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Over the past few weeks I've had a lot of discussions with players, young and old, who all have different stances on Brazil.

And especially the younger players often ask why we have occupied regions. So, today I'd like to look back into history, hopefully explain where we stand, and ask a question or two.



History

This is to serve as a summary, and not to give full descriptive details.

A lot of players who are too young don't always understand where the tensions between eSA and some other countries come from.

In v1, eSA had an abundance of Diamond regions - to echo our RL abundance of this resource. Diamonds were needed for gifts, and gifts gave players the ability to use more than 100 health per day (as you can see, it was quite a different game).

So, due to our scarce resources, eSouth Africa was a main target for Indonesia and Brazil (our largest neighbour in population), who were large power-houses in PEACE GC (a forerunner for the current ONE).
There was a long time that eSouth Africa had few regions, and the people of South Africa would benefit nothing from the occupied regions. But, being a small country, it was nearly impossible to change the situation.

For instance, in 2009, a decision to try and militarily take back our regions (close to the end of the Second eSA Republic) resulted in a coordinated political takeover (PTO) from both Indonesia and Brazil, resulting in a region swapping exercise that wiped eSA off the map (there was no citizenship until late in 2009, so PTO's were a lot easier and a lot more frequent).

Late in 2009, there was a period of attempted peace and non-aggression (NAP) between the countries, but, when the game-rules changed to ban any long-term treaties a few months later, the NAP was moved to the background, specifically when there was an attempted PTO in December.

And there were also stages where eSA was used as a place to drain damage from major battles in Europe. There were times that the USA, or ATLANTIS/EDEN or Spain would come in to help us in these battles, but the thing was, the centre of conflicts mostly lies in Europe, and so we couldn't count on long-term help while there were wars being waged elsewhere.

And over time, Brazil constantly worked against the country, because relations were mostly strained and both countries took an antagonistic approach to one another.

The change in relations came at the end of 2010 when eSA was under PTO, under Stadler city (Hungary) and Alphatron (Serbian). The Brazilians were going to help us get out of the situation by invading the PTO'd eSA, but we got out of the PTO prior to the invasion by paying 500 gold to get the country back (as we were losing a huge amount daily in the PTO'ers clearing out everything).


Run-up to the Treaty
According to Grimstone, who was president at the time, the original discussions of working together (and not only of peace) came into effect in January 2011 as Brazil wanted to rent Gauteng and another region. This rental and negotiations continued through Krimpie and Chucker71's terms.

But, due to delays and an unwillingness from the two countries to reach an agreement, people were becoming despondent. During Chucker's term, eSA was already signing MPPs with ONE nations as protection to the country during the eSA/eBR negotiations.

Rexdeus ran for president and it was democratically decided that South Africa would commit to ONE (although there had been some ONE MPPs prior to that i.e Poland and Spain). Hungary and Poland asked eSouth Africa to attack Brazil from the Northern Cape, while Spain would attack them from the North.

5 Days prior to the presidential elections, a Natural Enemy was declared on Brazil. One assisted eSouth Africa with one battle, and we ended up losing the campaign. Brazil, as a very strong country at the time, retaliated and we were abandoned by ONE.

As newly elected CP, Grimstone, MrWet, Chubbzilla along with Krimpiekat, who had been banned in March (long other story) went to speak to the Brazilians. Apparently vanessa1309 played a part in the run-up to negotiations as she could help with Portuguese.

The negotiations from Brazil's side included Jazar, who was CP at the time, Raiken and some other senior players such as Nunogomez and Vigoncalves86.



Treaty:

The amended treaty is here.

The treaty that is currently being upheld, provided that Brazil could rent 4 regions from South Africa in exchange for currency and gold.
In return for a non-aggression pact and a maintaining of peace and cooperation between each other.

In this, South Africa has agreed not to attempt to regain control of the rented regions, to help protect the regions and to work together to keep things going.

In exchange, apart from rent, Brazil agreed to assist eSA in defending its core regions.

The core of this treaty lies in its Conclusion. There it states that friends need to be on equal footing, and therefore it specifically states that the bond between the countries will be strengthened through communicating with one another.

The penalty for breaking the treaty from either side is 250 gold.

Discussions around the treaty:
Although there was a clear majority in voting for this treaty in congress and in discussions on the forums, there were some who were not happy with this.

I'd like to outline some of the points, but please consult this post on the forums for the full discussion.
The primary argument was that we can’t trust Brazil. Something that at this stage, eleven months down the line, we can say we can trust them and that Brazil hasn’t stabbed us in the back.
Some of the other arguments were about our betrayal of former allies, our honour, our independence, our sovereignty, and how this has made us a satellite of Brazil.
Now, we can still argue those points, and as I’ve been told, the stability has made things boring. But I can also remember countless friends who have quit the game during PTOs and invasions.

So what’s the point?

Well, firstly I wrote this article to clarify the treaty to younger players and to explain why we are where we are.
Secondly I’d like to point out 2 things.
1. We will never be top priority to others who are fighting their own wars.
2. We may be better off to try and work with our neighbours rather than against them.
3. Until we have a better option, we'll have to stick with the Treaty, and I don't see another option on the horizon.

Lastly, I’d like to invite people to the forums so that we can do some number crunching, to determine where we stand, how the changes in the game have impacted on the treaty. But also to give people a chance to discuss where we stand.
As a country, we need to take stock of where we are, where we’re going and part of that will be to discuss where we stand on the treaty.
What I’m suggesting is nothing short-term, but we should at least keep in mind that we shouldn’t be complacent with our current situation. Join the discussion on the situation on the forum.
I hope this gives citizens (and foreigners) a better view on the relations between our countries.
This is why we fight for Brazil in Resistance Wars, and this is why we remain friends with Brazil, because at this stage, this is the mandate from the majority of our citizens and at this stage it makes sense.

Steven Bosch
President

PS. I apologize if things aren't as clear or if I missed something - it was quite hard to piece everything together again. This is compounded by the fact that at the moment our wiki lists no events since January 2011. O.o