Russia: Beslan School Massacre
Sarah Mendelson
Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS
Thursday, September 09, 2004; 2:00 p.m. ET
Russia is in mourning after officials reported a death toll of 334 people, including 156 children, and 200 still missing in the Beslan school massacre. This week, hundreds of families held funeral processions and laid to rest recovered bodies. An angry President Vladimir Putin lashed out at Western critics who said Russia should pursue a dialogue with Chechen separatists to end the longstanding conflict. Russia has also threatened to
to strike against terrorists "in any region of the world" and offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the killing or capture of Chechnya's top rebel leaders.
Sarah Mendelson, senior fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS, will be online Thursday, Sept. 9, 2 p.m. ET to discuss the school massacre in Beslan and Putin's angered response to terrorism.
Submit your questions before or during the discussion.
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Virginia:
Does Russia have enough resources and expertise to conduct their own preemptive strikes against terrorists around the world? Judging from this most recent disaster, the Russian forces were very disorganized and unprepared to handle such a delicate situation.
Sarah Mendelson: Hi Virginia,
Thanks for the question on resources and possible responses. Let's start from the end of the question first. Many Russians and most observers are trying to piece together what exactly happened in Beslan. We still do not know for example how many Federal troops were deployed. Critics are looking at how the troops were unable to secure a perimeter around the school. As a result, it seems that concerned and terribly anxious residents of Beslan used their own guns. While understandable given the situation, it created a very unstable sitation. So a main issue for Russia at the moment is what did the law enforcement and security services do and what should they have done differently? The first part of your question - does Russia have the resources and expertise is also difficult: on the one hand, it appears that they may have done exactly this in February of this year in Qatar - a Chechen was assassinated and many believe it was the Russians that did it. On the other hand, the intelligence failure that occured inside Russia lead many to think this sort of assassination is unlikely to be done very much outside Russia. This of course sets aside the issue of whether this is legal. It may well be that General Baluevsky's comments about preemption made yesterday are intended as a deterrent of further action.
Thanks
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Arlington, Va.:
Why is the United States not stepping up on this situation? We are in a supposed "War on Terror", and this certainly qualifies as terror, in my opinion. Are we only fighting terror that directly affects our nation and our citizens? None of us will truly be free of terror until we all are. Thoughts? Sarah Mendelson: Arlington - The Russian government has generally wanted verbal support but not much else on the issue of Chechnya. I would ask your question differently - is their a role for the international community in the situation that Russia faces. If you believe as I do - and many others inside and outside of RUssia - that what happened in Beslan is related to a ten year long war, then the answer is yes, there is something to be done. But even if you look at Beslan as President Putin claims as part of the international war on terror, there is a role for the international community. Frankly, unlike conflicts in many parts of the world, such as in Northern Ireland, this is a war that has received little attention. There is enormous amounts of work to be done before anyone has serious real answers of what to do.
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Tampa, Fla.:
How much of the blame for the disasterous Russian policy in Chechnya must lay on those who refuse to change the Russian army from mass conscript Soviet-style force to a modern professional force? It seem the Russians are making th same mistakes we did in Vietnam: draft some kid, show him how to shoot a rifle, then send him off to fight a war requiring far more than merely shooting straight. Would not a modern, highly-trained professional fighting force have a better chance of stopping the die-hard Islamists without antagonizing the general population than the current Rusian army?
Sarah Mendelson: Hi Tampa, The lack of reform in the army is an enormously important one for Russians regardless of what they think about the war in Chechnya. In surveys we have done, as many as 65% of the population want to end the draft and this number goes to 80% if you ask women between the ages of 30 and 50. I do think it is important to recognize that Russia faces a very serious terrorist problem that its army and other armed forces are not well configured to combat. President Putin in fact mentioned corruption in his address on Saturday to the public on how we all should understand this tragedy. Many journalists who have been to Chechnya report that the forces on the ground have been implicated in serious corruption including the selling of arms to the very people they are meant to be fighting. If true, this is an utter failure. I also think the on-going war in Chechnya has meant it is almost impossible to get serious reform of the army. The reasons for this are too complicated to go into here but suffice to say that the war in Chechnya has many different terrible effects on life in the rest of Russia.
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Reston, Va.:
I just wanted to say for those who want to donate funds to the families that you can find information on the Russian embassy website and at this one: www.moscowhelp.org -a nonprofit. I am not affliated with them in any way but I did donate and hope more will do so. Thanks.
Sarah Mendelson: Reston - I want to say that I have looked into this as well and am planning on donating to the British Charity Aids Foundation (CAF). I have known this organization for many years and they are on the ground in Beslan and worked in the region even before this crisis. Our support will go to at least two different kinds of support: one immediate, for medical needs, and the other more long term addressing educational needs in that town. I have no formal or informal affiliation with this group - just have been an admirer of their work for some time.
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Arlington, Va.:
It certainly is not the case the before the recent terrorist blows that the Russians had been pursuing their campaign in Chechnya with kid gloves. Many journalists have confirmed a status quo where masked men in unmarked vehicles pick up terrorist "suspects" in the middle of the night who are never seen or heard from again. So when the Russians say they are going to get tough, just what does that mean?
Sarah Mendelson: Arlington, I get emails every few days from human rights organizations on the ground that detail disappearances of civilians. Not only do I get these but so do many journalists. So what does get tough mean? It could mean as the mayor of Moscow suggested that Chechens are not allowed in the city. It could mean that those who track the war will be harassed. It could mean the Russians will again bomb Chechnya. It could mean that they will increase the number of troops on the ground - by some accounts numbering now at about 80,000 to 100,000. I don't know what it means and I am not sure that the Russian government has made a policy decision. I am fearful that the response will instead of containing extremists breed more of them. I am very afraid of what this will mean for Russia.
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Anonymous:
Can you explain the terrorists' rationale? Seems to me they just damned their cause. I think it's safe to say that backing down in the face of a threat isn't exactly a Russian national characteristic. Brutality, however, has been at times.
And as far as I can see, they've pretty much given Putin carte blanche to be however harsh he chooses to be. I know I, perhaps unfairly, am a whole lot less sympathetic to Chechens' suffering than I was....
So again, this horrible act was supposed to help the Chechen cause how?
Sarah Mendelson: Anonymous - I cannot begin to get inside the mind of such people. They have been so utterly dehumanized it is hard to fathom how they could do what they did. But I have witnessed the effect as have you: people are talking about the war. Part of what is so tragic to me about all this is that the only time - literally the only time - the media ever cover Chechnya is when there is a terrorist event. Before this happened and especially now, there needs to be a more sustained focus on it. I don't know that the shock of it all will ever totally go away. The terrorists broke such taboos - shooting children in the back - it is hard to think rationally about any of this. But I am hoping that the international community - and specifically organizations such as the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, dedicate time, resources and senior leadership to focusing on this. If you cannot sympathize with the Chechen cause (not sure what you mean by that since the population is very diverse) then for sure you can sympathize with the idea that areas such as Chechnya are in a sense like a failed state - except of course it is inside Russia. In other words, the chaos of Chechnya is a security threat to us all. Therefore we need to focus on it and at least explore some options.
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Washington, D.C.:
Do you think this could have happened under communism? Do you think many Russians are asking themselves this same question?
Sarah Mendelson: Washington DC - Under communism, that is, under Stalin, during World War II, Chechens and Ingush were deported. That is, entire populations were uprooted and moved and many died in the process. The legacy of those deportations is alive today. What I see people saying is that if Stalin were alive, this would not have happened. I think this is a very dangerous line of argument - because it either means they know about the deportations and support them, or it means they don't know what Stalin did. Nostalgia for Stalin is not going to make Russia safer.
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Chevy Chase, Md.:
Thank you so much for taking questions regarding this horrible incident. I think it would be safe to say that the terrorists who carried out this attack on innocent children stooped to a new low. Have Chechen separtists lost any possibility of gaining an independent state because of the barbarity of these attacks?
Sarah Mendelson: Chevy Chase, I am at a loss as to how to answer your question. I don't see "independence" happening and yet I don't see how the status quo can continue. Russians have for a long time not supported the status quo - but they have been split on what to do. In fact, our July 2004 survey on this issue suggested for the first time in several years of surveying that about 50% were ready for some sort of ceasefire or withdrawal. That number had greatly increased from years past. Support for miltiary intensification had actually gone down. Now, who knows? I want to add that lost in all this of course is the majority of the Russian citizens who live in Chechnya who we can all imagine what just to live - to have families, to have health. I don't know how this is going to happen in the near future.
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New York, NY:
Many Russian analysts outside Russia have levied sharp criticism against the Putin government even prior to its handling of the Beslan tragedy - relating to corruption, authoritarianism, media suppression, etc. Yet Putin seems to remain a popular leader by the Russian people. How do you explain Putin's public support and does this support extend to his handling of the Chechen issue?
Sarah Mendelson: New York - Interesting and complex questions. Analysts inside Russia also share these views. I have seen more criticism in the past few days of the government in the Russian printed press than I can remember. It has really astounded me. It is as if the media awoke from a three year slumber and suddenly started to ask really hard questions about Chechnya, about the security services, about the president. Shifting to the public, because the media has been so controlled, it has an effect on support for the president. There has been no real criticism allowed. And the coverage of the war has been so controlled. But this tragedy has blown the cover off the story and it has conflicted with the message that Putin was putting out - that Russia was safer, that the war was over, that Chechnya was normalized. The long-term effect is hard to gage. We have surveyed after other horrible events such as the theatre hostage crisis in 2002 and three months after the event, opinion was back to where it had been before. Many of my colleagues think this will be the same with this event. I am not so sure. I think Putin has lost something in all this.
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Washington, DC:
How would you suggest that the people of Moscow (and other cities) prevent subway attacks/suicide bombings? Do you know if they have any security measures being developed?
I hurt for those killed in the school. I have many friends all over Russia and each time something like this happens, it breaks my heart a little more.
Sarah Mendelson: Washington DC, my heart breaks too. Your question has brought tears to my eyes.
How to make Moscovites and others safer - this is an issue for all of us, isn't it? These are the sorts of questions I would love to see all of us talking about. Russia cannot solve all these issues on its own. Nor can the US. How do we make densely populated areas more secure for terrorists on all sorts of levels. I can certainly imagine a meeting of the emergency response teams of Moscow, London and NY.
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Austin, TX:
I think about the parallels with 9/11. Without arguing about Iraq, etc., just think about all the people who have suffered harassment, imprisonment, injury, or worse as a consequence of 9/11. And the US has (generally) professional and well-trained police and military forces, and a long commitment (however imperfectly realized) to human rights and individual freedom. Russia, to varying degrees, lacks all of those things.
The aftermath is going to be ugly, isn't it?
Sarah Mendelson: Austin, I am worried about this. Those of us who focus on human rights are very worried about this. But there is also a security element to it as well. I think we are seeing more and more examples of enormous human rights abuses creating instability and conflict. If the path leads to more of this, it will not make Russia safer.
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Arlington, VA:
How credibly are experts viewing the testimony of the person being paraded as the lone captured hostage-taker? It seems to me that some of the statements attributed to him are taken almost verbatim from Putin's speech, especially the part about how the intent was to create turmoil throughout the Caucasus (as opposed to getting the Russians out of Chechnya).
Sarah Mendelson: Arlington, It is very hard to judge from here. I cannot tell if torture has been used, but one might assume it has been. I think we will have to keep watching. Whether the intent was to create turmoil, I think we should be very concerned about the spread of the war.
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Monterey, Calif.:
Is there any reason why it's useful or accurate to lump "terrorists" from entirely different contexts and cultures into the same category?
Sarah Mendelson: Monterery - I don't actually think it is useful to lump all terrorists together and yet we can agree that these were horrible terror inducing acts. But the lumping does not buy us much. It may make us feel better. I have noticed some columnists doing this of late.
I think it is also not useful to lump all Chechens together. I have been thinking a lot about how diverse different groups are inside Chechnya and yet we are constantly talking about the most radical, extremist element.
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Lyon, France:
Can Putin survive politically without a harsh response against the muslim terrorists? Doesn't the Russian public demand severe retaliation?
Sarah Mendelson: Lyon, I have not seen national level data yet on the response. Before this, the Russian population was moving away from supporting a miltiary solution. There are many factors that play into Putin's survival beyond this crisis. I do think he faces an enormous crisis though in how he handles the need for serious reform of police and security services. More of these terrorist strikes will lead to greater vulnerability at the same time he needs to be transforming these institutions. Masha Lipman today in the Washington Post paints a bleak picture of how alone Putin is in facing these tasks.
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Sarah Mendelson:
Thank you all for your interest, for your concern, and for your thoughts. I am sorry I could not address all of them. I am especially sorry I don't have answers yet for some of the really hard questions about what to do next. Worse, I am worried that no one has the answers. I strongly feel we all in the international community have barely begun to really think through many of the issues you raise. I am hoping in the months to come that there are opportunities here and in Europe and in Russia to talk about what happened and to figure out what should be done next. I side stepped the issue of negotiation because I think it is easy to say no and that more force should be used but I do not believe that will make Russia or Europe or the US safer. I am not clear though on what should be done. So in the meantime, I will send money to the families of Beslan, and keep thinking through and working on many of the issues you raise today.
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