Posted on 09/06/2004 5:20:26 AM PDT by BritishBulldog
CAIRO, September 6 (IslamOnline.net) - The Russian school hostage crisis that ended in a bloodbath continued Monday, September 6, to grab the headlines of major media outlets worldwide, with the Russian authorities both handling of the crisis and its "lies" coming to the fore.
The Russian government admitted that it lied to its people about the scale of the hostage crisis that ended with almost 400 children, parents and teachers dead in the school of the southern Russian state of North Ossetia.
Washington Post, the leading US daily, said the extraordinary admission through state television came after days of intense criticism from citizens, seeing the move to be marking a sharp turnabout for the government of President Vladimir Putin.
The broadcast included no apology and referred only to the most blatant misstatement by officials, the claim that only 354 hostages were inside the school.
The Kremlin-controlled Rossiya network also aired gripping, gruesome footage it had withheld from the public for days and said government officials had deliberately deceived the world about the number of hostages inside School No. 1.
Read the Full Story on the Washington Post..
British daily the Independent took a humanitarian aspect of the gross ordeal, covering the mass funeral of the victims and monitoring the bereaved families of Beslan as they laid their loved ones to rest.
The daily was there at the highly emotional burial of the dead in a sprawling field on the outskirts of Beslan, where a lust of revenge mixed with grief prevailed.
The paper carried a detailed expression of feelings and scenes.
"One boy broke down in the hall, fell to his knees and started sobbing uncontrollably as he clutched a radiator while small candles flickered in the afternoon gloom."
Read the Story of the Independent in Full..
Another US major daily dealt with the aftermath of the horrifying ordeal, drawing a picture of how Moscow was, following the bloody end to the siege.
The bereaved families of Beslan began to lay their loved ones to rest
New York Times portrayed how Moscow has slipped into an anguished funk after shocking scenes of dead or terrified children filling the television screens after a near-news blackout during the days of the hostage-taking.
Still, in the days after the deadly hostage-taking, a sense of dread, fatalism and futility has spread through Moscow.
A festive annual City Day weekend was canceled and the government announced two days of mourning culminating in plans for a huge rally on Tuesday near Red Square.
The paper quoted Russians believing the wave of attacks have been linked to a decade-long separatist war in Chechnya.
Read the Story of New York Times in Full..
The Guardian, another British daily, covered the political aspect of the crisis, lingering on Russian mistakes and the implications of the war in Chechnya.
The Europeans were reported by the daily to have joined the fray, with the first muted criticisms of Russia's handling of the siege - and the protracted Chechen crisis - emerging at the weekend amid outpourings of humanitarian sympathy.
The Dutch government, which holds the European Union presidency, asked the Russian authorities to explain "how this tragedy could have happened".
Diplomats at Valkenburg in the Netherlands, where EU ministers met, said Latvia, the former Soviet republic, had also pressed other states to react more strongly to Russia's conduct of the security operation.
In London, the Conservative foreign affairs spokesman, Michael Ancram, cautioned about the danger of pursuing "military solutions internally" and urged Putin to refrain from launching a backlash against the Islamic community in the region.
But Russia reacted with defiance, denouncing the request by Bernard Bot, the Dutch foreign minister, for an explanation for the bloody end to the hostage seizure. The Dutch ambassador in Moscow was summoned to the foreign ministry on Saturday to clarify Bot's statements.
Read the Story of Guardian In Full..
If I were in Holland, I wouldn't have been so quick to annoy a country with such high-yield nuclear arms! The atomic football must be getting a lot of looks in the Kremlin this week.
The parallels with the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 30's are growing stronger with each passing day. The intellectually dishonest MSM will be looked back on by future historians (if they haven't been nuked off the earth by then).
Yeah, where do the Dutch get off upbraiding Russia for a Russian affair? Were there Dutch kids or teachers in that school? (Fat chance)
It would be VERY tempting for them to just nuke Chechnya, although the majority of people there DON'T want the terrorist rule
It sure does. I was thinking the same thing only you said it better than I could.
Also
Kerry wants a sensitive war. there is no sensitivity in this war, these animals lowered the bar far below any could have imagined.
I don't think Putin really comes across as the kind of chap to respond to this with renewed peace talks, as some UK newspapers have urged.
The problem for Putin is that he can't really do much more in Grozny. There isn't much there that he hasn't already bombed. Ethnic cleansing is not an option and, with most of the Ukraine already glowing green, I very much doubt that he'd like to nuke the area as some posters have suggested.
Mr Putin has some very difficult decisions to make.
Dutch kids are probably having pornographers chase after them.
Then it is up to the Majority to clean house, and really, really fast.
Un-freeping believable.
That's Bullshit period !
Typical response by terrorists. "We didn't want to kill those children. Russian insisted on it".
IslamOnline.net has just identified itself as an al Queda propaganda front. I wonder if some of those endless Russian hackers might be displeased with this IslamoFascist propaganda outlet?
Is there an email address forthe Russian govt. If they got a couple of thousand emails telling Putin to go forward and do what is necessary to stop this islamic terrorism, maybe he will, and maybe he'd come out and say that the only way to stop it is to do what Bush has done.
I don't think I could be any angrier had this happened in the U.S. You just don't do this to children, any children.
I'm all for burying those saddistic, brutal islamic butchers in a pig sty after slathering their butchering bodies in bacon fat!
Hmmmmmm. I was under the impression that it was U.S.A. Today.
Outside the U.S. nobody knows what "U.S.A. Today" is, seriously!!!
"Ethnic cleansing is not an option"
Why not?
The reason that we're all justifiably outraged by what went on at that school is that non-combatants were slaughtered. You can't condemn and then condone inhuman barbarism.
We had one holocaust in the 1940's, I would hope that mankind has progressed a little since then.
I understand and share your anger, but if this is to be a clash of civilisations, then we are honour-bound to prove that our one is in the right.
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