It is impossible not to bemoan the great loss of innocent life when Russian special forces stormed Moscow’s Palace of Culture theater. However, what is gratifying is that so very many of the 700 theatergoers have been brought back to life, since there can be little question that had the siege continued much longer, they would all be dead.
As we made clear on Friday, for Russian President Vladimir Putin it was a nil-sum game. The man who restarted the war of the Chechens was hardly likely to give in to the threat. Regardless of any wider issues, Putin’s personal standing as the quiet tough man of Russian politics was on the line. His reputation would have suffered grievously, had he even given the impression that he might bow to any of the terrorist demands. Even the promise that the gunmen’s lives would be spared if they did not harm their hostages, appeared to come through gritted teeth at the Kremlin.
The Chechen attackers, in fact, made it easy for Putin. They demanded the impossible and threatened the worst. This made an armed response inevitable and guaranteed that whatever the number of innocent casualties, the effect of that response would always be less than the threatened death toll. In the battle against terrorism, the consensus among governments appears to be that none should give way. One human tragedy postponed by giving in to terror demands is only a human tragedy delayed. Those countries which have always taken a robust position and refused to contemplate negotiating with terrorists, originally seemed to be running major risks. Turkey was one such state. However, the ruthless way with which the Turkish authorities dealt with planes hijacked to Turkish soil would seem to have made it the focus of far fewer terrorist acts.
Putin’s Kremlin seems every bit as ready to press on with its costly carnage in Chechnya despite similar protests. It is a vicious circle. The hostage-taking was an act of terrorism, but it was a product of 200 years of Russian use of terror to subjugate a people who were never ready to give up their freedom. The manner in which Russia pursued the latest war in Chechnya has been condemned by the international community for widespread atrocities and rights abuses by government troops against civilians. According to Ekho Mosvky radio, three of the female Chechen guerrillas killed in Saturday’s storming of the theater were themselves widows of dead rebel field commanders. Terror begets terror. There is no way in which a force, no matter how superior, can declare that it has put an end to terror. The only way to do that is to look into the causes that breed terror.
While Moscow cannot be blamed for the way it handled the theater crisis, it would be wrong for it to assume that it has found the right method of solving the Chechen problem for good. The solution has to come through give and take. Moscow would do the right thing for itself and for the Chechens if it listened to Akhmed Zakayev, personal envoy of Aslan Maskhadov, the man Chechens elected as president in 1997. The theater drama presented Moscow with a clear choice, he said — talk to gunmen or the elected president.
It is time Moscow talked to the president.
