South American Confederation (1983: Doomsday)

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Confederación Sudamericana
Formation	September 26th, 2004
Type	Economic & political alliance
Legal status	Active
Purpose/focus	Unified Economy, Defense
Headquarters	Montevideo, Uruguay
Location	South America
Region served	South America
Official languages	Portuguese, Spanish, Guarani, English, Italian, German

The South American Confederation is an organization of independent nations in South America. It was motivated by an increasing awareness of South America's potential to be the new leader of the world, and to block the expanding power of the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand, whose policies were feared to be a continuation of Anglo-American imperialism.

History

Pre-Doomsday look-back

In the eyes of many Europeans and Americans, most of the nations on the South American continent were failures. And although that was an extremely dismissive look, there some truth in it; as a whole, South America was not doing good. Venezuela had started the worst economic crisis it had in his history, Colombia was fighting the FARC, Chile had suffered under a decade of dictatorship although it had weathered a financial crisis and was ready for economic recovery. Peru was facing tough economic times and increased insurgencies from Maoist guerrillas. Paraguay was in the middle of the world's longest period of military rule under Alfredo Stroessner. Argentina had recently been defeated by Great Britain in the Falklands War and was a about to held to first free elections in october, while Brazil was in the middle of one of its frequent periods of military dictatorship. French Guyana was administered by France and a de facto member of the European Economic Community.

However, on September 26, 1983, the entire world changed. Within days, South America, once a third-world cesspool had turned into a haven for refugees from all over the surviving world.

The Immediate Aftermath

South America, Antarctica, and Africa were the only continents  not to have been directly hit with nuclear weapons, although Australia had been relatively lightly targeted. Refugees began arriving from Europe and North America through the different ports of the continent, especially in Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil.

Without the United States and the Soviet Union to intervene, right-wing military dictatorships and left-wing armed groups faced a unexpected situation. Some countries like Brazil, Argentina and Chile decided to holds democratic elections as soon as possible, knowing full well the importance of presenting themself before the postwar world as well-established democracies. The new governments signed trade and mutual economic development pacts and soon benefited from the influx of skilled migrants from devastated Northern America and Europe.

The Road to the Integration

In 1984, with the creation of the Bloque Americano Unido between Argentina and Uruguay, the South American nations begun a gradual new process of integration. The Andean Pact, formed by Bolivia Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela was reformed in 1990 into the Andean Union, while Paraguay joins the BUA in 1993. For its part, Chile assumed a mediating role between both blocs, and along with Brazil, slowly promoted the idea to a form a continental organization.

Conflict with Australia and New Zealand

As time went on, the South American countries established new international trade and economic relationships with other nations, mostly transatlantic and transpacific in scale. Exploring the devastated reaches of North America, they were startled to encounter naval forces and army installations from Australia and New Zealand and soon learnt that the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand had almost survived unscathed itself. Australia and New Zealand initially welcomed the opening of diplomatic exchanges and trade agreements, but relations cooled over the "American Provisional Government" situated in Canberra and its pretensions to authority over the fragmented successor nations to the former United States and Canada. Moreover, some of those successor nations either tacitly or openly encouraged piracy, terrorism or border raids on the coasts of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, leading to reciprocal 'pacification raids' that caused death and mayhem in surviving former US coastal communities in the Caribbean area and northeastern Pacific.  The "American Provisional Government" objected to this assertion of practical authority, although the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand which hosted it had analogous problems with piracy, hijacking and terrorism from what had formerly been Malaysia and Indonesia. Over time, as the Commonwealth exerted pressure on the APG, the rhetoric cooled and antipiracy and stable trade route guarantee agreements were signed. By the first decades of the 21st Century, the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand and the recently formed South America Confederation had reverted to more cordial and convivial relationships, collaborating in maritime and space exploration, as well as protection of the pristine environment of Antarctica from economic exploitation, as well as joint humanitarian efforts in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.

The SAC is born

After almost a decade of summits and negotiations, the member countries of the Andean Union, the BUA, Brazil, and Chile announced the creation of the South American Confederation, a supranational organization, through the signing of the Treaty of Santiago. The SAC was inaugurated in 2004 with Eduardo Duhalde from Argentina as its first Secretary General, and a provisional assembly composed of legislators from all of the member countries. Its headquarters were established in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Along with a declarations of principes, the treaty establish:

• The Secretary-General will have two year terms, with country rotation.
• The Confederate Assembly will be formed by members elected by popular vote, for a five-years terms. The first parliamentary election was scheduled for 2014. The first parliamentary election was scheduled for 2014. This legislative body would have the task of drafting a constitution for the organization, which eventually should be ratified by each member state. It hopes this new Confederate Constitution will acts as a guideline for local Constitutions, with all of local laws contrary to the Confederate Constitution being revoked when the new Constitution is published.
• While each state retains control of its own armed forces, the treaty established the creation of a common defense policy, which materialized with the subsequent creation of a joint military command.

Today

40 years on from Doomsday, the South American Confederation remains the premier economic bloc on the planet. South American companies, inheritors to much of the intellectual capital which fled the Global North after the Third World War, have been the primary engineer of progress and reconstruction on the planet, particularly in North America, Europe and Africa, where inexpensive goods and a surplus of laborers have enabled them to secure both political goodwill and consistent markets for exports. Some detractors, particularly in North America have complained that import restrictions of food, lumber and other resources from the "heavily irradiated areas" in the Northern hemisphere have led to an unfair path to monopoly in the region, although the Confederation defends these import policies on matters of health and safety.

As the "new roaring 20's" continue to lead to unprecedented advancements in computing and satellite technology, the South Americans remain competitive as rivals in Asia and the ANZC (or Mancomunidad as its often referred to as) begin to make key advancements in other areas. The wave of peace which began at the end of the Second Sicily War has yet to be contested, although the South Americans are vociferous opponents to newer tendencies of the North Americans and Siberians towards "annexationism" - absorbing the smaller independent states which emerged from the nuclear fire in an attempt to build more powerful states. To that end, there has been a surprising warming in relations with the Mancomunidad who share similar concerns.

Member states

• Argentina (includes the Falkland Islands)
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Chile
• Colombia
• Ecuador
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Uruguay
• Venezuela

Observers

• Puerto Rico
• Honduras

International Territories

• Panama Canal Zone

International Relations

The South American Confederation is represented across the post-Doomsday world. Along with Australia and New Zealand, they have helped rebuild much of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. The Confederation has close ties to the rest of Latin America up north.