WE HAVE MOVED. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE NEW FORUM!

ANDEAN TODAY

Penultimo's Locked Out of Nueva Ardia, Royal Tribunal Strikes

Naval Command Log

 

- 1100: Strange signals are detected in the Lacuna Strait, they are closely monitored but shortly stop leading Command to believe it's just the heavy trade traffic in the area.

- 1300: Naval Conquistadors are dispatched to arrest or terminate foreign agents who infiltrated North of Lacuna.

- 1315: Scouts confirm identity os Maki and a group of Justicars.

- 1400: Communication with Conquistadors lost, last transmission was 'Contact'.

- 1430: With aid of Pelita's rebels the Justicars eliminate the team of Conquistadors and ex-filtrate.

- 1515: A fishing boat is sunk off the coast of the Peninsular Strait, South Hills rallies to find the source of the explosion, Nueva Ardian Naval Command orders a quick blockade to capture the dubbed 'Stealth Ship' Ship escapes, projected destination to be Antares.

- 2200: Justicars are recorded to have infiltrated the Country on the Northern Coast, Abelle Palace prepares to ambush infiltration team.

- 2230: Abran Penultimo is assassinated, Justicars and Maki Hamer are apprehended.

Interview: Tero Melos


Tero Melos

Exclusive Tero Melos Interview

 

Interviewer: He started a revolution with a single farming community of fifty people, a peaceful movement turned violent in frustration against the forced economic imperialism on the common people, his revolution grew with millions, able to sway the military to join his side and overthrow the old Ardian powers grasping onto Nueva Ardia from the grave, he is worshipped by many and is relatable to the people, Tero Melos. How are you?

Tero Melos: I’m very fine thank you, you?

Interviewer: I’m doing good thank you, I must say it’s an honor to meet you. I grew up listening and watching government propaganda about your movement and how you wanted to enforce a totalitarian style communist regime. As I grew older and politically aware however it became apparent to me that the truth was quite the opposite. Many Nueva Ardians realized this thus the success of the revolution but how will ease Nueva Ardia back into a communist model based off the principles of what you call the common people?

Tero Melos: EALN has never represented a strict socialist ideal and we’ve never publically made it true that we want to bring communism back to Nueva Ardia. If anything the Communist regime oppressed the people but was most of all a precursor to much of political and economic instability, communism led this country into more stricken poverty.

Interviewer: So you’re not a Marxist? As some have claimed?

Tero Melos: I agree with Marxist economics but it’s another thing to implement them in a nation of over five hundred million Nueva Ardians, we implemented them in our communal autonomy because on such a small scale our quality of life excelled, but I know from my realization as a young eager man before, this same logic cannot be applied to the entire nation unless more poverty and struggle wants to be inflicted on the people.

Interviewer: With that in mind, what is the EALN’s party goal on a national scale.

Tero Melos: eh I do not plan on establish the entity of EALN as a ruling power in Nueva Ardia, while the cause and ideal will be alive, I myself will not bloat the organization to some control over the country. But to answer you question eh..we will take up a market model but use aggressive law making, kick out lobbyist and so on to promote Union regulated business lws so that the common worker is protected under the same ideal laws they formally were and so the Andino people will no longer be a slave to systems and foreign competitors that have monopolized a lot of the land, we’re taking the land back and giving it back to the people. Just know my main goal is driven as a man with many defects like everyone else, I am not above or below anyone as ruler or property. I love. I sing. I dream. I was born in the poor countryside. I was raised in the countryside, planting corn and selling sweets made by my grandmother. My children, my son and daughter are with me and I want a better world for my grandchildren, for your grandchildren. This is what I’m driven by, this is my revolution.

Interviewer: Some wouldn’t seem all agree necessarily, former comrades like Zavala Rodriguez believe in a bigger picture,

Tero Melos: Zavala is young, he reminds me of myself. When I was young I would gone off the other countries too, believing in our revolutionary ideals were universal but now that we’re here, the most important task at hand in the Nueva Ardian people, for me at least. Zavala is young and he is playing dangerously with fire in his war making, I don’t condone it but I can’t stop him and other friends for fighting in what they have faith in.

Interviewer: So EALN is not supporting Zavala?

Tero Melos: Some of EALN is, some isn’t but those who are aren’t EALN anymore, EALN stays and is only for Nueva Ardia and its people.

Interviewer: So what are views on Janelle and the other Penutimo’s wanting back in? Wanting to keep the monarchy?

Tero Melos: There is one deciding factor to that question: the people, however the people vote determine the future of this nation.

Interviewer: You seem very confident

Tero Melos: I am part of the people, I cam from the people and endured there hardships, I would personally not vote for a bloodline who for generations have watch me toil and suffer.

Interview

 

1.) Where does racial discrimination, you think, come from in your country?

The overt discrimination is a relatively recent phenomenon however the justification for it relies on the complex history of the land. The Lakhzovian national mythos borrows heavily from a sense of being wrong that dates back six hundred years to the formation of the Uttman Kingdom. At the time a peaceable migration of peoples into the area resulted in the eventual creation of the Uttman national grouping, however the Lakhzov people, who's religion is tied to the land, always resented our presence and felt that their land had been rendered impure or desecrated by virtue of non-Lakhzov rule.

While the later Peoples' Republic was able to keep relative peace by instituting a formal social equality the ethnic tensions always remained simmering below the surface, eventually with the economic stagnation of the state these tensions became the fracture lines along which the state would eventually break in the civil war. The civil war was more than anything a war started by the nationalist movement in Lakhzovia and the subsequent war of calamity in which Lakhzov aggression resulted in the occupation and annexation of the Uttman Free State. The act of dispossessing a people of their land requires self-justification and it is found in a hyped up history of persecutions of the Lakhzov by the old Uttman Kingdom and the need to redeem their land from 'oppressors'. Cleverly in this narrative though they have all the power and persecute my people we are the oppressors!

2.) Being a Professor, how were you treated by the common people and the government?

I was a Professor at one of the best known universities of Antemecuria province, it is one of the oldest Uttman universities having been built in the early second dynasty and had long been a centre of Uttman culture and scholarship. My early years there were very good but after the war of calamity the less secure staff was quickly replaced by Lakhzov intellectuals who were hand picked from among the nationalist movements faithful. They began enforcing certain academic standards and lines through their collective power on the various university councils and committees, it wasn't long before my position was attacked, the first time a large movement in the student body managed to save my job, however four years later when they tried again the composition of the student body had changed to much, new government policies had flooded the universities with Lakhzov students even those universities which historically were the Uttman institutions. I was stripped not only of my position but also supposedly my PhD, I was no longer able to claim to be an expert in the field a dedicated my life to, my last memory of that place was walking out of my old department across the lawns while Lakhzov students jeered and spat at me.

3.) What laws, has the government enforced to suppress human rights, based on ethnicity?

That is a long list and one that grows longer each day. In the early days it was small things such as requiring Uttman nation ID cards to carry more information than that of their Lakhzov counterparts, preferential development of Lakhzov areas over Uttman and a ban on the Uttman language in official communications as well as in schools. The government regularly locks down Uttman areas under curfews, sometimes seemingly arbitrarily and transit permits are almost never granted to the average Uttman citizen. However far more serious discriminatory legislation is as we speak being drafted in the legislature. They are looking to introduce land reforms which I believe are designed to make the expropriation of Uttman agricultural land an easy task at the same time a spin off act titled 'Act for the Creation of a Religious Reconciliation Court' what on Mundus could that be? I'll tell you what it is, it is a court with the sole purpose of ruling on cases of conflicting religious claim to a site, it's going to be used to give the cover of legality to the destruction of Uttman religious sites so that Lakhzov ones can be erected in their place.

But more than anything to see the Lakhzov attitude towards us Uttman you need only look at how we are excluded from the national narrative other than as enemy figures. The state flag bears exclusively Lakhzov religious symbols, the President makes speeches in which he refers euphemistically to the valleys being 'choked with weeds', the Uttman villages being constructed in the valleys should give a hint as to what he is trying to say and that is not to mention the national anthem.

The national anthem which I share here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-iQroXDro essentially spells out the Lakhzov view and plan for the Uttman. It declares that the land has been desecrated by us, refers to us as weeds that must be rooted out for the garden to bloom; refers to us as enemies and oppressors to be crushed and to do all this for the sake of mother, father, child and the sacred places. This anthem is pure racism and more terrifyingly it seems to be a declaration of intent to either eradicate my people or reduce them to a feeble, unseen, silent minority.

4.) Riots have started because of your prosecution, do you endorse these acts or promote more peaceful means of protest?

I am surprised at the rioting however when it comes to endorsement it is a difficult question. I myself am a man of peace I have never been one to instigate violence however as a lifelong student of political science and history I am all to aware that at the right junctures the right amount of violence can set the course of history; do I think it is worthwhile in this case? I don't know, part of me feels that the security clampdown that will follow is not worth it simply for my sake. However as the world begins to pay more attention these actions will bring our suffering to the fore and place the Lakhzov actions under scrutiny - this can only be welcomed.

5.) You have become a symbol against discrimination in your country, do you take up leadership of this movement for the right's of your people?

I never set out with any particular goal to become the leader of a movement, I simply tried to speak out against the injustice done to my people. However I am increasingly convinced that for the Uttman struggle to progress we need a centralised leadership about to freely organise and communicate with the outside world, this means a leadership in exile with parallel structures within Lakhzovia to ensure that the movement for freedom is able to function on all fronts; if I happen to form the nucleus of that leadership abroad then it is a role I am willing to take.

6.) What do you think needs to change in your homeland, to combat the discrimination your people is under?

I was a believer in the values and vision of the Peoples' Republic however I know the majority of both the Uttman and Lakhzov people view that model of the secular bi-national socialist state as a failure, plus the emotional gulf formed by the civil war and war of calamity has made such a state unlikely to ever emerge in our lifetime. Potentially my people could win some form of autonomous governance within the most densely populated Uttman areas, or as I feel is preferable that a contiguous region that contains the majority of Uttman peoples be partitioned as an independent Uttman state, i.e. the restoration of the Uttman Free State ante-bellum.

7.) The public is curious, has the Nueva Ardian state promoted your cause under the table?

I wouldn't like to go into too much detail on this one other than to say that the Nueva Ardian's have always been a friend to the oppressed peoples of the world and that their aid to me and others facing persecution has been in keeping with their stated values. The Nueva Ardian's are true friends of the Uttman people.

8.) Are these issues confined in only Transmecuria? Or are widespread?

Transmecuria is a core province of the Uttman majority region, it also has the largest Uttman city and a population that is slightly wealthier and better educated than average, this has made it a particular hotbed of resistance to Lakhzov interference, it has also been one of the provinces most heavily neo-colonised by the Lakhzovians, this is the main reason why Antemecuria is in the news more than the other Uttman areas however things are beginning to deteriorate and I imagine the more rural regions will erupt once the land reforms begin.