Russia Calls for Emergency Security Council Meeting on Hostage-Taking at S

[hang a left]

Russia Calls for Emergency Security Council Meeting on Hostage-Taking at School Near Chechnya

Soldiers and rescuers are seen in the yard of a school situated near the school seized by attackers in Beslan, North Ossetia, Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004. The slogan reads Hello, School. Attackers wearing suicide-bomb belts seized a Russian school in a region bordering Chechnya on Wednesday, taking hostage about 400 people, half of them children, and threatening to blow up the building. At least two people were killed, one of them a parent who resisted an attacker. (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)
09-01-2004 12:48 PM

UNITED NATIONS -- Russia called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Wednesday on the hostage-taking at a school in a region bordering Chechnya.

The U.S. State Department, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the head of the U.N. children's agency demanded the immediate release of the captives.

The Security Council, which normally does not meet on the first day of the month when a new president takes over, scheduled consultations at 5 p.m. EDT on the school seizure and several other issues.

Attackers wrapped in suicide-bomb belts seized a school in the Russian region of North Ossetia on Wednesday and were holding hundreds of hostages, reportedly including 200 children, They have threatened to kill them or blow up the building if it is attacked by Russian troops. Several people were reported killed.

snip
http://sandiego.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_state=maximized&view=article&id=D84R2EUG0

[HuckleB]

1. Good. Now the UN should demand to be allowed into Chechnya.

I don't want to begin counting how many lives and acts of terror on all sides that might have been prevented if Putin had allowed the UN to intervene long ago.

[hang a left]

2. Lookie here

Bush Calls Putin to Offer Help in Hostage-Taking at Russian School, Kremlin Says
09-01-2004 1:17 PM

MOSCOW -- President Bush called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday and said the United States is prepared to give any help needed to resolve the hostage-taking at a Russian school, the Kremlin said.

Bush emphasized that Washington and Moscow are fighting international terrorism shoulder-to-shoulder, it said.

Attackers wrapped in suicide-bomb belts seized a school in North Ossetia on Wednesday and were holding hundreds of hostages, reportedly including 200 children, They have threatened to kill them or blow up the building if it is attacked by Russian troops. Two people were reported killed.

[HuckleB]

3. So now we're joining one group of terrorists to fight another group...

of terrorists? What does that make us? I know it's been said before.

Of course, by today's definition, the American revolutionaries would have been labeled as terrorists.

[Radius]

5. Which

means the two largest military powers in the world have a common enemy. The fundies may find the Russians and the us a big enemy.

Begs the question what steps are the Russians willing to take to defund the Chechens?

Bringing in the UN, I bet, will not be the Russian response.

I feel sorry for those kids. There is no way they will all live through this.

Hiding behind children, great tactic.

[markses]

7. This is certainly not a new phenomenon

Was it you who lately praised the tactics of Joseph Stalin? I forget.

The seizure of the school is, of course, disgraceful.

[Tempest]

4. Why doesn't Putin just pump the school full of gas?

Oh, that's right.

It didn't work out as planned when they tried it in the theatre.

[Radius]

9. He

could have just spread his butt cheeks and taken it.

A rush would have killed more people. The russians weren't going to do what they asked.

BTW the russians shot the suicide bombers who were disabled in the head. They play a very different game there.

Remember people who target and blow up kids are not your friend.

[Tempest]

12. Huh?

Ignoring the fact most of your post is unintelligible, the report from the theatre gassing showed the suicide bombers were also killed by the gas and not shot.


"Remember people who target and blow up kids are not your friend."

Putin targets and blows up kids in Chetyna, so why is it okay for him, but not the rebels?

[Radius]

14. Your response

speaks for its self. Are you trying to justify taking children hostage.

I said russian special forces and police shot disabled, ie summarily executed, some bombers.

Like hamas and the IDF, there is a difference in people killed in war as a result of fighting and shooting a pregnant woman her kids, including an infant in a car seat. Man you've got to be a real man to put a rifle round in an infant at point blank.

[Tempest]

15. There you go

Straying far from the point.

No sense carrying this forward.

[markses]

6. Let's review

Terrorists blow up two Russian commercial jet-liners
Terrorists explode a car bomb in downtown Moscow
Terrorists take over a school and hold children and adults hostage

We're ignoring here the blowing up of apartments buildings, the takeover of the theater, the multiple assassinations of the Russian-favored Chechen government officials, etc.

We're just talking about THIS WEEK!

Jesus, Jimmy. The terrosists are pretty busy in Russia, no?

[HuckleB]

8. ‘We Need to Start a Dialogue’

‘We Need to Start a Dialogue’

A Russian parliamentarian discusses Russia’s latest wave of terror--and how the country should try to beat it
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5888964/site/newsweek/

"In the last eight days, five terror attacks have swept across Russia: a bombing at a bus stop, simultaneous explosions that brought down two commercial planes, last night’s subway bombing that killed 10 people and today’s siege of a school in the province of North Ossetia, on the border with Georgia in the south. Between 100 and 300 people are being held hostage, half of them children who arrived this morning with their parents for the first day of school. At least 15 armed attackers rushed the building around 9 a.m. Moscow time and have reportedly demanded that Russia withdraw all of its forces from the breakaway southern republic of Chechnya, where Russia has been fighting a bloody, decadelong war. NEWSWEEK’s Anna Kuchment spoke with Vladimir Rhyzhkov, a liberal member of the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament about the wave of attacks and how they will affect the Kremlin’s policy in the Caucasus. Excerpts (translated from Russian):

..."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5888964/site/newsweek/

[HuckleB]

10. The Aggressive Fools

http://www.chechenpress.info/english/news/2004/08/30/01.shtml

"One of the most important events in the context of the ongoing Second Russian-Chechen War, undoubtedly, is the statement made publicly by the spokesman of general staff of the occupation forces in Chechnya, responsible of information, Shabalkin, who has declared literally the following: “We in the staff never distribute information about the losses of federal troops. This is a credo, and I am not going to violate it” (“Vremya Novostei”, 24.08.2004). So, after this confession all reports on the losses of Russian forces, occasionally appearing in releases of the occupation command, can be easily thrown into the dustbin.

Falsehood and misinformation is considered all over the civilized world as a heavy crime that entails serious legal consequences. Therefore, the public disoriented by the lies of the authority, is deprived of the possibility to control the internal and foreign policy of the country and is turned into a collective hostage of the government’s criminal actions. Criminal, because they need lie to cover their crimes. The authority never hides kind and noble deeds from the people and makes them public.

It looks like that in the theory, according to which even Russian authority is considered to be elective and accountable to the public. However, as regards such matter of paramount public importance as war, Russian citizens are deprived of every rights to learn something about the course and results of the five years’ war, to find out something about the losses of the parties, about financial expanses, etc., i.e. all that in the aggregate creates a generalized picture of the war unleashed by the authorities, but lying on the shoulders of the Russian people. “We in the staff never distribute information about the losses of federal troops. This is a credo, and I am not going to violate it”. Why, in such case, would not we assume that the “credo” of the occupation forces general staff is of more universal character, embracing other aspects of the Russian-Chechen war?

The question is purely rhetorical, because Shabalkin’s “credo” is a general directive issued by Putin’s military-criminal clique: They are forbidden to give publicity to the “negative” reports from Chechnya. However, on the other hand, some reports on the situation in Chechnya should be published, and the “inner face” of this directive is lie about the “irreversible peace”, about “daily destruction of band-formations”, about “complete control over the Chechen territories”, about “all possible support of the federal authority by the Chechen people” and other propaganda canard coming from Khankala “information” nest. And, the conclusion: Russian public has no idea about the reality in Chechnya.

..."

[HuckleB]

11. STOP HEINOUS ACTS BY RUSSIANS AND CHECHENS -- Great read!

STOP HEINOUS ACTS BY RUSSIANS AND CHECHENS

http://www.theoathbook.com/op-ed.php

"I am a Chechen doctor who treated many wounded and dying people -- Russian soldiers, Chechen fighters, but mainly innocent civilians -- during Russia's two recent wars with Chechnya. Like many others, I watched the recent hostage-taking horror in Moscow on television. I felt for the victims crammed into a theater auditorium and terrorized by Movsar Barayev and his followers. Along with most Chechens, I condemn this barbarous act, which is the latest atrocity in the brutal conflict that has raged since December 1994 when 300,000 Russian troops invaded Chechnya. In January 1999, I too was taken hostage by Movsar's uncle, the late Arbi Barayev, who condemned me to death in a makeshift Islamic court for treating Russians. The reason Barayev spared me was because he needed me to treat his wounded men. Arbi Barayev, like the hostage takers in Moscow, claimed to be a Muslim. In my eyes, and in the eyes of most Chechens, terrorism is an insult to our faith. Islam is a religion of peace, even if some fanatics have hijacked it to justify their evil deeds.

Tragically the hostage-taking in the theater fuels President Putin's effort to depict Chechens as Islamic extremists and will be another excuse to mount reprisals against us. If you believe the Russian media, Chechnya is a hotbed of terrorists funded by the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. This is a distortion of the facts. Moscow prevents both Russian and foreign journalists from going to Chechnya, so it is hard for the world to know the truth, which is that the vast majority of Chechens want nothing more than to be allowed to live their lives peacefully.

...

Each week dozens of Russian soldiers die in Chechen ambushes, and Chechen men routinely are abducted off the street to be ransomed off to their relatives or executed. This happens beyond the view of the rest of the world, but it is an international tragedy. Hostage taking is no way to resolve this conflict. Violence breeds violence. We need the international community to help bring an end to the bloodshed.

...

Unless steps are taken to end this barbarity through political negotiations, the killing of the innocent will continue. The reprisals by Russia have already started, and there may well be more desperate acts of terror, designed to draw international attention to this forgotten war. The circle of violence will continue unless a political resolution can be found. Unfortunately, the United States appears to have reached an understanding with Russia whereby the United States will no longer criticize the human rights abuses in Chechnya in return for Russia's support of the US battle against global terrorism and efforts to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, the innocent suffer."

http://www.theoathbook.com/op-ed.php

[HuckleB]

13. Chapter 5 -- THE EVE OF THE FIRST WAR from The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire

http://www.theoathbook.com/chapter.php

[chelsea0011]

16. Help me here. What is Russia steadfast in holding onto Chechnya?

Other satellites were allowed to break off independantly but not Chechnya. Why?

[HuckleB]

17. Oil and other natural resources, apparently.

Perhaps access to the Caspian Sea.

[Sufi Marmot]

21. The other satellites weren't part of "Russia"...

...rather they were separate republics which, along with Russia, comprised the Soviet Union. Chechnya is considered by Moscow to be part of "Russia" proper (in contrast with places like Estonia and Azerbaijan). Russia is afraid that if Chechnya becomes independent, many of its other provinces, which have non-Russian ethinc majorities, will follow, and the Russian Federation, such as it is, will disintegrate.

Not that any of this justifies the atrocious behavior by both sides, IMHO...

-SM

[Dover]

18. Analysis: Who Is Behind The Hostage Taking In North Ossetia?

Analysis: Who Is Behind The Hostage Taking In North Ossetia?
By Liz Fuller

More than 10 hours after a group of some 17 armed militants seized a school in the town of Beslan in the Republic of North Ossetia on the morning of 1 September, the identities of the militants and their aims remained unclear. The militants were still holding hostage some 120 students, along with parents and teachers; at least eight people were reported to have died from injuries received during the initial onslaught, although reports of casualty figures varied.


The modus operandi of the attackers, a group comprising both men and women, some of whom were reportedly wearing explosives strapped to their bodies in readiness for a suicide bombing, was reminiscent of that used by the Chechen perpetrators of the Moscow-theater hostage taking in October 2002. Responsibility for that operation was claimed by radical Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev. Basaev was also reportedly one of the masterminds behind the multiple raids into Ingushetia during the night of 21-22 June, in which up to 100 people, mostly Interior Ministry personnel, were killed.

Initial reports suggested that the Beslan kidnappers demanded the release of the 30 or more suspects apprehended on suspicion of taking part in that raid. (They also reportedly demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.) Eyewitnesses told the independent Ingush website ingushetiya.ru that many of the young men who took part in the June attack were Ingush, not Chechen. The same website also quoted one of them, who explained that he "never used to be a militant" but that he and hundreds of other young Ingush had fled to southern Chechnya and joined the ranks of Basaev's fighters after their relatives were abducted by Ingush Interior Ministry personnel....cont'd

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/09/e7684499-45aa-4bf9-b72d-b9a25ab6f6c7.html

[HuckleB]

19. Thanks. Good piece.

[HuckleB]

20. WILL THE SECURITY COUNCIL FINALLY DEAL WITH THESE ISSUES?

As well?

Russian atrocities in Chechnya detailed

http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/0/45d2165b40636215c12568f20052f83c?OpenDocument

War Has No Rules for Russian Forces Battling Chechen Rebels

http://soldiertestimony.org/Russia/Document.2004-03-22.5243