The October hostage crisis has spurred a muddy torrent of misinformation and is threatening to trample civil liberties in Russia. Shohdy Naguib, in Moscow, seeks answers from the chairman of the Russian Islamic Committee Click to view caption Promptly dubbed as a "Russian 9-11" by many impetuous politicians and media figures the October Moscow hostage tragedy does not promise to give Russia the political excuse to solve the Chechen problem through a more aggressive military stance. In fact, the hostage crisis has boosted the moral of the Chechen guerrilla fighters. And strikingly, the international support for Russian President Vladimir Putin has been fleeting at best. However, there is an important similarity between American and Russian state response to the two disparate crises. The United States and Russia have both responded to the disasters by reducing the civil rights -- theoretically guaranteed in a democratic system. In the US rights to privacy and other civil liberties have been trampled, while in Russia the press has been muzzled. Since the beginning of the second Chechen campaign in 1999, a law has been in force that prohibits the dissemination of "enemy propaganda" through any mass media outlet, including the Internet. After the most recent crisis, it is expected that the State Duma, or Russian parliament, will adopt stricter amendments to the Press Law. A Russian Presidential decree has given even wider emergency powers to the special security agencies and police, which means more eavesdropping, searching and checking that will likely lead to even more extortion and corruption. The State Duma has almost unanimously approved of an amendment to the Anti-Terrorist Law. The amendment stated that the bodies of the terrorists should be buried anonymously and the whereabouts of their burial should not be disclosed to relatives or the press. Meanwhile an atmosphere of secrecy still surrounds the unfortunate yet "successful deliverance" of almost 80 per cent of the hostages from the Russian theatre. Russia claims that there were 50 Chechen terrorists but this number has never been independently verified, neither by the hostages nor by those who entered the theatre during the course of negotiations. One source even states that the rebels were as few as eight females backed up by four male fighters. This seems to be a more likely number, if we are to believe that they arrived in the two jeeps that were found abandoned at the entrance of the theatre. The Russian public is hoping to gain a clearer understanding of the tragic events when survivors begin to tell their stories. It is already clear that the Chechens knew that a Russian attack was impending a full hour before it started. This takes away the immediacy that the Russian government says prompted it to use gas on the rebels and their captives. It is also known that the Chechen fighters did not start executing hostages at dawn, as has been claimed by the Russian officials, which allegedly provoked the attack. The outspoken -- and much hated, for her anti-war stance -- journalist Anna Politkovskaya of Novaya Gazeta was amongst the few public figures who were trusted by the Chechen fighters to negotiate for the release of the hostages and convey their message to the Russian government. She was the only one to convey their demands undistorted to the Western media. These demands were far from being "too abstract" and "constantly changing" as Russian officials claimed. According to Politkovskaya, their demand was twofold; first, to pull out Russian troops from Vedenskoe ravine (a mere patch on the map of the Chechen Republic), and second to hear the Russian President publicly express a commitment to start negotiations. In full compliance with the Press and Anti-terrorist Laws, non of these demands and intentions were made public by the media. Those who tried were immediately shut down (Moskovia TV-channel) or threatened with closure (Echo-Moscow web site where a phone conversation with one of the terrorists flashed for a brief instant). The truth about the attackers' demands and intentions as a result were muzzled and a massive campaign to discredit the rebels began to unfold. The false reports about the terrorists releasing "all the Muslims and Georgians" has never been properly refuted and has remained stuck in the minds of millions. Another rumor about "syringes thrown all over the place", purportedly belonging to the terrorists to use drugs, has never been verified but has been repeated many times. Lost in this muddy torrent of information and misinformation, clarification was sought from Geidar Jemal, a charismatic public figure and Chairman of the Islamic Committee, which is the only registered radical Islamist organisation in Russia. What do you think of this ugly situation? There is an ongoing six-year war which no one has wanted to talk about lately, and which is now back in international focus. In Europe, sympathies were revived in favour of the Chechen rebels. Not only in Europe but, as you know, even Russia's Ambassador to the US directed a note to the editors of the Washington Post protesting about an article on the recent events which constantly referred to the Chechens as "rebels" and "militants" but not as "terrorists". This is a leading American newspaper whose point of view should be as close as possible to that of the Russian federal government. Europe and even Great Britain today are mostly dominated by pro-Chechen sentiments. There must be a reason for this. The arrest of Zakaev [the representative of the President of Chechen Republic, Aslan Mashadov, commissioned to conduct peace talks, and arrested in Denmark in the aftermath of the Moscow hostage drama at Russia's request] will eventually serve as some sort of legal basis to demonstrate his being not involved in this terrorist act. As I am sure he is not. Who committed this terrorist act then? I have no doubt that the people who executed the operation sincerely believed in what they were doing. But who is exploiting the Chechens and their struggle? This is another question. I believe that behind this act of terror is another faction, which has nothing to do with Mashadov and is even rival to him. It would be naïve to believe that such a complex operation could be carried out without impeccable planning, tight coordination and high-level artifice. Huge financial and, more importantly, political capital have been invested in this act of terror, the success of which would have brought significant shift in the international political balance. This was not the work of poor Chechen conspirators. There are many powerful forces with vested interests in such an act, and they seem to have calculated the consequences several steps ahead. It can be argued that the ruling clique has an interest in weakening the power of the government, thus providing a justification for transferring authority to the military and the police, giving them a free hand to employ more authoritarian measures. In other words, a police regime with a weak president is precisely what satisfies the needs of the ruling political class and its oligarchy -- also called "the Old Kremlin". It is my opinion that such an act of terror ideally suits this faction of the Russian political establishment because it discredits the President and shows his weakness. What can prevent such an act of terror from being repeated again and again on an even larger and more humiliating scale? What would a man in [Putin's place] do but adopt even harsher laws, strengthening the hand of the security apparatus and in the process becoming more reliant on the military. Related stories: A Russian tragedy 31 Oct. - 6 Nov. 2002
