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Revenge takes root in the ashes
On the charred planks of the gymnasium of School Number One, amid soot-covered children's sneakers and shell casings, Beslan's aggrieved citizens debated fighting back. At first, parents, relatives and friends of those who perished in Friday's bloody climax to the three-day siege gathered at the gutted redbrick building to see the destruction with their own eyes. But the afternoon soon turned into an impromptu town meeting, held in the blackened gym where many of the hostages died. A few voices in the crowd called for calm, but many insisted that the deaths of so many children be avenged. "Let's gather up all of the men in the villages and fight," shouted one man. "If we don't act now, when we calm down we'll end up not doing anything at all," yelled a middle-aged woman, shaking her fist in the air. Can you say Khatmandu x 1000? Nikolai Betiyev, 52, urged restraint. "Let's bury the bodies first before we think of doing anything. We need to calm down." Betiayev? Liberals over there too? "We won't ever forget this," shouted back Taimuraz Metsiyev, a broad-chested, 33-year-old Ossetian who lost several friends and relatives in the siege. "So don't say that in time we'll learn to accept this, and that we have to concentrate on burying our children. i.e. "Shut your ass you liberal weenie!" "The people who don't want to fight say 'So many innocent lives will suffer if we take up arms'," Mr Metsiyev continued. "Well, we've already suffered enough. It's time to fight." Liberals exists in every society. Even as the first funeral processions began wending their way through the streets of Beslan, many residents began openly talking of revenge. They directed their anger at the organisers and abetters of terrorism in the volatile Caucasus region, and said they could no longer rely on local or Russian law-enforcement for protection. Someone will pay for this! President Vladimir Putin's image as an iron-willed, no-nonsense leader, relying heavily on his KGB past, now counts for little in many people's eyes. They are furious with what they see as his inability to shield the nation from terrorism and from the fallout of the decade-long conflict in the northern Caucasus. Now, Mr Putin's calls for restraint appear to carry little weight with so many touched by the crisis. My mother-in-law, a Russian citizen, voted for Putin. Now she is not so sure. . In Beslan, Fatima Ganukova scoffed at the President's surprise visit to the town early on Saturday to meet survivors, saying he should have instead visited the morgue to view the scope of the tragedy. i.e. Vlad needs a dose of reality. "Of course, after the funerals our men will try to take matters into our hands," Ms Ganukova said. "And of course, this is the right thing to do." Again, remember what happened in Khatmandu? Posted by: BigEd 2004-09-07 |
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