Chapter 261
Chapter 261
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Argentine Coup (2)
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“President Ilia’s secured loan! Job creation and economic impact: 3 billion dollars!”
“What, what?”
Outrageously implausible stories started appearing in the newspapers.
“President Ilia signs MOU with Korea Modern Automobiles for investment, job creation and economic impact: 2 billion dollars!”
Frankly, anyone who could do basic math wouldn’t buy such nonsense.
But it was inevitable that people’s ears would perk up at these tales.
“Our president’s been achieving all this?”
In truth, it wasn’t as if Ilia had accomplished nothing.
Leaders who could develop a nation at 10% annual growth weren’t exactly common.
People began paying attention to the president’s achievements.
No, for the first time, they started holding expectations.
“The president who’ll revive the economy—who is it?”
“Ilia.”
Even America picked up on this strange mood.
But with the Blue faction agreeing to oust the president, they saw little meaning in these tricks.
“Just launch the coup, and it’s game over.”
America thought that way, but Ilia’s side had already prepared countermeasures against the coup.
At dawn, the coup forces swiftly advanced on the presidential palace.
With no suppression forces to oppose them, the coup troops easily entered the Pink House.
General Alsogaray, representing the coup forces, personally entered the president’s office.
General Alsogaray rehearsed the message he would deliver.
‘I represent the military in requesting that you step down from the presidency.’
It was a short sentence, but he couldn’t help feeling tense.
Alsogaray cleared his throat, then ordered the soldiers to open the office door.
The general strode in through the open door.
“Citizen Ilia.”
Alsogaray faltered as he was about to address the president.
The president’s office had already been cleared out spotless.
Only a suit hanging on the chair proved the president had been there.
Where on earth had the president gone, when he should clearly be at his desk?
The general looked around for a long while.
Then one of his subordinate officers found him.
“General! General! This is bad.”
“What is it?”
As Alsogaray emerged from the office, one officer pointed to the TV and said,
“Th-the president’s on TV.”
“What?”
Alsogaray rubbed his eyes as he saw Ilia on TV.
It was definitely, definitely the president appearing there.
How the hell did that guy get on there?
While the coup forces were thrown into confusion, the president steadily delivered his message via TV.
“If we yield to these robbers trying to steal the nation’s power, we will once again suffer under the shadow of military rule. Now is the time to fight back against those highway bandits. Show the military—who believe they can seize power just by picking up guns—that this country is different from your typical banana republics. Only then can we bring a better future to our children and the Argentine community.”
The president demanded that the people refuse to obey the military.
The president’s impassioned plea had its effect.
“If we let these robbers get away with their theft as the president says, this country will turn into a banana republic. I didn’t immigrate to Argentina to see that.”
At first, not many people took to the streets.
But the procession of civilians marching out to protest the coup drew everyone’s attention.
“What’s going on? Why are all these people flooding the streets?”
“Haven’t you heard? They’re resisting the coup.”
“Resisting the coup?”
“Yeah, we have to protect our president.”
Seeing others already forming ranks gave people courage.
Humans are beings who can’t muster courage alone but find it when someone leads the way.
“I’ve been sick of watching those military bastards strut around anyway. Good timing.”
Peronists who harbored resentment toward the military gladly joined the anti-coup protests.
For the military, who had mobilized troops in the hundreds confident of ousting the president, this was an unbearable situation.
“If we’d known, we should’ve seized the broadcast stations first.”
To maintain the appearance of quietly and properly “advising” the president out with a clean look, the military hadn’t included seizing broadcast stations or government offices as options.
That miscalculation plunged this coup into crisis.
No use regretting it now—the situation wouldn’t change.
“For now, let’s capture the president.”
General Alsogaray decided to seize the Buenos Aires broadcast stations first.
But the president hadn’t been at the station from the start.
“They say it was a pre-recorded broadcast. He never even came to the station.”
“Then where the hell is the president?”
For the Argentine military, it was one awkward situation after another.
Flustered, they decided to strip Ilia of the presidency first.
“With things like this, let’s declare the president ousted for now.”
The military declared the president’s ouster and elevated General Juan Carlos Onganía Carbayo, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as interim president.
“What? Interim president? You’re joking. We won’t recognize it. No, we won’t.”
Korea made clear it would not recognize the new regime.
This was the opposite of America, which had signaled recognition to the military regime.
Such a shift in attitude from Korea—which had always gotten along well with coup regimes—was unprecedented.
The Argentine military regime grew worried and took a low posture toward Korea.
Failing to gain approval from the world’s second superpower could impact Argentina’s international standing.
The military regime tried sweet-talking Korea.
“If you’re concerned about the loans provided to the Ilia regime, don’t worry. We’ll faithfully inherit all of Ilia’s regime’s debts.”
Yi Seong-jun snorted at the Argentine military regime’s words.
“They’re already acting like they’ve successfully taken power.”
The very next day, President Ilia appeared in La Plata, a neighboring city to Buenos Aires, and joined his supporters.
“The moment we shut our mouths out of fear of the military’s guns and swords, we become not free citizens but slaves. Were we born to become slaves? Do we live to submit to the military’s power-holders? I say no.”
“Ilia! Ilia!”
The president’s appearance was enough to boost the morale of the Argentine protesters.
“Your Excellency. The protesters keep growing.”
“Use tear gas to suppress them. Once we grab Ilia, it’s over.”
The military generals thought catching just the president would solve everything, but it wasn’t so easy in practice.
The soldiers sent by the Argentine military were helpless before the citizens forming human chains to protect the president.
“How are we supposed to break through that many people?”
“Fire tear gas like rain. They’ll scatter then.”
But no matter how much tear gas the military fired, the citizens didn’t scatter easily.
“You think we’ll back down, you military bastards?”
Now the military had to make a decision.
Dragging this out would give opportunities to rivals within the military, like the Red faction.
To swiftly bury the incident, they had no choice but to draw blood.
“Issue live ammunition to the soldiers.”
“Pardon? You mean prepare to use live rounds on civilians?”
“If not, how else do we suppress that mob?”
The military showed intent to use firearms.
America tacitly approved this.
“Keep sacrifices to a minimum. Otherwise, it’ll be hard for us to support you.”
America’s tacit approval gave the military courage.
“We’ll wrap it up as quietly as possible.”
On June 4, the coup forces began indiscriminately firing on the protesters.
“Wipe them all out!”
The merciless suppression of the protesters resulted in massive casualties.
At that point, Korea stepped forward.
“Korea cannot tolerate the sacrifice of Argentine citizens of EA origin.”
Korea cited the deaths and injuries of several EA-origin citizens and sent embassy staff to the front lines of the protests.
“What? The Koreans joined the protesters?”
By the time the military learned of it, two Korean embassy staff had already been killed in the line of duty.
Korea immediately threatened to take the matter to the UN.
“You’d better prepare for sanctions.”
With an UN Security Council permanent member and the world’s second superpower openly showing hostility, the Argentine military panicked.
“N-no, this wasn’t intentional.”
The suppression forces’ momentum broke in an instant.
With that, control of the situation completely slipped from the Argentine military’s hands.
While the protesters exploded in number, furious over the bloodshed, the military brass could only wring their hands, wary of Korea.
Anyone could see the coup was doomed.
“This is totally fucked.”
With that, the generals who had signed on to the coup began pulling out.
“Hey, remove my name from the supporter list.”
“I didn’t know you were staging a coup. If I had, I wouldn’t have lent my name.”
The coup forces disintegrated by the evening of the sixth day, June 6.
Most of the coup command fled the country on planes as fast as they could.
From nearby Brazil to as far as America, they all sought their own escapes.
The problem was America.
Washington couldn’t play innocent like the coup commanders.
“As expected from the great godfather of coups, the United States. Does America see all of Central and South America as banana republics?”
America took a massive beating from Central and South Americans.
From openly recognizing the military coup regime, Washington couldn’t easily deny involvement.
“Guardian of democracy? What a load of bullshit.”
In this process, America’s soft power—which positioned itself as the champion of liberal democracy—suffered serious damage.
“Who told them to egg on a coup over a little loan?”
Korea’s elderly prime minister sneered at the arrogance of Americans who went into overdrive with a coup after just one warning shot.