SCHOOL SEIZURE Russia admits deception

Early reports said there were only 354 hostages in the school.
WASHINGTON POST
MOSCOW -- The Russian government admitted Sunday that it lied to its people about the scale of the hostage crisis that ended with more than 300 children, parents and teachers dead in southern Russia, making an extraordinary admission through state television after days of withering criticism from citizens.
As the bereaved families of Beslan began to lay loved ones to rest Sunday, the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya network aired gripping, gruesome footage it had withheld from the public for days and said government officials had deliberately deceived the world about the number of hostages inside School No. 1.
"At such moments," anchor Sergei Brilyov declared, "society needs the truth."
The admission of an effort to minimize the magnitude of a hostage crisis that ensnared about 1,200 people -- most of them children -- marked a sharp turnabout for the government of President Vladimir Putin.
In previous crises with mass fatalities, such as the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in 2000 and the 2002 siege of a Moscow theater, officials covered up key facts, but never acknowledged doing so.
"It doesn't suit our president," a Kremlin political consultant, Gleb Pavlovsky, said on the show. "Lies, which really acted in the terrorists' favor, did not suit him at all. Lies were weakening us and making the terrorists more violent."
What wasn't said
The broadcast included no apology and referred only to the most blatant misstatement by officials, the claim that 354 hostages were inside the school. It did not acknowledge the hostage takers had demanded an end to the war in Chechnya or that the government continues to give conflicting information about whether any of the guerrillas remain at large, who they were and how many were killed.
Nor did it mention that many residents of Beslan have been outraged that the government now appears to be understating the death toll, which stood officially at 338 Sunday night although nearly 200 people are still unaccounted for.
As for the hostage takers, Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said authoritatively on Saturday there were 26 of them, and all had been killed. Sunday he said there were 32 -- 30 of them dead -- and bragged about the capture of one "member of the gang" to be charged in court today.
Putin made no public comment Sunday on the deadliest terrorist attack of his presidency, and not a single senior member of his government has commented publicly since the siege began Wednesday at 9 a.m.
More anger
In Beslan, many residents have directed their anger not only at Putin but at the regional leader, Alexander Dzasokhov. In an effort to dispel those concerns, Dzasokhov made a televised visit Sunday to hospitalized children and apologized for failing to protect them adequately.
"I fully understand my responsibility," said Dzasokhov, the president of North Ossetia, the region near Chechnya where Beslan is located. "I want to beg your pardon for failing to protect children, teachers and parents."
Many people in the town have grown increasingly despondent, acknowledging many bodies were burned beyond recognition in an explosion that caused most of the casualties.
At the Beslan House of Culture, a gathering point for families throughout the crisis, volunteers taking names said the list of missing stood at 190 as of Sunday afternoon. Many families have left not only names but snapshots, such as one of a little girl celebrating New Year's wearing a snow princess dress and surrounded by boys in white rabbit costumes.
All along Beslan's Pervomaiskaya (1st of May) Street, they were burying the dead Sunday. The tops of wooden coffins stood upright outside the large ornate gates of walled homes, signaling it as a house of mourning.
Clusters of people, men and women walking separately, hundreds in all, moved up and down the long, potholed street.
The wails of those who are grieving, both men and women, joined the cries of those further down the street until, in some moments, it sounded like the whole of Beslan was in tears.