Last night’s Panorama

, entitled The School Siege – Survivors’

Stories, was a film about the tragic events at Beslan in the week

before last, with contributions from survivors and participants. I

recorded the programme to observe the BBC’s language – particularly

their apparent trouble in recognising that those who murder and

terrorise unarmed civilians in the name of politics/religion/ideology

are terrorists rather than merely militants. The following are

chronological excerpts:

00’00” Presenter: In Beslan’s School Number One there were no

limits, no rules of war, children were the terrorists’ new weapons.

01’00” Salimat Suleymanova (mother with five month old girl, both

released, and a seven year old boy who was killed): I personally

told him, “let at least the babies be released”, this is what I told

him, what else could I tell him, and the militant said “Pray to Allah,

pray to Allah”.

02’00” Presenter: Now everyone knows about Beslan, it is

the place where terrorists put children on the front line.

04’09” Presenter: As the children had prepared for school

about thirty members of a pro-Chechen terrorist group assembled in some

woods nearby, then they set off for Beslan

10’10” Presenter: What was happening inside the school

gymnasium was worse than anybody could have imagined, not only were the

children hostages, but the terrorists who had captured them were

deliberately filming a video of their actions

11’40” Salimat Suleymanova: There was an explosion, I’m

not sure what happened, but probably the two women suicide bombers blew

themselves up, I didn’t see what blew up, but we were told that the two

young women had blown themselves up. The militants themselves told us.

Maybe they lied

12’28” Presenter: There are reports that two women

hostage-takers were unhappy that they were targetting children, they

protested, and their own leader then blew them up.

13’40” Presenter: The hostage-takers began to make their

demands, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and the release

of fighters seized in June in the neighbouring Russian republic of

Ingushetia

15’00” Presenter: As parents waited for news, and

terrorists fired on the surrounding security forces

19’00” Salimat Suleymanova: I got down on my knees and

begged them, please let me take my son with me. They said “don’t be

afraid, come on, nothing will happen, babies only”. I said, may I come

back after I pass my baby to somebody, he said “No, come on, get out,

thank Allah for being released with your baby

20’15” Khazbek Dzarasov: One of the terrorists brought

some water over for a little girl, she took a sip, but another

terrorist started yelling at him, “Why did you give her that?”, so he

had to take the water away from her.

39’05” Khazbek Dzarasov: All those militants must be shot,

we must get rid of them, if you put them in jail they will escape

somehow and continue to commit acts of terror. They must be caught and

shot. They are brainwashed to kill, and that’s all they’re good

for.

42’00” Presenter: So this was Beslan. Terrorism in the

21st century. Its weapons the emotions and the lives of children and

their parents.

The presenter uses the term terrorist extensively, although often

uses ‘hostage takers’ (which is debatable – desperadoes who deny

children water, food, etc. are hardly mere hostage-takers), but,

nonetheless, this is a big improvement over the deception of calling

terrorists ‘militants’.

However, what is surprising are the voiced-over translations of the

Russian participants – are we really to believe that Salimat

Suleymanova (whose 7 year old son was killed) referred to one of the

terrorists as a ‘militant’ and to the group of terrorists as

‘militants’? Or that Khazbek Dzarasov said “All those militants must

be shot”? I doubt it – and if indeed they didn’t use the term

‘militant’ I’d like to know who translated their words thus and why

they did so.