Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, one of the few people asked for and allowed inside the theatre by the Chechen rebels, describes her talk with the rebels.
…] There was light in here, and for the first time I could see everything properly. The chief negotiator from their side turned out to be a 29-year-old man called Abubakar who introduced himself as deputy commander of the subversion and intelligence battalion. At the beginning, the conversation was strained. Abubakar seemed nervous at first, but then calmed down. He became angry when he talked about his generation of Chechens, aged 20 to 30, who had been through the two wars and knew nothing except fighting.
“You won’t believe it, but for the first time in many years we feel calm here.”
“In the theatre?”
“Yes. We will die here for the freedom of our land.”
“You want to die?”
“You won’t believe it but we want it very much. Our names will remain in the history of Chechnya.”
I am, of course, a very poor negotiator. I had no idea what to say. And he - who had lived for half a life without taking off his military uniform and with a sub-machine-gun in his hands - he didn’t know how to do it either. That is why we kept slipping into conversations about the meaning of their life, for instance. Some of the other rebels came in to listen.
Abubakar became calm again, put aside the sub-machine-gun, and said he wanted to clear his soul before death. I listened to him attentively but also tried to interject about the plight of the hostages.
“Let the teenagers out,” I suggested.
"No. We suffered at the hands of your people. Now let your people suffer.
“And the parents there, outside the theatre, let them feel what it was like for our parents.”
“At least let us feed the children.”
“No. Our children are hungry - let yours also go hungry.”
Abubakar said he did not expect mercy and that he dreamed of dying in the battlefield. I think he was being honest and frank with me because he was in the presence of a woman the age of his mother. And that is what I told him - that he was the same age as my son and that even in the worst nightmare, I would not see my son cornered by people.
“If he were a Chechen, he would be. And he would also wish to die like myself because of everything that you are doing to us in Chechnya.”
“And if you have to die tomorrow?”
“Praise be to the Almighty.”
Finally, we decide it is time for us to part. We have not agreed on much and I’m not convinced that the talks were in any way effective. But I am no negotiator. We had only agreed that in the coming hours I would carry water and juice into the theatre and I would try to bring them enough for almost 700 people.
I left the theatre in complete silence. Again, I had the feeling that there was no one around me. Lonely jackets and raincoats watched my steps. It was cold, very cold in this dreadful theatre - and there has never been a theatre in the entire world so stuffed with explosives. I just said to myself, “Go and get the juice, look for it, do now only this and don’t think.”
Had I done a lot or a little? A little of course. But I could not do more. When the place was stormed, all the terrorists I had spoken to died. And with them died 67 of the hostages who had drunk my juice before death. Let war be damned.
(I tried and failed | Russia | The Guardian)