Beslan: the Unanswered Questions

Writing in the New York Times, C.J. Chivers examines the situation and state of public opinion in Beslan, a year after terrorists laid siege to School No. 1. He gives attention to the officially discouraged work of the regional parliamentary investigation led by Stanislav Kesayev:

After months of denials, the prosecutor's office admitted this summer that the Russians had fired powerful shoulder-fired rockets, known as Shmels, at the school. Some families believe the rockets caused or accelerated the blaze, although this is not clear.

Whatever the rockets' actual effect, the bereaved mothers say, their presence demonstrated the government was willing to use indiscriminate force where children were present.

There is similar anger and disbelief over the use of tanks. One witness, Teimuraz Konukov, said that at about 2:30 p.m. he lay behind a tree across the street and watched a Russian tank fire its main barrel into the school's facade. Hostages remained inside at the time.

Prosecutors insist the tank did not fire until evening, after all the hostages had escaped or were dead. Konukov, whose version aligns with what was witnessed by two journalists from The New York Times, is incredulous. "I was right here," he said, pointing to the spot.

No full explanation has been given for the even more extensive tank shooting later in the day that destroyed one of the school's wings.

Nurpasha Kulayev stands in a cage in the courtroom, rarely raising his eyes. Russia claims he is the sole surviving terrorist from the siege; his trial had been expected to bring a deeper understanding of those days. Instead it has become a showcase of contempt for the government.

Families contest even the authorities' most basic claims. The prosecutors, for example, say 32 terrorists seized the school - 30 men with automatic rifles and 2 women wearing suicide bombs. Thirty-one of them died, according to this account. (They are not counted among the 331 victims.) But many survivors and participants insist they saw at least four other men who were captured and have not been seen again, and a third woman. Their faith in the official version has been further undermined because Russia has not publicly identified all the terrorists it says were killed.

The trial's conduct has also perplexed the families. The officers who arrested Kulayev have not testified, but people who knew little of him are regularly on the stand. At a recent hearing the slate of witnesses so frustrated one woman that she stood and loudly scolded the judge.

The trial is only one example of what families here regard as official incompetence and callousness.

A crime-scene video taken the morning after the battle, leaked to the Mothers Committee, shows investigators shoveling ashes among the dead. At one point two men discover a dead girl, and unceremoniously toss her blackened body into a bag.

Families say evidence was lost or mishandled, a conviction that deepened in February when residents found charred items from the school in a local dump. In the mess were human remains: tangles of hair and dried skin.

They also wonder why the school was secured for less than 36 hours after the battle - scant time for forensics work. Instead of serving as a resource for investigators, Kesayev said, the bloody ruins were converted "to a place for pilgrimages and excursions."

The prosecutors have responded by declaring his commission illegal - a declaration of no legal standing, and one that Kesayev said fits a pattern. "Every agency wants to be first in line for their medals," he said. "And last in line to take responsibility for the failures."