Now that we know what happened in Beslan, other questions arise: how did it happen and why? And, most importantly, what kind of country will Russia become as a result of this tragedy? Events of this nature always have their political consequences.

Andrei Tsunsky

The question “how” consists of a thousand minor details and several crucial moments. How did the guerillas manage to enter the town, get so many people into a school, and instantly mine the building? How many terrorists were there? And how many hostages all told? How did the guerillas manage to get explosives into the building and what amount of explosives did they have? More than a week has passed. We have yet to hear any clear answers. Perhaps we will never get them, as the president decided not to conduct public investigations, concerned they might deteriorate into a political spectacle.
These concerns are understandable. Nonetheless, this decision to keep investigations closed does not seem right. The very scale of the tragedy would prevent it from becoming a political circus. Those who want to take advantage of this national tragedy will. The authorities should take the plunge and increase public access to the facts behind the nightmare in Beslan. This will be received extremely positively by the Russian public. Russians already understand what’s going on. They understand that despite the series of terrorist attacks in late August no one bothered to secure in Northern Ossetia or if they did, it would have been just as well if they hadn’t.

A high official for every bandit

After President Putin talked on the phone from his plane with President of Northern Ossetia Dzasokhov, he was met by the local minister of internal affairs Nurgaliev and local director of the FSB Patrushev. The president immediately ordered them to Beslan. A few days passed and what exactly the minister and the director were doing in Beslan was still not clear. Why did they have to be there? To force local authorities to expend extra energy acting as bodyguards? To give valuable orders? In any case, if they hadn’t been there, things would not have been any worse. There is no better way to cause chaos than to send the heads of two competing agencies into an area where delicate emergency operations are underway. In general, in this kind of situation the fewer bureaucrats, the better.

A professional’s eye

Sergei Goncharov, former Alfa operative, has his own view: “The three officers who died in Beslan and the injured we carried away from the site were the largest losses Alfa has suffered in its thirty years of existence. This isn’t because the terrorists have gotten smarter or the training of special forces has gotten worse. There is another reason. The leadership of the operation was not organized. I still don’t know who was in command. Basically, they made one obvious mistake after another from the word go. The first mistake was constantly changing the number of hostages. First there were two hundred, then three hundred, then four hundred fifty. The second mistake was they didn’t understand their opponents’ objectives. It was clear from the beginning that the terrorists weren’t going anywhere. Even if we had cleared a way for them and rolled out the red carpet. They had their orders: to horrify the world for a certain number of days. This is why messing around with numbers and reducing the number of hostages was a mistake. The terrorists weren’t happy with the numbers and their PR was ruined. They wanted a thousand people, but the TV lied and reduced the drama of the situation. This of course provoked them to be cruel to the hostages, to murder, and resulted in the most tragic possible end to the events.
“In addition, the parents of the children inside the school were struck with horror but for a different reason. If they were announcing lower numbers of hostage, this meant they were getting ready to storm the building.
“The question of who allowed these people to come to town with guns and explosives is not for Alfa or even Vympel. It’s the problem of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. By the way, I still don’t understand why General Andreev took responsibility for making all the public statements related to the situation. In my opinion, when something like this happens, everybody, including the presidents of republics and provincial governors, should do what the experts say, even those responsible for the operation from a competing agency. They shouldn’t go sticking their noses into other people’s business.”

The words everyone was waiting for

The president’s address was ambiguous. It contained some propositions that are understandable. However, it also has its odd moments. The use of the word “we” was particularly annoying. “We missed” or “we allowed.” But we had nothing to do with it. It was government officials who wouldn’t admit that a war was on. They used various euphemisms, and someone should be held responsible for this. Teachers should be ready to teach, students to learn, and parents to buy school supplies and books. What were the generals ready for?
What Putin said about the hostility toward Russia behind the diplomatic smiles of Western countries completely reflected the reality. When we began perestroika and moved toward the free world, we thought that we would enter the family of civilized peoples. We thought they would welcome us and want us to join them. We were often told that they would help us and that the world would be open, transparent, and filled with good will. Any competition would be fair. While we did develop good relationships with various individuals and individual organizations, but we never got the promised warm welcome at the level of political institutions. When events like Beslan happen, it becomes obvious that Russia is still seen as a threat. The headlines in the Western papers speak loudest of all, declaring something along the lines of “Yet Another Russian Failure in Chechya.” Putin is right: there won’t be any warm welcome and we are on our own. This might have sounded harsh from the president’s mouth, but it was sincere and honest.
The proposition to create an anti-terrorism system is a good in that it promises not to damage the Constitution or civil rights. The temptation to do so is great. If there were to be a referendum to change the Constitution and give additional powers to security agencies, there is a 90% chance that it would pass in this atmosphere of fear. The president’s statement allows us to hope that at least formally, Russian civil liberties will remain in tact. The efficiency of bureaucratic wrangling regarding security issues will approach zero if higher officials will not be held personally responsible and if the public will not be able to monitor law enforcement agencies.

No new terrorists

One can’t help but come to certain conclusions after analyzing the police operations against a specific terrorist attack. First of all, police are not enough to fight terrorism, which has been clear for a long time. Secondly, the problem cannot be solved by “Chechenization” alone, as it spread outside of Chechnya long ago. We need a dialogue. A dialogue of cultures and ethnic groups. We need a strategy focused on increasing the level of interaction and mutual respect among all of Russia’s citizens. We need this strategy in order to reduce and finally destroy step by step the political and cultural breeding grounds where terrorism finds its recruits. We need to understand how it recruits. Russia is not the only target for these monsters.

What we must reject

First and foremost, we have to do more than just look busy. For example, let’s rip the security cameras off the walls. They only make people angry and don’t help identify anyone. In Beslan, we became convinced that terrorists couldn’t care less about their victims’ religious beliefs, hair color, or facial features. Security cameras should be manned by specially trained people who know who to identify a person based on certain characteristics or eyewitness accounts.
We don’t need to reject the idea of an anti-terrorism system. We should have one and we need one. We should reject notions like “it’s impossible to stick a police officer next to every school and theater.” Who said it’s impossible? But we need to explain to this police officer why he’s standing there and give him special training. Otherwise, he will simply be killed.
Moreover, we shouldn’t be afraid that if we explain the dangers of terrorism to our children, they will live in constant fear. We explain to them that it’s dangerous to stick your finger in a light socket, to play with matches, and to play in traffic. If terrorism has become a real danger, we need to explain to them how to behave in emergencies.
Today it would be truly dangerous to destabilize the political situation. This is obvious from the example of North Ossetia. There is no point in demanding Dzasokhov resign at the moment. To remove the head of a region where a tragedy like this has occurred is to push it one step closer to lawlessness and war. The terrorists couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. This would be in direct support of the terrorists’ “master plan.”
In general, it is important when criticizing the authorities that we don’t try to overthrow them. This will only make them tighten the screws even more, which won’t help anyone. It especially won’t help those who are trying to overturn the government and who are hardly able to take on that responsibility. We have to understand clearly that the disintegration of the country is a completely realistic threat. The disintegration of a country with as many nuclear weapons as Russia would mean more than a simple alienation of regions from the center. The loss of Russia would be final and irreversible. For some it would mean occupation and for some a wretched existence, while others would turn into natives huddled around the oil well…
However, we can’t just keep quiet because we understand that after Nord-Ost the authorities could not focus. We need to think critically about what the authorities are doing. We need precise and constructive criticism of events, issues, and details. We are obligated to fight for the answers. The battle is lost but not the war. No one has ended the war and we will continue to come under attack. We can’t defend ourselves with “internal investigations.” The authorities have to be open with the public. Information is a warning and those who are warned are armed for the fight.

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