Dudieva: authorities hide the truth about Beslan terror act

Five years have passed after the tragedy in Beslan; the investigation is still on; but people until now do not know the whole truth why 334 persons perished and who was guilty of the tragedy. This was stated on September 1 by the members of the organization "Beslan Mothers" at a press conference.

"The investigation will last for many more months; and there are formal reasons for that: it is necessary to establish the names of all the terrorists, their possible helpers and so forth. And we are not against this intention to clear out all the details," said Susanna Dudieva, chair of the organization.

"However, we can clearly see another aim in protracting the process - an open unwillingness of the inquiry bodies to make an objective estimate of the whole range of objective circumstances and already established facts. Moreover, these bodies are undertaking to distort them, or hide them whatsoever," Ms Dudieva is convinced.

In the opinion of the members of the "Beslan Mothers", the tragedy in Beslan has two components - actions of terrorists, on the one hand, and actions of the authority, on the other. As to the terrorists, their actions have been established full enough and objectively; and they received their deserved punishment. "As to the inactivity of the authorities, who promoted realization of bandits' plans, it is still in the shadow and ignored by the bodies of investigation," Susanna Dudieva has noted.

According to her story, the victims are still trying to learn about the reasons of death of 334 persons and the names of those guilty. The investigation of the terror act continues and was prolonged for the 32nd time already. Today, the "Beslan Mothers" gave their own answers to their questions. As reported by Ms Dudieva, the committee builds its conclusions on multiple reliable evidences, obtained as a result of investigation, during consideration of the case of terrorist Kulaev, and also on the results of parliamentary investigations and official sources. She has stated that the conclusions of her organization coincide with opinion of a great number of experts, journalists and all reasonable people.

One of the conclusions is that the capture of hostages at School No. 1 could have been prevented; and the unobstructed penetration of terrorists into the territory of the republic and capture of hostages became a consequence of the poorest organization of the work of law enforcers.

She also said about the necessity to negotiate with the terrorists, emphasizing that "they persistently wanted to be negotiated with."

It is known that the terrorists put forward a number of demands and asked the authorities to send to them for talks Dzasokhov, Zyazikov, Aslakhanov and Roshal. However, according to Dudieva, already at night on September 2, the Operative Staff, then under command of Dzasokhov, made a decision not to let these persons to negotiations because of a threat to their lives.

She has also reminded that during the rescue operation the school was shelled from tanks, flame throwers and grenade launchers; and this fire could be observed by thousands of eyewitnesses.

"However, the investigation made a conclusion that the shelling had made no harm to anybody," the leader of the "Beslan Mothers" has noted.

116 persons got burnt down in the school gym. According to Dudieva, the count of victims could have been much smaller, if the timely measures to extinguish the fire had been taken.