Innominadan Uprising
| Innominadan Uprising | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Menghean rapid response soldiers in riot control gear fire tear gas canisters at protesters in Rosario. | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Menghe |
 Sovereigntist forces | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Choe Sŭng-min Kang Yong-nam Bang Su-gŭn  Buphavanh Tauaenthong Mateo Moya |
Hernan Martínez Alonzo Botín Gerardo Tenorio | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 550,000 personnel | Unknown number of soldiers, militia, rioters, and unarmed civilians | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
161 killed or missing 226 wounded |
573-2,300 killed (est) 4,000+ wounded (est) | ||||||
|
352 civilians killed in riots beforehand | |||||||
The Innominadan Uprising, also known as the Second Menghean Intervention in Innominada and the Argentstani Independence Struggle, was a period of violence in the Republic of Innominada which resulted from a contested referendum on the independence of Argentstan. Originally driven by ethnic tension between Argentans and Creoles, it soon developed into a wider movement for greater freedom from Menghean influence, which coalesced in a government decision to withdraw from the Namhae Front.
Menghe responded by dispatching the 5th Army and 8th Tank Army under Marshal Kang Yong-nam to restore public order and prevent the Republic of Innominada from leaving Menghe's security bloc. An estimated 550,000 soldiers took part in the operation, many of them stationed in the country ahead of time and pre-positioned in the leadup to the operation. Between January 20th and 28th, Menghean forces clashed with sovereigntist militants and Innominadan Army units, as well as crowds of Innominadan civilians. In total, 161 Menghean personnel were killed and 226 wounded; the death toll on the Innominadan side has been estimated at anywhere between 573 and 2,300.
In the wake of the crackdown, Menghe purged the Innominadan Social-Republican Party of any personnel linked to the neutrality and anti-secession movement. The new government re-ratified Innominada's entry into the Namhae Front and recognized Argentstani independence, allowing the latter country to inherit all military equipment still stationed on its territory. From February 2018 onward, Menghe exercised even tighter political control over Innominada, restructuring the Social-Republican Party and intensifying the crackdown on political dissidents but also launching a major campaign of economic investment.
Background
Civil war and partition
From 2005 onward, Innominada and Menghe had been engaged in a tense standoff related to the former country's involvement in the Ummayan Civil War. The Innominadan and Menghean governments, though both nominally socialist, were also divided by differences in ideology, with the Innominadans leaning in a more syndicalist direction while the Menghe Socialist Party embraced all-class corporatism.
In the summer of 2014, a failed coup by a reformist faction within the military plunged Innominada into civil war, shattering the upper Party leadership and opening the way for mass uprisings of radical syndicalist and Christian fundamentalist groups. Concerned that a foreign intervention might restore Innominada to hostile control, Menghe launched a land invasion on September 21st, sending the 4th, 7th, and 8th Armies across the border.
Hoping to salvage the situation, Maverican forces invaded from the north. In an effort to avoid escalation to conventional war, Menghean and Maverican diplomats agreed to divide their areas of responsibility. At the end of the civil war's end, Innominada was partitioned into two areas: the Maverican-aligned People's Republic of Innominada, and the Menghean-aligned Republic of Innominada.
Menghean occupation and influence
The Republic of Innominada, also known as South Innominada, was established in 2015 through Menghe's support for the Republica del Sur, or Southern Republican Faction, one of the main rebel groups in the country. After the invasion, it was organized as a parliamentary republic under the single-party leadership of the Social-Republican Party. Officially, free elections still took place, but the government banned any parties accused of fostering overly close ties with Maverica and exercised tight control over media and campaigning.
Believing that Menghe's economic reforms and corporatist system were tied to unique features in Menghean culture, the Menghean government remained relatively restrained in its dealings with the Republic of Innominada's internal affairs. The Innominadan government was allowed to experiment with forms of worker leadership and participatory management in its own state-owned enterprises, even though the Menghe Socialist Party regarded these as unsuccessful forms of Socialism. Menghe also agreed to limit the influence of Jachi-hoesa enterprises in Innominada, concerned that too much foreign competition could harm relations.
The Menghean armed forces, however, demanded greater influence in Innominadan defense affairs. For the Army, the Republic of Innominada was a key bulwark in the defense against the Maverican-aligned People's Republic of Innominada, and geographically the between-Innominadan border was longer than the Menghe-Maverican one. The Menghean Navy, meanwhile, strongly valued its military bases on the south coast, which would allow it to attack any hostile fleet bound from Casaterra to Menghe as it passed through the Strait of Porticullia. In the defense sphere, the Menghean government demanded that the Republic of Innominada grant it basing rights, and Army Groups Center, East, and West were placed under the control of Menghean advisors, with the entire Menghean 4th Army operating on Innominadan territory.
Menghean dominance in the defense sphere became particularly unpopular among much of the Innominadan population, who feared that it left their country no more autonomy than a puppet state. This situation was particularly humiliating in light of the prior decade of hostility between Menghe and Innominada. In their efforts to suppress Maverican-aligned insurgents, the Menghean armed forces resorted to other unpopular measures, including a mass confiscation of privately owned firearms and the installation of Menghean-run checkpoints along major roads near the front lines and the southern naval bases.
Argentstani separatism
Another source of tension came from the Argentstani separatist movement. Innominadan demographics reflected the legacy of Sylvan colonial rule, with a Creole population descended from Sylvan settlers concentrated in the west and Argentans, Kedis, and other ethnic minorities spread across the country but forming a majority of the population in the east. Layered on top of the racial divide was a religious one: nearly all Creoles practiced Catholic Christianity, while the indigenous groups were predominantly Shahidic, though some had converted during colonial rule.
Racial inequality between Creoles and indigenous groups had been a persistent issue in Innominadan politics ever since independence; on average, Creoles enjoyed higher incomes, more public services, and better employment opportunities, and overt discrimination against minority groups was widespread. On several occasions, most notably the Christmas Riots in 2004, these tensions spilled over into ethnic violence, with Creole mobs burning stores and mosques in Argentan and Kedi-majority neighborhoods and beating or lynching members of the other group.
After the invasion, Menghean advisors insisted that the new Republic of Innominada government follow a mixed consociational and ethno-federal structure modeled somewhat after Polvokia. By law, the armed forces were integrated across all units and ranks, and a proportional number of seats in the Federal Assembly were reserved for Argentan and Daryz legislators. The northeastern provinces of Chaco, San Luis, and Flores also enjoyed special autonomy, with the right to set their own regional languages, determine their own curriculum, and hire a majority-Argentan police force. Buphavanh Tauaenthong, a prominent figure in the Argentan opposition who went into exile in Menghe before the war, was appointed as the Special Administrator for the Argentan-majority provinces. Between 2016 and 2018, there were no major outbreaks of ethnic violence, in part because of the heavy influence wielded by the Menghean armed forces in the country.
Nevertheless, many Argentans felt that these compromises were insufficient. Racial and religious discrimination, while illegal, remained widespread, and income and occupational inequality persisted. An increasingly vocal portion of the Argentan population began demanding the right to secede and form an independent homeland in the northwest, where they could set their own laws without Creole interference. The Menghean Army had held out such a possibility during the invasion, before the Menghean government decided in favor of a unified Innominadan state.
Argentstani secession referendum
The issue of Argentan independence was divisive within the Menghean military. The Army favored an independent Argentstan, believing that the Argentan soldiers would be more motivated if they had a homeland to defend; ever since 2015, morale in the Republic of Innominada Army had been perilously low. The Menghean Navy, by contrast, feared that secession would lead to heightened instability in Southern Innominada, where its key bases and airfields were located. Menghe's civilian government remained largely undecided on the issue, and for the most part it preferred to uphold the status quo.
By the end of 2017, however, it was becoming clear in both Menghean and Innominadan policy circles that the consociational approach was not sustainable. Ethnic tensions had continued to climb, and comprehensive efforts to address discrimination stalled. On Septemer 3rd, Buphavanh Tauaenthong suggested at a news conference that a referendum on Argentstani independence was the only way forward, stirring a frenzy of public speculation about whether Menghe backed this move. After months of deliberation, the Menghean Special Liaison to Innominada formally declared on January 2nd, 2018, that it did not consider the referendum a threat to national security and would allow it to go forward.
The referendum took place on January 10th. Only residents of Chaco, San Luis, and Flores, the three Argentan-majority federal provinces, were allowed to vote, as the new state would exist within those boundaries. The independence side won a resounding victory, with 84.1% of valid ballots declaring support for the secession proposal.
Some international watchdog agencies expressed concerns over the fairness of the vote. Impartial observers were not allowed to oversee the referendum, with Menghe claiming that it would take sole responsibility for security and regulation, despite its own poor record of electoral fairness. Journalists present in the country documented Menghean soldiers and Argentan federal police posted outside of polling stations, as well as crowds of pro-secession activists and signs of voter intimidation against Creoles and secession opponents. Some groups, especially Creoles in the south, argued that the referendum should have been open to all citizens of the Republic of Innominada, as it would affect the whole country.
After the referendum results were announced on national television, spontaneous riots broke out in a number of Innominadan cities, most notably Nueva Meridia, which had a large Creole population but would be transferred to Argentstan. Some demonstrations were peaceful, and centered mainly on the legality of the referendum, calling for a new vote that would include the entire voting population. Alonzo Botín, a student leader at San Miguel University, became a key spokesperson for the "Unidad" (unity) movement, stressing in public statements that a single-state arrangement did not equate to hostility toward Argentans. The largest and most publicly visible demonstrations, however, soon turned violent, as Creoles sought vengeance on Argentan secessionists.
Parliamentary crisis
Initial resistance
The Innominadan government was caught in a standoff of its own. Formally, the Federal Assembly would have to vote on the referendum as a symbolic rubber-stamp move in order to make it official, but the Creole-majority Social-Republican Party firmly opposed any decision that would threaten the country's territorial integrity. The Federal Assembly delayed the vote on procedural grounds, further outraging the Argentan minority. It also refused to suppress the anti-separatist protests, with some representatives venturing into the crowd to declare their support.
As the standoff persisted, it began to take on an anti-Menghean dimension. The Social-Republican Party had long resented Menghe's overbearing military influence in Innominada's internal affairs, with many upper officials feeling that the Mengheans had hijacked their revolutionary effort by imposing an even more constrained military system. Menghe's open support for Argentstani independence after January 2nd only deepened this unrest.
Some prominent officials, including representative Miguel Benichi, defected to the People's Republic of Innominada on January 13th. Once there, they openly declared their support for the PRI government, and gave lengthy interviews on Maverican news networks denouncing the referendum and describing the Republic of Innominada as a "Menghean puppet state." The South's Federal Assembly organized a purely procedural vote to condemn the defectors, but this, too, became tied up in the political standoff, with the remaining representatives tacitly siding with the defectors' view that Menghe had unfairly interfered in their domestic affairs by forcing the referendum to go forward.
Sovereignty vote
One circle of representatives, calling themselves the Sovereigntists, organized around Gerardo Tenorio, the General-Secretary of the Social-Republican Party. On January 15th, they proclaimed openly that Menghe was too deeply involved in Innominadan domestic affairs, and called for a reduction in Menghean interference. In addition to rejecting the independence referendum, their proposed bill would order the removal of Menghean military advisors from the Innominadan Republican Army (ERI) and reduce Menghean air and naval bases to a 20-year lease, which could only be renewed with the approval of the Federal Assembly.
On the 18th, the Sovereigntists gained momentum, and drew up a new bill which would more comprehensively restore Innominadan autonomy. The core demands included the following:
- The Republic of Innominada will withdraw from the Namhae Front and abolish all bilateral defense treaties with Menghe.
- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will transition to "normal diplomatic relations" with Menghe. The Menghean Embassy in San Miguel will continue to operate, but the Special Liaison Office and its staff will be expelled from the country, and Menghe and the Republic of Innominada will re-negotiate their trade and tariff agreements.
- All Menghean bases in Innominada will be restored to domestic control, and all Menghean forces stationed in the country, including military advisors and training staff, will withdraw from Innominadan territory.
- The Prime Minister shall appoint a Special Office on Reunification to commence negotiations with the People's Republic of Innominada. As the first item in these negotiations, both governments will agree not to employ military force against the other, and will instead focus on bilateral negotiation to reach a mutually agreeable decision on reunification.
This radical turn in the debate alienated the few remaining moderates in the Federal Assembly, who feared that the measures were too drastic and could backfire. When Gerardo Tenorio read the full terms of the proposed declaration from the podium, several dozen representatives walked out in protest. In their absence, the remaining Sovereigntists were able to pass the bill, and General-Secretary Tenorio ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to transmit these demands to the Menghean Embassy.
Menghean intervention
Preparations
Weeks before, as soon as the Special Liaison Office allowed the referendum plan to go forward, the Menghean Army began making preparations to restore order in the event that post-referendum unrest spilled over into open violence. In the immediate pre-referendum period, the Menghean government anticipated that the most likely threat was that riots would destabilize the country, and it appears that few Menghean diplomats anticipated the Sovereigntist turn until after it actually unfolded. Nevertheless, some scholars have speculated that detailed contingency plans for a military operation against the Republic of Innominada's leadership were already in place since 2015.
Any Menghean deployment of troops to restore order in the Republic of Innominada would confront a dual challenge. As Innominada was still divided, with tensions along the border running high, there was a very real possibility that Maverica could exploit the instability by launching an offensive war. This meant that while any crackdown would have to move quickly and forcefully to restore order, it could not divert active troops away from the border. Therefore, as the referendum drew near, the Ministry of Defense temporarily called up the 5th Army, a mobilization-reserve formation located in Menghe's southwest.
In the immediate wake of the referendum, Kang Yong-nam, the Marshal of the Menghean Army, requested permission to dispatch the 5th Army into Innominada for riot control duties. Choe Sŭng-min refused, still concerned that this could escalate the situation, but he did give Kang permission to deploy 5th Army units to rail yards near the border in preparation for a swift move into the country. At this point, the main problem was still public unrest, and the South Innominadan police force appeared capable of keeping the situation under control.
News of Tenorio's turn toward the Sovereigntist faction on the 15th deeply alarmed the Menghean leadership. Concerned that Menghean control over Innominada could be slipping, Choe Sŭng-min instructed General Bang Su-gŭn, commander of the 5th Army, to send his troops across the border and station them near major cities, but he stopped short of ordering an armed takeover.
Apparently at this stage Choe still held out the possibility of reaching a negotiated settlement with the Innominadan leadership. In a phone call on the 17th he told Foreign Minister Mateo Moya that he was open to allowing a "negotiated compromise" on the status of Menghean bases in the country, and he hinted that he would be willing to tolerate a nullification of the Argentan independence referendum as long as it came with other concessions to stave off violence. Internationally, many analysts speculated that he would be unable to rein in the Innominadan demands, as the broader diplomatic and economic ramifications of toppling the RoI government held him in check.
Moya communique
Choe's attitude reversed swiftly after he received news of the expanded Sovereigntist proclamation. In addition to the official terms which Tenorio had presented at the Federal Assembly, Mateo Moya sent a secret communique describing the increasingly chaotic situation within the government and, allegedly, requesting a military intervention to restore order and remove the Prime Minister and General-Secretary from power.
Outraged at Tenorio's demands, Choe called an emergency meeting of the Supreme Council Steering Committee to discuss military options. Marshal Kang, who had earlier advocated for a swift intervention, proposed using the 5th Army and other forces in the country to arrest the leadership of the Social-Republican Party and dissolve the Federal Assembly. At first, Choe is said to have opposed the move, but with few other options on the table he authorized Kang to take full responsibility for carrying out the plan.
Some historians and analysts have disputed the account claiming that Choe did not approve military action until the Federal Assembly's decision to withdraw the Republic of Innominada from the Namhae Front and move toward peaceful reunification. On Januaray 15th, he had already dispatched troops into the country and instructed Bang Su-gŭn to station them around key objectives, implying that he already had plans for a crackdown. Others, including official Menghean sources, claim that this deployment was a flexible move and would also be suitable as a preparation for armed policing and crowd control in the major cities.
Operation Mallet
The Menghean intervention against the Republic of Innominada's government, codenamed Operation Mallet (망치 작전, Mangchi jagjŏn) began at 1:30 AM Innominadan time on Saturday, January 20th. In a simultaneous and well-coordinated effort, two columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled into San Miguel, one from the north and one from the south. Selected units rushed to secure government buildings, while the rest of the formation spread out to establish cordons on the major roads in preparation for crowd-control duties.
Having been alerted on the previous day that Menghean troops would intervene, Mateo Moya informed two fellow moderates in the Federal Assembly, who decided to delay the session until the troops arrived. At 8PM on the 19th, they proposed drawing up a new constitution, knowing that this would be a long and contentious process. Initially, Prime Minister Hernan Martínez moved to delay drafting until the following day, but as he was speaking a heated argument broke out among the representatives over whether the new system should be unitary or federal. In the midst of the tumult, a crowd of protesters under Alonzo Botín broke into the assembly hall and joined in the argument, pushing for a compromise deal which would preserve Argentan federal rights.
The argument was still ongoing at 2:15 AM, when Menghean armored personnel carriers surrounded the Federal Assembly building and declared that they were placing its representatives under arrest. Soldiers moved into the building and herded all officials and protesters still inside into the central assembly hall; Martínez and Tenorio were taken into separate rooms. Outside, the Army also rounded up a group of pro-Sovereignty protesters who had been standing vigil outside the building, standing guard over them in the open at first and later moving them into the building.
Once the Federal Assembly was secure, Menghean units elsewhere in the country followed through in the other main cities, barricading major roads and seizing government buildings. Deep Mission special forces seized control of the country's main airfields and suspended all outgoing flights, then oversaw an airlift of additional light units, including Rapid Response Brigades, into Innominada. This stage of the operation was remarkably well-coordinated and thorough, and has been cited as proof that the Menghean Army had contingency plans for Operation Mallet in place months before the referendum even began.
During the initial intervention, the Innominadan Republican Army (ERI) put up only sporadic resistance. In the evening of the 19th, the Supreme Commander of Namhae Front Forces in Innominada sent out a commumique confining all Innominadan soldiers to their barracks, and ordered central command stations to maintain radio silence. Indeed, in the early morning hours of the 20th, many local commanders and street patrols welcomed the arriving Menghean force, thinking that they had arrived to relieve them in crowd control duties. Sporadic fighting broke out around Gran Triunfo, where troops stationed nearby got word of the fall of the Federal Assembly and staged a mutiny, but most ERI units were contained or surrounded by the time the purpose of the Menghean operation became clear.
Despite widespread blackouts and a loss of cellular service, apparently intended to hinder communication, word soon got out that some kind of intervention was underway, and in the morning civilians moved into the streets to survey the scene. In an effort to prevent protests from forming, Menghean troops had parked armored vehicles in impromptu barricades along the main roads. When asked about the situation, soldiers responded that far-right ethnic supremacists had attacked the Federal Assembly and Menghean forces had moved in to restore order; when pressed further, they gave inconsistent answers, with some saying they had been sent to save Prime Minister Martínez and others saying Martínez had sided with the extremists.
As an unmarked prison van entered through the military cordon around the Federal Assembly building in San Miguel, whispers about a mass arrest of legislators began to spread through the crowd; as the van exited, the crowd rushed forward to block its path, with some youths attempting to break the windows with stones. Panicked, the Menghean soldiers opened fire into the crowd, killing 26 and possibly injuring over a hundred in the stampede retreat that followed. Some sources say that the shooting began after one or more soldiers discharged a burst into the air as a threat, while others contend that a low-ranking officer gave the order. The command did not appear to have prior approval from higher-ranking officers. A spokesperson for the Menghean government denied the incident.
By early afternoon on the 20th, Operation Mallet had achieved all of its main objectives. All sovereigntist-aligned legislators, with the exception of fourteen who were not present at the time of the operation, were under arrest, including not only Martínez and Tenorio but also Alonzo Botín and a handful of other protest ringleaders present at the Federal Assembly. All ERI bases had been surrounded, and in some the Menghean force had already seized the stored weapons and started sorting sympathetic Argentans from potentially hostile Creoles. Nearly all of the country's official television stations were in Menghean hands. For all intents and purposes, the First Innominadan Republic had ceased to exist.
Continued resistance
Once the reality of the situation became clear, new uprisings against the intervention broke out across the southwestern half of the country. Urban residents set up barricades on key roads, either to block off key points of resistance or hem Menghean troops in. In a number of towns, locals painted over street signs or toppled exit signs on highways in an effort to disorient and confuse the invaders, but Menghean forces relied predominantly on satellite navigation and this sabotage appears to have had little effect.
On the 21st, elements of the 32nd Division stationed northeast of Puerto Alegre mutinied, with Creole officers and enlisted personnel overpowering their Argentan comrades, seizing small arms from their lockers, and using divisional radio equipment to call on other units to rise up alongside them. The 10th Kimsŏng Tank Division responded with an organized counterattack against their base, in what became the largest engagement of the uprising. After their surrender, the ringleaders were summarily executed, allegedly on the grounds that they were convicted rebels guilty of treason rather than prisoners of war and were legally subject to the death penalty.
In a few towns and neighborhoods, most notably Dos Cruces in Gran Triunfo and Palermo in San Miguel, residents formed islands of resistance against the invaders, electing autonomous workers' councils and organizing armed militia units with regular defensive shifts. Menghean troops laid siege to these enclaves on the 20th, hoping that they would surrender, and stormed them by force on the night of the 21st-22nd. Militia managed to knock out several tanks and armored vehicles using fire bombs and stolen rocket launchers, but the Menghean policy of confiscating all privately held firearms after the invasion left them with relatively few weapons, and by the morning of the 22nd most organized holdouts had fallen.
The main exception to this rule was the working-class Dos Cruces neighborhood, which had been a major support base for the People's Republic of Innominada prior to the 2014 invasion and a persistent node of resistance from 2015 onward. Innominadan militia in these areas managed to arm themselves from a police arsenal during the 20th, and they made effective use of the district's narrow streets and sprawling workshops to barricade or ambush approaching columns. The neighborhood's iconic television tower allowed the militia to broadcast their version of events to nearby residents and, through a signal relayed from the People's Republic of Innominada across the border, to the rest of the world. Menghean forces finally resorted to artillery fire against the television tower and other suspected militia command centers, and declared control of the district on January 29th.
The northeastern region of the country was relatively subdued by comparison. In the early hours of January 21st, Buphavanh Tauaenthong issued a public statement welcoming the Menghean intervention as a necessary step to restore order and secure independence. In San Luís and on the outskirts of Nueva Meridia, local Argentans welcomed Menghean troops with flowers and banners with pro-independence slogans, viewing them as a much-needed safeguard against the ethnic violence of the preceding week. Some critics abroad, most notably the Menghean Government in Exile and Innominadan dissidents in Maverica, derided the widely filmed welcomes as staged propaganda, but overall there were no reports of organized resistance in the three provinces that had voted to secede.
While isolated demonstrations and passive resistance continued for weeks after the invasion, by the beginning of February large-scale resistance had ceased and the 5th Army began to withdraw. According to official Menghean sources, the operation took the lives of 573 "militants," though unofficial estimates run into the low thousands and list most of them as civilian deaths. The Menghean Army also recorded 161 deaths and 226 "wounded - out of action" casualties among its own ranks, most of them sustained in the mutiny of the 32nd Division and the operation to take Dos Cruces.
In Menghean media
Beginning in the early morning hours of January 20th, when the Menghean Central Television Network broadcast its morning news, all official Menghean media sources and government spokespeople followed a consistent narrative about the events in the Republic of Innominada. Rather than censoring the event altogether, the Menghean state took the offensive, actively promoting its own narrative for both domestic and foreign consumption. The fundamental account varied to some degree from source to source, but always consisted of the following key points:
- In the aftermath of the referendum, ethnic nationalists and white supremacist groups launched violent attacks on the Argentan minority, reminiscent of the Christmas Riots in 2004. The death toll from January 10th to January 20th was 352, 298 of them Argentan or Daryz civilians, and thousands more were injured or forced out of their homes.
- A key ringleader among these riots was Alonzo Botín, a radicalized university student who subscribed to class conflict theories of Marxism and favored the Maverican and former Innominadan communist models. Botín denounced Menghean socialism as a revisionist ideology and favored reunification with the People's Republic of Innominada in order to ally with Maverica against Menghe.
- On January 15th, Secretary-General Gerardo Tenorio openly proclaimed his sympathies with the white supremacist movement and announced that the Republic of Innominada would not tolerate Argentstani secession. Prime Minister Martínez, though initially hesitant, sided with Tenorio, whose views became increasingly radical.
- On the 18th, Tenorio and Martínez invited white supremacist rioters, including Botín, into the Federal Assembly to help draft a new declaration that would break off diplomatic relations with Menghe, withdraw from the Namhae Front, expel the Menghean military from the country, and pursue immediate reunification with the Maverican-aligned People's Republic of Innominada. Representatives of this conference also used derogatory language against Argentans, Daryz, and Meng, and began discussing plans to abolish the existing constitution and carry out organized revenge killings or ethnic cleansing against religious and ethnic minorities in order to prevent another independence referendum in the future.
- Moderates in the Innominadan Social-Republican Party, including Foreign Minister Mateo Moya, were alarmed by the Prime Minister's increasingly radical rhetoric and sent a secret communique to Menghe explaining the situation and pleading for an intervention to prevent genocidal violence against Argentans.
- In response to the Moya communique, Menghean forces already sent into the country to protect Argentans from violence carried out a bloodless operation to secure government buildings and place the radical conspirators under arrest.
- Menghean troops outside the Federal Assembly building fired into the air as a warning, but this set off a stampede which caused an armed rioter's gun to misfire back. Several soldiers, reservists not braced for combat, did return fire, but most of the 26 deaths were caused by the stampede. Menghean forces then provided medical aid to the survivors abandoned on the avenue, and escorted them to a nearby hospital.
- The same Creole supremacists who had taken part in the riots of the preceding weeks then took up concealed arms and entrenched themselves in local neighborhoods to ambush passing troops. During the brief siege of Dos Cruces they brutally mistreated the civilians under their rule, freely appropriating food and water as "collective property" and raping any women who resisted their orders.
The official Menghean account was persuasive because all of its individual components were at least partially true. Rather than labeling the rioters counter-revolutionaries or foreign agents, it seized on certain factual details and, with some embellishment, created an internally consistent narrative in which Menghean troops intervened with the Foreign Minister's request to prevent ethnic bloodshed and allow the legal, democratic referendum to go forward.
Official news sources, as well as most private ones, also consistently referred to protesters and resistance forces as white supremacists, Creole nationalists, and occasionally radical Maverican-aligned communists, using the events of the post-referendum period to broadly tar the entire movement as one motivated by racial hate. Even claims that Tenorio and Martínez advocated for ethnic cleansing against Daryz and Argentans, though largely unsubstantiated, were more or less credible in light of Innominada's history of ethnic violence.
Yet state publicity agencies also denied or omitted key details, most notably the presence of an ethnic-harmony movement among university protesters and Tenorio's complaints about Menghean "neo-imperialism." State censors also suppressed alternative accounts of the intervention, first by blocking access to Western news sites and later by deriding Western reports as a propaganda and misinformation campaign led by Sylva and its allies. In particular, state publicity organs derided any accounts sympathetic to the protesters as an implicit endorsement of white nationalism, and encouraged the Menghean population to boycott any media agencies which too heavily criticized Menghe's actions in the operation.
Aftermath
Reorganization of government
In the wake of the invasion, the Menghean Army set up a provisional government, the Council for the Restoration of Peace and Order (JRPO, Junta para la Restoración de Paz y Orden) in San Miguel. This was a junta-style organization consisting of handpicked military commanders and government officials who had remained loyal during the events of January 10-29. The junta was headed by General Thanasak Chaychna, an ethnic Kedi and former rebel leader. The Innominadan Social-Republican Party was dissolved, and its members were placed under investigation. Moya was rehabilitated and returned to his post as Foreign Minister.
The Special Liaison to Argentstan and Innominada adopted a more interventionist role in the Innominadan Second Republic, tightening control in order to ensure that a second breakaway would not happen. With the help of Menghean funds and personnel, Thanasak's junta built up a brutal police state to combat terrorism and suppress opposition to the regime. Officially, the new government is committed to ending discrimination and eradicating the long-standing Innominadan racial hierarchy, but independent human rights organizations allege that it has singled out Creoles for intimidation and surveillance.
The Menghean government also interfered more actively in the new country's economic sphere. Concluding that persistently high youth unemployment was one of the underlying factors driving domestic terrorism and ethnic unrest, the Special Liaison pushed both Argentstan and the Innominadan Second Republic to institute market-oriented reforms and pro-growth policies. The Special Liaison also poured billions of dollars of humanitarian aid and development assistance into Innominada, through a combination of state-led development funds and private investment by Jachi-hoesa.
Argentstani secession
With Martínez's government removed and Menghean forces effectively in control of the country, the Republic of Innominada formally recognized the results of the referendum. The Special Liaison to Argentstan and Innominada took charge of managing the transition. On June 6th, 2018, the Republic of Argentstan was formally established as an independent entity with Buphavanh Tauaenthong as President, receiving immediate recognition from Menghe and the Republic of Innominada.
During the transitional period, ERI soldiers who resided in the three seceding provinces were given the option of transferring to the newly established Argentstani People's Army, while military equipment was divided between the two states based on its location at the time of the referendum. Both the APA and the ERI fell back under the leadership of Menghean advisers, who oversaw the reorganization and retraining process.
Innominadan citizens were also allowed to gain naturalized citizenship in Argentstan if they had permanent residence on its territory on June 6th, a policy that provoked a flood of internal migration by Argentans, Daryz, and other minorities. Many Sylvan creoles in Argentstan also relocated to the Republic of Innominada, or fled covertly to the People's Republic.
Political repression
The new Innominadan government oversaw a wave of political repression against former supporters of the sovereigntist movement. Any officials who were suspected of aiding Tenorio's movement or opposing the Menghean operation faced arrest or dismissal, as did those who spoke out against Menghean involvement in policymaking after the event. Tenorio, Martínez, and Botín were all subjected to highly publicized show trials, where they confessed to instigating ethnic violence and plotting reunification into the People's Republic of Innominada. General Thanasak proved no more lenient, brutally suppressing any criticism of his regime.
The Menghean government also required South Innominadan media sources to adhere to the Menghean narrative of the uprising. As 2018 went by, this broadened into a wider campaign against "Creole supremacism," a label applied to any criticism of Menghean policy interference and Argentstani secession. Under Menghean pressure, the Ministry of Education withdrew dozens of textbooks accused of glorifying colonial rule and declared that it would alter its curriculum to focus more on the country's precolonial history. Menghean military advisors also tightened their control of the ERI, instituting political indoctrination in all units and purging officers with nationalist sympathies.
The stifling political environment after the crackdown drove a flood of political refugees out of the country. It is estimated that over the course of 2018, about 80,000 Republic of Innominada citizens fled to the People's Republic of Innominada, either by crossing the border or traveling to a third country and requesting asylum from there. Many of these political refugees became vocal critics of Menghean conduct in the crackdown and of Thanasak's military regime.