The Russian government's tougher approach after the tragedy was also apparent in a statement Tuesday from the Foreign Ministry, in which it demanded the extradition of Akhmed Zakayev and other Chechen separatist leaders who have been granted political asylum in Western Europe. During the siege, two Russian government envoys reached out to Zakayev, inviting him to join talks to end the standoff in the first overture to him in three years.
But the statement Tuesday called him a "terrorist" whose "evil deeds" must not go unpunished and demanded that authorities in Britain, where he has been allowed to live, hand him over and acknowledge "the degree of their misjudgment."
Hostages are seen in the gymnasium of School No. 1 in video footage shot by the guerrillas. The footage was released by the Russian government.
(NTV Video Images Via Reuters)
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_____Inside the Gym_____
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Video Report: Video recorded by terrorists in the school in Beslan was released by the Russian government Tuesday. It shows how the gym was rigged with explosives.
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_____Photo Gallery_____
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Russia Begins Burying Victims: Funeral processions in Beslan on Monday moved one after another for the hundreds who died in the Russian school hostage crisis.
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Photos: Standoff Ends
_____More From The Post_____
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Old Animosities Boil Anew In Wake of School Tragedy (The Washington Post, Sep 8, 2004)
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Hostage Takers in Russia Argued Before Explosion (The Washington Post, Sep 7, 2004)
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Under a 'Crying' Sky, Beslan's Dead Are Laid to Rest (The Washington Post, Sep 7, 2004)
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Russia Admits It Lied On Crisis (The Washington Post, Sep 6, 2004)
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A Gruesome Tour Inside School No. 1 (The Washington Post, Sep 6, 2004)
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Participants in the marathon session at Putin's country residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow agreed that the president -- at times angry, at times calm -- had a tough message to send on Chechnya and the Caucasus region of which it is a part. Still, he gave little indication of what he planned to do other than take unspecified tough measures.
Cliff Kupchan, vice president of the Washington-based Nixon Center, a foreign policy research group, and a participant in the talks, said, "This was a guy who was really shaken, who took three and a half hours to talk to us, who was taking criticism and who was seriously thinking through issues." At Tuesday's demonstration held outside the Kremlin, many in the crowd of thousands of flag-waving Muscovites said they had come not to support the president but to show solidarity with the victims in southern Russia.
"No person can be indifferent now. It has nothing to do with politics," said Galina Drozhova, wielding a banner that read "Murderers Should Answer." The 54-year-old mother of two said that "execution" was the only proper punishment. "Any mother would just destroy these guys with her naked hands."
Vladimir Solovyov, a popular radio host who initially proposed holding the demonstration, said in an interview that he and his listeners decided during the school siege that "something has to be changed. We have to take care of things ourselves. It's obvious our government doesn't have a clue what to do."
After the bloody end to the standoff Friday, he said he received a phone call from the Kremlin embracing the demonstration. He said he was unhappy about it being taken over by officials, but decided that "politics is over" in Russia after an event so horrible. "Who cares about political quarrels when they are killing our kids? Since Nazi Germany, no one ever shot kids in the back."
The officially orchestrated nature of Tuesday's event was in evidence, from the ranks of city government employees to the preprinted signs saying "Putin We Are With You" carried by teenagers who said they had been handed them when they arrived. All Russia's major political parties sent delegations, but two Western-oriented democratic parties boycotted, citing the manufactured nature of the event.
