Amapytu Ubirata

Amapytu Ubirata (1904-1945) was a Ta'arohan army general, politician, and military dictator who ruled Ta'aroha from 1932 to 1945, as the self-declared Minister-Chancellor for Life of the Republic. Ubirata rose through the ranks of the Ta'arohan Army to become General Chief of Staff in early 1931 before being appointed its commander-in-chief in 1932 by Minister-Chancellor Tatarendy Ysyry. In the fall of 1932 Ubirata seized power in Ta'aroha in a coup d'etat that toppled Ysyry's government and brought a formal end of civilian rule that would last until 1998. After his rise to power, Ubirata viciously persecuted political critics and enemies, resulting in the disappearances and executions of several thousand people, the internment of as many as 100,000 people, and the torture of tens of thousands. According to the Ta'arohan government post 1998, the official number of executions and forced disappearances was 7,200.

Ubirata's foreign policy aimed to restore the ancient glory of the Aunic Empire by expanding Ta'arohan territorial possessions and his political sphere of influence. In the 1930s, he ordered the pacification of key border possessions near Riyata via military force, instructured the bombing of the island of Arube over an incident with the Teleri Republic, and established a protectorate over Tiepu. In 1941, the majority of Riyata was conquered following the opening shots of the Summer War, with Riyatic forces largely caught off guard and disorganized compared to the renovated Ta'arohan military machine. Ta'aroha under Ubirata initially tried to avoid involvement in the wider Second World War, but alienated itself from many nations by aligning with Salia and Velorenkya. Ta'aroha ultimately declared in favor of those nations in an alliance of convenience at the outbreak of the war proper.

Despite initial success, the subsequent collapse of Ta'arohan forces on multiple fronts and eventual invasion of Ta'arohan home territory made Ubirata lose the support of the population and members of the military. As a consequence, early in the summer of 1945, members of Ubirata's Army High Command successfully assassinated Ubirata by use of a bomb planted in an attache case. Following Ubirata's assassination, members of the Army High Command involved with the assassination worked quickly to seize political power and purge those in the military considered unreliable or disloyal. Abaangui Pytuna became the figurehead for the new military junta regime, and negotiated peace with neighboring powers, particularly Riyata, in order to end the conflict. The legacy of Ubirata in Ta'arohan history remains overtly negative, as the nature of his dictatorship is regarded as to having almost brought wholesale ruin to the nation. His reign was marked by brutal repression, ideological fanaticism, and extreme jingoism and xenophobia. So negative is his memory that no leader of Ta'aroha since has used the title Minister-Chancellor.