Explosions take place in Russia again. The last week of March started with terrorist acts at the Moscow metro stations which were followed by blasts in the Dagestani city of Kizlar. The horror spread from the metro to the whole city. The information appeared that the explosions were arranged by a “North Caucasian terrorist group”, and that female suicide bombers are believed to have carried out the attacks.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a strongly-worded statement: “The blasts organizers will be found and destroyed”. Some people noted that Dmitry Medvedev, who has legal education and who was probably dumbfounded by the attacks, forgot to speak about the trial. But later on the President did not use that word either. And even on April 2, at the meeting with the heads of the Russian State Duma factions, the President said again: “Those who have committed evil deeds, will be responsible for them, even in spite of the fact that capital punishment in Russia is cancelled”.

Let’s come back to the horror. It split the people into those who suspect and who are suspected. The press made the society more and more suspicious: every day the mass media said that the suicide bombers were the Chechen or the Dagestani. When Sergei Markov, the main ideologist of the “United Russia” party and political scientist, was asked a question “What do the bandits want?”, he immediately answered that “their main purpose is to create the world Caliphate”. (With such a player as China having the population of one and a half billion people and the booming economy, it is impossible to hope that Caliphate may be created in the whole world – even all the Islamic countries taken together would not have enough population or technological potential to do that).

It is difficult to say why the mass media have made so many absurd “mistakes”. It is clear that information was leaked by security agencies that investigated the terrorist acts. But, for example, a newspaper said why suicide bombers had used the explosive belts: “Wahhabites believe that after their death Allah drags them to the paradise by the ears. So they are afraid to lose their ears rather than to die”. Also, I read that “before entering the metro, one of the suicide bombers knelt in the vestibule and prayed in public view”. That’s nonsense!

The situation became so tense that people in the Moscow metro dashed aside from girls in the Muslim headscarves, and sometimes just chucked them out of the trains. The Moscow apartments, where the Chechens lived, were searched (later on the investigation agencies established that the Chechens had not been involved in the explosions in the Moscow metro). Nurdi Nukhazhiev, Ombudsman for the Chechen Republic, called on the law enforcement agencies to “comment upon the terrorists’ ethnic origin in a restrained way”. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also asked the people not to make an emphasis on the terrorists’ ethnic origin: “Otherwise we will become weaker and our nation, which just started to revive, will cease to exist”. He stressed that the people must not be divided up into the Russian citizens and the Caucasians.

But it seems to me that the people have already been divided. The politicians often say that we (do you understand who is meant?) have only one ally in the North Caucasus – the Orthodox Ossetia. It is said about the suicide bombers that they were taken to Turkey, drugged (by the Muslims?) and that the bombers studied the Islam at madrasah. How have those details become known? Why did such information appear in the mass media before the expert examination (to say nothing of a trial)? Because even if it is a lie, nobody will be responsible for it.

One can only surmise why this wave of hysteria and horror is raised. Probably this distracts the masses from annoying questions that the people can ask the authorities. And there are a lot of such questions.

Firstly, why did the policy-makers, while realizing how serious the terrorist threat is, keep speaking about the victory in the Caucasus, about the stability and the strengthening of the executive chain of command? For example, Boris Gryzlov, Speaker of the Russian State Duma, said a year ago: “Cessation of the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya is declaration of victory over terrorists”. Nikolay Patrushev, former head of the Federal Security Service of Russia stated: “We virtually won the war, which not only terrorists, leaders of illegal armed groups, but also their supporters and sponsors had declared on us”. It is strange that condoling with the dead, high-ranking officials did not make any excuses.

Secondly, after every terrible terrorist act (Beslan, Nord-Ost) the state increased the security expenses, reduced the civil freedoms, but all of that came to nothing. Who is guilty that the terrorists managed to get to Moscow? Explanations that policemen cannot be posted near every building and that terrorists carry out the explosions everywhere are not efficient any more. The number of policemen can be increased tenfold, but this would not guarantee that we will be in safety. The Russian police needs professionals (today in the Moscow metro there are quite young policemen who frighten people rather than calm them). And we bear in mind that the law enforcement agencies are corrupt.

As regards security measures, it has recently become known that 70% out of 80 thousand surveillance cameras are out of order, or imitations have been installed instead of them (800 million rubles were spent from the Moscow budget on those cameras). It is not known who stole the money. I wonder if they are terrorists’ accomplices (like those who feed them), for whom the authorities are going to toughen punishment.

Thirdly, it was known beforehand that the terrorist acts would take place, and there were more patrols in Moscow’s streets. But why wasn’t the population notified about that? The second explosion occurred forty minutes later after the first one, and timely information could reduce the number of victims. Why did the state television show entertaining programmes right after the terrorist act, and inform the people about the terrorist acts too late? It is a shame that Euronews channel had informed the people of Russia’s news earlier than the Russian mass media did.

And the most difficult question is isn’t Russia’s policy in the North Caucasus provoking? 250 thousand Chechens were killed during the “counter-terrorist operation” in Chechnya (the numbers of the killed civilian people are approximate). Civilian people are being killed during the current fight against terrorism too.

“Our policy in the Caucasus should be reasonable and up-to-date”, said Dmitry Medvedev. If the policy had become reasonable slightly earlier, maybe, the terrorist acts would not have happened? And what is meant by “our”?

Akram Murtazaev is a laureate of the Russian Journalist Award “Zolotoye Pero” ("The Golden Pen")

16.04.2010