Cartageña

Federal Republic of Cartageña
Federal Republic of Cartageña; República Federal de Cartageña
Flag	Federal Crest
	Motto: "Sin honor, no hay vida" ; "Without honor, there is no life."
Capital	Lubrales
Largest	Santa Inéz
Official languages	Hyspanic
Demonym	Cartageñero
Government	Federal parliamentary republic
Legislature	Consejo Nacional de la República
Area
Population
GDP (nominal)	2015 estimate
Gini (2015)	28.7; low
HDI	.873; very high
Currency	Escudo Cartageñero (ECA)
Time zone	Sierran Standard Time
Date format	mm-dd-yyyy AD
Drives on the	right
Internet TLD	.ca

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Cartageña (Hyspanic pronounciation:kartaˈxeɲa), officially the Federal Republic of Cartageña (Hyspanic: La República Federal de Cartageña) is a federal republic located on the southeast coast of Valeya. It is bordered by Gran Altiplano on the east and the Bay of Averillas to the south, covers a land area of 137,094 km² (52,932 sq mi), and has a total population of 27,390,013.

Cartageña functions under the framework of a federal parliamentary republic where executive power is exercised both by a directly-elected president and, to a lesser extent, the prime minister. The current president is António Cristóbal Moreno, who was elected in 2013 and is serving his third consecutive three-year term as President. The prime minister exercises significant legislative authority as the leader of the bicameral parliament, the National Council of the Republic. The current prime minister is María Massanas de Soldevilla, who has served in the position since the 2016 parliamentary election. Cartageña also has an extremely active independent judiciary, which is chiefly composed of Grand Republican Court and its various appellate courts. The chief justice of the Grand Republican Court, currently Salomó Tresserras, is appointed for life by the parliament, and exercises a major role in interpreting and influencing legislation.

Prior to gaining its collective independence in 1837, Cartageña was composed of the two Spanishlandic colonies of Santoña and Manzanedo.

History

Cartageña was historically a colony of New Spanishland, and retains a very similar form of government to the colonial administration that controlled the colony while it was subject to the Spanishlandic crown.

Cartageña was two major colonies; one is totally agricultural, and operations under an encomienda system and all that, and the other is focused on resource extraction. The agricultural one is many, many times the size but roughly the same profitability. And both decide, "hey, this stupid spanishlandic king is bossing us around from the other side of the globe. And if we revolt, nobody's gonna show up and tell us it isn't cool for like five months." So they kick the spanishlanders out, steal some frigates, and then wait around until the spanishlanders show up, months later. And then they kick their rears, because they didn't just take a three-month sea voyage, and can actually efficiently fight.

The colony (now region) of Manzanedo was the largest Spanishlanding colonial holding, and was primarily based on agriculture under an estancia system of massive plantations. Due to the rockier ground and steeper topography, the colony of Carajón (immediately to the east) was based on resource extraction, shipping gold, silver, copper, timber, and later coal to New Spanishland. These were the largest colonies in what is now Cartageña, although there were some forays deeper into the Santoñero mountains in search of further exploitable resources.

Because of its lack of colonial development, the interior of Cartageña remained relatively unchanged.

The Spanishlandic capital of the Cartageñero colonies was Santa Inéz, which remains the largest city in the country.

Immediately after the revolution against the Spanishlandic colonial authority, the state-owned agricultural plantations were seized by the government, and then sold off at a fixed rate to Cartageñeros. This not only provided the government with a source of funding for the first several years of its existence, but also distributed the massive agricultural plantations to the people who had previously worked on them, and allowed productivity of the farms to be increased overall.

Colonialism

War of Independence

In May of 1836, the stationing of an addition 400 Spanishlandic troops in the colonial capital of Santa Inéz caused several demonstrations, and a number of Cartageñeros were killed in the violence that occurred in by Spanishlandic intervention to stop the demonstrations. In response to this violence, a militia force of seventy-eight plantation workers armed with stolen weapons seized hold of an armory at the confluence of the Tolima and Risaralda rivers, killing twelve Spanishlandic troops and holding the others hostage for over a week. With the arrival of additional Spanishlandic troops, the militiamen escaped via the river, using the captured troops as human shields and burning the armory to the ground. This led to a massive show of force in Santa Inéz, in which nearly a hundred homes were burnt to the ground and dozens were killed.

This violence led to the formation of additional militia groups, and is generally accepted to be the beginning of the Cartageñero War of Independence.

While the revolution was initially limited to the Manzanedo colony, word of the violence quickly spread across the peninsula to Santoña, where a significantly smaller military force was ensuring stability. Within two months of the beginning of the conflict, the majority of the Spanishlandic forces in Santoña were transferred away from the generally quiet colony in order to suppress the uprising on the other side of the mountains.

With the absence of a major military presence in the Santoñero capital of Lubrales, revolutionary leaders Alfonso Raúl Cortana and Mariano Gupitro led a group of dissatisfied colonists to seize control of the harbor fort from the Spanishlandic army, but were quickly repelled by the superior firepower and organization of the defenders. The arrival of a Spanishlandic frigate in the harbor immediately halted the attempted revolt, and the ship's contingent of marines were deployed to the fort to reinforce the garrison.

La Reconquista

As a result of the wave of anti-colonialism that swept through Valeya in the early 1900's, Cartageña attempts to retake the enclave of Santander, which borders Carajón. This campaign, beginning in September of 1912, is a catastrophic failure due to botched planning, nightmarish logistics, and surprisingly strong resistance from Averillas. Due to the military disaster, the Cartageñero government sues for peace after only four months of the extremely unpopular war, and gives up all gains that were made in the campaign. The government's unpopularity, and their inability to gain any favorable terms, causes a popular revolt, and begins the Cartageñero Civil War, which lasts from 1913 to 1925.

Civil War

On July 16, 1972, a well-organized faction of right-wing military officers overthrew the relatively centrist government, storming the Presidential Palace in Lubrales, executing Governor-General Antonio Almado Marquéz, and blaming the centrist government for decades of stagnation and promising reform. The fringe Partido de Progreso Popular (PPP) announced its support of the military government three days later, and acted to form a coalition government in the parliament, backed by threat of force from the army. Large portions of the parliament resigned in protest the following day, and fighting broke out between military forces and leftist and center-left political groups and militias in the outskirts of Lubrales. The military government, commanded by Major General Bautista Rasgado, declared martial law and mobilized several army regiments in the capital, killing hundreds of protesters and imprisoning several dozen former parliament and government ministers. To legitimize his claim to the presidency, Rasgado called for a snap election to take place on July 30, and the PPP received 95% of the vote in what was widely condemned as a sham election characterized by universal voter intimidation, rampant electoral fraud, and a voter turnout of only 12%. Citing this as a mandate, the PPP banned left-wing parties from standing in local and national elections and granted the president sweeping military and civil powers.

On August 19th, six former parliament representatives from three centrist and center-left parties issued a declaration from the city of San Roque proclaiming Rasgado's government illegitimate and an enemy of the people, and calling for outright warfare in order to remove him and the PPP from power. Parts of the fragmented military quickly declared their allegiance to Roqueño government, leading to extensive infighting among military units for the next three weeks.

In reaction to the takeover of the government by the PPP, the Frente Obrero de Santoña, Manzanedo, y Monterada (FRSMM) declared a worker's revolution, with the goal of establishing a socialist government. The socialist forces received very little immediate support from the populace, but succeeded in killing three members of the Consejo Nacional in a car bombing in Lubrales on October 28th.

Reorganization of FOSMM

In January 1977, the leadership of the FOSMM called for a reorganization of the party in order to better bring about the aims of the revolution. This led to its formal division into the Frente Cartageñero de Liberación Nacional (FCLN) as the military wing of the party and the renaming of the political wing of the group to the Frente Obrero Cartageñero (FOC) to represent the party's supposed national support.

False Resolution

After the 1985 defeat of the FCLN and the formal end of the civil war, control of the Gabrilla region was gradually handed to the national government over a period of ten years, with the FOC slowly disarming its military branch and transforming into a legitimate and government-recognized political party instead. This transitional period was marked by a large amount of violence against government forces, acts perpetrated by private citizens and individuals and not sanctioned by the FOC leadership. In the Good Friday bombing on April 17, 1987, a truck bomb exploded outside the regional government offices in San Roque, killing 42, injuring 212, and leading to the partial collapse the building. This act resulted in federal military forces storming the FOC's political headquarters and killing 16 members of the party's Standing Committee, effectively decapitating the political arm of the organization. This action infuriated the movement's military leaders, who called for the party's supporters to again take up arms against the government. Within six days of the bombing, the civil war had resumed.

International Arbitration

In September 1991, Meriadni then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kristopher Salmonsen arbitrated a ceasefire and de-escalation agreement between the government forces and the FCLN which took effect on Christmas Day, 1991. Following this ceasefire was a designated twelve-month period of disarmament, in which FCLN partisans would be offered the chance to surrender their weapons to Ordic League observers in exchange for immunity for prosecution for many of the crimes with which they had been charged, with exceptions made for particular crimes. During this amnesty period, over 145,000 weapons were surrendered to Ordic League representatives, as well as over 21 million rounds of ammunition and nearly 800 explosive devices. In tandem with the disarmament of the FCLN, twelve ministers in the governing coalition in the Council of Nobles resigned their seats to allow the political branch, the FOC, to have representation prior to the 1993 parliamentary election. The Consejo Nacional also passed protections for former FCLN soldiers and leaders in exchange for testimony in several major trials and the surrender of copies of all official records to the government and an international tribunal.

While several hundred militants refused to accept the terms of the agreement and continued an armed insurrection in the jungle of Monterada for another two years, the end of the transition period on December 25, 1992, marked the formal end of the Cartageñero Civil War, which lasted a total of 20 years, 5 months, and 9 days.

Geography

The largest river in the country is the Tolima river (Hyspanic: Ría Tolima), which bisects Manzanedo and serves as the country's largest mode of transportation from the interior to the coast. The river is navigable from the coast until 681 miles inland, due to an extensive system of locks and artificial lakes, although river transportation is limited during the rainy season, when massive floods prevent many of the locks from operating safely.

Climate

Environment

Politics and government

Politics in Cartageña operate under the framework of the Declaration of Principles of the Cartageñero People, the country's de facto constitution. The Declaration of Principles lays forth a federal republic form of government with a bicameral legislature and a division of the authority of a head of state between a directly-elected president and an indirectly-elected prime minister.

Legislative power is vested in the National Council of the Republic, a bicameral parliament composed of the Council of Nobles and the Council of States. The lower house, the Council of Nobles, consists of 117 seats, allocated to each of the five constituent regions according to their total populations. The upper house, the Council of States, is composed of 30 seats, with six sitting delegates from each region.

Political geography

As a federal state, Cartageña is composed of five constituent regions, each of which have limited self-government.

Judicial system and law enforcement

The judicial branch of the Cartageñero government is exceptionally powerful, and has a large amount of influence over the legislative and executive processes. Dominated by the Grand Republican Court (Spanish: Gran Tribunal Republicana), the judicial branch is a three-tiered system, with regional courts having original jurisdiction over nearly all cases, the Republican Court of Appeals having appellate jurisdiction, and the Grand Republican Court having appellate and original jurisdiction, primarily focusing on the interpretation of common law and the Declaration of Principles.

The most influential individual in the judicial system is the Chief Justice of the Grand Republican Court, currently Salomó Tresserras, who is elected for a life term by the National Council of the Republic. The Chief Justice is immune from nearly all legal challenges, and may exercise preliminary oversight on passed legislation, ruling them unconstitutional with very little oversight or recourse.

Armed Forces

Cartageña has a small but reasonably well-equipped armed forces, chiefly composed of the Republican Navy (Armada Republicana) and the Republican Army, which receives around 1.9 percent of the country's GDP. The country's air force is folded into the army, and the marines are a subset of the navy. Until recently, the Republican Navy had been composed of vessels dating from the 1960s and, in some cases, ships constructed during the Endwar. A $119BN naval expansion between 2001 and 2012 included the purchase of five new classes of major surface combatants and four classes of replenishment/utility vessels, and modernized the aging surface fleet. The expansion also included a class of riverine vessels, now considered some of the most modern brown-water vessels in the world.

Foreign Relations

Economy

Since its founding as a colony of New Spanishland, the Cartageñero economy has been based on agricultural exports, chiefly of corn and beans, timber, and resource extraction, including coal, gold, and silver.

Demographics

Culture