Agency for the Preservation of the Restoration
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 4 December 1902 |
| Preceding agency |
|
| Dissolved | 28 October 1927 |
| Type | Secret police |
| Jurisdiction | Urcea |
| Employees | 30,000 (1920) |
| Agency executives |
|
| Parent agency | Ministry of Administration of the Realm |
The Agency for the Preservation of the Restoration (APR) was the secret police in Urcea from 1902 to 1927. It was formed after the restoration of House de Weluta following the conclusion of the Red Interregnum. During its existence, the Agency fought a campaign against insurgents and terror cells associated with the Republican Party known as the National Republican Army, which sought to overthrow the de Welutas and restore the Urcean Republic. The Agency also worked to root out non-socialist opponents of the regime, but these efforts were largely secondary in nature. The Agency had a broad mandate to operate extrajudicially.
History
Background
Prior to the Red Interregnum, the Government of Urcea employed several police agencies - both local and national - to root out potential enemies of the Government, including the Royal Army itself. None of these agencies had a systematic, nation-wide mandate, and many were forced to public account for their actions. With the start of the Red Interregnum and the legitimist insurgency, legitimist forces - once organized as an actual fighting force by approximately 1895 - established the Security Division. The Division largely superseded all the pre-Interregnum agencies in both size and scope due to the relatively unprecedented civil war nature of the conflict, which required subterfuge against individuals which were theoretically fellow countrymen. This was intended on rooting out FitzRexist informants and potential defectors within the Army and was also responsible for managing the flow of information to the public (and, consequently, the enemy) by any means necessary. The Security Division also ensured that allied political leaders within Urcea remained loyal to the cause of the restoration by a wide variety of means, ranging from blackmail to monetary rewards.
Establishment and mandate
The Agency was established as part of the Constitutional Settlement Act of 1902, passed approximately a month after the recapture of Urceopolis by forces loyal to House de Weluta, ending the Red Interregnum. The Act included a large number of reforms affirming some of the changes made during the rule of Gréagóir FitzRex, but also many changes intended to strengthen the restored Monarchy while introducing some further democratic reforms in order to stabilize the country. The establishment of an Agency to root out domestic insurgents or threats to the regime was considered imperative and was accordingly included within the Act. The bulk of the initial force of the Agency was drawn from the ranks of the Legitimist Army Security Division, though additional personnel - both officers, law enforcement, and paid informants - were added over the course of the Agency's existence.
The Agency's tactics and existence were significantly controversial, even in its earliest days. Its participation in the Trasinor affair invited public scrutiny and investigations by the Conshilía Daoni, though it was allowed to continue operating.
Republican war
The Agency engaged in the so-called "Republican War" from its establishment until 1925. This conflict was a running effort by the Agency, in conjunction with the Royal Army, to defeat insurgencies of supporters of the Urcean Republic, though many times the conflict was an effort by the Agency to outwit and uncover terror cells. The conflict took many forms, including an armed uprising in Beldra in 1910 which was suppressed, as well as the use of paid informants and infiltration of the Republican Party.
Dissolution
With the formal conclusion of the Republican War in 1925 and end of FitzRexist plots the decade prior, the Agency became increasingly unneeded as the democratic reforms of the previous decades succeeded in making Urcea mostly stable. The Agency was sparingly used after 1924 and its mandate was reduced every year before it was finally formally abolished in 1927.
Legacy
In 1976, Procurator Thorpe Aedansson established a Commission on Injustices of the Restoration (CIR), which was responsible for investigating the full extent of the Agency's operations, gathering and declassifying the Agency's records, and preparing a comprehensive report to the public. The Commission's report, released on 18 September 1978, detailed over a thousand extrajudicial killings and disappearances likely perpetrated by the Agency as well as tens of thousands of warrantless arrests and interrogations. The Commission also established the innocence of more than ten thousand individuals arrested and detained by the Agency. That same year, a bill before the Conshilía Daoni to pay reparations to the descendants and survivors of the Agency activities failed.