May 4212Let World Congress investigate Trigunian Civil War atrocities, demand rights activistsThe Trigunian Civil Liberties Association (TCLA) has launched a campaign calling on the government to invite "a team of independent and qualified investigators, under the auspices of the World Congress" to conduct "a full investigation into human rights abuses which took place during the Trigunian Civil War".
The civil war, which finally came to an end about 3 years ago, saw the Trigunian Liberation Army (TLA), supported by the Tsar and many sections of the military, successfully overthrow the regime. At the end of the war, they
banned the Communist Party, but then reintroduced a democratic system of government with a constitutional monarchy.
Most observers agree that so far as civil wars go, the recent one in Trigunia was remarkably and mercifully bloodless, largely because the amount of actual fighting was limited, since government forces quickly folded as it became clear they were not strong enough to put up serious resistance. However, there are reports of abuses being committed by both sides, both against captured prisoners of war and civilian populations.
Communist Party First Secretary Leonidovych Tverdokhlib, believed to have been executed by the TLAThe most high-profile war crime allegations surround the TLA's treatment of leading Communist Party politicians and their families. A great many claims have been made with regards to arbitrary executions, beatings, torture and unlawful seizure of property.
By far the most notorious incident involves the sudden disappearance of 67 Communist prisoners in the final months of the war, including the last Communist Party leader, Leonidovych Tverdokhlib, and a number of Communist ex-ministers as well. The last evidence of them being alive is when they were all being held in a prison in eastern Petrograd. According to claims that are now emerging, the local TLA commander ordered their mass execution after a false alarm was raised that the area was about to come under assault from pro-Communist militas.
The bodies of "the 67", as they have become known, have never been recovered. Their families, along with Trigunian civil liberties activists and Trigunian Communists who fled abroad, have joined together to campaign for an investigation to provide them with more answers as to what happened.
Conservative Party leader Radoslav Dragunin has dismissed calls for an investigation, arguing "this could all too easily turn into a witch-hunt" and "we need to steer clear of vengeance and recriminations, and focus on healing and on the future". The civil war is a difficult subject for many Trigunians, but is especially tricky for the Conservative Party, which was split between the two sides during the conflict. Dragunin and the party leadership remained loyal to the government, but a number of leading Conservatives supported the TLA. Those who supported the TLA were expelled from the party, but in a spirit of reconciliation, most were readmitted after the conflict came to an end.
Svetlana Utkin of the Trigunian Civil Liberties Association has commented:
I do understand why Dragunin and many other political leaders are wary of investigating the recent past, because there has been so much hurt and so much bitterness over what happened. It is a mistake, though, to presume that some kind of "Pact of Forgetting", of pretending none of this happened, is going to allow us to move on as a nation. I don't think we will be able to heal until we honestly confront what happened. Also, remember the pain is very, very real for a lot of people. A lot of people lost loved ones, and in many cases, they still do not know the full story of what happened to them. In an awful lot of cases, the bodies haven't even been found.
There are very, very highly-placed people serving today in the army, the police, the civil service, the judiciary and politics who have the answers, who know the things that happened and who know where the bodies are buried. What I'm saying is, we've got to get these people to speak, to tell the truth. Otherwise there will be no closure for the families of the victims.
Utkin did not mention that according to some rumours, Tsar Nikolay and those close to him are amongst those concealing information relating to these matters. We could also point out she has not mentioned reports that parts of the Terran Patriarchal Church may have been complicit in abuses committed against communists. In particular, there are several allegations of Communists being dragged off to monasteries, where the monks kept them prisoner and starved them to death. Some campaigners are suggesting this is one of the reasons why, so far, the political establishment has resisted calls to set up an investigation. In Trigunia, both the monarchy and the Terran Patriarchal Church are very powerful and respected institutions which it can be difficult to criticise.
Dragunin leads protests against defence cutsConservative Party leader Radoslav Dragunin has led a 60,000 crowd of protesters on a march through central Petrograd to demonstrate against the government's plans to
halve defence spending. In a keynote speech to supporters, he called the armed forces "the pride of Trigunia, which not only ourselves, but all peace-loving people in Terra depend upon for their security". He called the proposed cuts "grossly irresponsible" and accused the government of "jeopardising our nation's standing in the world".