What's Behind the Russian Raid (Kagarlitsky)

[John M Cox <coxj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ZNet | Russia
An Attack Against Society

by Boris Kagarlitsky

October 29, 2002

After special forces commandos stormed the Theater Na Dubrovke early
Saturday morning, the authorities proclaimed the operation a complete
success. They first announced that the enemy had been destroyed with no
losses among the hostages or special forces. Then they mentioned 30 dead.
By midday on Saturday the death toll had reached 67, and in the evening
the Health Ministry officially admitted that "more than 90 people" had
died, after which physicians were forbidden from talking to the press. On
Sunday, the number of dead reached 117.

The crisis saw an unprecedented government crackdown on the media. The
Moskovia television station was taken off the air after broadcasting an
interview with a hostage who called for an end to the war in Chechnya.
After being warned by the authorities, normally opposition-minded Ekho
Moskvy radio toed the official line in its coverage of the hostage
crisis.
The Chechen web site Kavkaz.org was taken offline.

The authorities did in Moscow what they have been doing for more than
three years in Chechnya: They blocked the flow of information, they lied
and passed off defeat as victory. But what the federal government gets
away with in a distant Caucasus republic didn't work in Moscow with
dozens
of journalists and thousands of witnesses watching.
The public was told that the raid was launched only after the gunmen
began
killing hostages. But even law enforcement officials admitted that the
raid had been planned in advance, and that they had intentionally taunted
the gunmen with "leaks" about the upcoming attack in an attempt to keep
the gunmen off-balance (and thereby goad them into starting a fight). It
appears that the gunmen did open fire on the hostages, but only after the
raid was already underway, when people panicked and some likely tried to
escape.

The authorities took special pride in their plan to launch a gas attack
in a closed building. They still have not let the public know what gas was
used. The authorities' reluctance to share any information with the
doctors treating the former hostages isn't hard to understand, however.
It was immediately suspected that they had used poisonous substances
banned under international conventions -- the very substances cited by the
United States in justifying its plan to bomb Iraq. Most of the gunmen were
quickly taken out of action by the gas attack, but not all, as it turned
out. Some of them happened to be in other parts of the building, and they
kept up resistance for about 40 minutes. During that time one or more of
the Chechens could probably have rushed into the main auditorium and
blown
it up or opened fire on the hostages. But this didn't happen.

The gunmen had not begun executing the hostages Saturday morning, and the
raid on the theater led to massive casualties. So was it really necessary
to storm the building? Yes, it was necessary -- politically necessary.
The
authorities needed the raid and all the casualties in order to make it
possible for them to continue the war in Chechnya, to contain the growing
anti-war mood in society, and to demonstrate Vladimir Putin's
decisiveness
and strength of will.

On the evening before the raid, the gunmen let it be known that they
would
free the hostages if the government made an unambiguous commitment to
negotiations. If that commitment had been made, the people in the theater
center could still be alive. But for Putin, such a declaration would have
amounted to political suicide. Putin placed his political prospects above
the lives of the hostages -- a natural decision for a professional
politician or bureaucrat.

The percentage of Russians supporting the war in Chechnya had been
falling

monthly, but the push for a peaceful solution had not developed into a
popular anti-war movement. The hostage crisis changed this situation.
Many
people who used to criticize the war in private stepped up and made their
views known. Relatives of the hostages formed an anti-war committee. This
was not the result of "Stockholm Syndrome," when victims identify with
their captors, or an attempt to please the kidnappers. The morning after
the raid, representatives of the anti-war committee affirmed their
intention to continue protesting the war.

The authorities sensed a threat, not from the gunmen, but from society --

the first real threat of Putin's presidency. Urgent measures were needed,
and they were taken. The crisis made everything clear. The current regime
will never agree to peace under any circumstances. While the current
president and his team are in power, Russia will be at war.

Boris Kagarlitsky

_________________________

John Cox

Chapel Hill, NC

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world,
and moral courage so rare."  Mark Twain

"If the truth is anti-American, then blame the truth, don't blame me."
Malcolm X, Feb. 1965


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