Rusana: Difference between revisions

Starting in 1922 popular unrest, communal and religious violence and persistent drought led to the eruption of violent revolts against the monarchies of Ghanim, Lakadu and Barpubad. An underground organization called the Unity Party that advocated the overthrow of the royal families and the unification of all the former Odduniyad wilayat of Rusa into a single nation state began to plot to hijack the popular anti-monarchist sentiments and ride the wave into power. The Unity party had for years been extending its network of supporters into the security forces and militaries that protected the royal establishment. On march 1923 at the beginning of Ramadan, army units sympathetic to the Unity party carried out simultaneous coups and overthrew the three royal dynasties. The Lakdu royal family was machine gunned down at one of their residences, Ghanim's king was simply prevented from landing his plane as he returned from a visit abroad and was forced to fly to [[Kandara]] and the Barpubad sultan abdicated at gunpoint and sent into internal exile. Street protests supported by the Unity party calling for unification quickly overtook any other proposal, with the borders seen as artificial constructs to keep the Rusani Muslim nation weak, fragmented and vulnerable to external forces. Ghanim's army commander, General Javad Spabod announced the creation of the Rusana Revolutionary Military Command that would include officers of all the three former militaries and act as an executive national body. The junta's first act was to formalize the unification of the three kingdoms into the Islamic Republic of Rusana.

Altough nominally the same nationality now, the spirit of unity began to disintegrate amid bitter quarrels and the junta soon came to be divided along regional lines. The Unity Party also had envisioned having its military sympathizers give way to the party's political primacy, instead it was being marginalized and kept at arms length from all decision making processes. General Spabod and his Ghanim clique adopted a policy of empowering islamic hardliners in order to confront the Unity Party on the streets, with the Lakdu and Barpubad members of the junta supported the party. Tensions boiled over in 1925 after the Unity Party carried out an assasination attempt on General Spabod by bombing his military motorcade with RPG's. The Ghanim clique retaliated by outlawing the party and arresting the leading members of the Barpubad clique that supported it.