West Colombia (In Frederick's Fields)

The Caucan Confederation, often shortened to Caucasia (Spanish: Confederación del Cauca or Confederación Caucásica) is a confederate state located in the northwesternmost corner of the South American continent. Caucasia is a heavily mountainous nation, divided in two major mountain groupings ("cordilleras") that are the ending point of the Andes. To the east, along the Magdalena DMZ, is the ; to the west is Costa Rica; and to the south are the fellow nations of and, also part of the Axis of Freedom.

A remnant of the democratic Colombian government that was forced to flee Bogotá after the events of 1948 which resulted in the and the subsequent, Caucasia declared its independence from the rest of Colombia under influence by the  and , who wanted a strategic vantage point to access the Caribbean and thus connect the free nations of Peru, Ecuador and Chile with  and Western Europe. Caucasia's independence resulted in the formation of two rival governments, that of Colombia in Bogotá and that of Caucasia in Medellín, a situation which remains till this day.

Following breakneck economic growth between 1970 and 1995, Caucasia is one of the world's most developed economies, with powerful sectors in manufacturing and service industries that permit its position as the twenty-seventh largest nation measured by GDP per capita (twenty-second by PPP) and one of the largest exporting industries in the world.

The Andean War and the First Years; 1946-1952


The Andean War (also Colombian Civil War) was a result of many different factors that increased tensions within the Colombian nation. The first and foremost of these was the subject of land inequality. No government since the start of the  had attempted to fix the subject of land inequality, which meant that for nearly 50 years Conservative leaders had left the peasants out without any power in government. Conservatives and Liberals alike were almost entirely led by the aristocracy and bourgeoisié of the nation. Little, if any, of the government was led by the peasantry, which made the great majority of the Colombian populace.

In this ambient of class struggle and oppression towards the lower classes, the radical Liberals proposed a solution to the issue through a hard lurch to the left, led by the radical Bogotá native Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Gaitán was a leader in the far-right in the Party, which had caused a major schism in the already fractured Liberal Party in the 1946 elections, leading to the Conservatives to gain yet another political victory. However, for the 1949 elections, the Liberals had already decided to mend this schism, and Gaitán was elected the only leader of the party.

Violence began in several towns in the western part of the nation in early 1947, with La Violencia, the pre-civil war band of murders and political attacks that occurred throughout the nation, in full swing during the hardline conservative government of Laureano Gómez. Gómez's government declined to support the Liberals being attacked in any way, shape or form, meaning that violence greately increased against the group. To protest this, the liberal party organised a "Silent March" in which over 100,000 Liberals marched through the streets of Bogotá in full silence, protesting the death of their own throughout the nation. However, soon, the March turned into Gaitán's political campaign, with him announcing "No soy un hombre; soy un pueblo!" (I'm not a man; I'm a people!) and announcing the launch of the Liberal campaign.

With the Conservatives trailing far behind the charismatic Gaitán in polls, most historians today have agreed that the party resorted to extremely desperate measures, hiring an impoverished policeman, Juan Roa Sierra, to murder Gaitán in April 19 of 1948. Sierra was arrested by a group of policemen and held in a boutique in order to ensure his safety. However, all was lost. Soon enough, riots spread throughout the city of Bogotá, with thousands of people flocking to avenge the death of their leader. Radio stations were prominent in the incitation of this violence, announcing:

""Latest news with you. Conservatives and the Ospina Pérez government have just killed Dr. Gaitán, who fell by the door of his office, shot by a police officer. People: To arms! Charge! To the streets with clubs, stones, shotguns, or whatever is at hand! Break into the hardware stores and take the dynamite, gunpowder, tools, machetes..."."

The riots destroyed most of downtown Bogotá within the first two days, but continued for a grand total of five days, during which the blood flowed in Bogotá. Today, it is estimated that nearly 7,000 people died during the events of , with a further 14,000 being wounded.



After the five-day bath of blood ended, politics in Colombia were left in complete chaos. Laureano Gómez, the old and Boulangist-like President of Colombia, was reported to have a stroke after hearing the news of the thousands of dead Conservatives. While it was mild, he was put in hospitalisation, and the Presidency was deemed nearly futile during this period of chaos. While policemen were able to arrest many of the rioters during or shortly after the Bogotazo, thousands fled from the city, moving eastwards to create new political guerrillas following liberal, Boulangist and Communist ideologies. The most important of these was the Sixth Brigade of the army, which followed their leader, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, and set bases in Tunja, declaring the end of the "Conservative tyranny" and the start of the "People's Government". While the rest of the army remained mostly loyal to the government, many defected to Pinilla's Sixth Brigade. Allying itself with the young guerrilla leader Pedro Marín, in November 16 of 1948 the Sixth Brigade marched into Bogotá, overthrowing the populist government. Ospina and Gómez both were captured and executed, while the high ranks of both the Liberal and the Conservative parties fled to Barranquilla. At this point, most of the army defected towards Pinilla's side.

However, the Fourth Brigade of the Army, based in Medellín, remained loyal to the Conservative Party, as did the brigades in the Atlantic Coast and Valle del Cauca. These regions, more tied to party politics than the east, contained far more Conservative and Liberal loyalists, and were virulently against the establishment of a Communist dictatorship. Small uprisings in Medellín and San Juan de Cali were swiftly crushed by both angry pro-government mobs and the police forces.

The division between the Republican faction and the military was already clearly territorially outlined. With both sides being territorially contiguous, and more or less divided along the Magdalena river, the nation seemed to be reaching an impasse, with the government stuck in Barranquilla and seemingly forced to negotiate with Pinilla's rebel army. However, soon enough, instead of negotiations, open war began between the two sides. While far superior in numbers, Pinilla's army was initially not supported by any great power, while the Republican government remained heavily supported by British, German, French and Eurasian volunteers, military equipment and supplies. Eventually, while movements were made towards both sides and sieges of major cities occurred (amongst them the bombardment of Santa Marta, which essentially resulted in the burning down of that port), the war became bogged down in the Magdalena River, with the United States heavily sponsoring Colombia's new government and Britain sponsoring the Republicans. A ceasefire was signed due to intervention by Prime Minister Bevan of the United Kingdom, resulting in the division of the nation in two.

Immediatley after the ceasefire, the previous Conservative emergency government held up throughout the war was unravelled. Fearing internal unrest, the President called for a constituent assembly in 1951, something which was heavily supported by British and German observers which heavily helped in shaping up the new constitution. As a compromise between Liberals and Conservatives, the new Constitution established a proportional voting system fair to both sides; given that Bogotá no longer overshadowed the other cities in the nation, and the fact that both Liberal and Conservative support was extremely concentrated in specific regions, a loose confederation of seven states (Antioquia, Atlántico, Bolívar, Cauca, Huila, Panamá and Tolima) was established, with the central government only having control over the military, tariffs and trade policy, postage, and international relationships. The Constitution guaranteed most freedoms, although reserved the freedom to ban extremist political parties (in fear that Communists would take over). Widespread rights for workers and peasants were established, amongst them the right to land ownership and the right to work, in order to prevent a leftist surge. Elections were to occur every four years; the president was to be elected along an Electoral College, while legislature would occur through direct proportionality in every state. In 1952, elections were called, and both the legislature and the electoral college elected Liberal Alfonso López Pumarejo as President of Colombia.

Independence and "To Outleft the Left"; López Pumarejo, 1952-1956
López Pumarejo rose to power on the back of a radical manifesto that proposed several left-wing policies. Pumarejo proposed massive changes to the nation's internal systems, especially in terms of agrarian and educational reform. The purpose of this was to prevent any wish for massive rebellion by the lower classes of society. Pumarejo passed groundbreaking legislation in the form of an agrarian reform constitutional ammendment, permitting the expropriation of property if it was a time of war, in the benefit of the state, or the furthering of social justice. With massive support from the left-wing of his party, but reluctance from the wealthy industrialists of the right-wing, Pumarejo was just barely able to pass massive agrarian reform, compromising his education reform in the process.

The overthrowal of President Roosevelt, after his short reign in the US between 1951 and 1952, led to Pumarejo's government giving up at any attempts of negotiation with the junta government of Colombia. Having been pressured to declare independence and make separation permanent by the British government, Pumarejo finally agreed, declaring independence from Colombia during a period in which the United States was too inward-focused to support Colombia in any attempt to gain the territory. The capital was permanently moved to the region's largest city, Medellín, and the Caucan Confederation was born.