The Fathers of Beslan and the Silver Mercedes Jeep - II

Here is a quick translation of the next section of Yulia Latynina's text:

Without having been there, on the spot, it is difficult to visualize the situation in the republic. And the point is not that that the new head of Ossetia Mamsurov and his entourage are bad people, on whom Moscow has placed a gambling bet. The point is that the republic is ruled by criminal money. There is other kind. It is possible to choose a policy that deals in vodka. It is possible to choose one that trades in narcotics. And it is possible to choose one that trades in people. A very wide political spectrum, is it not? Choose, citizens. Place your bets.

Of course, there are decent people, too. But if you appoint a decent person to lead a republic in which the entire elite is a criminal one, it’s much the same as appointing a sheep to lead wolves. A guarantee that the wolves will not obey.

It was in this nest of serpents that Beslan happened. And the mothers of Beslan proved to be the only force that lay outside the system and was not connected with the universal club.

From the wings, it all seems simple: there is the truth about the act of terror, which must be explained. And there are the mothers of Beslan, who are ascertaining this truth. They get up and testify in court: "A tank fired on the school". And the prosecutor rises and shouts: "Why are you lying?"

But since the mothers have nothing to lose, they continue to speak and to ask questions. And as a result of their questions many things that the authorities did not want to say have come to light. By now everyone knows that tanks fired on the school. By now it is too late to assert that “Shmel” flamethrowers were fired at the school after the hostages had run out of it.. It is not only the hostages testify to this - the people, who ran into the hall tell about this. They ran and saw the children, who stood like living torches, writhing and stretching out their hands. They shouted "run" to them, but they were already burning and falling. They burned as if their bodies were made from gasoline. Bodies do not burn like that from the burst of explosives. They burn like that after a volumetric explosion.

It has already become a public fact: the explosion was not caused not by chance, and not by carelessness. A sniper took out the terrorist who was standing on the “button”. Do you remember that video cassette, on which the demands of terrorists were presented, and which they threw from the window? On TV it was said afterwards that the cassette proved to be empty. The demands were conveyed to President Putin, and after that it was announced that the terrorists were making no demands. But on the video cassette there were filmed sequences. From them it was easy to work out where the bomber was standing and how to take him out. It may be assumed that preparations for an operation were made based on that same cassette on which “there were no demands".

There is the lying, which killed the children, and the truth, which their mothers want to ascertain. And only thanks to their conduct at the trial is this truth emerging to the light. Both Stanislav Kesayev (head of the Ossetian Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist act) and Taymuraz Mamsurov are saying: many things are not clear to us, we don’t agree with the official version.

But, unfortunately, this difference between the truth and the lie is distinctly visible only from outside. From inside, in Ossetia, everything is much more complex. Indeed it is not only the federals who are to blame for the act of terror. Not only the Kremlin, which said that the terrorists were making no demands. There is, let us assume, the brigade of Ingush who were carrying out repairs in the schooll. And the weapons, which were almost certainly under the floor of the library. But the men who got those weapons were shot on the first day. The only one, the quietest one, whom they did not shoot, jumped out as the corpses were being thrown outside, and is now constantly confused in his statements to the court.

It was the local law enforcement agencies that let those weapons through. And the local law enforcement agencies are connected with the bandits. And the bandits are the political elite. How are the bandits going to go on dealing in vodka and gasoline, if their partners are kicked out of the law enforcement agencies for having let the weapons into the school? And this elite is still getting phone calls from the Kremlin, saying “take the women away.”

This, too, is a most terrible thing. The same Taymuraz Mamsurov, Ossetia’s new head, is unquestionably a brave and strong man. Otherwise he would not have become the richest man in a republic, where the main business is vodka and oil. Mamsurov also had children in the school. His daughter is still receiving medical treatment in Moscow. And a choice stands before him, whose side to take - his own children or his own cops.