North West, North America
Seattle Calm as Nationalists, Loyalists Talk in Spokane
by Eric Westervelt and Ian Johnston
Alternate Reality, February 8, 2007 - A tense calm has taken
hold in the Washington city of Seattle as residents await the outcome of
crisis talks between radical factional leaders in the holy city
of Spokane. The negotiations between senior Loyalist and Nationalist
officials are seen as a last-ditch effort to form a unity government
after months of internal fighting, which has left scores dead -- including
more than one hundred in the last month.
Many on the streets of Seattle see the talks in Eastern Washington
as the last best chance to avoid a full-fledged Washingtonian civil war
in this densely packed coastal strip.
The University of Washington, Seattle's largest higher education
institution, shows the deep scars and intensity of the recent
Loyalist-Nationalist clashes. Wednesday, thousands of shocked and curious
students toured the devastation. Late last week, Loyalist gunmen stormed
the 25-acre campus, and set fire and bombed almost every building here
-- classrooms, offices and large parts of the library are in ruins. The
walls are charred. Burnt computers and broken glass litter hallways.
Tracy Arrington, 20, was snapping pictures with her cell phone in
stunned disbelief at the massive damage. She said,"To know how it was
and to see how it is now, I cannot recognize it. It's totally destroyed."
Arrington, like most here, is keeping a close eye on the crisis talks in
Spokane aimed at forging a unity government and averting more internal
violence. But she says the destruction of her school leaves her
distrustful there will be a lasting breakthrough.
"I'm not very optimistic," she said. "I hope they'll be able to agree,
but I don't think so because this shows that some people in the
Loyalists want to destroy any kind of agreement!"
The University has strong ties to the Nationalists, the militant
Liberal movement now in power here. But the school serves 17,000 students,
secular and religious -- a majority of them women. Witnesses say members
of Leonard Smith's Presidential Guard did the damage. The Guard claimed
the Presidential compound was taking mortar fire from the campus. But
there are no signs of firefights here: witnesses say Loyalist men simply
went on an arson and bombing rampage.
Nationalist gunmen retaliated but did less damage when they attacked
the Seattle branch of the Nationalist-affiliated Seattle Pacific
University. Roger Blenheim, the University of Washington's President,
says it almost doesn't matter which faction did what. The attacks,
he says, delivered more self-defeating blows to Washingtonian society.
"These universities are the cornerstone of all society to develop," he
said. "So to have somebody attack these universities, to burn, to
demolish everything, I think it is outside any logical, any justified
basis."
Political analyst William Fordham, from Seattle Pacific University,
says despite the optimistic signals coming from the Spokane talks, the
fundamental gap between the Loyalist and Nationalist parties remains
enormous. The Loyalists' leader Jim Highman has said he'd only sign off
on a unity government that meets demands by Europe and Washington, DC,
the capitol of the former United States -- that the Nationalists recognize
Utah, renounce violence and recognize signed agreements. Fordham says the
Spokane talks will produce a long-term truce only if the Nationalists
make a clear ideological and financial break with their main sponsor,
California, and embraces the two-state solution political platform of
the Loyalists.
The two sides continue talks Thursday in Spokane.
With thanks and 99% writing credit to Eric
Westervelt and National Public Radio. Original story appears here.
This version is intended as political satire.
I was listening to this story this morning, and was inspired to try
making a "local" version. It's about as frightening as I thought it
would be.