What happened in Beslan in 2004?
August 31, 2005
VLADIKAVKAZ. (Alexander Dzadziyev for RIA Novosti.) --On September 1 a year ago, a group of terrorists took hostage the students, teachers and parents in a school in Beslan, North Ossetia (a Russian republic in the North Caucasus). For three days they kept nearly 1,500 children and adults hostage, changing forever the life in the city and giving a new color to the ethnic-political situation in the North Caucasus. The tragedy forced Moscow to proclaim a new policy in the region.
But innovations are taking too long and remain almost invisible to the locals. Moreover, any political change will be useless without an objective assessment of the Beslan tragedy.
First, we should analyze its causes. For some time after the hostage taking, there were fears that it might provoke another armed Ossetian-Ingush conflict. Several hours after it all began, the media reported that the hostages had been taken by the Ingush Jamaat, a militant group allied with illegal Chechen armed groups. Journalists even named the group's leader, Magomed Yevloyev, also known as Magas. It is not clear whom the terrorists could have told their names when taking the hostages, but that false information became everyone's knowledge. It has not been confirmed.
But some media, as well as prominent and obscure Russian political scientists and analysts immediately gave an ethnic color to the Beslan tragedy, predicting another armed Ossetian-Ingush conflict or an Ossetian-Chechen clash. They said that North Ossetia was chosen as the site of the tragedy for a reason, because the republic was a Russian outpost in the North Caucasus.
Some Russian politicians and Ossetian scientists spoke of a Georgian connection, hinting that it was Georgia's revenge for Russian assistance to South Ossetia (a self-proclaimed republic within the boundaries of Georgia). This further aggravated the ethnic-political problems in the North Caucasus.
When suggesting that hostage-takers in Beslan aimed to "provoke a conflict between Ossetians and the Ingush," political scientists and journalists forgot that none of them had ever saw an ethnic lining in the actions of Chechen terrorists in Russia.
The raids in Budennovsk, Kizlyar and Pervomaiskoye, the explosions of residential blocks in Moscow and other cities of Russia (including in North Ossetia), the invasions of Dagestan and Ingushetia, the assassination of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, and many other attacks were staged to intimidate the people.
They showed that Chechen terrorists were fighting a war against Russia as a whole, and not against Stavropol, Dagestan, Ingushetia or Moscow specifically. In this sense, the Beslan tragedy was not an exception but a fresh proof that the conflict that began in Chechnya over a decade ago has long spread beyond the borders of Chechnya. The terrorists' actions are growing more active and diversified.
Thank God, the authorities and people of North Ossetia had the wisdom not to listen to those who predicted, and in so doing nearly provoked, another Ossetian-Ingush conflict. But the settlement of problems between the two ethnic groups has been thrown back.
The attempts to use the Beslan tragedy for fanning anti-Georgian sentiments in South and North Ossetia proved useless either. Nevertheless, we should draw proper conclusions from these events.
Now a few words about international terrorism, which exploited Moscow's weakness in the Caucasus to gain a foothold there. International terrorist organizations evidently supported, and still support, Chechen terrorists. But it is our problem that the Chechen knot that appeared in the early 1990s has not been untied to this day. Moreover, the federal center's attempts to do something about it have limited Moscow's policy in the region to Chechnya and its troubles. After Beslan, the Kremlin tried to change the situation in the Caucasus, but its efforts have brought no results so far, or at least they are not visible to North Ossetians.
The people of the republic were shocked by the Beslan tragedy a year ago. We badly need to know what really happened and who is to blame. The investigation has not answered our questions. We are still waiting for the truth, but our hopes are waning, despite the authorities' promises. The situation in the republic is as grim as it was a year ago. It is impossible to live with the tragedy forever, but in order to get over it we must know that proper lessons have been drawn from it. This cannot be done without learning the truth, which alone can restore people's trust for the authorities and their confidence in the future.
Alexander Dzadziyev is a senior researcher at the department of ethnic-political studies of the North Ossetian Institute of Humanitarian and Social Studies at the Vladikavkaz Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences.