, focused on allegations that the storming of the school was ruthless. They cite the use of heavy weapons, such as tanks and Shmel rocket flamethrowers.[80][203][204] Their usage was officially confirmed.[205] The Shmel is a type of thermobaric weapon, described by a source associated with the US military as "just about the most vicious weapon you can imagine – igniting the air, sucking the oxygen out of an enclosed area and creating a massive pressure wave crushing anything unfortunate enough to have lived through the conflagration."[11] Pavel Felgenhauer has gone further and accused the government of also firing rockets from an Mi-24 attack helicopter,[206] a claim that the authorities deny.[80] Some human rights activists claim that at least 80% of the hostages were killed by indiscriminate Russian fire.[10] According to Felgenhauer, "It was not a hostage rescue operation ... but an army operation aimed at wiping out the terrorists."[80] David Satter of the Hudson Institute said the incident "presents a chilling portrait of the Russian leadership and its total disregard for human life".[89]
The provincial government and police were criticised by the locals for having allowed the attack to take place, especially since police roadblocks on the way to Beslan were removed shortly before the attack.[207] Many blamed rampant corruption that allowed the attackers to bribe their way through the checkpoints; in fact, this was even what they had openly boasted to their hostages.[66][208][209] Others say the militants took the back roads used by smugglers in collusion with the police.[210] Yulia Latynina alleged that Major Gurazhev was captured after he approached the militants' truck to demand a bribe for what he thought was an oil-smuggling operation.[211] It was also alleged the federal police knew of the time and place of the planned attack; according to internal police documents obtained by Novaya Gazeta, the Moscow MVD knew about the hostage taking four hours in advance, having learned this from a militant captured in Chechnya.[10][212] According to Basayev, the road to Beslan was cleared of roadblocks because the FSB planned to ambush the group later, believing the terrorists' aim was to seize the parliament of North Ossetia in Vladikavkaz.
Critics also charged that the authorities did not organise the siege properly, including failing to keep the scene secure from entry by civilians,[213] while the emergency services were not prepared during the 52 hours of the crisis.[4] The Russian government has been also heavily criticised by many of the local people who, days and even months after the siege, did not know whether their children were alive or dead, as the hospitals were isolated from the outside world. Two months after the crisis, human remains and identity documents were found by a local driver, Muran Katsanov,[11] in the garbage landfill at the outskirts of Beslan; the discovery prompted further outrage.[214][215]
In addition, there were serious accusations that federal officials had not earnestly tried to negotiate with the hostage-takers (including the alleged threat from Moscow to arrest President Dzasokhov if he came to negotiate) and deliberately provided incorrect and inconsistent reports of the situation to the media.
Other incidents and controversies[edit]
Escalation of the Ingush-Ossetian hostility[edit]
Nur-Pashi Kulayev, the sole survivor of the 32 attackers, claimed that attacking a school and targeting mothers and young children was not merely coincidental, but was deliberately designed for maximum outrage with the purpose of igniting a wider war in the Caucasus. According to Kulayev, the attackers hoped that the mostly Orthodox Ossetians would attack their mostly Muslim Ingush and Chechen neighbours to seek revenge, encouraging ethnic and religious hatred and strife throughout the North Caucasus.[247] North Ossetia and Ingushetia had previously been involved in a brief but bloody conflict in 1992 over disputed land in the North Ossetian Prigorodny District, leaving up to 1,000 dead and some 40,000 to 60,000 displaced persons, mostly Ingush.[40] Indeed, shortly after the Beslan massacre, 3,000 people demonstrated in Vladikavkaz calling for revenge against the ethnic Ingush.[40]
The expected backlash against neighbouring nations failed to materialise on a massive scale. In one noted incident, a group of ethnic Ossetian soldiers led by a Russian officer detained two Chechen Spetsnaz soldiers and executed one of them.[248] In July 2007, the office of the presidential envoy for the Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak announced that a North Ossetian armed group engaged in abductions as retaliation for the Beslan school hostage-taking.[40][102][249] FSB Lieutenant Colonel Alikhan Kalimatov, sent from Moscow to investigate these cases, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in September 2007.[250]
Grabovoy affair and the charges against Beslan activists[edit]
In September 2005, the self-proclaimed faith healer and miracle-maker Grigory Grabovoy claimed he could resurrect the murdered children. Grabovoy was arrested and indicted of fraud in April 2006, amidst the accusations that he was being used by the government as a tool to discredit the Mothers of Beslan group.[251]
In January 2008, the Voice of Beslan group, which in the previous year had been court-ordered to disband, was charged by Russian prosecutors with "extremism" for their appeals in 2005 to the European Parliament to help establish an international investigation.[204][252][253] This was soon followed with other charges, some of them relating to the 2007 court incident. As of February 2008, the group was charged in total of four different criminal cases.[254]
Memorial[edit]
Russian Patriarch Alexius II's plans to build an Orthodox church as part of the Beslan monument caused a serious conflict between the Orthodox Church and the leadership of the Russian Muslims in 2007.[255] Beslan victims organisations also spoke against the project, and many in Beslan want the ruins of the school to be preserved, opposing the government plan to demolish them.[256]