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Scapegoat in a white coat

Artur Kazaryan, special to Prague Watchdog

Fifty-one people died and eighty-six were critically wounded in a terrorist attack that shook the North Ossetian town of Mozdok on August 1. A suicide bomber in a KamAZ truck loaded with explosives drove into a military hospital and exploded, totally demolishing the entire building.

This was a slap in the face for the authorities because Mozdok is a traditional Russian stronghold in Northern Caucasus from which "order" is being enforced, and nowadays the town is swarming with members from every branch of the armed forces that greatly outnumber its inhabitants.

Who is to blame?

When the apartment buildings exploded in Moscow in 1999, and the Dubrovka Theatre was besieged last year, the number of victims was much higher than in the Mozdok tragedy. But have any of the Moscow officials or military officers been held accountable for these acts of terrorism that were carried out in the capital? No, of course not.

But distant Russian regions are a different story, particularly in Mozdok where military structures are everywhere. Therefore, the authorities could not sit idly by and ignore the situation. Within a few hours after the explosion, the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov rushed to Mozdok where he made a statement accusing Lieutenant Colonel Artur Arakelyan, who was in command of the military hospital.

So now we have the culprit----Artur Arakelyan, graduate of the reputable Military Academy of Medicine in St. Petersburg, a man who had never been reprimanded in the line of duty nor had any complaints filed against him. His fellow officers consider him a true professional.

Nevertheless, the military prosecutor's office charged Arakelyan with breaching two articles of the Russian Criminal Code: failing to fulfill an order, and negligence. He is held responsible for failing to fulfill the Defense Minister’s order that all military compounds be surrounded by concrete blocks to thwart terrorists from driving through.

Arakelyan was appointed as the hospital’s commander 28 days before the terrorist attack took place. Earlier he was Deputy of the Dermatology and Venereological Department in a military hospital in Maikop (capital of Adygeya). He barely had time to settle into his new flat in Mozdok when he took over the previous commander’s responsibilities. However, the day before the explosion he returned to Maikop to get his family and drive them to Mozdok. And on that fateful day, the terrorist’s truck stopped only a few metres from Arakelyan’s office. Had he been there, he would not have survived.

So even though Arakelyan arrived in Mozdok shortly after the explosion, he had no intention of shirking his responsibility and going off to Armenia to join his relatives. So he remained and ended up undergoing a seven hour interrogation at the Prosecutor´s office, after which he was duly arrested according to instructions allegedly made by a high ranking official of the Ministry of Defense. How else could such an unfair decision be explained? The breaches of conduct that Arakelyan was charged with are not all that serious, so he could have been simply ordered not to leave the country.

Could Arakelyan have prevented this terrorist act? No, he could not. The military hospital is right next door to a brick plant and trucks drive in and out all the time, which is why the KamAz truck attracted no attention. Car experts say that concrete blocks present no real obstacle to these types of trucks; KamAz trucks driving at high speeds and carrying heavy loads of explosives would destroy everything on the road and beyond.

What is the opinion of the commander of the North Caucasus Military District, General Vladimir Boldyrev? “Even though Arakelyan had been appointed commander of the hospital only a month before the terrorist attack, he was fully responsible from the beginning for the lives of his staff, and the sick and wounded.”

Boldyrev seems to have forgotten that while Arakelyan performed his duties, a special commission also worked at the hospital and they found no violations of the Defense Minister’s orders. So why haven’t the members of this commission also been punished?

Who is the real culprit in this tragedy? A few days after the explosion, an Interior Ministry official said the ministry would intensify its control over the producers of explosives. From whom did the terrorists get their tonne of explosives? Evidently the law enforcement agencies will never be able to provide the answer.

Released without trial

After a month in custody, Arakelyan was released after signing a document promising not to leave the country. Because of all this stress, his health seriously worsened. Perhaps President Putin was the one who decided to release him after receiving a letter from Arakelyan’s staff asking that their commander be set free.

Interestingly enough, Arakelyan´s experience impacted upon other commanders. Within a few days all compounds that were in any way related to the army (military recruitment centres, hospitals and even sanatoriums) in the Northern Caucasus were surrounded by concrete blocks. Whether this will protect them from terrorists is uncertain, but at least the commanders are protected from the consequences. Arakelyan’s case clearly shows that in Russia it takes only one small step for an officer to become a scapegoat.

(O/E,T)