Johnson's Russia List
#6561
20 November 2002
[log in to unmask]
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
#1
Moscow Times
November 20, 2002
SPS Pins Siege Deaths to Negligence
By Natalia Yefimova
Staff Writer
After conducting its own probe into the handling of last month's hostage
crisis, the Union of Right Forces party, or SPS, blamed the death of 128
captives on officials in charge of organizing the rescue effort, the
party's leadership said at an extraordinary meeting Tuesday evening.
However, party leaders were careful not to point the finger at specific
officials and acknowledged that the investigation was unlikely to lead to
any disciplinary measures.
"The main reason for the rise in casualties among the hostages ... was
negligence on the part of officials responsible for organizing first aid
for the victims and their transportation to inpatient care units, and for
the general coordination of activities aimed at saving people after the
raid," said a resolution passed Tuesday after the commission in charge of
the probe presented its findings.
The resolution identified a dozen fatal flaws in the operation, including
an "unacceptably" long wait for medical care, secrecy about the type of gas
used in the raid and a lack of coordination between commandos and rescue
workers, including the absence of a health care professional to coordinate
efforts on-site. The document also condemned rescuers' failure to properly
sort victims and immediately assess their condition, inadequate preliminary
treatment and overcrowding at hospitals.
"It was absolutely obvious that the goal of saving people was secondary;
the primary goal was to eliminate the terrorists," commission chairman
Eduard Vorobyov quoted one expert involved in the investigation as saying.
The commission, made up of nine SPS members and 11 experts, met seven times
to review audio and video recordings, as well as press publications.
Commission members also interviewed people who participated in the rescue
operation.
Of the 11 experts, only four agreed to make their names public. SPS leader
Boris Nemtsov said this was due to "understandable" concerns and that
attempts to intimidate the experts had been "even greater than expected."
He did not elaborate.
Nemtsov also said that he has given the investigation results to President
Vladimir Putin, who said "the information was very close to what he knew"
already.
Nemtsov said he had not been left with the impression that Putin would take
action.
A source familiar with the meeting said the president's response had been:
"Why agitate the country?"
Last week Putin promised to appoint an official to look into unanswered
questions about the siege, Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky told The
Associated Press on Friday.
Although Nemtsov said that the negligence unearthed by the probe included
grave criminal offenses, SPS refused to try to identify the officials who
were guilty, saying that such matters should be left law enforcement and
the courts.
"We are not investigators of the Prosecutor General's Office," Nemtsov said.
The party's leaders voted to make the commission's findings public, but
chose not to submit them directly to the prosecutor's office.
SPS officials repeatedly said that they had no complaints about the work of
special forces troops who raided the theater where Chechen rebels held some
800 people hostage Oct. 23-26, or of medical personnel at hospitals where
the victims were treated.
Another SPS leader, Irina Khakamada, said the roots of the hostage-taking
-- which required more than 40 armed rebels to stockpile arms and
explosives in the heart of Moscow -- were inextricably linked to problems
in law enforcement and the military, including widespread corruption and a
decrepit agent network. Khakamada added that there were powerful interests
among both rebels and federal officials who had vested interests in seeing
the war in Chechnya continue.
Earlier this month, the State Duma voted against two resolutions -- one
from SPS and one from Yabloko -- calling for the creation of a
parliamentary commission to investigate the theater siege and rescue
operation.
*******
|