Year after Beslan siege, turning anger to action

Rumors of a cover-up
The delays in the investigation have fueled rumors of collusion between the Chechen militants and local officials. Some have suggested the Chechens bribed police to allow their truckloads of terrorists and weapons over the border in North Ossetia.

Most bereaved families — and many others here — believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin knows the truth, but is covering up a bungled rescue operation to protect his chances of winning an unprecedented third term as president.

''It's painful because it's been a year and still no one's been punished,', said Felix Hubetsova. (Thirty-one of the 32 alleged terrorists were killed in the assault. One survivor is on trial but claims to know nothing about preparations for the attack.)

Some Kremlin-watchers see a familiar trend in the signs of bungling and cover-up. ''It's actually an old Russian tradition of authoritarianism,'' explained military analyst Pavel Felgenahuer. ''There's no accountability. Because people do not respond to the public, you answer only to the Czar, sometimes with your head. So public opinion hardly plays any role at all.''

Turning pain into action
But, emerging from the anger and confusion, a group of Beslan mothers, who lost loved ones in the attack, has boldly decided to turn their pain into action, demanding that the truth be made public so they can have some closure.

A small contingent of the Beslan Mothers' Committee flew to Moscow on Friday to meet with Putin, to air their view that the Russian forces' botched operation cost dozens — perhaps hundreds — of lives.

Media coverage of the meeting was restricted, but wire reports quote Putin as telling the group that, while no government can guarantee protection against terrorism, that was ''no excuse for officials' improper fulfillment of their duties.''

Some of the Mothers' appeared downcast after the meeting, but said that Putin had heard them out.

Zalina Guburova did not go to the Kremlin. She felt that the timing of Putin's first-ever invitation, in the middle of Beslan's three-day vigil, was a deep insult.

Zalina Guburova has reason to complain — she lost both her only child, 8-year-old Suslan Guburova, as well as her 67-year-old mother, Vera, who had taken the boy to his first day of school because Zalina Guburova was abroad.

A Chechen militant at point blank range shot Suslan Guburova in the head. Vera died when the gym's roof collapsed in a ball of fire. At the Mothers' Committee headquarters, Zalina Guburova’s eyes burned through her pale, mournful face.

''Now I have no one left. I lived half of my life and now I have no meaning in life. So I intend to fight in order to get the truth,” she said.

It is perhaps the most positive change in a town that symbolizes inhumane violence and misery: despite the hundreds killed, and the thousands of Beslan survivors whose pain may never heal, some experts suggest that we may be witnessing the real birth of Russian democracy in this cursed hamlet.

It may lay with this small group of mothers and fathers who want answers, and who are determined to take action in order to get them.

It could be, beyond the shiny granite tombstones, hi-tech schools and trendy statues, Beslan's most enduring legacy.

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