Beslan’s tragedy was called to be the most terrible terrorist act in the history, in September 2004. Reminding, 330 people met the death of a martyr in the seized school, 186 of them being children. 783 people were wounded, three of them died later in the hospitals. Many remained disabled for the rest of their lives. Three and a half years ago it seemed that this small town was to experience spiritual catharsis after such a great grief. It appeared that after such a cruel lesson we would see repentance by the authorities and many hoped that moral revival of the entire country was possible to start. Coming to Beslan, I heard many times the head of the district administration Khodov say “We are staunch people and the grief cannot crush us. We only need the truth to be told to us.”        

Have applied to Strasbourg already

I often deal with the fact that the minds of people, who are far from this tragedy, just cannot fit the entire terrible truth about the real reasons of the mass death of the hostages. Probably, this is an effect of the self-preservation instinct. As for Beslan, everyone there knows the truth, and people have to live with it everyday, while official lie continues to dominate. What catharsis can we talk about under such conditions!     

It is known that only one minor terrorist has been convicted. Even the police officers who “did not notice” the terrorist camp and the cars crammed with armed people and explosives, they all remained unpunished. 

“The purpose of all the court proceedings and investigative actions is that no one, even officials from the minor district bodies, gets sentenced. This is significant. Protecting the executors, those who took the criminal decisions just want to make themselves safe” wrote Ella Kesaeva, the co-chair of the public organization Golos Beslana (“Voice Of Beslan”).  

In June last year this organization sent a complaint to the Strasbourg-based European Court on behalf of 89 victims. The complaint says that the key articles of the European Convention were violated in their case – that’s the right to life, right to impartial investigation, and right to effective judicial protection. In December the necessary materials were sent too – that’s full trial transcripts, court’s decisions, witnessing testimony, photos… The general weight of the materials sent is 43 kilograms! 

Those 43 kilograms of truth will not just get burnt like it happened to exhausted hostages many of whom got burnt alive during the assault made on the school by special units.

But the complaint is still awaiting its turn in Strasbourg. In the mean time, another attack is going on in Ossetia, that’s the attack against those who signed the complaint. The methods of attacking are cynical up to absurdity. First, the “Voice Of Beslan” was accused of extremism. Then the organization was taken away its juridical person through a court’s decision passing the name to people who had been expelled before. Finally, Ella Kesaeva was charged with bashing …seven bailiffs right in the courtroom!      

The other day an article was published in the Severny Kavkaz newspaper titled “Whose tune does Ella Kesaeva dance to?” Of course, it was stated in the paper that she dances to Kasparov’s, Kasyanov’s and other pro-western forces’ piping. The paper also points the “right” public organization – that’s the “Mothers of Beslan”. It is praised for not making any slander on the president. It is stated that the slanderers are paid money. “Kesaeva is the richest woman in Beslan!” This “sensation” was so liked by someone, that it was printed as a leaflet and spread in the town.

It seems that the campaign is being carried out by competent professionals and besides the only convicted terrorist another “dangerous criminal” may find herself to have been brought before the court. 

The last funny thing to happen was that after the loud case of extremism by “Voice Of Beslan” was passed from Ingushetia to Beslan, in her capacity as defendant the woman who headed the taking away the juridical person from its initial founders, gets subpoenaed! And those who were accused of being “extremists” are not even allowed to be present at the court’s proceedings! Well, it’s good that their truth is so fearful to someone.

Prehistory of “Voice Of Beslan” 

Ella Kesaeva represents the organization at the courts, press-conferences and other public activities. She was even invited to make a report in the OSCE. However, the final decision in “Voice Of Beslan” is made by her elder sister Emma Tagaeva. This calm and silent woman with big brown eyes is bereft of all her family in those September tragedy. Her husband was the first to be shot by terrorists. He had dared to reproach the bandits for being rude to hostage children. He bled on his son’s hands. The sons were killed later, during the assault made. Before the assault the terrorists had shot 25 adult men.       

Ella and Emma used to be activists of the “Mothers of Beslan” Committee, which began to split on the days when the first anniversary of the tragedy was being observed. The Committee published then a letter in the Internet inviting all those sympathizing to come to Beslan. It was said in the letter whom the Committee would not like to see present at the mournful events. Among those negatively mentioned there were former president of North Ossetia-Alania Dzasokhov and the Russian President Putin. About Putin the letter said that the Committee had been applying to have a meeting with him for a year and he did not even give any response.    

That reproach seemed to hurt the President. And on the eve of the mournful events the Committee was invited to Moscow to see Vladimir Putin. That’s where the Committee split. Part of its members went to Moscow right on the second day of the sorrowful events, while the other part stayed in the gym, mourning for several days and nights for their late children. On the second night Emma did not feel well but she decided to stay. Later she told me “Yes, my heart was aching, but my soul was warmed as if my relatives were close to me”. 

In the meanwhile, the Committee’s delegation returned triumphantly from Moscow. At a night press-conference its leader Susanna Dudieva told to the reporters that they had managed to convince the President about partiality of the current investigation. Allegedly, he had heard from them for the first time that all the evidence from the gym was taken away on the night next to the assault done and were thrown away as a waste. 

Probably, the Committee wouldn’t have split that time. The victims realized that their strength was in their unity. But soon the group of the Committee members, headed by passion-inclined Susanna, those who visited Putin in Moscow – it is known that nothing promised by him got done – got charmed by a fraud Grabovoi.   

I still cannot figure out how it can have happened to women I admired for their firmness and rapidness of their spiritual growth. I don’t understand how authorities could have allowed open recruiting to Grabovoi’s party in the town where FSB controlled everything and where even therapists were not allowed without special permission. Reminding, Grabovoi promised to those women to raise their children from dead.  

The fact is that that group of mothers began to fly to Moscow regularly to have the paid séances by the “Messiah”. After television showed repeatedly Susanna Dudieva speaking in favor of Grabovoi, many people wondered if those women had gone out of their minds because of their grief. One may assume that it was someone’s insidious intention: to make crazy or to compromise those loudest in the public eyes.         

Then the split was inevitable. Not hoping to change the “charmed” minds, Ella Tagaeva decided to leave with those sharing her views and to register “Voice Of Beslan” which was done in January 2005. They decided from the beginning that they wouldn’t be engaged in distribution of the humanitarian aid or social issues. The only aim written in their charter is “Assistance to objective investigation of the terrorist act”.  

This time in Beslan I was astonished with the atmosphere in the town which is getting to look nicer with newly constructed buildings. Despite all that the atmosphere is getting even worse. People were not told the truth and they begin to feel to be involuntary traitors to their killed children.    

Yes, unlike other victims of the terrorist acts, Beslan inhabitants were paid really good compensations, if we look on them from the point of view of the Russia’s standards. They have rest in best resorts and are treated in best hospitals. Humanitarian aid came to Beslan from all over the world. But it turned out that material help sometimes may not be of help, but even may be destructive for the souls of the suffering people, especially when they realize that the state helps them not out of mercy, but just to “compensate” them for its criminal and not admitted fault.      

They say that grief unites people. It is true and I saw that with my own eyes right after the tragedy happened in Beslan. But then the afraid authority began to disunite people, using various immoral methods like selective giving out material things, or flats in the city of Vladikavkaz, or appointing some people to the positions those people do not correspond to. 

The list of actions taken by “Voice Of Beslan” takes seven pages. Emma Tagaeva and Ella Kesaeva went to the courts like to their work. One may figure out what was it like for them to hear repeatedly the details of the death of their relatives. But Emma says “I might not have survived but for this struggle”. 

In one of her published articles Ella Kesaeva wrote “Beslan is not only a grief… Beslan is a lesson given to all of us. The lesson about the true values.” “In Beslan we saw with our own eyes that human life is nothing to our authorities… The terrorists captured the school and tortured our children. But what shall we call those who gave an order to use fire-throwers, tanks, and APC’s against the gym crammed with hostages?” 

I go to the school ruins with Vissarion Aseev who accompanied me there three and a half years ago. Now he is no deputy, and he lives under the written cognizance of not to leave. He is waiting for the trial on him for making a single picket. Yes, it was a naïve act, putting a table on the central square in the city of Vladikavkaz with a poster “Enter the public movement against Putin” and raising signatures there. But Vissarion himself considers that picket to be successful: 7 people dared to sign in spite of the crowd of police officers encircling the place. Like most of Beslan dwellers, Vissarion Aseev is convinced that the assault began after explosion provoked from outside so that not to allow the expected-to-come Maskhadov to start negotiations.   
…
Thy gym still is full of flowers, bottles of water, and toys. There are photos of the killed children on the walls pierced with holes. There is a big wooden cross in the middle of the gym. Last year the school was planned to be demolished and an Orthodox church was intended to be constructed at the scene. The victims protested as half of the killed hostages are Muslims. And how can the scene of crime be destroyed, when no objective investigation has not been done so far!

Now another project is being discussed. They want to erect a huge crystal stela in the middle and to keep the gym, but to encircle it with a 6-meter-high stone wall. 

P.S. The fronton of the school is featured with a stand titled “The Temple Of The Blessed Souls”. And the entrance to the town’s cemetery bears the sign saying “The Town of Angels”. Of course, the only consolation in this huge tragedy is the belief that everyone is eternally alive with the God. Part of the victims has visited Mecca recently, and some were in Jerusalem before. At the above mentioned meeting with the mothers Putin said he thought of Beslan when he was standing before the Holy Sepulcher. Well, the president may sometimes think of the eternity too. In that respect, one may sympathize with him too.        

Lydia Graphova,
written specially for Novaya Gazeta