After Aiding Tokundi Reunification, Hawu Forces Head to Aŭgusta
Coburan conflict thought to be nearing endSILVANJE SELO, Cobura --
The commander of Hawu Mumenhes forces in Cobura has accepted the unconditional surrender of Tokundi Republic officials and militia commanders in the western city of Silvanje Selo. Speaking to the press via video feed during a presidential news conference, Admiral DeQuan MaatyTaphmei said the peninsular city had been pacified and top Tokundi Republic officials taken into custody some months ago, but that his
Living Falcon Expeditionary Strike Group had awaited coordinated surrenders from Coburan-held Tokundi cities in keeping with orders from Aqqak, the Hawu political capitol. 'While waiting for the victory order, what our soldiers were able to do was secure and stabilize Silvanje and restore basic services so that families could return to work and school and so that life could return to relative normalcy,' Admiral MaatyTaphmei told reporters.
But some human rights observers say that such security and stability may have come at a steep cost. Neferukenefre Williams, First Prophetess of
Nefre of Silvanje, an ecumenical sect of Arkhē and Arkhē Mumenhes priestesses researching the affects of the Tokundi conflict on childhood nutrition in the nome, said household income per capita had declined as much as 70% in some parts of the city during the conflict, a reduction she attributed to the mass detention of Tokundi paramilitary soldiers who refused to stand down upon Hawu forces' arrival. 'These men were breadwinners for their families and supported sometimes half a dozen relatives or more on their paramilitary salaries. Hawu military rations and charity from Hawu aid groups can do so much, but they can't replace a head-of-household,' Williams insisted. Commander for Hawu Naval press relations in the theatre, Busingye Mbire, said however that Hawu officials did everything necessary to ensure families affected by military detentions did not fall below the bare essentials in household goods. 'When you have a provincial government that chooses to go to war against its own country, the supply and trade links to the revolting region collapse and the provincial economy suffers -- that was the decision of the Ciritović separatists, not Hawu Mumenhes,' Mbire said. 'And we did everything we could to limit the damage they caused.'
Hawu humanitarian aid groups have been joined by another mainstay in post-conflict Silvanje: missionaries. Seeming waves of priests from both the Coburan and Arkhē Mumenhes denominations of the Arkhē faith have tapped deep-pocketed backers to erect neo-Irkawan temples throughout the city. The building drive has been supported by both the Hawu government -- responding to military chaplains' complaints about the shortage of adequate worship facilities for deployed soldiers -- and by a coalition of Hawu and Coburan private donors organized by Arkhē temples internationally. But the biggest benefactor by far has been the Hawu royal family. 'The King's Majesty has established anew for the people of Cobura the houses of the Good Gods fallen into disrepair under the disorder of the godless rebels,' the palace at Nekhatw wrote in response to requests for comment.
Both the royal family and the Hawu government are speaking far more openly of late about
Pharaoh Remptahhu's claim to his late brother's throne than they had at the start of Hawu's intervention in Cobura. Portis Imyremeshaw Soyinka, a Deputy Minister in the Hawu Ministry of Education and Culture, told
The Scribe that royal support of the building drive is indeed part of the palace's and government's plan to see the House of Saksoure return to the throne of the five lands. 'The President fully supports the Pharaoh's efforts and the economic growth these temples bring to western Tokundi. Hawu Mumenhes policy has always been that legitimate government must be restored in Cobura, and that means an orderly succession of legitimately-illegible constitutional officers,' Deputy Minister Soyinka said. 'The Silvanje temples will allow the righteous of Taphmei to return to the pleasing of the Gods, they will help the Coburan people begin to return to a sense of normalcy, and they will help reintroduce Cobura to their Prince Remptahhu, the King's Son who brought the light of Cobura to Hawu.'
A Tokundi citizen is photographed in front of the Colossus of Remptahhu
Of the Deputy Minister's three asserted benefits, the reintroduction (or propagandizing, critics say) of Pharaoh Remptahhu to Cobura seems to be the palace at Nakhatw's most urgent goal if the differing scale and opulence of Silvanje Selo's various temples are any indication. The temple at the city square, near the old Tokundi Republic's headquarters in the metropolis, is the largest of the new Arkhē skyscrapers, and is accompanied about 100 yards east by a colossal bust of the Pharaoh. And the mammoth complex's name --
The Temple of Thousands of Years of Remptahhu of Silvanje Selo -- leaves little doubt as to the building spree's intentions. The
Thousands of Years Temple is staffed by some five dozen priests and scores of attendants who service the complex in rotating shifts 24 hours a day, performing constant rituals to statues of the king and distributing to surrounding families and businesses the bounty of foods, cash, and goods sacrificed to the deified king by crowds of daily visitors. Asked when they expected to have vacations from their temple jobs, one junior priestess said, 'we do not break from the worship of the Good God. We are not leaving.'
And according to President Hermelinda Shelby, neither is Hawu Mumenhes. At the press conference announcing the formal surrender of Silvanje Selo, the President told reporters that while Hawu forces continued to work in concert with the Coburan military government to manage the Tokundi reintegration process, control of the city and the naval installation on its northwestern coast would not be granted to the Banemes government. 'Our partnership and our commitment in this conflict is with the Coburan people. We are honored and proud to share in the Coburan people's joy at seeing their fellow citizens -- their neighbors, coworkers, friends, and families -- home again in a united Cobura. But our work is not finished until legitimate government has a home in Cobura again as well,' the President remarked in her address. 'The Banemes regime has not only unilaterally usurped and overthrown an elected government. During the course of this conflict, through our interrogations of Tokundi Republic officials and senior Tokundi clerics in Silvanje Selo, we have also learned that there is dwindlingly little evidence for the Banemes regime's assertions of radical Hosian involvement in the murder of Lord Anwar. Our investigation, in partnership with the Royal Coalition government-in-exile, has traced weapons and financial support for Lord Anwar's killer back to persons closely associated with the inner circle of the Banemes regime. These crimes of government overthrow and support of terrorism are amongst the most serious possible violations of international norms and international law. Hawu Mumenhes will not permit the perpetrators of these crimes to go unpunished. And we will not yield the freedom of Silvanje Selo, hard won by Coburan citizens with the support of our heroic soldiers, to an unelected regime which believes it can trample on that freedom when and as it pleases,' the President said.
Defence Minister Everson Singleton, also speaking at the press conference, told reporters that Tokundi paramilitary enlistees still in custody would be spared courts martial in large part and sentenced to time-served and released over the coming weeks. 'This will help quicken the reviving of the Silvanje economy and allow our soldiers and Royal Coalition government-in-exile partners to focus more resources on good governance in the metropolis. As the reintegration transition comes to completion, a date for elections in the city will be announced, and we expect that to occur in about 90 days,' Minister Singleton said.
The Defence Minister also announced that a second Expeditionary Strike Group had been deployed to northeast Cobura to support the Banemes regime's effort to prosecute a resolution in the standoff versus Zardugal for control of Aŭgusta. Asked if it was contradictory to oppose the Banemes regime in Silvanje Selo while aiding it in Aŭgusta, President Shelby answered, 'absolutely not. Our alignment has always been with the Coburan people. Neither territorial disintegration in Tokundi nor Egato is in Hawu interests or Coburan interests. We will bring a resolution to the crimes of the Banemes regime once we have ensured the continued territorial integrity of a united Cobura.'
-Boipelo Zola Mabena-Tewodros, May 4072
Editor-at-Large, The Daily Scribe