I would like to summon up my courage and declare that, of all the participants in this discussion, only I am personally acquainted with Anna Politkovskaya and, perhaps, the reality of Russia.

1. It is an abominable idea, that Anna was not poisoned, but was only trying to enhance her image. She has already made her name and displayed her authority, not only in the former Soviet Union, but in other countries as well. None of you show her any sympathy, though no one has the right to take her life outside of the law, no matter how bad she may be.
2. Have any of you, as Anna did, sat in a hole without food or water, as a hostage of the federals in Chechnya, have any of you seen murdered children and the faces of their parents, so that you can accuse her of deceipt or hypocrisy for the sake of popularity? Who of you has left all business behind in the USA, in order to stand in the middle of a city square under the guns of spetsnaz and terrorists, awaiting the decision by some headquarters on whether you could buy some juice with your own money to carry into the Moscow theater, to help us, the hostages there?
3. Why has the elementary thought not occurred to any of you, that a person can love their country, their city, their people, and want that life in their country should be as comfortable as in the USA?
4. Why have so many of you taken it upon yourselves to play God and decide which people should live, and which should not?

My friend very accurately describs terrorism and the fight against it in Russia. I can devise nothing better than her words here:

"Terrorists, including those who seized the school in Beslan, they are brain-dead degenerates and curs. Do not forgive them, insult them, or pay them attention. Don't give them anything. If there is a realistic chance of destroying them without risking, or minimally risking, the lives of hostages, this chance should be taken, quickly, decisively, and without doubts. For the sake of saving people, I negotiated with them and continued to the last opportunity, in the hope of saving people. I could care less how the surrounding world related to my activities, or what were the opinions of dense, impatient cowards, corrupt officials, and the like. Officials change rapidly and forever; people only live once, and they die forever. If someone were to take offense that I figuratively splash excrement on the honor of his uniform, I would exchange him without pity for women and children, no matter who he was. If this person cannot understand the value of human life, let him see for himself how it feels.

"That terrorists are the last of the degenerates does not mean that anti-terrorists have spotless hands which carry happiness and joy into every home. If we find among the anti-terrorists mediocrity, non-entities whose honor is for sale, liars, boasters, and heartless martinets - who defend only the honor of their uniform and the uniform of their commanders, then the result will be even worse acts by the terrorists; actually these two teams will play for a single goal - the death of the hostages.

"If I don't support anti-terrorists, it does not mean that I support terrorists. It means that the anti-terrorists have not managed their tasks and have only increased the consequences of the terror act, and in so doing became accomplices of the terrorists.

"Anti-terrorists can cover up the details of situations and limit publicity about the proceedings as long as this is required in the interests of saving people. But every attempt to lie, distort the essence of the proceedings or what occurred, to shift blame for their errors onto others - this is a criminal offense which cannot be excused or expiated by any means; in this case the anti-terrorists are the terrorists' accomplices and should be punished together with them.

"Anti-terrorists bear full and unconditional responsibility for their actions. Anti-terror is not a joke, it's not a picnic on the curb, it's not checking IDs or ripping off rich people, it's not making up a budget or other official matters pleasant to the body and soul. Any attempt to shirk responsibility or let another pay the price aids the terrorists and anti-terrorists above all should be punished in the harshest manner, without difference as to man, job title, his merits, or anything else.

"The activities of anti-terrorists should not directed towards solving hostage crises, dealing with the after-effects of explosions and other diversions, but centered on making sure none of this ever happens. Any terror act, explosion, or diversion is an indication of poor work by the anti-terrorists. The aim of terror acts, explosions, and diversions are to show fully the unsatisfactory work of the anti-terrorists, and demands an immediate investigation and improvement of their work; high-ranking jobs and loud-sounding names are not for alleviating circumstances, but aggravating them.

"If a terror act happens somewhere anyhow, an investigation of its reasons and the activities of the anti-terrorists should be maximally open and uncompromising. Openness provides not just a chance of eliminating the possible causes of acts of terror, but provides the majority of people with information on how to conduct themselves in critical situations, whom they may trust, and whom they may not. Even a small amount of knowledge of what to do under difficult situations may help to save the lives of a majority of people.

"Everyone needs to remember that the heroism of some people is always the result of the consequences of inactivity, carelessness, corruption, or incompentence of others. If somewhere the need for heroism arises, it means that there were significant, unsurmountable problems that could only be overcome through the sacrifice of their own lives. Where the is heroism, you will find the lowest and most base of people; if it was all a result of their actions or inactions, thant these need to be found and treated as accomplices of the terrorists. If this is not done today, then it will all repeat again tomorrow, and most likely, with even worse consequences.

"The struggle against terror should not be carried out using the terrorists' methods, because this generates an endless cycle of bloody wars without rules or a reasonable exit. The principal of collective responsibility is the the basis of terror, no matter under what slogans or in what form it is carried out. No government, religious, or ideologic offices, programs, slogans, or pressing needs can justify extra-judicial violence, cruelty, or secret courts.

"I have purposely not named any of the government services, officials, and the like, because I do not believe that the presciptions for combating terrorist evil are any different in various corners of the world. But at this time I live in the Russian Federation, a government that has been in a state of war for many years already.

"Anti-terrorists (secret services) came to power in the Russian Federation five years ago with slogans of a struggle with terror and providing safety to the citizenry. Gigantic resources are concentrated in the hands of the anti-terrorists. Through the efforts of the military (the army are not anti-terrorists) the terrorists were driven off into the mountains, and deprived of their main bases, and their communications were seriously disrupted. The servicemen did practically everything that was in their power. Society gave anti-terrorists a huge amount of trust in advance, thanks to these servicemen. Now anti-terrorists comprise 70% of those who make decisions in the government, including the very head of the regime. Fighting terror is supposedly the main specialty of these anti-terrorists, but the result of their five years at the helm has been an intensified wave of terror acts throughout Russia. Now this wave has washed over Moscow and the North Caucasus, but this in no way means that other parts of Russia are safe.

"Thus, it has been proven through practice - a terrible, bloody, and inhumane practice - that these new Soviet anti-terrorists are ineffective. Since the army has not changed during this time, the blame is soley the anti-terrorists'. The old punitive and repressive structures have been shown to be helpless against the real challenges of our time, and this is why they we cast them off during perestroika. We need to replace all these monsters for more something more effective that they are now. It does not matter that we are in mid-stream, or that it's a bad time for it - it's already too late to wait for a better opportunity. The enemy is at the gates, and he doesn't care who is next."

From Moscow News

No.40 for 2004 (22.10.2004) MN-Events Events of the week

Not Stockholm Syndrome

Anna Rudnitskaya

Two years ago several hundred people - the 'Nord-Ost' hostages - were subjected to an unknown gas. Some of them died, the rest were hospitalized. The composition of the secret substance was declared a state secret (for greater detail, see the dossier). All that is officially known is that the gas was harmless: President Putin stated this personally for an American television network.

But there are other opinions on this.

To remember everything

Witness Aleksey Minyaev was very disappointing for the investigator.

"Tell me everything that you saw and remember," asked the man from the attorney general's office, who was questioning the liberated 'Nord-Ost' hostages.

"I worked there as a coat checker," answered Aleksey. He does not remember anything more about the hostage taking, or the storming of the building. His loved ones discovered him in intensive care at Hospital no. 13 on the third day following the assault. "Where am I?" he asked his mother. She explained. He asked about friends. She started to tell him that some had died, some were in the hospital, some were already home. He interrupted her, and asked again: "But why am I in the hospital?"

The physicians at first explained the memory loss as part of the body's defense mechanisms, but Aleksey had not just forgotten about that which happened in the Dubrovka theater building, he was forgetting what was still happening to him. A month and a half later, when he was discharged from Hospital no. 13, his medical records contained a clinical diagnosis of his being 'a victim of crime and terrorism'. Farther in the report, his loss of memory was said to be due to a 'post-hypoxic state induced by the use of a substance with narcotic actions'.

"Retrograde amnesia," these are the words of Antonina Ivanovna, Aleksey's mother, who pronounces them without hesitation. "I remember, because once I saw a program, something like the television show 'Obviously Improbable', and they talked about this disease." The improbable has quickly become the obvious: Antonina Ivanovna had to remind her son, where and at what time, he would meet his friends, where he had laid his textbook. After Hospital no. 13, Aleksey spent another six months in the Center for Speech Pathology, and only later could he return to his studies - he is studying ecology at the Moscow Social University.

In the regional polyclinic, as at the university, Aleksey's story is known to all: the words 'Nord-Ost' are written right on the top of his medical charts in capital letters. There are only three such charts in the polyclinic. Besides himself, Aleksey knows Tamara Yusupova. She used to work at 'Nord-Ost', but now she is retired, feels poorly and has been categorized a group III invalid. Aleksey and his mother are also getting ready to do this: the therapist told them that the handicap is a given, but the head of the VTEhO did not receive them very cordially. "We should really continue treatment," she said. "How are you fixed with money?"

"We got the impression that if there was money, then he must be treated, but if not, then it wasn't necessary," Antonina puzzled. "She yelled at me, she said that he is functional, 'leave the office, I'll talk to him'."

"I just can't stand to see anymore doctors..." Aleksey adds.

According to information from Hospital no. 13's consultation office, which was opened for the victims of 'Nord-Ost', there are about 30 patients such as Aleksey. 'Hypoxic encephalopathy with complications' - is the streamlined version of their conditions in the language of medical documents.

"What did the doctors say? Is the gas to blame?"

"They say, perhaps," Aleksey answers.

"But what else could it be from?" his mother asks. "He lived for twenty years before this, only ever had colds. You don't lose your memory from a cold."

To forget everything

Oksana is 17. She sits by the window, looking straight ahead, quietly answering questions. Two years ago, she was still in school and was at 'Nord-Ost' with a friend. The unstated questions hangs in the air. Oksana nods her head slowly:

"He died."

She does not cry. She just stops for awhile, then continues. She speaks about how, when she came to in Municipal Hospital no. 1 a few hours after the assualt, she surprised the physicians, who had thought her to be beyond hope: "They brought me in, in very grave condition, I didn't react to anything. They carried me in like a dead body." She talks about how she was released after a week, and felt normal until last year, when her nerves began to give out. Last Spring, when she caught the flu, the cough would not pass, and it was thought that she had pneumonia, but it turned out to be bronchial asthma. Now, every spring, she has to spend a few weeks in the hospital.

Whether the gas is to blame or not, Oksana Matashenkova does not know for certain. The doctor at the polyclinic said that it is a possibility: none of her relatives has suffered from asthma, and it is not one of the possible complications of influenza. Another physician told her to not say anything to anyone in the hospital about 'Nord-Ost': they would discontinue her treatment.

She does not communicate with her former comrades in misfortune: "It only gets worse when I remember all that..." She does not go to theaters and cinemas, either. Once she decided to go to the premier of "Pushkinskiy", but when she saw the red theater seats, she dashed out in horror. Of all her former entertainments, her only remaining muscial is 'Notre Dame'.

"I went to see it four times. Not because I like it so much... It's just that sometimes I like to feel as if I'm there. Then I go to the musical."

She is afraid to ride on the subway, is afraid of dark streets, and scared to watch the television: "After Beslan it got worse. I understand that it's best not to watch the news, but I just can't, I watch anyway. It always seems to me, though, that they're going to blow me up now, that they're after me, that someone wants to kill me." No psychologists have examined her. She never sought them out: Oksana is studying psychology and knows all too well what they might say.

"Do you know what irritates me? When they talk about Stockholm syndrome. I don't have Stockholm syndrome, I don't justify those terrorists. But I can understand them. Some girls were sitting with us, 16-17 years old, they talked about how hard it was to live in Chechnya. I have more malice towards our government, than towards the Chechnyans. My friend suffocated. They didn't even take him to the hospital. Why did it happen like this?"

Oksana wipes shining eyes. She is not looking at me, but what could I say anyway?

Everyone healthy?

Many of the former hostages would not meet with the reporter: they wish to forget, they do not want to discuss the state of their health. Among those with whom I succeeded in speaking is Elena Vinogradova. After 'Nord-Ost' she discovered an enlargement of her thyroid. Now she needs an operation which costs 17 thousand rubels. There is the former usher from 'Nord-Ost', Lyubov Sviridova, who has been declared a group III invalid. She has problems with her blood vessels, and constant headaches. Her medicines cost 15 thousand rubels a month, but she is retired and cannot work. There is a woman who asked that I not use her name, who was in an early stage of pregnancy during the terror act. Her child was born with grave pathologies. No one will undertake to say what the cause is for sure - there are dozens of potential risk factors to account for it, but all of this woman's friends who told me of her misfortune were certain: it is 'Nord-Ost'. But how can one not come to this conclusion, when all that concerns the health of the former hostages and the after-effects of the gas are surrounded by such secrecy?

The press director for the Moscow public health committee, Lyubov Zhomova, answered our questions bruskly: "All of the former hostages are assigned to regional polyclinics near their places of residency. None are seriously ill. We do not specifically deal with them, but they are tracked as to why they came in." Nothing was known there about Tamara Yusupova and Lyubov Sviridova as well (since there are surely more such people). "There are no invalids among the former hostages," the press service cheerfully answered.
A few children were at 'Nord-Ost', and a diagnostic office was opened for them at the Filial hospital. "Our business is to cure, not to investigate," head physicial Vladimir Popov stated to the 'MN' news correspondent. "In order to state that specific diseases are caused by use of the gas, we would need to compare all these children with a different group. It is very interesting, but someone else should occupy themselves with it." For two years, no one else has been interested.

At the request of the 'MN' correspondent, Hospital no. 13's consultation office made a census: 82 former hostages were diagnosed with hepatopathy (a disruption in liver function), 41 with myocardiopathy (heart), 16 with nephropathy (kidneys). Several men complained of hearing loss; they were sent to the Center for speech pathology. Chief physician of the hospital, Leonid Aronov, when asked whether these diagnoses could be connected with the after-effects of the gas's application, answered with an already well-known phrase: "No direct connection. The gas contained no toxic substances."
In surviving 'Nord-Ost', the former hostages are now held prisoner by low-grade, unfriendly medicine, with lines at the regional polyclinics, shouting managers, and prescriptions for free medicines which are not supplied by any pharmacies. You cannot, of course, envy them. No one envies them, except perhaps for the relatives of the 129 who did not survive the effects of the 'harmless' gas."

The living and the dead are brought together by one thing - the diagnosis. Death certificates given to relatives of hostage family members read the same as the medical charts of the survivors: 'Victim of Terrorism'. Here medicine, of course, is powerless.

MN Dossier

What they said about the 'harmless' gas

Public health minister Yuriy Shevchenko four days after the assault declared that the gas that was applied was a derivative of Fentanyl, which is used as an analgestic in anesthesia. (Overdose can cause death in some patients, as a result of cessation of breathing and blood circulation). Later, in reply to an offical request by the public health committe of the Russian parliament to disclose the compositon of the gas, Shevchenko stated that "this information relates to a government secret."

The deputy chief of staff of the Russian catastrophic medical service, Boris Grebenyuk presented his version. Defending the physicians who were accused of delaying medical assistance by acting chief of the interior ministry, Vladimir Vasilyev, Grebenyuk declared: "In the course of the operation at 'Nord-Ost' the special services applied Tri-methyl-Fentanyl, a most toxic gas. There is simply no antidote. The physicians acted on the situation."

Foreign experts guess that, during the assault on 'Nord-Ost', strong-acting toxic substances may have been used. Two years ago, chemist Vil Mirzayanov in an interview with 'MN' offered that it could be the gas BZ, which was tested in the Burdenko hospital. "Those who survive will have health problems. The substance has a delayed action," the scientist warned.

STRAIGHT TALK

27 October 2002

"Two hostages died from gunfire, another 116 from the after-effects of the usage of special substances."

28 October 2002

"People did not die strictly from applicaton fo the gas. It was from the application of the gas under such non-standard conditions."

30 October 2002

"We are not seeing the influence of the special substances on the patients, these are the consequences of the terrorists' cruelty."

(From the public speechs of chairman of the Moscow city public health committee, Andrey Seltsovskiy)

No one is guilty in the deaths of the hostages

The 'Nordost' case (Kommersant, May 6th, 2005

Yesterday the Zamoskvorech'ye court in Moscow acknowledged that members of the special forces and doctors do not bear any responsibility for the loss of 129 persons during the 2002 hostage rescue action at the Dubrovka theatrical center (where the play 'Nordost' was showing). Svetlana Gubareva - whose 13-year-old daughter Alexandra and US fiancé Sandy Booker died during the special operation - received this answer in junction with the refusal of her complaint before the court.

Recall that the claimant requested the court overturn the decisions of the Moscow attorney general's office to not seek prosecution of physicians and soldiers. Like many victims, she assumes that her loved ones did not die at the hands of the terrorists, but as a result of the rescue operation. The refusal to bring charges against medical workers was signed by the Moscow attorney general's office on December 31st, 2002. The case against members of the special forces ended on October 16th, 2003, when investigation showed that the special forces 'acted in accordance with extreme necessity'. Svetlana Gubareva further requested that the court to recognize as illegal the actions of Vladimir Kalchuk, head of the city attorney's investigation into the terror act at Dubrovka. According to her, Kalchuk has undertaken any actions on a petition sent to him in September of 2003, requesting that he explain the circumstances of the loss of her loved ones.

The court, it seems, did everything possible for a detailed examination of the complaint. It introduced documents about the loss of the plaintiff’s loved ones, and - after granting the defense's request - questioned Inspector Vladimir Kalchuk (see the issue from April 18th). The inspector, it is true, stated that the refusals to prosecute were "justifiably" made, that he did not remember any letter from Svetlana Gubareva, but in general he refused to answer many questions. Elena Levshina, representing the city attorney's office, stated in the course of the hearings that there was no fault found on the part of medics and special forces members, but that the investigation was conducted thoroughly and competently. Mr. Kalchuk later sent the court a letter stating that he never received Ms. Gubareva's petition. Attorneys then produced for the court the original of the petition, bearing the receipt stamp of the city attorney's office, and asked for a separate decision with regards to the city attorney general's department. Judge Irina Vasina stated that she would examine the question when she arrived at a verdict in the lawsuit.

Yesterday, however, even the judge forgot about the defense's request. The court decided that the inspector's actions violated no laws, and that all investigations were executed in accordance with the law. Even if there were "incompleteness" in the investigation, it would be completed during further investigation - which has been prolonged until July 19th. As a result, the court refused all points of Ms. Gubareva's complaint.

"This is an unjustifiable decision," stated the plaintiff's attorney, Karina Moskalenko. "We established that Svetlana Gubareva's petition had been received by the attorney's office, it was a registered letter. For some reason the court not only would not consider this, but in general it would not return to our request to find the attorney's office in contempt. Furthermore, it's strange for a court of law to think that an investigation can 'subsequently ' fill in some gaps. The decisions curtailing the cases against the special forces and the medics, which we disputed, have already been made, that means that the investigation cannot return to these questions until the decisions have been abolished. This is some kind of a game, word juggling." In the opinion of the defense, many questions remained unanswered. Ms. Moskalenko explained that there had actually been no request for the court to examine a criminal case - the judge had stated that this was impossible. It did, however, need to examine Svetlana Gubareva's complaint. This, in the opinion of the attorneys, was not done. "I consider today's decision to be illegal, the court ignored all of our points, and we will appeal this decision in Moscow city court," Karina Moskalenko.

Marina Lepina
Kommersant

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