(I am RPing a place more than a nation, so I am using the group app because it works better for my purposes but it's more... in between the two concepts)
Type: No-Man's Land
Assets: The Panama Disputed Zone, A region colloquially known as "The Tears," consisting of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and large chunks of Columbia.
Personnel: Locals who failed to flee, soldiers who failed to leave, and exiles who failed to live in civilization.
History: War did no favors for the Central American nation-states. While the war shifted across the planet, this region stayed a constant battleground. The value of the Panama canal to naval forces turned the Isthmus and everything surrounding it into one of the worst battlegrounds man had ever seen. Mountains were leveled by the warfires, and fertile land near the sea were struck so often that levels of soil were obliterated for miles, leaving salt-water swamps where farmland had once stood. The land was made unsafe by radioactive weaponry and chemical waste. Most fled, seeking refuge in whatever camps they could find in whichever nations would take them. Some didn't. Some couldn't. As the war slowed down and the worlds militaries receded, they left behind ruins and waste. Neighboring nations have made unrecognized claims to this land, but none of them have went beyond that because the problem of policing it is too daunting and there are no taxes to be had. Some borderlands have slowly been reclaimed, but most of it remains a lawless bramble.
The term "The Tears" came from a wartime poem. Where the rainforests burned away during the war, the lack of foliage turned the ground into a horrible mess of ponds, swamp, and mud. Though the term originally applied mostly to the west coast of Nicaragua, where the fighting had been the thickest. The flooded foxholes and craters that covered the muddy moonscape looked like tears to the worn out soldiers who fought and died there. The locals have taken the name for their own, finding it more descriptive than "Panama Disputed Zone."
Piracy, drug production, human trafficking, and terrorism are common in The Tears. Warlords rule much of the interior, with the coasts being governed by weak local governments and foreign reintegration missions. Exiles and political refugees have found it to be any easy place to get lost, as have war criminals or those so mentally damaged by their time in the war that there is nowhere else they can go.
The Panama Canal itself is ruled by "The Panama Authority", an international organization whose director wishes to expand his influence across the entirety of the Disputed Zone. An American by birth, he changed his name to "Mister Promises" and is seeking to unify the area by politics and favors rather than strength of arms. He has limited foreign support, but is arguably the most powerful entity in the area. The disputed land to the north of the Canal is where the worst of the fighting happened. Most of the activity happens there. The area to the south includes most of Columbia. The Columbian government, once in exile, has been making inroads into its old territories. The Columbian government has made its capital in Barranquila
Type: No-Man's Land
Assets: The Panama Disputed Zone, A region colloquially known as "The Tears," consisting of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and large chunks of Columbia.
Personnel: Locals who failed to flee, soldiers who failed to leave, and exiles who failed to live in civilization.
History: War did no favors for the Central American nation-states. While the war shifted across the planet, this region stayed a constant battleground. The value of the Panama canal to naval forces turned the Isthmus and everything surrounding it into one of the worst battlegrounds man had ever seen. Mountains were leveled by the warfires, and fertile land near the sea were struck so often that levels of soil were obliterated for miles, leaving salt-water swamps where farmland had once stood. The land was made unsafe by radioactive weaponry and chemical waste. Most fled, seeking refuge in whatever camps they could find in whichever nations would take them. Some didn't. Some couldn't. As the war slowed down and the worlds militaries receded, they left behind ruins and waste. Neighboring nations have made unrecognized claims to this land, but none of them have went beyond that because the problem of policing it is too daunting and there are no taxes to be had. Some borderlands have slowly been reclaimed, but most of it remains a lawless bramble.
The term "The Tears" came from a wartime poem. Where the rainforests burned away during the war, the lack of foliage turned the ground into a horrible mess of ponds, swamp, and mud. Though the term originally applied mostly to the west coast of Nicaragua, where the fighting had been the thickest. The flooded foxholes and craters that covered the muddy moonscape looked like tears to the worn out soldiers who fought and died there. The locals have taken the name for their own, finding it more descriptive than "Panama Disputed Zone."
Piracy, drug production, human trafficking, and terrorism are common in The Tears. Warlords rule much of the interior, with the coasts being governed by weak local governments and foreign reintegration missions. Exiles and political refugees have found it to be any easy place to get lost, as have war criminals or those so mentally damaged by their time in the war that there is nowhere else they can go.
The Panama Canal itself is ruled by "The Panama Authority", an international organization whose director wishes to expand his influence across the entirety of the Disputed Zone. An American by birth, he changed his name to "Mister Promises" and is seeking to unify the area by politics and favors rather than strength of arms. He has limited foreign support, but is arguably the most powerful entity in the area. The disputed land to the north of the Canal is where the worst of the fighting happened. Most of the activity happens there. The area to the south includes most of Columbia. The Columbian government, once in exile, has been making inroads into its old territories. The Columbian government has made its capital in Barranquila
