A R C H I V E S
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| Chechneya |
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| Red |
| 10/25/02 at 09:46:03 |
| Russian Security Chief Makes Offer 1 hour, 18 minutes ago By ERIC ENGLEMAN, Associated Press Writer Yahoo http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=514&ncid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20021025/ap_on_re_eu/russia_theater_raid_109 The top Russian security official Friday guaranteed the lives of Chechen rebels holding hostages in a Moscow theater if they release their estimated 600 captives — including 30 children and 75 foreigners. It was Russia's first known offer to the rebels since they took the hostages as they watch a popular musical production Wednesday night. The Chechens, including women who claimed to be widows of ethnic insurgents, freed eight children Friday, but negotiations broke down over the promised release of the foreign captives, including three Americans. Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Security Service, made the offer after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), Russian news agencies reported. "We are conducting talks and will conduct talks, hoping that they will bring positive results in freeing the hostages," Patrushev was quoted as saying by the Interfax agency. Details of Patrushev's statement were not immediately available and it was not clear if the guarantee had been transmitted to the approximately 50 armed Chechen rebels. The gunmen have demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from the Caucasus province of Chechnya (news - web sites). Earlier, a Web site linked to the rebels said they would blow up the theater if the Russians did not withdraw in seven days. The children, dressed in winter coats and one of them clutching a stuffed bear toy with aviator goggles, appeared to be in good health as they were accompanied by Red Cross representatives. A Swiss citizens was among the group of children, ages 6-12, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Officials at the Swiss Embassy in Moscow could not be reached for comment. "The children were released without any conditions," said Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee, who served as a contact with representatives of foreign governments. NTV television quoted one girl as saying she was fine but she was very worried about her mother, who remained inside the theater. So far 54 hostages have been released, and about 100 people were believed to have escaped during the confusing first minutes of the hostage-taking. On Thursday, two women raced to freedom under fire from a grenade launcher. Their escape came after medics dragged the body of a young woman from the theater. She was shot in the chest and was the only known fatality of the siege. She reportedly was killed as she tried to move around inside the theater after the attack began. Several dozen cast members of the show that was in progress when the rebels stormed the facility Wednesday night gathered near the theater Friday afternoon. With tears running down their faces, they sang songs from the musical and read an appeal to Putin to end the crisis peacefully. Hopes for a major break in the crisis rose Friday morning with a report that the estimated 75 foreign hostages would be released, but officials said negotiations broke down. "We're very concerned that no other hostages have been freed and that the terrorists are not prepared to discuss the release of other hostages," U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said minutes after the children were freed. The reason for the breakdown was not specified. Alexander Zharkov, head of the Russian Red Cross, said earlier that copies of the passports of some hostages were given to the gunmen. The hostages include Americans, Britons, Dutch, Australians, Austrians and Germans, and embassies were requested to send representatives to the scene to meet their freed citizens, Federal Security Service spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said. Seven Russian men and women released earlier Friday were receiving medical care, but Ignatchenko declined to say why they were chosen. Officials expressed hopes that the approximately 30 children among the captives would be freed Friday as well. Russian NTV crews were allowed inside with a doctor Friday and videotape was broadcast showing three male captors — in camouflage and carrying Kalashnikov-style rifles — were seen sitting in what appeared to be a kitchen. Two wore black masks. The television identified a third man, who wore no mask, as group leader Movsar Barayev, a nephew of rebel warlord Arbi Barayev, who reportedly died last year. Two women in the group of rebels wore robes with Arabic script on the head coverings. Only their eyes were exposed, and they cradled pistols against their chests. The women had what looked to be explosives wrapped in tape around their waists. The packages were wired to a small button the women carried in their hands. The captors made no comments in the broadcast footage, which also later included a brief clip of six women hostages guarded by a female attacker. Dr. Leonid Roshal, head of the Medical Center for Catastrophes who accompanied the television crew, said the hostages were trying to stay calm. A few were hysterical. He treated the hostages for various minor ailments — including eye trouble, coughs and high blood pressure — and left behind medications. He left the theater early Friday. "In general, the situation is calm," he said. "We are safe and sound, it's warm and we have water and there's nothing else we need in a situation like this," hostage Anna Adrianova told a radio station early Friday. She said the hostages were pleading with Russian leaders to end the crisis without force. Another hostage, however, said the situation inside the theater was tense and conditions were worsening. The captives had not received food or water and were using the theater's orchestra pit as a toilet. Yelena Malyonkina, spokeswoman for the "Nord-Ost" musical being staged in the theater, said captive production official Anatoly Glazychev told her a bomb was placed in the center of the theater and the stage and aisles were mined. "Both the terrorists and hostages are nervous," Malyonkina said. A hot water pipe burst overnight and was flooding the ground floor, Ignatchenko said, but the terrorists called it a "provocation" and no agreement was reached to send a repair crew. Ignatchenko said some hostages were sympathizing with their captors' and calling relatives by cell phones to ask them to stage anti-war demonstrations in Moscow. About 100 protesters arrived as dawn broke Friday, carrying banners and chanting anti-war slogans, pushing against metal police barriers. Several said they were responding to requests to protest in calls from relatives. Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasiliyev warned that unauthorized mass demonstrations would not be tolerated. "You may regard this as a warning to the hotheads who intend to stir up passions. If anything of this kind happens, we will act toughly," he said. Putin said the audacious raid was planned by terrorists based outside Russia, and the Qatar-based satellite television channel Al-Jazeera broadcast statements allegedly made by some hostage-takers. "I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living," a black-clad male said in remarks believed to have been recorded Wednesday. "Each one of us is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of God and the independence of Chechnya." The hostage-taking occurred less than three miles from the Kremlin and further undermined claims by Putin and other Russian officials that the situation is under control in Chechnya, where Russian soldiers suffer casualties daily in skirmishes or mine explosions. Over the past decade, Chechens or their sympathizers have been involved in a number of bold, often bloody hostage-taking situations in southern Russian provinces, especially in Dagestan. Nearly 200 hundred hostages and rescuers died in two of operations. |
| Chechens in Moscow Face Ethnic Threats |
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| Red |
| 10/25/02 at 20:15:58 |
| Chechens in Moscow Face Ethnic Threats By, Dhamir Ahmed & Atef Moatamid, IOL Staff http://www.islamonline.net/english/news/2002-10/25/article87.shtml MOSCOW, October 25 (IslamOnline) – The Russian media, since the outbreak of the hostage-taking crisis Wednesday, October 23, has started an instigation campaign against Chechens, in general, and those living on Russian soil, in particular. Russian TV Channels air, on an hourly basis, the latest details of the crisis, followed by analysis by experts talking about “barbaric Chechen women” and “Chechen insects” that must be wiped out. As a result, threats against Chechens, living in Moscow, increased sharply, leading the Chechen community in Moscow to follow a self-imposed curfew and stay home. In a move indicating the gravity of the ethnic threats, Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, warned Friday, October 25, against the surge in anti-Chechen sentiment among Russians, sparked by the hostage crisis. "I have just received the Interior Minister's worrying report about increased threats against Chechens living in small communities on Russian territory," RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Putin as saying. "We must not allow such a negative development or give in to provocations. We must avoid unlawful action," Putin noted. The Russian authorities, for their part, took several measures to stop “the spread of hostage-takers’ ideas, on one hand, and to prevent comments provoking anti-Muslim sentiments (among the Russians), on the other”. The Russian Ministry of Media decided Friday to block Moscowvita paper, “in response to the paper’s violation of regulations banning publishing material pertaining to terror support”. The paper has published a statement by one of the hostage-takers. In some Moscow suburbs, assaults against Chechen citizens were reported. According to Gazitta Rau paper, Chechen citizens in Siribiryanka village, estimated at 1000, were assaulted by local Russians, who formed armed militia to “finish” the Chechens. However, the Russian security forces intervened in time to prevent “a massacre”. |
| Bitter Scenarios for Russian Hostage Crisis |
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| Red |
| 10/25/02 at 20:18:34 |
| Bitter Scenarios for Russian Hostage Crisis http://www.islamonline.net/english/news/2002-10/25/article77.shtml By Atef Moatamid, IOL Staff MOSCOW, October 25 (IslamOnline) – While everybody held their breath, following the hostage crisis in a Moscow theatre, with little chance of reasoning what may come out eventually, a widely-circulated Russian paper published “the expected scenarios” to end the tragic crisis. Based on past experiences in covering the Chechen war, raging since the early nineties of the past century, as well as similar crises, Izvestia paper Thursday, October 24, anticipated the worst crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, to develop into one of three scenarios. After long negotiations (between the Russian authorities and hostage takers), mediations by various humanitarian and international groups, the Russian government, in a bid to save the lives of more than 700 hostages and to keep its international image, will give in to the hostage takers’ demands (called Mujahideen by the Russian paper). As was the case before (in similar cases), the hostage takers will come out, protected by human shields (members of parliament and media persons) and head to a destination they choose (Chechen and Degistan mountains), with guarantees of international participation in negotiations to settle the independence of Chechnya and Degistan. According to the paper, the result (of this scenario) will be establishing a new precedent for regions and areas to seek separate (from Russia) via the same method. Based on the huge political losses (to be suffered by Russia) of adopting the first scenario, Russian generals emphasize the ability of their special forces to sweep the theatre, guaranteeing minimal human loss. Such a scenario will be prepared for by stressing the fact of “a sure amount of loss among hostages and forces alike”. The generals will, according to Ivesti, argue that in previous similar cases, Russia’s giving in (to the demands of hostage takers) never yielded anything good. In similar hostage crises, the Russian forces expressed regret over resorting to dialogue with hostage takers. The third scenario projects a limited military assault, bound to fail (in completely solving the crisis), followed by negotiations leading to hostage takers coming out safely, without meeting their demands, and with just guarantees of international participation in future negotiations to settle the Chechen crisis. The paper predicted the third scenario as “the most likely”, even though it hoped the Russian authorities could come up with a fourth scenario. Meanwhile, demonstrators surrounded the Moscow theatre, location of the hostage crisis, calling for the end of Chechnya war, and urging a peaceful end to the bloody conflict. Within the same context, Germany reaffirmed Friday that Russia's conflict with Chechen separatists could only be solved by diplomatic, rather than military, means, adding ,however, that nothing could justify Chechen rebels taking hostages. "(The Chechen conflict) cannot be resolved by military means but only with political methods," government spokesman Thomas Steg was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying. Steg said this was also the official position of the 15-nation European Union. But in a newspaper interview on Friday, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the bloody Chechnya conflict, now in its fourth year, did "not justify terrorism". "Nothing can justify hostage-taking and terror and they (the hostage-takers) must be roundly condemned," Fischer told the daily Bild. "Russia is part of the international alliance against terror. It belongs among the states which confirmed they would support each other in the fight against terrorists," he said. In a separate related development, threats against Chechens, living in Moscow, increased sharply, leading the Chechen community in Moscow to follow a self-imposed curfew and stay home. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, warned Friday, October 25, against the surge in anti-Chechen sentiment among Russians, sparked by the hostage crisis. "I have just received the interior minister's worrying report about increased threats against Chechens living in small communities on Russian territory," RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Putin as saying. "We must not allow such a negative development or give in to provocations. We must avoid unlawful action," Putin noted. "Chechens, like the other peoples of Russia, are fighting for Russia's interests and their republic's civilized future, often at risk to their own lives," the President pointed out, referring to the pro-Moscow administration and police in the war-torn Caucasian republic of Chechnya. Pro-Russian Chechen officials are considered collaborators by the independence seekers and are frequently attacked and killed. |
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