Address from the Head of Communications
I cannot even explain what I have just heard. Just witnessed. Vardanyans battered, beaten, and bludgeoned. People disillusioned. Loved ones pasting posters of people they loved. I walked past one wall with so many faces that I felt ill. I have seen the youngest of children with their entrails hanging from holes in their corpses. I was appalled and sickened by the gruesome work of the Imperiales, but even more so by our president. President Eloni Katzing knows of these atrocities, and not only has he made no attempt to intervene in the Imperiales' deeds, but he continues to trade and ally with them and encourages us to do the same. Such blatant disregard for human life is both inhumane and disgusting.
How can a self-respecting man who claims to be for democracy and people's rights see people abused and left for dead and turn the other cheek? How can a man who encourages public intelligence bar the press from telling the truth? How can someone who claims to fight for what is right fund a war built on the broken backs of the damned? He has watched that country crumble and told us nothing was going on. He has secluded us from them, so we would not ask questions. Well, I am no longer sitting and watching the world dissolve around us. I am asking questions, even if they will get me killed in the end. I will not back down until I get answers or I die. You may think I have gone off my rocker, but I assure you, when you see the things I have experienced, you will stand next to me in the plight for truth.
For months, I have lived in Duavil, one of Vardanyn's largest cities. Neither state knew I had penetrated the mirage. My family didn't even know. Only the family I lived with knew, and I felt burdened for even being there. Seven people were goaded into a three bedroom house with busted windows and no heating. The toilets didn't work, so we had to use chamber pots. The refrigerator was almost always empty because the taxes were so high. When it snowed, the family would wrap the children's legs with rags and send them out to scrape the snow and help gather food for the night. When the Imperiales paraded through the streets, I was forced to kiss the ground they walked on despite the blood that followed. The people are desensitized. I have seen pregnant women who have received national prenatal care for months come home with empty arms. I have seen citizens running from guards who are supposed to protect them. I have seen believers dragged from their homes and thrown onto the backs of trucks after being beaten and pillaged. The Vardanyans don't even bat an eye.
As a person, I can do nothing. I could only watch with wide eyes as our neighboring country fell apart. I could only vainly attempt to save the dead, to shelter the damned, and to feed the emaciated. Upon my arrival home, I immediately went to the state and reported what I seen. My findings were nothing to them. I was put on probation for two years. On its terms, I was ordered to never speak of what I had seen. I was informed that what was happening was a civil uprising, and Suffet has no business in the affairs so long as the Suffetian people are kept safe. What of our neighbors? What are they to do when their sons are sent into war young and their daughters are worked to the bone? What are they to say to their children when they are goaded into a truck leading them to certain doom? What are they to think when their last breaths are in the hands of their tyrants?
I remember a young girl had been cornered by the guards near the Hillenboren border. She was picking flowers for her mother's grave. I remember seeing her and following just in case. Two guards, scarcely into puberty, were now hassling her and swearing she was a traitor. They made her confess to running to our borders with her mother just two months prior. The pair was met with a seventeen foot high wall. Distraught, they returned to their home with broken dreams. A month later, the mother would be killed in a raid and the daughter would join her a month after that. Imagine what would have happened if the wall had not existed. Imagine that young girl's life with her mother in Suffet. She would be in school. She would have friends. She would be alive.
Now as a person, I could do nothing for her except pray while they bashed her head in. But as a people, we could do something for the millions like her who are looking for an escape route. The thousands of Vardanyans who have lost their lives just as she had could be saved. They could seek refuge while the government is deposed. They could rebuild themselves in a peaceful democratic environment to ensure they will not have a repeat of these atrocities. They could then begin to rebuild after this violent regime came to an end. However, all of these possibilities depend on you. I am barred from saying you should vote on this issue. In fact, in a week, I will be serving a three years sentence for violating my probation. Nevertheless, I stand before you, not to sway you one way or the other, but to let you hear the voices of those beyond the wall. Those who have gone through this need your vote because not voting is putting another Vardanyan in a grave. Not voting is letting another voice die out. Not voting is putting another hole in the sinking ship. Even if the bill does not pass, at least Vardanyans like the young girl who was bludgeoned will know they have someone trying to fight for them.