#2
gazeta.ru
November 14, 2002
No inquiry into Nord-Ost drama
By Artyom Vernidoub, Viktor Dimentman

The State Duma has rejected calls for a parliamentary investigation into last month’s hostage-drama in a Moscow musical theatre that ended with 128 hostages dead - most of them poisoned by gas used by the security forces to disable the terrorists. It now seems there will be no probe into the storming and its aftermath. And not only this time, but in the future if a similar tragedy ever takes place again.

The lower house was to review the proposal of the Union of the Rightist Forces (SPS) over a week ago, just before the November 7 holiday (Russia’s National Day of Accord and Reconciliation), but at their last pre-holiday session they said they needed more time to discuss the issue. An alternative draft resolution submitted by another liberal party – Yabloko – had not even been included in the agenda of that session, which prompted Grigory Yavlinsky and his colleagues to hold a grudge against the right-wingers and accuse them of conspiring with the Kremlin.

It could be argued that the Duma’s liberal factions behaved somewhat strangely. From the very start it was clear that their proposals would not receive any support from the pro-Kremlin factions.

The leftist forces in the State Duma have banded together following the theatre siege, avoiding any public statements on the issue (other than Zyuganov’s claim that Putin was to blame for everything), meaning the rightists should have known better than to count on the Communists’ support for their initiatives.

However, instead of merging their efforts, the liberals lapsed into mutual mudslinging. To begin with, the SPS refused to discuss its draft resolution for an inquiry with Yabloko, and Yavlinsky’s supporters, for their part, said the SPS’s draft had been composed to please the Kremlin, since it placed the blame for the hostages’ deaths on medical staff.

''The SPS’s draft does not call for an investigation into the true cause of the hostages’ deaths and claims that this subject should be closed altogether,'' the deputy chairman of the Yabloko faction Sergei Ivanenko told the press.

''For me those allegations are like water off a duck’s back,'' Boris Nemtsov later retorted.

On Wednesday the SPS and Yabloko continued to argue, completely destroying any chance of a parliamentary probe.

Deputy chairman of the SPS faction Boris Nadezhdin tried to explain that the difference between the two drafts was minimal, while Yabloko’s Ivanenko did find a difference, and a very substantial one: ''The SPS assumes that the operation to liberate the hostages was carried out brilliantly, while we think that the parliamentary commission must find out how it was carried out.''

Only the maverick Liberal-Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky interfered in the squabble between Yabloko and the Rightists. He demanded those deputies who entered into contact with the hostage-takers be punished. Obviously, by that Zhirnovsky meant Grigory Yavlinsky, Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada, but not Iosif Kobzon. The deputies were among those with whom the terrorists were willing to discuss their demands.

Zhirinovsky said that at the deputies’ meeting with Putin held during the theatre siege, he was the only one who demanded that the authorities begin to storm the building as soon as possible, while other Duma leaders beseeched the President to launch talks with the terrorists.

Yabloko’s Sergei Mitrokhin has since called for Zhirinovsky to be held liable for spreading misinformation.

The deputies Oleg Utkin (Unity), Yuri Konev (People’s Deputy Group), and Anatoly Chekhoyev of the Communist Party spoke against both drafts, effectively putting an end to yesterday’s debate. As a result, the draft of the rightists received only 38 votes, while 124 deputies backed Yabloko’s proposal. The required minimum was 226.

Thus, the parliamentary probe into last month’s hostage crisis has failed to get off the ground. Initially it had seemed that the determination of the liberals might challenge the official propaganda. The Kremlin probably recognized the threat, prompting Putin to summon Yavlinsky on the eve of the November holidays and praising him for keeping silent on the Nord-Ost issue.

Putin lauded the Yabloko leader for his conduct during the tragic events in Moscow. Yavlinsky was among those whom the hostage-takers invited to act as a negotiator on behalf of the authorities. He spent several hours in talks with the rebels and when he emerged from the captured building he did not utter a single word to the press.

It was after Yavlinsky’s visit to the Kremlin that the two liberal factions started exchanging accusations, and as a result failed to agree on a joint resolution.

At the same time, in all fairness, it is worth noting that the two drafts did differ on some issues. Yabloko suggested that the crisis be analyzed as a whole and called not just for an investigation into the liberation of the hostages, but into the security situation in Moscow, in Chechnya and throughout the country in general.

Yabloko’s draft contained a very important provision that had skipped the deputies’ attention amid the scandals; a call to amend the constitution and to establish a legal mechanism for parliamentary probes.

Indeed, no Duma initiative will ever bring any results unless Duma inquiries get legal status. The first to raise the subject was the former FSB chief, deputy Nikolai Kovalyov. ''Parliamentary investigations are not provided for in our Constitution. The deputies can only talk, debate and nothing more.''

As for the Rightists, their resolution called for those responsible for the deaths to be identified. To that end they had already set up their own public commission and invited doctors to take part in its session. A week ago the inquiry’s results were forwarded to the Kremlin.

''The results of the commission’s work are already on the president’s desk,” Boris Nadezhdin told the press last week adding that if the Kremlin ignores the commission’s conclusions, they will go public next week.

Judging by the SPS’s silence, the Kremlin has taken its conclusions into consideration, while Yabloko’s proposal to legalize parliamentary inquiries is, most likely, doomed to fail.

The result of the squabble, initiated by the liberals, is pitiful – the public will never know exactly who many hostages died in the Nord-Ost raid, who and how organized the rescue operation, and whether anyone will ever be held liable for the tragedy. The pro-Kremlin deputies, as it transpired on Wednesday, are not interested in the answers at all.

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