Riis, a nation divided

[Malleus]

Riis, a nation divided

It all started back in the Seventies, the persecution of the non-Riisti ethnic groups in the small, impoverished nation of Riis. In the predominantly Riisti north of Riis the nation reacted with shock and horror to the acts of their fellow Riisti residing in the south. From their increasingly encircled cities, the Southern Riisti began their acts against the other ethnicities, the nomadic Darshoi, the Agladan, and the Hoddani. An open-door policy of immigration had ensured the south was flooded by other peoples from all over the continent.
By the Eighties, over a million people had died, and the nation of Riis began to resemble a nation at war. The economy was slowly eroded away, the people becoming more divided, as all groups began moving north into the more naturalistic northern part of Riis. The Riisti in the north tried to accept this influx, but given the need to choose to help their own Riisti blood or those of the immigrants, the outcome was not in doubt.
By the Nineties, the nation of Riis was predominantly Riisti in the north, and Hoddani in the south. The situation was ripe for civil war.

[To be continued]
EDIT: Attempted to rewrite it so it made sense.

[DarkCloud]

Interesting, but could you please add some sort of ethnicity chart- I began to get confused about halfway through...

[SKILORD]

Interesting....

[Malleus]

Northern Riis (later to become Upper Riis)
1960: 99% Riisti, 1% Other
1970: 94% Riisti, 2% Darshoi, 2% Agladan, 2% Other
1980: 93% Riisti, 2% Darshoi, 2% Agladan, 2% Hoddani, 1% Other
1990: 90% Riisti, 4% Darshoi, 3% Hoddani, 2% Agladan, 1% Other
Present: 88% Riisti, 5% Hoddani, 4% Darshoi, 2% Agladan, 1% Other

Southern Riis (later to become Lower Riis)
1960: 84% Riisti, 4% Darshoi, 12% Other [No reliable records existed back then except for the two native peoples of Riis]
1970: 72% Riisti, 14% Hoddani, 8% Agladan, 4% Darshoi, 2% Other
1980: 42% Riisti, 28% Hoddani, 14% Agladan, 4% Darshoi, 2% Other
1990: 31% Riisti, 47% Hoddani, 16% Agladan, 6% Uncounted Others
Present: Possibly unchanged? The current regime is unable to accurately perform censuses.

M

[Giovanni Wine]

very interesting, really

Saluti

[DarkCloud]

Okay, thank you, I understand better now!

How many are cross-breed riistis? since there are so many immigrants? Just wondering

[Malleus]

Continued ethnic violence began spilling over into other walks of life. Soon the shattered economy had to deal with terrorism and worse.

In 1998 a Agladan separatist group exploded a bomb in a chemical processing plant near the southern canton capitol of Jasper. The resulting environmental damage was catastrophic. Literally thousands lost their lives from chemical exposure alone.

Into this chaos stepped Commandant Xavier Mbrassi. The head of Riis' only military academy, he quickly united disaffected Riisti of the south and declared independence.

Thus was Lower Riis born. Bordered by the Fluvia river on the north, Commandant Mbrassi deployed the considerable military resources of his region along the border to "secure" it from so-called "foreign contamination." The border with the remainder of the nation closed, Mbrassi began nationalizing the industries of the south, and locking down the nation's freedoms one by one.

In the north, it was nearly a month before full realization of what had happened set in at the national capitol of Garre. Legislators were amazed at the efficiency of the military forces gathering power along the Fluvia, and disconcerted by the mass of desertions among the northern military in favor of Mbrassi's regime.

Riis spent the next two months debating these turns of events, finally establishing an emergency act to invade the south, beginning in the western forests and moving into the more heavily populated east.

The resulting military checks along the border made the northern Riis government pause; battles would go on for days at a time with no advantage to either side. The war fronts had stabilized to the point that no end could be foreseen in the conflict.

On January 15th, three years ago, the President, legislature and judiciary of Riis vanished in a atomic fireball, along with seven hundred and fifty thousand citizens of Garre. With the capitol eliminated, the national order collapsed for several months. No culprits could be established for certain as to which faction had set off the nuclear weapon, but certainly the weapon is known to have come from the nuclear stocks of a prominent nation of Apolyton (currently the most likely source of the nuclear weapon is the United States of Jackson).

Anarchy in the north was finally abated with the rise of the mayor Sian Nubackin of the small city of Aedificium. Seizing the nearby villages by force of his heavily armed police, he gathered the leaderless northern army and began marching throughout the northern countryside pulling each village and town into a new order, under Nubackin's leadership.

At this time, Nubackin continues as the northern nation's only President. He has established a small congress and gathered a few surviving judges to begin a judiciary. The level of democracy fluctuates based upon Nubackin's ability to quash the Riisti natural desire for democracy. Keeping the appearances of a full-fledged democracy are important for Nubackin's ambitions to rebuild his nation. His recent move of conceding the loss of Lower Riis and renaming his nation "Upper Riis" is one way of attempting to garner international favor. His impassioned speeches at the UN is another.

Lower Riis has not been idle, rebuilding her economy and establishing a firm hold on the national assets. With the (re-)creation of Upper Riis, Mbrassi has stated his goal is the unification of Lower and Upper Riis into one nation.

The people of Riis continue many of their traditions, attempting to make their way in an increasingly hostile world. Their naturally conservative and suspicious nature has only served to close their society to "foreign" help just when it has needed it the most.

The ethnic troubles continue, on a backdrop of nuclear contaminated lands in the north and a south that has thrown environmental concerns out the window.

Other issues include the flooding of the nation with immigrants from all four directions, and the natural antipathy the Darshoi of the western desert have for all other peoples. The decrease of the Riisti as the predominant ethnicity of both nations have caused the economic divide between the relatively wealthy Riisti and the poorer immigrants to become even more stark.

Upper Riis calls on all nations to express their support, both with words and aid, to allow them to rebuild their nation and take their place as a premeire democracy in Apolyton. Upper Riis reminds all that rumors of "religious extremism" in the north is caused by misunderstandings by the media of the goals of the government.

Lower Riis calls on all nations to express their support by sending military aid and providing assistance to get their factories modernized. Lower Riis reminds all that rumors of "ethnic cleansing" in the south is a fabrication of the Upper Riis in a vain attempt to discredit them.

M