The Moscow Theater Hostage Crisis

2016 Words5 Pages

THE MOSCOW THEATER HOSTAGE CRISIS

On 23rd of October 2002, around 9.15 PM a group of men and women arrived at the Dubrovka Theather in Moscow. These new arrivers were extremely well trained armed fighters who took 979 hostages during the popular Nord-Ost musical. They had the potential to kill all and were ready to sacrifice themselves to give Russia and the whole world a message with almost impossible demands. This paper will be analysing the events that took place from the negotiations perspective, and also the negotiability of the situation. Before jumping to conclusions it is perhaps better to give information about the incident.
Timeline
Day 1
On October 23, 2002 a group of armed men and women entered the theather building, while shouting out slogans and firing into the air. At first spectators thought this was something that belonged to the musical. It did not take too long for them to realise what was going on. A gunmen stepped on the stage, told that their aim is to stop the war in Chechenya by taking people in the theather hostages, and ordered them to call their families and inform them about the hostage taking situation. Chechens secured the place with booby traps, snipers, suicide bombers, they made sure that no one was going out without their consent.
Half an hour later the president of Russia and Russian authorities were informed. An hour later Russian troops and the police secured the perimeter and started to discuss about different possible assault tactics.
At the same time without making any further explanations , Azerbaijan and Georgia citizens, people with small children, pregnant women and a kids under the age of twelve were released. Released children were not older than twelve because as stated by the lea...

... middle of paper ...

...ps remained in Chechenya, so their demand was not

satisfied, a lost. There should be other things that can be listed here from the beginning it seems to be a zero sum game.
Conclusion
Russia failed, maybe because of their pride, which led to their no deals with terrorists policy. Barriers were set by Russians, their negotiations were poor, lacked strategy, obviously provocations were not useful. Because of their unilateral thinking they could not find or tried to find a peaceful solution. Maybe they did not negotiate to prevent other terrorism acts, and by refusing coming to terms they showed the terrorists that raiding a central theather and taking hostages was not enough to solve problems. The need of security and feeling of distrust brought up a bigger emotion, resentment. Unfortunately after an incident like this especially Putin does not seem to appercieve.

Open Document