#5 - JRL 6525
Izvestia
October 31, 2002
TRUTH ARITHMETIC
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

Another two former Moscow theater hostages died yesterday. One died in hospital No. 13, the other in hospital No. 7, according to the chairman of the Public Health Care Committee of Moscow, Andrei Seltsovsky. Thus, the death-toll from the theater hostage-taking has risen to 119 people. But there are no official figures. The more time passes since the terrorist act itself and the heroic liberation of hostages, the more one is inclined to think that the government is again fearing to tell people the truth, for some reason. Even though the public has completely approved of the hostage-release operation and the president's decisions. A great number of hostages' relatives claim say that nothing is known about dozens of hostages for the time being. Besides, there has been a persistent rumor in the corridors of power about 65-80 people missing. Where could they have gone, from a closed hall and five or six hospitals? Why haven't any officials revealed the truth yet? How many people were actually held hostage? How many were released? How many were hospitalized? How many died? Without truthful answers to these simple questions, even the bitterest one, any victory over terrorists may once again be negated, owing to the lies and half-truths of officials.

Concealment of the actual scale of the incident was imputed to authorities right after the launch of the release operation. The data on casualties varied greatly: from 67 reported by deputy foreign minister Vladimir Vasilyev from the theatre entrance after the assault began, to 200 on little-known websites.

According to our estimates, 810 people (audience and actors) were taken hostage. During the following 56 hours terrorists released 58 people. Thus, by the time commandos stormed the theater, there were over 752 hostages there.

On the evening of October 27, the chairman of the Moscow Committee on Public Health Care reported that at that moment 646 hostages were in hospital. In his words, 117 people had died, and 60 people had been released from hospital. According to this information, by the time commandos stormed the theater there were around 823 hostages in the theater.

The vazhno.ru site, created solely for seeking out ex-hostages, lists names of 1,002 hostages, of whom 287 are marked as missing. The site's administrators says that the list is made up going by "information published in catalogue, letters and general data". It is not ruled out that names of a number of missing people appeared on the site on Saturday-Sunday when no information proceeded from doctors and people were trying to find their relatives by all possible means.

But the fact remains a fact, and a shameful one: more than five days have passed, but no one knows the exact number of victims or freed hostages. The total number of hostages is also unknown. Such inaccuracy and unwillingness of authorities to unveil the true number of casualties may cause a suspicion that together with hostages the government was saving its reputation. Some may claim that it was the reputation that mattered more.