Editorial
Terrorists siege ends
We condemn playing politics with children
At last the nightmare of several hundred innocent children of a school in Beslan, a small town in North Ossetia in Russia, taken hostage along with their mothers, has come to an end, but under painful circumstances. We are shocked at the death of more than 150 hostages and more than 600 wounded in the hostage crisis in an apparent attempt of siege. Till writing of the comment, we were not sure how it all happened. Whether it was the Russian forces assaulting hostage takers that triggered the tragedy or it was something else, we don't know yet. Any hostage taking is abhorrent, more so when the victims are innocent school children and mothers. Nothing can justify the action of these militants, whatever be their cause and the ends that had compelled them to seek this despicable recourse. We condemn this action in the strongest of terms. The perpetrators have our deepest contempt. For the Putin government this is the third terrorist action that it has had to put up with in the past seven days. Coming on the heels of the simultaneous aerial destruction of two Russian passenger aircraft and a bomb attack outside a Moscow metro station last Tuesday, Putin has some very serious situations to contend with. Given the fact that he has so long tried to give the Russians the impression that his uncompromising tactic in dealing with the Chechen separatists has borne fruit, the recent incidents belie his claims. Apparently, the Russian government was not willing to precipitate any action this time since many children's lives were at stake, and rightly so since its record of handling previous hostage situations has been rather dismal. The Moscow theatre hostage crisis in Oct 2002 provoked such reaction of the Russian government that, at the end of the day, cost the lives of more than a hundred civilians. Coming in the wake of the recently held Chechen presidential elections these two events are perhaps meant to send a message to the rulers in Moscow. But one's resentment and demands can never acquire even a patina of legitimacy by putting innocent lives in danger or making women and children objects of barter. But at the same time we express our deep concern for how the Chechen people have been, and are being treated by Moscow. The Chechens have genuine grievances and demands but such insensate acts will only cause them to lose international public opinion.
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