Muttay
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| The Muttay | |
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| ⵎⵓⵜⵜⴰⵢ | |
| Date | 7 - 13 June 2023 |
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The Muttay (Tamashek: ⵎⵓⵜⵜⴰⵢ, lit. "The Change") was a major mutiny within the Charnean Army that resulted in the overthrow of incumbent civilian government of Charnea as well as the established military command structure. The mutiny began on June 7th, 2023, in the city of Azut, considered to be the de facto headquarters of the Army, and ended on the 13th of the same month when the mutineers entered the Palace of State in Agnannet. The conclusion of the Muttay ushered in the seven month long rule of the Provisional Military Government (PMG), which in turn would give way to the establishment of the first Republic of Charnea.
Tensions between the rank and file of the Charnean Army and their commanders as well as the civilian government that oversees them have run deep since the end of the Ninvite War. Veterans and their families had begun to openly criticize the military for what they saw as apathy towards the struggle of the common soldier and of military widows in the wake of the bloodiest conflict in Charnean history. This activity was generally tolerated by Charnean leadership under Pazir Madoun and even encouraged under the regime of Martuf Lamine, who leveraged the political support of the veterans for his agenda in exchange for promises to reform the military and resolve the grievances of the veterans movement. This policy was dramatically reversed by Marus Ibiza ag Haqar, who came to power following Martuf Lamine's death in a plane crash in Fahran in May of 2023. Marus Ibiza's crackdown on military dissent and the veterans movement would later be cited by the mutineers as the single primary event which incited their uprising.
Background
Bonus Army is broken up
Aspar Amini, Chief of the General Staff of the Charnean Army, gave an impassioned speech during a press release late on the 6th of June commenting on the crisis by calling out various high profile dissenting voices within the active duty military, whom he called "traitors in uniform". Amini publically announced that he would be ordering an investigation into numerous individuals, mentioning several by name including Khyar Aziouel, the head of the Desert Rangers training school in Azut.
Mutiny
Azut
The mutiny of the Desert Rangers in their barracks in western Azut set off the active phase of the Muttay. It began when Khyar Aziouel, recently disgraced by Aspar Amini's public denunciation and anticipating punitive actions, contacted a group of his subordinates in the Ranger training center as well as various Ranger officers with whom he had close ties, announcing to the Rangers - but not yet to the public - his intentions to reject Chief of Staff Amini's orders and defy the high command. Aware that this action would brand him and his followers as mutineers and traitors and likely see them executed by a military tribunal if captured, Aziouel set about strengthening his hand by dispatching Ranger elements to seize control of critical infrastructure and military installations around Azut, the de facto nerve center of the Charnean Army in the east of the country. These seizures took place on the night of the 6th but primarily in the pre-dawn hours of the 7th of June, culminating with an announcement broadcast from the radio towers of the Adjer Regional Transmitter some 20 kilometers south of Azut city at 7 in the morning. Aziouel's declaration, which was posted onto Charnean social media within minutes of the radio broadcast, made scant mention of his seizure of the city of Azut while denouncing Amini and Ibiza as corrupt, stating that he refused to recognize their authority, and calling on like-minded Army officers to demand justice for the veterans movement as a means of garnering support from other areas of the military.
The response to Aziouel's uprising in Azut was instant and wide-reaching. Even before Aziouel made his announcement, word of the fall of various installations in Azut to rogue Rangers reached Aspar Amini in Agnannet. His orders entailed the mobilization of a Central Army force to move to Azut and besiege it, recapturing it from the mutineers, as well as numerous other units of the army to immediately move to detain all Ranger elements active in the field beyond Azut. This latter action in particular greatly antagonized a large number of field NCOs of the Army, who perceived this as a purge of the Rangers and felt threatened by what the saw as an out of touch civilian leader in the person of Marus Ibiza with his lackey in the form of Aspar Amini moving to assume direct control and clamp down on military autonomy.