It is now said that Beslan is Russia’s Sept. 11. It has had something like the same profound effect upon ordinary Russians as the Sept. 11 outrage had upon ordinary Americans. There is white-hot fury and a clear demand that something be done about the terrorist actions. President Putin, clearly shaken and very angry himself after the Beslan massacre, has moved rapidly to promise that the sinister international terrorist forces that he blames for Beslan and the other attacks will be not only confronted but dealt with.

At this point, however, the comparison with the United States after Sept. 11 as it embarked upon its global war on terror breaks down. In 2001, Washington’s slavish support for Zionist aggression may have indirectly contributed to the horrors experienced by Palestinians in the occupied territories but America was not itself directly involved militarily in the region. The horror of Beslan, on the other hand, comes five years after Vladimir Putin won the presidency with the specific promise that he would crush the rebellion in Chechnya. It had spawned a series of Moscow apartment bombings that killed over 200 people. Putin’s renewal of the war against the Chechen insurgents was designed to make Russia safe from terrorism. The latest wave of terrorist crimes demonstrates that, so far, Putin’s hard-line policies have failed.

In this light, the Kremlin’s reaction to the Beslan tragedy was informative. The huge crowds that poured onto streets in Moscow and in other cities last week to protest the massacre were more than they seemed. There were many ordinary Russians who turned out of their own volition, but the majority was told to go out and demonstrate by state-influenced trade unions and youth organizations. Tough new laws requiring all demonstrations to ask for permission at least ten days in advance were ignored because it was the Kremlin itself which initiated this massive protest. That the Russian authorities should seek to control what would otherwise surely have been an immense and impressive display of public grief is indicative of the increasing control that the Putin Kremlin is reasserting at all levels of Russian life.

There is an obvious reason. They were concerned that uncontrolled demonstrators might have begun not only to protest the barbarity of the terrorists but also the incompetence of the authorities themselves. The Kremlin naturally tries to hide its failings; it keeps both domestic and international press out of Chechnya and apparently stopped two independent Moscow journalists from flying to Beslan to cover the school siege which state-run TV played down with light coverage until the terrible ending.

Putin’s clampdown is not working. By associating the rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, with the Beslan butchery and offering a 10-million-dollar reward for his capture, Putin is eliminating negotiations with the most prominent and popular of Chechen leaders and condemning Russians and Chechens alike to more misery and bloodshed. The sad but inescapable truth is that after five years, Putin’s iron fist in Chechnya is dented and rusting.