2006 Kahanistan riots
| 2006 Kahanistan riots | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conflict | Controversy over Torontian war crimes | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | 5 January 2006 - 7 January 2006 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Najaster, Kahanistan, later spreading throughout the country | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Impaired political relations with Amestria, massive civilian casualties | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
The 2006 Kahanistan riots were a backlash against the charge that Amestria murdered Torontian POW's in the Amestrian-occupied areas. The brutal carnage led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, with millions more injured and sixty billion Universal Standard Dollars worth of damage.
Background
1LT Grant Foster, a Kahanistanian soldier opposed to Amestrian policies in Torontia, defected to Xirnium. He alleged that he had been forced to burn and bury dozens of corpses which he had been told were those of victims of the Amestrian lethal quarantines which were in place to stop the superflu released in Western Torontia. However, Foster was suspicious of the story, believing many of the corpses to have been shot execution-style.
Prelude
The Amestrian Ambassador and his military attache went to the Presidential Palace in Najaster, Kahanistan, to speak with Kahanistanian President Mohammed bin Yusuf al-Za'if to discuss sensitive matters believed to be related to the occupation.
During the discussion, an ever-enlarging crowd of hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors demonstrated in front of the palace. Major Mara Fulton, the commander of the security, directed the palace guards, some 1,500 in number, to secure the entrances and reported to the President. While the palace was being secured, the right-wing Presidential candidate, General Abdullah Hassan al-Ghazi, spoke to the excited crowd, which became angrier, burning the Amestrian flag, desecrating effigies of Amestrian leaders, and dumping Amestrian wine and brandy, including over ten million USD worth of Hors D'Ages, into the Najaster sewers.
The riots
When the General finished his speech, he disappeared into the crowd. A gunshot, at the time believed to have been fired by a Republic Guard assigned to Presidential Security, was heard. While today most historians believe the shot was fired by someone in the crowd, the demonstrators turned violent almost instantly. The crowd, numbering in the millions and still enlarging, turned its rage on the University of Kahanistan, killing the University President and beating or lynching Amestrian language instructors.
In brutal displays of overt racism, Kahanistanian women who were pregnant by Amestrian men, and Amestrian women pregnant by Kahanistanian men, were often forcibly aborted by the rioters and then killed. While Najaster was being turned into the world's largest abattoir, General al-Ghazi resurfaced at his home in Al-Qamar, in eastern Kahanistan, and called a press conference, after which many of his most devout supporters now thought him insane. He had claimed that the Amestrian views of him were malicious lies, denounced President Mohammed bin Yusuf al-Za'if as a coward, Foreign Minister Margaret Delray as a "communist weasel," and the Xirniumite leadership as ineffectual hypocrites.
Military response
During the brutal rioting, Fulton had called a Kahanistanian Republic Guard base, and its commander, Lieutenant General Brutus Licinius Maximus, agreed to spare 25,000 troops to aid her 1,500 in the city and the other soldiers and police stationed in the city. These soldiers dropped smoke bombs from B-52's into the rioters to force them to disperse, while Amestrian gunships fired on the rioters from above, killing many thousands and wounding tens of thousands. Hundreds of police and Republic Guards are believed to have been killed or injured by the Amestrian fire, which General al-Ghazi exploited to showcase the "unspeakable barbarity and hypocrisy of the State of Amestria."
The Amestrians set up checkpoints and fired on rioters in the most damaged areas, but in the capital IED's and sniper fire awaited the Amestrian military that stayed near the Embassy too long. The Embassy had even been attacked by a hijacked Kahanistanian Merkava IV MBT, the mainstay of the Kahanistanian armored forces.
Political response
Moses Ben-Ithamar, Kahanistanian Ambassador to Amestria, denounced General al-Ghazi and urged peaceful demonstrations, as opposed to protesting war atrocities by committing savage and brutal crimes against Amestrian civilians.
Vladimir Zygonov, Minister of the Interior, urged the rioters to return home and refrain from violence, and announced that the war criminals would be prosecuted.
Jules Lamont, Minister of Justice, head of the National Police and chief prosecutor, personally conducted the proceedings against many of the highest-ranked war criminals.
