Subject: RE: 9220-Aslund
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005
From: "Jeremy Putley" <jeremy.putley@Maunbyinvestments.co.uk>
I have some remarks on the interesting article by Anders Aslund.
Putin's conduct during the Beslan school siege was not only dysfunctional, it was an abdication. If Putin had gone in person to Beslan to attempt to resolve the situation, that would have been appropriate. If he had resigned, as demanded by the hostage-takers, that too would have been appropriate. But instead he did nothing, and went on television to lie to the Russian people about "international terrorism." He should have resigned during the events in order to save lives, but not having done so he should have resigned afterwards, and so should Patrushev and the other incompetents who so disgracefully failed in their duty.
The Beslan tragedy's cause was the disastrous, failed Chechnya policy adopted by Putin on coming into office. Mr Aslund does not refer to the 1999 apartment building explosions. They are not directly relevant to his thesis, and perhaps he does not believe they were the work of the FSB or other power structures, but Senator John McCain was not averse to alleging that they could have been.
The elevation of Putin to the chair of the G8 is a disgrace to the G7 because it is happening when it has been disclosed that 52 mass graves have been found in Chechnya, containing the bodies of Chechens who have been tortured and murdered by federal forces sent there by Putin, or their local proxies. This was worth a mention.
The number of the hostages killed at the theatre siege by the rescuers was not 129, it was almost 200. This is confirmed in Anna Politkovskaya's excellent book, published in England as Putin's Russia.
To count four policy blunders, and to omit the disastrous Chechnya policy from that count, is a curious omission, since Chechnya deserves to head the list.