Strictly Between Them

http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.html?docId=605861

[my quick tr.]

Strictly between them

//the conversation of the President with the Mothers of Beslan took place behind closed doors //


Yesterday the President of the RF Vladimir Putin met with the Mothers of Beslan and talked with them for three hours. After this conversation they came out into the fresh air and acknowledged to special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov that they had asked the President all the questions and had obtained from him all the answers. True, the mothers are very reluctant to talk about the questions and prefer generally to remain silent about the answers. And for this, in the opinion of K’s special correspondent, there is a reason.

The meeting took place in Moscow, though not in the Kremlin, as was reported earlier, but on the territory of one of the government residences. The Mothers, together with the head of North Ossetia Taimuraz Mamsurov, entered some two minutes before the appearance of the Russian President, who arrived at the residence straight from the airport, as soon as he flew in from Sochi.



They entered the room with stony faces. They were very concentrated. In their hands they had many folders. When they unfolded them on the table, I saw, that in the folders together with papers there were photographs of their children. These were the documents they had brought to this meeting.

Until the President appeared, the Mothers did not talk to one other. Only Taimuraz Mamsurov, pushing another folder along to Susanna Dudiyeva, the head of the Committee of Beslan Mothers, one additional folder, said to her:

’Here, you’d better take it.’ And, after a pause: ‘It’s neater.’

I have the impression that all kinds of unpredictable things were expected of them. The situation around this meeting was such that it was possible to expect them. Therefore Mr. Mamsurov made a request for more neatness.

With the same stony faces they listened to the words of the President. The text of his speech was, as usual, prepared in advance. The President, however, never once glanced at it. Moreover, there was, in my opinion, no prepared text before him on the table. And the words from this text never once coincided with what he said yesterday at the table. I.e., he sought and found his own words for them.

He acknowledged that it was difficult to begin this conversation, that the feelings, experienced by those who had come to him were intelligible to any mother, to any father, to any human being.

’I agree with those who consider that that the state is not in a position to ensure the safety of its citizens today in the necessary degree and with the necessary quality,’ the President said confidently, and somehow I did not want his confidence to communicate itself to me.

The President’s tone seemed to me unexpectedly hard. Vladimir Putin even spoke sharply, looking somewhere past these women, but not into the television camera.

He reminded them of terrorist acts in New York, in Madrid and London. The USA, Spain and Great Britain were also not able to resist the terrorists, he stated. This thought hardly reconciled the mothers to what happened in Beslan.

‘And what can one say about out own country, which after the disintegration of the Soviet Union suffered enormous damage in all directions: both in the sphere of social policy and in the economy!’ continued Mr. Putin. – ‘In the first half of the 1990s as a result of the serious events in Chechnya, both our armed forces and our special services were in a general state of knock-out, in a semi-disintegrated condition.’

The President added, however, that he also agreed with those who consider that all this cannot be a justification for the inappropriate performance by officials of their duties. He stated that all the circumstances of what took place must be investigated.

The implication of this was that the circumstances have not yet been investigated. For the first time the mothers exchanged glances.


‘Unfortunately, we have no other method of fighting this infection, this terrorism,’ added Mr. Putin.

I hope he did not mean the method that was chosen in order to overcome the consequences of the seizure of the school in Beslan.

Mr. Putin explained why the meeting was taking place precisely yesterday.

I already knew of your request for a meeting (according to K’s information, this request was directed by the "mothers Of beslana" to the President of Russia as early as the beginning of this year. - A. K.)... I wanted sufficiently objective data of the preliminary investigations to be assembled first.’

Furthermore, the President stated that on September 3 "is actually declared at the legislative level” (these words, however, contain an obvious contradiction. - A. K.) a day of solidarity with the victims of acts of terror, and so he had considered that it would be appropriate to meet with the mothers on the eve of this date.

‘But I was also ready to do it in a different way. It could have been earlier, it could also have been postponed’, the President added, after a hesitation.

For the first time at this meeting he demonstrated a certain uncertainty in his words. There was something upsetting him here.

The President stated that he would answer all the questions: "if, of course, I myself am in a condition to do so... I have attentively followed the investigation both along the line of the public prosecutor’s office and along the line of the parliamentary investigation".

‘I think that what was reported to you is not objective,’ Viktor Yesiyev said immediately (he was taken hostage, and his 38-year-old son was killed). – ‘And we decided to report to you what really happened in Beslan during those days in - from our side. The terrorists were trained on the territory of ingushetia. They went along a federal road (the "Caucasus" highway. – K.), and no obstacles whatever were set in their path!

It immediately became apparent what sort of tone this conversation would take.

Unfortunately, the conversation itself could not be heard. Everyone except those sitting at the table left the room.

The meeting lasted exactly three hours. The first to emerge into the fresh air was Viktor Yesiyev.

‘ President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will give his attention to all the questions that were asked,’ he said.

In his voice there was a happiness and solemnity that I found striking.

‘There’s a good atmosphere,’ he continued, though no one had asked about that. ‘The conversation took place, and we are going home satisfied!’

Three hours earlier this man had said to the President’s face that he was being given non-objective information. Now he was satisfied.

’But are there any things with which you are still not entirely satisfied?’ I asked him. ‘Your allegations were very serious and, it seemed, absolutely substantiated. You were not informed about the work of the inquiry, the investigators refused to talk with you... ‘

‘All the deficiencies in the work of the inquiry will be removed,’ he said, interrupting me.

‘And what interested you most about this meeting? What questions you did ask?

’This is what was interesting! Everything that’s connected with the work of the inquiry,’ he explained.

President of North Ossetia Taimuraz Mamsurov came out to the street.

‘I was struck by the level of frankness at this meeting,’ he said.

It seemed to be acknowledging that such frankness unusual for him, too.

‘ Did you ask the President the questions you considered it necessary to ask?’

Afterwards I thought that it was probably an odd thing to do, to ask such a thing of the head of North Ossetia who had only recently confirmed by the President of the RF. But in fact, I was asking him as a human being, whose son and daughter had been taken hostage.

‘Of course we did,’ he replied in a slightly offended tone (both for himself and for the President). ‘And it’s good that it’s turned out that we didn’t come with empty questions. We are now certain that changes will follow.’

‘What kind of changes?’

‘In how the inquiry communicates with the victims,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. – Do you know how it communicates with them? Badly.’

‘Is that is the most important result?’

‘ No. They will tell us the intermediate result, which no one has so far been willing to do.’

I approached the woman who had just come through the doors of the residence. Rimma Torchinova was thinking painfully about something as she walked.

’I remember what he said,’ she acknowledged. – ‘It was all sort of correct.’

‘Do you still have the feeling that the President is not being told what actually happened.’

‘The feeling remained,’ she replied. ‘It was strengthened.’

‘You mean that there were discrepancies between your information and his?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

‘And they’re still there?’

‘I think he will get to the bottom of it.’

‘You wanted to ask him what he himself did during those three days in September to rescue the hostages. Did you?

‘Of course not,’ she replied in some surprise. ‘We talked about other things. He promised to help us.’

‘Did you believe him?’

’Yes,’ she said, after some hesitation, as if she did not really want to acknowledge this.

The plenipotentiary of the President of RF in the Southern Federal Region Dmitry Kozak said goodbye to the mothers. He kissed them and told them that he would telephone them as soon as they landed in Beslan.

‘I don’t know,’ he said later. ‘It may be that it’s my fault everything is turning out so difficult.’

‘Why yours?’

-‘Well they have serious allegations about the work of the public prosecutor’s office. The fact is that the prosecutor’s office really does speak correctly and accurately about it all, but in its own language, and they don’t understand that language. They need an interpreter.’

‘Yourself, you mean?’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘But they say there are things they can understand without an interpreter,’ I said. ‘There are different versions of what took place. The prosecutor’s office says one thing, and they saw something else with their own eyes.’

‘Well, look, they say: a tank fired at three p.m.’ he sighed. ‘How can the prosecutor’s office prove the fact of a firing precisely at three p.m.? I told them and It tell them: if you have disagreements with the inquiry – go to the Beslan district court. No other mechanism exists.’

‘How do you mean? One does exist,’ I said, pointing in the direction of the residence, where Vladimir Putin still remained.

’Well, that’s a different matter,’ he said, deferentially.

I caught Susanna Dudiyeva in the bus in which the mothers were to take to the airport.

‘Are you satisfied?’

‘The main and only thing is that we said what we wanted to say,’ she replied. ‘That’s the main thing. But we are convinced that in many questions disinformation is present.’

‘What questions?’

‘About the actions of the operational headquarters; she stated, as if having decided on something. – Well, and about the seizure itself.’

‘What else did you talk about?’

’We talked about the trial in the law court, about those who were killed, about the irresponsibility and negligence of the people who were supposed to rescue us, but were unable to because of their irresponsibility.’

‘You talked – and what?’

‘The President said that the results will be [made available] soon.’

‘Does that answer satisfy you?’

’It does.’

‘What I mean is, you do think your journey has not been in vain?’

‘I think it has not been in vain.’

‘And all your doubts – whether to go or not to go - were groundless?’

‘Probably so,’ she replied, and got into the bus. She did not really want to continue this conversation. I think she had not wanted to start it either.

On the whole it seemed me that they had all agreed on something: for example, that they would not comment on the details of this meeting with the President until he keeps his word and presents in the very near future, as he promised, the intermediate results of the inquiry.

And they did their best to keep their word. At least, yesterday.

Andrei Kolesnikov


Who came to see Vladimir Putin


Taimuraz Mamsurov, head of North Ossetia (his son and daughter were taken hostage).


From the Association of the Victims of Terrorist Acts, “The Mothers of Beslan”:


Susanna Dudiyeva, chairperson (her son and daughter were taken hostage, and her 13- year-old son was killed);

Anneta Gadiyeva (was taken hostage with her two daughters, her 9-year-old daughter was killed);

Rita Sidakova (her 9=year-old daughter was killed);

Rimma Yorchinova (her 11-year-old daughter was killed).


From the Working Commission of the Public Council for Questions of Humanitarian, Charitable and Financial Aid, acting in relation to the terrorist act in Beslan:

Mairbek Tuayev, chairperson (his 16-year-old daughter was killed);

Azamat Sabanov (his father, wife and two children were taken hostage, and his father was killed);

Victor Yesiyev (his 38 year-old-son was killed).