Brussels Massacre

Location

 Arrested

The **Clearing of Warandepark**, which came to be known as the "**Brussels Massacre**" was a violent confrontation between Morranian government forces and anti-government protesters that occurred on Tuesday May 17, 2039. The confrontation was the most brutal conflict in Morranian history and resulted in the deaths of 300 protesters, as well as 2 police officers. As a result of the massacre, President Kairos Hemlock resigned from the ruling People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) in protest against her government's actions.

Since March 17, 2039, anti-government protesters had occupied Warandepark in Brussels in a bid to place pressure on the government of Speaker Peter Koonz to resign as part of the wider ongoing political protests in the aftermath of the assassination of President Sunil Bakshi. With Warandepark backing onto the Morranian Presidential Palace, which also contained government executive offices, several senior ministerial officials began to publicly voice frustration at the fact protests were allowed to control an area so close to the heart of government. On May 5, 2039, Speaker Peter Koonz ordered the armed forces to remove protesters from the park alongside the police forces - after twelve days of planning, government forces moved into the square at 10:02am on Tuesday May 17, 2039, making use of military vehicles and transports to quickly deploy hundreds of police and soldiers into the park.

Violent confrontations between the government forces and protesters began almost immediately, after arriving military forces opened fire on protesters at 10:11am with direct orders from Speaker Koonz. Between 10:11am and 4:58pm, 300 protesters were killed by government forces, whilst over a thousand further protestors were arrested and detained during the clearing of Warandepark. During the clearing, protesters and government forces engaged in several clashes, which spread into the streets of Brussels and involved improvised explosive devices, tear gasses, and the deployment of armed vehicles along Brussels' streets. At 11:05am, Speaker Peter Koonz made a televised speech to the nation demanding that protesters across the country cease their action and end their protests, citing the example of Brussels to demonstrate what might happen to protests if they did not disband. On the day of the clearing, President Kairos Hemlock was in The Hague meeting with opposition leaders and thereby unaware of the actions being taken by her own government - Hemlock reportedly only found out about the ongoing clearing from Koonz's televised address, but quickly returned to Brussels to attempt to end the violence. After landing in an airport near the outskirts of the city, President Hemlock's motorcade was prevented from entering Brussels by military forces under the order of secretary of state for defence Lammert van Raan and the cabinet, resulting in a delay of an hour as Hemlock was forced to formally overrule the order. By the time the president returned to Brussels at 3pm, the majority of violence against the protestors had already occurred, with a death toll in the hundreds.

Despite privately threatening to dissolve the National Assembly to unseat Speaker Peter Koonz from office, President Kairos Hemlock instead scheduled a televised address to the nation for 2pm on Wednesday May 18, 2039. During her speech, Hemlock announced her resignation from the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) caucus of politicians and publicly proclaimed her support for the anti-government protesters, calling upon opposition parties in the National Assembly of Morra to vote to remove Speaker Koonz from office. Hemlock was criticised by some opposition groups for not calling snap elections, whilst PvdA party secretary and de-facto opposition leader Wilhelm De Croo praised Hemlock's dedication to democracy and argued that her decision was taken in the interests of public safety, with the likelihood of disruption during an election being high. Hemlock's withdrawal of support for the VVD and the Koonz Ministry as a significant turning point during the 2039-40 Morranian Political Crisis.