Gang called in top doctor as negotiator
By Julius Strauss and Heather Thompson
The Telegraph, UK
Sept 3 2004
After herding more than 300 children and adults into the school gym,
the terrorists lost no time in telling the authorities who they
wished to negotiate with.
A Moscow-based paediatrician named Leonid Roshal was on the list. He
started talking to the hostage-takers by mobile phone immediately,
and yesterday morning arrived on the scene.
The rebels called specifically for Dr Roshal because they see him as
an honest broker who will not be commandeered by the Kremlin to
implement its will. His first priority will be to get the gunmen to
accept a shipment of food for the children, who have not eaten in 36
hours.
Aged 70, Dr Roshal gained international reknown in 2002 for the
crucial role he played in the 2002 Dubrovka theatre hostage-taking in
Moscow. One of few people to pass freely between Chechen terrorists
and Russian authorities during the three-day siege, Dr Roshal served
as a chief negotiator, medical support and main liaison, bringing
food, medicine and comfort to those inside and news to the rest of
the world. During the siege he treated hostages inside the theatre
and was photographed taking out the body of a woman who was shot by
the terrorists.
Before Russian special forces ended the stand-off by pumping
knock-out gas into the theatre, the doctor helped to secure the
release of eight children. Despite Dr Roshal’s insistence that he was
simply fulfilling his role as a paediatrician, he was awarded a
Russian Order of Valour later that year. Dr Roshal is currently the
head of the emergency surgery and child trauma department at the
Paediatrics Research Institute, a branch of the Russian Academy of
Medical Sciences.
He spent much of his 45-year career helping children in crisis,
travelling to disaster sites across eastern Europe and in Egypt,
Japan, Afghanistan and Turkey.
After participating in the relief effort following the devastating
1988 earthquake in Spitak, Armenia, he founded an international aid
organisation which aims to rescue children in trouble. By 2003, the
organisation had assisted children involved in more than 20 disasters
around the world.
An advocate of the much criticised Russian system of public health
care, Dr Roshal spoke out against a planned reform last April, in an
interview with The Daily Telegraph. “There’s no ideal health system
in the world,” he said, “but ours is as good as any. All we need is
more money.”