Our Life and Times
Siege in Moscow
On Oct. 27, Chechen commandos seized 700 civilian hostages
at a Moscow theater, demanding an end to Russia's brutal colonial war against
their country. Since 1999, when Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed the
war, it has claimed the lives of up to 10,000 Russian soldiers and over 100,000
Chechens, mainly civilians.
During the siege, Chechen fighters, half of them women
veiled from head to toe, stated they were on a "martyrdom operation."
They threatened to blow up themselves and their 700 hostages if demands were not
met. After a few days, Russian forces pumped a sleep-inducing gas into the
theater, before storming it. The gas killed 128 hostages and all 41 Chechen
terrorists also died, many executed on the spot.
Despite the deaths of so many hostages, Putin claimed that
he had scored a big victory, a claim bolstered by the congratulations he
received from Bush and Israel's hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu. Putin used the
occasion to put his suppression of the entire Chechen nation in the context of
the "global war on terrorism." He also suggested links between the
Chechen fighters and Al Qaeda.
In the weeks that followed, Russia staged a noisy campaign for the extradition of Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechens' international representative and the first major Chechen leader to condemnn the Moscow attack. At the same time, the increasingly Islamist character of the Chechen movement and its resort to terrorism against innocent civilians have isolated it from many of its former supporters, especially human rights activists.
Published by News and Letters Committees