For whom the bell tolls By German Sadulayev, special to Prague Watchdog
St.Petersburg, Russia
On the night of November 27 and during the next day the phones of people who live in St. Petersburg and Moscow rang frantically. The friends and relatives of passengers who had been on the high speed Nevsky Express were trying to find out if their loved ones were still alive. When the official website published the train’s passenger list, the sheer volume of logins caused it to go down.
The TV stations broadcast hourly bulletins. A friend who works as a sound technician for one of the St Petersburg channel lamented the fact that he would not be able to go home until the morning. It would have been worth it if they had reported any real news on the derailment, but instead there were just the same old pictures and the official version of events repeated over and over again. When asked what had really happened, a reporter who went to the scene of the crash with a camera crew just waved his hand and swore..
According to the official version, the derailment was caused by a terrorist blast which killed 26 people and seriously injured dozens more. On the following morning, when the investigative team from the Prosecutor General’s office arrived on the scene, there was a second blast. Although the head of the team is now in hospital suffering from concussion, there has been no comment from the prosecutor’s press office.
On the other hand, the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation has said that the incident is similar to the recent one on the railway in Dagestan. This leads one to conclude that North Caucasian extremists may have begun a "train war" throughout the whole territory of Russia.
Meanwhile the leaders of the so-called "Caucasus Emirate" have not issued any statements about an operation, nor have they disclosed any plans for a "train war". While it is possible that they want to keep such plans secret, it is equally likely that no such plans exist. Responsibility for the blasts was claimed by some kind of virtual underground organization, but this is not being taken seriously. One possible suspect is a man named Pavel Kosolapov, an elusive Russian-Chechen terrorist and enemy of humanity who is a colleague of the late Shamil Basayev and has long been on the wanted list. There are also police sketches of a red-haired man in his forties, of another man of about thirty, and of a woman. The "lair" of an alleged saboteur has been found in a small nearby village, and DNA samples have been taken away for examination.
With regard to the official story that the derailment was a terrorist attack, many readers and viewers do not trust the media. This is for two reasons: firstly, because the official media in general cannot be trusted, they invariably lie, and if they keep on trying to persuade the public of one particular version it may be deduced with near certainty that the truth is exactly the opposite. And secondly, because if there had been no blasts then they would have been invented, as otherwise the railway bosses would be held responsible for having privatized the track and embezzled the money that should have been spent on its maintenance.
The official reports of the investigation make one very sceptical. The photographs of the damaged rail that were taken in the morning are not like the ones that were taken at night: it looks as though a piece of rail was cut off and a "blast crater" specially dug. Why was the second explosive device not discovered at once? Perhaps because the insurgents tend to adopt the tactic of planting double booby traps for law enforcement personnel who may arrive on the scene. Or perhaps it was detonated by careless handling. Where did Kosolapov come in? Did he drop his passport near the site of the blast, or leave a note? Why did the authorities ignore their usual official policy of keeping the investigation secret, and make public what were only very preliminary results and findings? Surely this would only help the culprits to escape and hide their traces?
It may be recalled that this is not the first time the Nevsky Express has been blown up. It also happened a year ago, though with less "success". In that case suspects were hauled in from all over the place, and they included local anarchists and Ingush. Even to this day, no one knows how it all ended..
Typically, the tragic crash of a train between Moscow and St. Petersburg has caused a major stir in Russian society and abroad, while similar events in the North Caucasus have long been practically ignored, even though they involved the death of civilians. The general attitude appears to be one of indifference, as something that happens to “them”, to others. And the reaction varies from "what can you do" to "it serves them right.” But the Nevsky Express struck a nerve. Society is convinced that something can and needs to be done about it, and that the Russian civilians who were passengers on the train do not deserve what happened to them – as though the Ingush and Chechen civilians who daily risk their lives in trains and cars do deserve to die by the very fact of living in their homeland.
Perhaps surprisingly, there were also many reports about the Nevsky Express disaster in the foreign press, probably because this train is popular with foreign tourists. Moreover, the Western journalists went further than their counterparts in Russia, and declared that the terrorist attack revealed a "Chechen lead", that the blasts were linked to the conflict in the North Caucasus, even though there are no compelling reasons for such a conclusion yet.
The making of political capital from a human calamity is as distasteful and blasphemous as ever. Likewise the economic arguments and the blackmailing of the population with the "terrorist threat" in which the security forces like to engage.
One wants to express one’s condolences to the bereaved families and one’s sympathies to the victims. And to wish that society both in Russia and abroad would stop dividing the victims into "ours" and "theirs". The world is too small for that. If the funeral bell tolls in one place, its echo should sound in the hearts of everyone.
Then, perhaps, the bell will toll less often. .
Photo: reytar.livejournal.com. (Translation by DM) © 2009 Prague Watchdog (see Reprint info). (P,DM)
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