The negotiators: ‘Peace doctor’ respected by rebels, officials

Agence France Presse
Sept 4 2004

MOSCOW – Children’s doctor Leonid Roshal, who was attempting to mediate
a way out of the hostage crisis at a school in southern Russia before
it came to a bloody end yesterday, is a veteran of tense situations who
enjoys the trust of both Chechen rebels and the Russian authorities.

Dr Roshal, who arrived in the North Ossetian town of Beslan on
Wednesday and held several sessions of telephone talks with the
hostage-takers before the siege ended, negotiated the release of eight
children during the siege of a Moscow theatre in October 2002, after
a Chechen commando took some 800 theatre-goers and performers hostage.

‘The situation is serious. We have come up against very cruel people,’
Dr Roshal told relatives just hours before Russian special forces
stormed the school.

His worst fears came true later.

The white-haired doctor, aged 71 and known to the Russian media as the
‘peace doctor’, won the respect of Chechen rebels during the first
separatist war of 1994-96 when he provided medical care to wounded
Chechen children.

The media speculated that the hostage-takers in Beslan had called
specifically for Dr Roshal to mediate.

During the Dubrovka theatre crisis, in which he persuaded the
hostage-takers to allow water and medication into the building,
he operated on one of the rebels who had received a wound to the hand.

After working with the victims of the massive Armenian earthquake of
1988, Dr Roshal set up a team of doctors to work in war and natural
disaster zones.

He and his colleagues have provided care for children in war zones
in the former Yugoslavia (1991), Georgia (1991-92), Nagorno Karabakh
(1992) and Chechnya (1995).

Last year, during the US-led invasion of Iraq, he proposed a ‘green
corridor’ to evacuate children from the cities of Baghdad and Basra.

Dr Roshal, who was decorated by President Vladimir Putin for his
mediation efforts during the Dubrovka crisis, during which at least
129 hostages died, is also a member of the presidential commission
on human rights.