BREAKING NEWS - COUP IN CARBARÉ
MALQUERAS — Today in the early hours of the morning, columns of tanks, armoured vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles made their way to the offices of the Supreme Court, Carbaré National News headquarters, and the Presidential Palace in Malqueras, capital city of the Latin American country of Carbaré. With little to no resistance, soldiers arrested the the Chief Justice Alonso Gutiérrez, and the current president, Manuel Saavedra. The coup came as a shock move from the Carbari Armed Forces, only having recently stated that they will not intervene following the stunning electoral victory of the socialist Popular People's Movement in the recent elections.
Military personnel also entered the Grand Parliament and ordered the parliament to be indefinitely suspended until peace and stability is secured in the nation. Those who resisted, most prominently the Speaker Simón Dengra were arrested. The military set up blockades in the city centre where the Grand Parliament, Presidential Palace, and Carbaré National News headquarters are all located in close proximity to each-other. They answered no questions from the gathering crowds and ordered all journalists to disperse. Defiant journalists were handcuffed by the army and dragged away from view.
General Lorenzo Águila of the Carbaré Armed Forces made a national announcement about two hours after the coup took place, on the balcony of the Grand Parliament which was broadcasted nationwide. Águila stated, "Fellow citizens, military, religious and civil authorities, friends from foreign countries; ladies and gentlemen,
High-ranking members of the armed forces made the decision to remove President Manuel Saavedra and his nefarious peons from office. It saddens me to see us arriving to an internal chaos that places the Republic in utmost danger, following the sickening victory of an openly Marxist party in the recent election, so urgent action had to be taken as a palliative to such insidious events. We have assumed this duty with responsibility and with absolute certainty of being in full compliance with the mission that the Republic assigns us, as vigilant forces of internal security and protectors of the highest moral, intellectual, social, political and economic values. The last months of the government of the nation have dragged the country to various conditions intended to produce misery, hatred and violence among Carbari. Therefore, as a palliative to such nefarious events, the armed forces took the government, inspired by the noble mission that as men of arms the law bestows upon us, which is not only fundamentally to preserve the sovereignty of the nation when it sees internal or external threats, but to ensure maintaining internal order and the physical and moral safety of all citizens.
Fellow citizens, it is not a pleasant and easy task that which we are carrying out; it is difficult and self-sacrificing work that requires the solidarity and collective contribution from all of us. The failure of our mission will be the end of Carbaré and our children. Our intervention is only the result of a national tragedy. To those who are beginning to hastily judge our actions, to those who believe that this is a product that can be divided selfishly to satisfy the comfort or ambitions of groups or individuals, to those who somehow demand quick solution to their problems, you are wrong, and help to foster evil in the country. You have forgotten that our soldiers are still fighting against armed groups of extremists, who in the dark injure or kill in treacherous ways.
Achieving social peace which we seek requires efforts and sacrifices we are willing to assume, relying on the ultimate success of the overarching mission that we have set ourselves, which is to rid the nation of the repulsive tentacles of the Marxist ideology. A full reconstruction will be in order, and it must be known that rebuilding is always slower and more arduous than destroying. We will be engaged in a constant struggle against these amoral fools who enabled this grotesque ideology to take root in Carbaré. However, this heroic struggle is not a fratricidal struggle; on the contrary, it is the constant battle to shed evil from our sublime Republic. We will have obtained definitive victory only when the justice and social peace that all people crave and deserve prevail. It is impossible to say what the immediate or near-term and the long-term measures that will have to be implemented, but understand that each is necessary. Although it is true that we have common goals as citizens of the Republic, it is required that for a relatively long period that the country be subjected to orderly effort, strict laws and sacrifices to accomplish our mission, and to eradicate the hunger and poverty from Carbaré, to raise the standard of living of all Carbari, and reach our destined, privileged place among the peoples of the civilized world.
Let it be known, we do not intend to pursue anyone for their ideas or by simple adherence to the deposed regime. Our determination is to be inflexible to punish those who seek or have sought to use violence, as well as those who have committed crimes or abused illegally their powers in the exercise of their duties. But it is also our hope that those who mistakenly joined the betrayers of the people of Carbaré to fully incorporate now in the national reconstruction. We will defeat Marxism in the consciousness of Carbari. Together with the mission of rebuilding our lost national unity, we proclaim as our next most immediate goal to achieve the economic development and social justice that our people so deeply crave. To that end we have requested the assistance of the most capable and suitable technicians in each subject, without any attention to their political or party affiliation, and with no other requirement than a willingness to cooperate in the patriotic task we have set ourselves. It cannot be allowed that because of excessive ideologisms or petty sectarianism the best capabilities of the nation are lost or postponed.
The Government will ensure this by the comprehensive restoration of the principle of authority, which will be exercised without contemplation or second thought against minority and extremist groups attempting to disrupt the peaceful coexistence among Carbari and likewise against all forms of crime. Never again will a small group of terrorists have official permission to create and practice a philosophy of violence, seeking to separate the unity of those born in this land who have a common teaching and a cultural and historical ancestor, which form the monolithic block of the Republic. Once the former goals are secured, the Armed Forces will usher in the restoration of our democracy, which will be reborn purified of the vices and bad habits that ended up destroying our institutions. A new Constitution of the Republic must allow the dynamic evolution that the world today demands and cast away forever all political maneuvering, sectarianism, and demagogy from national life; let it be the supreme expression of the new institutional framework, and the blueprint through which the destinies of Carbaré are planned. In it, according to our best historical traditions, the people must be the true origin and recipient of the exercise of power.
Only when the country has achieved the social peace necessary for rightful true progress and economic development, and Carbaré does not show faces with reflections of hatred, then it will be the time when our mission will have succeeded. To accelerate these goals, we ask God Almighty for help, and to our people their self-sacrifice and patriotism; and to those who have the responsibility of government, their own commitment, without limitation, for the benefit of the cause they have embraced.
Fellow citizens, I swear before the flag of the Founding Fathers, that those of us who today assume the responsibility of the government are not driven by any other goal that to serve Carbaré with all our faith and patriotism, and if it is necessary that we give our lives we will gladly do so, because as men of arms we have sworn to give it for the good of Carbaré and its destiny which today we seal before the whole country with a Viva Carbaré! from the bottom of our heart. "
The coup has seen a mixed reaction from the Carbari public. Anti-communists and general right-wingers have praised the actions of the army as heroic and the best course of action to save Carbare from the path of other failed communist states. Other Carbari with differing views have condemned the army's actions as "uncalled for" and criticised the army for not respecting the political wishes of the people, as Saavedra won the majority of the vote. However, on the international scale, many foreign agencies and nongovernment observers have condemned the coup, saying that a military coup lead by a small clique could only lead Carbaré down a dark path, particularly noting Águila's rhetoric.
Many wonder the fate of Carbaré after this coup.
