Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (33 page)

“From which district? From yours? Vedeno?”

“What are you, a GRU agent? You’re interrogating me like a GRU agent. That’s all I’ve got to say, go away!”

It is impossible for me to go away at this point, although I very much want to. I hear myself almost pleading, which is completely the wrong tone, of course:

“Please understand, I need to know what it is you want. And I need to know exactly. Otherwise …”

From time to time I trip over myself. I am racking my brains over an intractable problem: how can I ease the plight of the hostages as much as possible, since the hostage-takers have at least agreed to talk to me, but not lose my credibility in their eyes? And I am making a mess of it. Quite often I can’t think what to say next, and blurt out a lot of nonsense, just hoping not to hear Bakar say “That’s it!,” whereupon I would have to leave empty-handed, having failed to negotiate anything at all for the hostages. As we approach the third point of “their” plan, Boris Nemtsov [chairman of the Union of Right Forces political coalition] phones Bakar on his mobile. The resistance fighters took it from one of the hostages, a
Nord-Ost
musician, and now they are using it for all their conversations.

While he is talking to Nemtsov, Bakar becomes very agitated. Afterwards he tells me Nemtsov is trying to trick him. Nemtsov said yesterday
that the war in Chechnya could be ended, but today, October 25, the security sweeps have been renewed. Then I ask, “Who will you believe? Who would you trust if they told you that troops were being withdrawn?”

Only Lord Judd, it transpires, the Council of Europe’s rapporteur on Chechnya.

We get to “their” third point, which is simple: if the first two demands are met, they will release the hostages.

“And yourselves?”

“We will stay behind to fight. We will behave like soldiers and die in battle.”

“But who in fact are you?” I ask, scaring myself with my audacity.

“The Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion.”

“Are you all here?”

“No. Only some of us. We had a selection process for this operation and chose the best. If we die, there will still be others to continue our struggle.”

“Do you accept Maskhadov’s authority?”

He is thrown by this, and again becomes extremely irritated. His rambling explanation is best summarised as, “Yes, Maskhadov is our President, but we are fighting on our own.”

This is confirmation of my worst fears: the group is one of those acting independently in Chechnya. They are waging their own very radical war autonomously. By and large they have no time for Maskhadov, considering him insufficiently hard-line. I continue:

“But you do know that peace negotiations are being conducted by Ilias Akhmadov in America, and Akhmed Zakayev in Europe, who both represent Maskhadov. Perhaps you would like to contact them now? Or let me dial them. Yours is the same cause.”

“What for? We don’t acknowledge them. While we are dying in the forests they are slowly conducting their negotiations because it is not their heads the rain is falling on. We are fed up with them.”

There is no real fourth point to their plan, other than some strongly felt remarks of Bakar’s own: “People have been asking to come here
as suicide bombers for a year and a half,” and “We have come to die.” I have no doubt of that. These are doomed men and women prepared to die, and to take with them as many lives as they see fit.

The mobile phone rings again. Bakar listens. It is a phone call from home, from the Vedeno District of Chechnya. He starts shouting and raging: “Don’t ring here any more. Ever. This is the office. You are interfering with my business.”

“May I talk to the hostages?”

“No.”

But five minutes later, he says to a “brother,” sitting almost behind my back, “OK, bring one.”

He goes and brings from the auditorium a terrified, pretty girl called Masha. The hostages have had nothing to eat and she is so frightened and weak that she can’t speak.

Bakar is irritated by her mumbling and orders her to be taken away. “Bring another one, older.” In the interim, Bakar tells me how noble they all are. They have so many pretty girls in their power – and Masha really is very pretty – but they have no desire. All their strength is being kept for the struggle for the liberation of their land. I understand him to mean that I should be grateful for their not having raped Masha.

We speak briefly about morality and ethics, if these are the right words.

“You won’t believe it, but morally we feel better here than at any time in the past three years of the war. We are finally doing something. We feel entirely at home. We feel better than ever. We will be glad to die. The fact that we will go down in history is a great honor. Don’t you believe me? I can see you don’t believe me.”

Actually, I very much do believe him. This kind of talk has been heard among Chechen fighters for a year already. Resentful of the virtual Maskhadov’s inaction, many resistance units have sat through an entire winter in the forests and have now had enough. They can’t come out of the forests, they can’t fight. They need something to do, but there are no orders from their Commander-in-Chief. As this mood
has grown, units have either fallen apart or become radicalized, in effect embarking on parallel wars over which Maskhadov has no authority.

The “brother” brings another pretty girl in a state of extreme nervous exhaustion.

“I am Anna Andriyanovna, a correspondent of
Moskovskaya Pravda
. Everyone outside must please understand, we are already expecting to die. We realize that Russia has abandoned us. We are a second
Kursk
[a submarine which sank with the loss of all hands shortly after Putin became President]. If you want to save us, come out to demonstrate in the streets. If half of Moscow begs Putin, we will survive. We can see clearly that if we die here today, a new slaughter will start in Chechnya which will rebound on Russia and cause new carnage.”

Anya talks incessantly. Bakar is getting edgy but she doesn’t notice. I am again very much afraid that he will decide to be masterful. Finally she is taken away and we agree that I shall organise things at once and bring some water into the building. Bakar unexpectedly adds, “And you can bring some juice.”

“For you?”

“No, we are preparing to die; we are not eating or drinking anything. For them.”

“And perhaps some food? If only for the children.”

“No. Ours are starving, so let yours starve too.”

I go outside. I find that Dr Roshal has already left. It begins to pour, damn it, just at the wrong moment. “I haven’t even got an umbrella,” I think. “I look like a wet hen.” Well, you have to think something.

We have a whip round among everybody standing nearby. The journalists are the first to dig deep, and the firemen. Somebody runs to the nearest shop to get juice. We find that the representatives of the state have no change available at this moment. That seems odd, but there is no time to think about it, only the realisation that we must move as quickly as possible before the hostage-takers change their minds.

The juice is brought back. Roman Shleinov (a colleague at
Novaya
gazeta
) and I take two packs each in our arms and try to walk. On our right is an Interior Ministry officer, on our left an FSB officer. They are arguing. The one from the Interior Ministry has orders to allow us in since this is aid for the hostages and represents an opportunity to prolong contact with the outlaws as long as possible. The one from the FSB has orders not to let us through.

They quarrel. The rain pours down and we stand there like idiots in full view of all the snipers, just waiting, it seems to me, for someone to start shooting. Finally the FSB agent agrees: “Go on, then.”

We take one batch and then another. Darkness falls; the gunmen had told us to bring it before dark but a criminal amount of time passes before the state manages to come up with juice for the next batch.

The third time, they allow a group of male hostages out to meet us. I’m afraid to say anything to them in case the hostage-takers start shooting. I just say “Hello,” and they reply. They are allowed out in single file. A young man in evening dress and a white shirt passes me. Presumably he plays in the orchestra. He whispers tersely, “They have told us they will start killing us at ten this evening. Pass it on.”

The next time I just nod silently to him, making eye contact, to let him know I have told the relevant authorities. They are leading the hostages down the steps to meet us, perhaps intending to make a point of showing how well they are treating them. Picking up his crate of juice, my musician whispers on the way back, “Understood.”

The gunmen suddenly start becoming very nervous. They shout and pace up and down. A hostage calls from above, “Bring some disinfectant. We really need it. We did ask for it.” He is driven back. I ask permission to bring the disinfectant, but am met with a complete refusal.

“At least some food? Just a little? For the children? Please …”

“We are dying of hunger, let them die of hunger too. Go away.”

This day in history comes to an end, to be followed by the assault. Now I keep asking myself whether we did everything possible to help avoid those deaths. Was it a great victory to have 67 hostages killed (excluding those who died after they got to hospital)? Was I any help
to anyone with my juice and my last-ditch efforts? I believe I was, but that we could have done more.

Too much is now behind us, and a great deal still lies ahead. The tragedy of
Nord-Ost
, for which there were of course reasons, will not be the end. From now on we will have to live in constant fear when our children or old people go out of the house. Will we ever see them again? It will be just the way people in Chechnya have been living these last years.

There are only two alternatives. The first is finally to recognise that the more excessive force we use there – the more blood, killings, abductions and humiliations – the more people there will be in Chechnya who want revenge at any price; the more recruits there will be to the ranks of those wishing to die in retaliation.

And since this war will be fought not on a battlefield but amongst us, involving completely innocent people – you and me, and all of us – we can be sure that there will be another
Nord-Ost
, and that nobody anywhere can feel safe, whether going out or staying in their own flat. A cornered fighter will devise ever more ingenious means of retribution.

The second option is fraught with difficulties, but is at least a move in the right direction. We need to start talking to Maskhadov, a man clinging to what little remains of his power. Otherwise we are doomed to conduct negotiations like those over
Nord-Ost
within a framework of hopelessness, with innocent lives at stake.

57 HOURS

November 4, 2002

The last few days have passed in a feverish delirium. Moscow is burying the hostages. Today, just like yesterday, just like tomorrow. It is unbearable. The faces of the dead are calm, not contorted, as if they had simply fallen asleep. And actually that is just what they did, because Russia failed to administer the gas [used prior to the assault] in the correct concentration.

I make it a rule not to write reports from funerals but this will be
an exception. Lena, my old, dear friend, is burying her son Andryusha and her husband Sergey. On October 23 the three of them went to the theatre together. They were seated together, waited together for help to come, but only Lena survived.

The coffins of Andryusha and Sergey are side by side in the church, with a narrow passage between them. There are so many people you couldn’t push your way through. Nobody makes any speeches, there is no politics, only Lena walking up and down this passage, murmuring from time to time. When she stops walking she rests a hand on each coffin and tries not to collapse. She lowers her head between the coffins and so resembles a bird with outspread wings, or somebody wounded struggling to get to their feet.

I too am terribly, irredeemably guilty for what has befallen Lena, and only I know why. It is too late to do anything about it.

After the funerals I fly to Paris for a few hours and very soon regret having done so. The television station France 2 has invited me to take part in the country’s most popular Saturday evening program. I agreed only because people were telling me how little the West understood what is happening in “the East.”

On the show, compered by French television celebrity Thiérry Ardisson, a well-known French singer was to perform immediately before me. I didn’t write his name down and can’t remember it now. There was also the Minister of Health from the Chechen Government when Maskhadov was in power, Umar somebody. Torrents of words poured forth about the Chechens, and how long and tirelessly they have been fighting for their freedom. The singer thought it was terrific, as did the presenter. It only left a very short time for me to say … Well, to say what, now that I had this prime-time opportunity?

I spoke badly, briefly, and not at all to the point. It was a disgrace, of course, because if you are given an opportunity to state your viewpoint, you should be ready to do so. No matter how hard I tried, though, I felt completely alien in this environment. We were on different wavelengths. Nobody in the audience wanted to hear about what, having just come from all these funerals, mattered most to me – the victims, the dreadful consequences. The Ichkerian Minister of Health
(who really had nothing to do with anything, and who seemed rather at sea) found himself the focus of a whirl of emotional exclamations from admiring, ecstatic Frenchwomen of the same, far from young, age as me. Their superficial, romantic nonsense left me feeling nauseated, because they were as blind to the reality as … well, as we are. Only for them, Chechens are all good, and for Russians they are all bad.

I flew back to Moscow. The World Chechen Congress took place in Copenhagen immediately after the assault, and was subjected to an unprecedented barrage of protest from the Kremlin, which cancelled visits and summit meetings. (Moscow had to make do with the arrest of Akhmed Zakayev as a booby prize from the Danish Government.) On November 1 the Moscow participants of the Congress, in accordance with its concluding resolution, laid a wreath where the
Nord-Ost
victims had died.