"Beat BAB (Boris Abramovich Berezovskiy), save Russia!"
Posted on 09/11/2004 4:26:08 PM PDT by MadIvan
A newspaper owned by Boris Berezovksy, the Russian billionaire wanted for an alleged fraud of $13 million and granted political asylum in Britain, has issued the most direct challenge so far to the Kremlin's account of the Beslan siege.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant yesterday published a detailed rebuttal of Moscow's version of events, comparing each claim with parallel but contradictory statements from witnesses and local police. Contrary to official reports, it said, the terrorists had issued demands - specifically the release of prisoners held after a raid in Ingushetia in June - and these were passed to Ruslan Aushev, the former Ingush president.
It also quoted police reports that the terrorists had entered North Ossetia from Ingushetia, having previously hidden their weapons in the school.
Moscow claimed that they had driven fully armed directly from Chechnya. The newspaper's bold stand confronts head on President Putin's efforts to stifle criticism of Moscow's apparent botched handling of the siege.
The Kremlin put great pressure on the Russian press over its coverage. Raf Shakirov, the editor-in-chief of leading daily, Izvestia, was forced from his post after publishing pictures of the carnage with the headline, "The silence of the state". He said he was ousted because the Kremlin had "demanded blood".
Two prominent opposition journalists, meanwhile, claimed that they had been prevented from covering the siege. Anna Politkovskaya was apparently given poisoned tea on an aeroplane en route to North Ossetia, and Nana Lezhava, of the independent Georgian broadcaster Rustavi-2, said that she was detained after filing her report and given coffee laced with tranquillisers.
Mr Shakirov told the Telegraph that he did not regret his decision to publish full-page photographs, including images of dead children. He said that television coverage smacked of censorship and a cover-up. "That's why we put those pictures in," he said.
"I understood that we would not have been able to convey what happened in words. The word 'tragedy' was not enough."
Mr Putin has announced an inquiry into the siege, but critics doubt its promised independence given that it will be undertaken by unelected officials of parliament's upper chamber.
He has also accused Western officials of double standards in the war on terrorism in order to harm Russia. "We've observed incidents," he told foreign journalists. "Certain people want us to be focused on internal problems and they pull strings here so that we don't raise our heads internationally."
Significantly, he compared Russia's struggle to control Chechnya to Britain's war to regain the Falklands. Victory, he suggested, had helped to overcome domestic opposition to Margaret Thatcher's economic reform programme.
See the links behind the following link if you missed them before you saw this thread. The only reason I don't see the situation as others do now has to do with some information from my prior Army service, some study of History on Russia (both before and after the Soviet years) and what I learned from a few Russian acquaintances. Although there are a very few values basic to all, peoples in many parts of the world actually think differently from us about quite a few matters. For example, some cultures respect pride much more than humility, and others, the transverse. And some things don't change very quickly.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1213460/posts?page=5#5
I think you're being a bit naive. Don't forget that the former USSR (of which Putin was a part) was the primary funding source for a huge network of anti USA terror networks from the 1960's thru the 1980's. Ronald Reagan called them the Evil Empire for a bunch of very valid reasons. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because communism failed in that country, that they now have flocked to the banner of righteousness. Putin has always had his own agenda. I wouldn't put it past him to use the school tragedy to justify a sudden and dramatic military buildup across the board to combat the scourge of international terrorism. Yah right.
I think Putin and much of the rest of the pols in that nation want a return to the stage of being a world superpower on a level with the USA. This is one way for Russian boots to do some high powered walkin'.
You're right, I was totally naive on this,and am reading the suggested links and other things to learn more.
I am equally amazed at the number of people who somehow have forgotten the enemy Reagan defeated...and now tout the praises of Putin.
I am just as amazed at the folks who revere Nelson Mandela as some kind of hero. He who gets hugs and tender kisses from Ghadaffi and Castro. That ought to have been a world wake up call, but it was just more liberal grist for the mill.
Thanks, I feel like grasshopper here:)
Somebody else on this thread said that Putin is incompetent and that Russia is now paying for it. I don't think so. I think he's a ruthless, shrewd and calculating guy with a definite agenda that is right on track.
ping and lots of good links
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