Sondrio Rovina

Sondrio Onorato Rovina (pronounced roe-veeh-nah) (30 April 1929 - 16 August 1993) was an Itaterran politician, colonel and, from 1976 to 1993, President of Itaterra under what was known as the Rovina Dictatorship.

He is infamous for his administration's use of torture, political repression and authoritarian censorship policies, though his supporters often point out that had he not taken power, Itaterra would have become a Soviet puppet state due to the communist government, though it is generally accepted by most historians and most Itaterrans in general that the dictatorship was one of the worst times in the nation's history.

As President, some of his authoritarian reforms included drafting a new constitution in 1984 after Itaterra had become a republic, vesting executive power in the unelected office of President, centralising the Police of Itaterra, deploying the Armed Forces on the streets of major cities for the sake of "national security" and banning foreign influence and products.

Childhood & Early Life (1929-1948)
Sondrio Rovina was born in Venice on 30 April, 1929 to Maria and Carlo Rovina, the latter of whom was a, upper middle class, senior partner at a major Venetian law firm, Rovina & Grüber and the former of whom was a stay-at-home housewife. Sondrio, throughout his childhood, was always distant from his father, who always seemed to be working on court cases and legal documents. The very few times he would have quality time with his father, he would often forget Sondrio's name.

On the contrary, Sondrio was very close to his mother and four siblings, of which he was the middle child. His relationship with his mother, however, was cut short when she died of heart disease when Sondrio was eight years old, leaving him distraught and traumatised. His father, however, not wishing to sacrifice his career in law to take care of the five children, hired a team of carers for the children, including a butler, a caterer and many others. Sondrio, however, hated the carers, often playing tricks on them with his siblings.

In 1947, amidst the beginning of the Cold War and the beginning of the post-war period in Itaterra, Sondrio graduated from Martinetto II School. Immediately after leaving School, he decided to join the Itaterra Armed Forces, and with his father's support, was enrolled in the Officer Cadet School in Rievania. In 1948, after an eight-month course, he graduated as a Second Lieutenant of the 1st Venetian Infantry Regiment.

Military Career (1948-1976)
Later that year, Sondrio was put in charge of a company of forty men. No. 2 Company of the Regiment's 1st Battalion. He was reportedly a strict leader of the Company. He is rumoured to have given the troops only three and a half hours sleep per night, if any. He is also rumoured to have punished the entire platoon for one troop's insubordination, often giving them an entire hour-long workout for trivial things such as not yelling loud enough.

As a result, his soldiers became "highly-disciplined, battle-ready killing machines" as Sondrio himself once described them. No. 2 Company was even permitted to partake in the Special Operations Annual Course after 1956, despite not being a special forces company.

However, the unit first saw combat in 1955 during the Libyan War of Independence. There, the company, along with twenty other companies, all under the command of Colonel Vittorio Spirro, were deployed. No. 2 Company was deployed to Derna, a city in the east of the colony, where they evacuated one hundred white colonial citizens in one day, the most evacuated in one day in the entire war. The war, fought against anti-colonial communist insurgents, turned Sondrio from a non-political man to an ardent anti-communist. Eventually, the Treaty of Genoa was signed and Itaterra recognised Libyan as a legitimate nation.

When the unit arrived home, Sondrio, now a First Lieutenant, started keeping up with politics more. He started reading the Politics sections of the paper, and became more and more reactionary as time marched on. His brother had already, earlier that year, created an underground anti-communist paramilitary organisation called the Army of Patriots. Sondrio joined the organisation as an instructor to train new recruits, now with military experience from (African Nation).

In 1960, Sondrio was promoted to the rank of Captain and his regiment, the 1st Venetian Infantry, was merged with the 2nd Venetian Infantry shortly after, forming the Royal Venetian Guards. Members of the former 2nd Infantry were to remain in Venice to guard the palaces there, but the former members of the 1st Infantry were moved to Rievania's new Southern Barracks.

The unit did not see any combat until 1976, pursuing a mostly ceremonial role for the next sixteen years, in which Sondrio took the liberty of reading books such as The Art of War by Sun Tzu and On War by Clausewitz in order to become a more effective commander. He also read books about politics, briefly becoming a fascist after reading Mein Kampf and other works by Hitler, before instead taking a more classical liberal approach to politics after reading the works of Locke and of the US Founding Fathers. By 1976, Sondrio had reached the rank of Colonel.

In 1976, Sondrio's worst nightmares came true. The Socialist Party of Itaterra had taken power in the recent election. On 1 August, the very first meeting of what would become the Itaterra Military Council occurred, with Sondrio, his brother Quentin, NAP Leader Vincenzo Hardini and leaders of nationalist militias from across the nation all in attendance. They would then meet daily until 16 August, planning out a coup for that date.

On 16 August 1976, Sondrio and the men of the 1st Infantry, including his old platoon, captured the Commander of the Southern Barracks, Major General Modoni, and executed him, with Colonel Sondrio Rovina taking his place. Later that day, they arrested socialists all over Rievania, flew over to Venice to support nationalist militias and later returned to Rievania, where Colonel Rovina executed the Socialist Prime Minister Francesco Russo, the very last democratically-elected Prime Minister of Itaterra until seventeen years later.

Kingdom of Itaterra (1976-1984)
*Sondrio will be referred to as 'Prime Minister/President Rovina' or 'Rovina' for the rest of the article

On 16 August, at 4:30, Colonel Rovina made the now infamous "Rovina's Address to the Nation", known nowadays as the beginning of the dictatorship. In his Address, which featured on all the televisions across the nation, he stated that the Armed Forces had taken over the government, that the Parliament had been disbanded and that the Itaterra Military Council, consisting of the mutiny leaders and nationalist militia leaders, would have full control of the nation.

The very first acts of legislation passed through the Military Council included the Communism Act, which banned all parties deemed "communist", which ranged from centrists to Marxist-Leninists, leaving the country with two parties, the National Awakening Party and the Conservative Nationalists of Itaterra, both far-right nationalist parties. Another major act of legislation passed by the Council in the first few months of Prime Minister Rovina's leadership was the Gun Confiscation Act, which resulted in any and all citizens in possession of firearms who were not members of nationalist militias to either surrender their weapons or be imprisoned.

People who did not abide by these authoritarian laws were most commonly sent to infamous prisons run by the newly-created Royal Prisons Agency, which was run by Prime Minister Rovina himself as its Director. These prisons would often be overcrowded places without running water and a limited supply of food. Criminals were also sent to them for trivial offences, including, in multiple cases, stealing from stores.

In the first four years of the dictatorship, an era of economic prosperity was ushered in by Prime Minister Rovina, whose regime was economically supported by all NATO nations aside from West Germany and Norway. However, workers' rights in Itaterra at the time were incredibly poor, with the Military Council passing the Suppression of Unions Act in 1977, banning strikes and legalising police violence towards union protests and pickets.

In 1981, however, the era of economic prosperity was brought to an end as Francois Mitterande's France cut off trade with Itaterra due to their anti-union policies, followed by Portugal, Spain and various other centre-left governments across Europe. Even Reagan cut off trade with Itaterra, though not so much for political reasons as it was for economic reasons, as US trade with Itaterra benefited Itaterra far more than Itaterran trade with the US. The Itaterran market entered near collapse, with Prime Minister Rovina passing unpopular austerity measures through the Military Council to deal with the economic crisis.

Republic of Itaterra (1984-1993)
In March of 1984, controversy erupted, as King Hayden III decided to declare Royal Law, with his reason for this being the economic crisis, though an investigation later found out that he was secretly negotiating with the Itaterra Democratic Front, predecessor to the DPOI, in order to plan an overthrow of the government. The Military Council promptly declared that the King was acting against the interests of the people and, on 14 March, No. 2 Company, 1st Battalion, RVG, Rovina's former men, raided the Palace of Rievania only to find it empty. The King had escaped to Spain along with the Royal Family and multiple rebellious members of the Royal Rievanian Guards.

Later that day, after Hayden III and his family could not be found, Prime Minister Rovina declared the Republic of Itaterra in an address to the nation, with him as President of the Republic and Military Council member Major Alberto Mariani as the Prime Minister of the Republic. In addition to this, the 1919 republican flag was officially adopted, Republic Day became a national holiday, the national anthem changed from "Inno Reale" to "Inno di Repubblica" and a new constitution was drafted, being officially ratified by the Military Council in 1985.

On 1 January, 1985, Rovina officially re-opened the Parliament, now the Parliament of the Republic, after a two-party election between the NAP and the CNI, in which the NAP won a narrow majority of 52%. The Parliament was personally opened by Rovina himself as opposed to Prime Minister Mariani.

Later that year, despite the Military Council and Parliament's staunch anti-communism, Parliament voted to accept economic aid from the Soviet Union to help bolster the economy, which was largely autarkic and self-reliant due to NATO's boycott of the nation and the demise of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship.

In early 1986, the Viterbo Revolts broke out, prompting Rovina to declare a state of emergency, vetoing any and all Parliament decisions he did not approve of, and personally signing a total of one-hundred and thirty executive orders during the five-year state of emergency. Some of the most infamous executive orders signed during the period include the Martial Law Act (Order #37002), which allowed the military to be deployed on the streets, the Parliamentary Voting Rights Act (Order #37011), which suspended the rights of MPs to vote on matters deemed "non-Parliamentary" by the Military Council, and Order #36997, which lowered taxes on the wealthy.

As the Viterbo Revolts raged on in the South of Itaterra, conscription began in the North, with many conscripts being deployed to the Southern Deployment Zone under Perrodo Malcianobbici's command. This was called National Service, and the program required all men aged 18-50 to serve for a period of one and a half years in either the Army or Air Force, though a select handful of conscripts were chosen to serve in the Navy as well.

In 1991, after the Soviet Union collapsed, Itaterra underwent economic turmoil once again. Without Soviet funds, the war in the South seemed at a dead end, a stalemate, as neither side wished to attack. Rovina appointed a new Prime Minister, the Conservative Nationalist Leader Lecio Terme, and the two parties in Parliament formed a coalition to rebuild Itaterra. Rovina's final executive order, signed on 15 July 1991, delegated executive power to the role of Prime Minister, making President a merely ceremonial role, so as not to have to deal with all the pressures of the position.

For the next two years, Rovina did not do much. The Military Council had been disbanded by the new Prime Minister and reforms were being passed through Parliament frequently, including free speech laws, laws for freedom of movement, freedom to use foreign products, and slowly, the economy started recovering. The fact remained, however, that the country was still a two-party authoritarian nationalist state, ruled by a President who for so long had oppressed his people.

The people were still unhappy, even after these reforms, and on 7 August 1993, a peaceful protest began outside of the Concilii Forum building. The protest soon amassed a crowd of Democratic Front protestors, communists, liberals, socialists, reformist conservatives and people from all walks of life who were unhappy with the government. However, after the crowd became too much for the local police to handle, tear gas and rubber bullets were fired at the protestors to disperse them. However, the protestors regrouped in a street nearby, and were now planning on overpowering the police. One-hundred and forty-two protestors stormed the gates of the building, prompting the police to use live ammunition, killing only three protestors before fifteen officers were injured and six killed by the rioters, who began looting the building.

One day later, demonstrations like this happened across the nation, with the Democratic Front growing from 20,000 members to 35,000 overnight. By morning, news of this mass action against the government had reached across Itaterra, and a total of 70,000 people went on strike to protest the government's refusal to transition to democracy.

Death (16 August, 1993)
At 12:00PM on 16 August, President Rovina ate what would become his last meal: grilled cod with collard greens. The protests had been going on for over a week now, and 120,000 people were on strike now, calling for the President's trial and/or execution. Rovina and his wife looked out the window that day to see hundreds of protestors outside of the Presidential Palace, with Armed Forces members holding them off, and helicopters with snipers frequently circling the building. Once lunch had been finished, Rovina went to the lounge room, sat down and turned on the television, before beginning to watch one of his favourite programs with his wife.

At 1:22PM, while Sondrio and Emilia had been watching TV, gunshots were fired outside. They immediately rushed to the window and looked outside. The rioters were overpowering the Armed Forces and one had even shot down the helicopter. Luckily for Rovina, it had crashed into the building opposite them. The protestors proceeded to march into Rovina's home. After Sondrio saw this, he immediately asked to be evacuated to his safe room, which he was promptly taken to by one of his servants. The fate of this servant is unknown to this day, with theories that he tipped off the rioters of Rovina's location and gave them the keys before assuming a new identity, and other theories saying that he was killed and had the keys taken from him.

Either way, the rioters had acquired the keys from the servant and had located the safe room. Rovina, in one last escape attempt, ran to his office to commit suicide by jumping through the window, but before he could do that, he was grabbed by the rioters and stabbed to death by a mob of eight men. He died at 1:28PM on 16 August, 1993. His wife shortly followed, being macheted to death at 1:30PM.

Romantic & Personal Life
While in the Armed Forces, he met an Itaterran noblewoman by the name of Anna Marsicano (third cousin, twice removed of Theophile Marsicano-Cochet) while visiting Rievania in 1951. After meeting, they instantly flirted and shortly after, they began dating. The couple never got married and never had any children, but they hardly fought, and remained a strong couple. The two shared traits of curiosity, admiration of tradition and importantly, anti-communism. Sondrio and Anna broke up in 1963 due to Anna's family arranging a marriage between her and a Flemish Prince.

In 1965, two years after he broke up with Anna, Sondrio began taking an interest in fellow Army member Emilia Romeo, a cook of the Catering Corps. She was immediately charmed by Sondrio's natural charisma and fell for him. The couple got married in 1973, and had their honeymoon in Durban, South Africa. During the dictatorship period, while many people disliked Sondrio's unpopular reforms, and thus by extent Sondrio himself, Emilia became somewhat of a popular figure, especially for women's fashion within the country. As Sondrio himself once put it:"'One day, Emy might be wearing a yellow dress, the next day, women across the nation would be wearing yellow dresses.'"In addition to this, she used her popularity and fame to write a series of cookbooks, using both recipes from her civilian life and from being a caterer in the Army.

Sondrio, while in the Army, made many friends in high places, including Anna's brother, Martin, the Chief of the Itaterran Army, Michael Carolini, the governor of Itaterran Libya whom his forces had served in the War of Independence and even the Minister of Defence, Carlo Sinn. Many of these friendships survived well into the dictatorship years, with many of them becoming members of the nepotistic Military Council. These friends of Sondrio formed what was seen by many as a sort of secret society.