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By Root 1120 0

the terrorist attack, on the morning of September 1, as anybody who took an interest in the matter has known for a long time. Who initiated these contacts? Well actually, as it happens, I did, which is why I know. Indeed this fact of when contact was made with Maskhadov’s side was later recorded in the evidence of Alexander Torshin’s “Parliamentary Grand Commission.” Again, I gave that evidence in the Soviet of the Federation and Mr Torshin subsequently made use of it when discussing the Beslan tragedy in a television documentary on its first anniversary. The documentary was televised, and I can only suppose that somebody from Kesayev’s Commission must have seen it.

According to the Commission, the North Ossetian leaders (Dzasokhov and Mamsurov) attempted to contact Maskhadov but were unsuccessful. That too is incorrect. On September 3 Mr Dzasokhov spoke to Mr Zakayev, at that time Maskhadov’s Special Envoy in Europe, and Mr Zakayev asked only for a corridor for Maskhadov to travel through. Mr Dzasokhov promised to make the arrangements, but didn’t lift his mobile phone again, and the assault began.

One other conclusion of the report: it is asserted that these contacts were in any case pointless, because Maskhadov and Zakayev were complicit in organising the terrorism. This leads to a claim that the North Ossetian leaders were right to rule out negotiating with these guilty parties.

The Beslan inquiries fail to consider the most important point: that all these questions (whether tanks fired on the school and when, whether there were Bumblebee helicopters overhead) would never have been necessary if the leaders had only negotiated. Higher-ups in Moscow, however, gave the signal to attack, and the small fry in Vladikavkaz did as they were told. Taking that hard-line path, they turned the tragedy into a full-scale military operation, with catastrophic consequences.

It seems legitimate to ask what, actually, was the point of this inquiry? Was it for the victims, firstly, so that they should be clear who was responsible for the deaths of their dearest? Was it for society, to avoid anything of the sort being repeated?

To avoid a repetition does not mean making sure that during the next terrorist attack the next FSB general thinks twice before bringing in tanks, and instead decides to use a top secret weapon which is silent, colorless, has no smell and can never be detected.

That is not what is meant at all. To avoid a repetition it is essential that next time the state authorities should immediately, without losing a minute, enter into negotiations, should know how far they are prepared to negotiate, and have negotiators to hand. And that that plan should be carried out fully, so that it never again comes to gunfire and explosions.

“THE PRESIDENT SIMPLY DISAPPEARED FROM THE LIST OF WITNESSES”

January 23, 2006

The first meeting in the New Year of the Federal Parliamentary Commission on Beslan, chaired by Alexander Torshin, will be held on January 26, 2006. As already reported, there has been a split. On December 28, just before the New Year holiday, an account of the work the Commission has done in the past 16 months was delivered, rather than the long-promised report. The account was manifestly superficial and derived from the assertions of the official investigation. Most of the Commission’s members kept entirely silent, true to their signed undertaking not to talk about material matters or how the Commission’s work was proceeding. One member with a different view is Yury Ivanov, a Communist Deputy in the State Duma, who replied to our newspaper’s questions.

Yury Pavlovich Ivanov has been a Communist Party Deputy of the State Duma since 1994 and is currently Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on Development of the Constitution. He is no longer a signed-up member of the Communist Party, is aged 61, and is a well-known barrister. He defended Vladimir Kryuchkov, Director of the KGB, during the case against the 1991 putsch conspirators; Alexander Rutskoy after the shelling of Parliament in October 1993; and the Communist