Spotlight: Boomslang

Spotlight: Boomslang is a grim third-world setting with no clear good guys and no easy resolutions. On a battlefield very close to home yet more foreign than most of the alien planets we usually visit in 2k5's plotlines, violence begets violence, desperation and bigotry are the watchword for most of the population, no one is trusted and diplomacy is likely to fall on deaf ears. Villainy comes naturally in such a place and mercy is thin on the ground. But no one said being a hero would be easy.

This story is not for everyone. It is as much about the politics of fear and cynical exploitation of long-standing vendettas by third parties with their own axes of various kinds to grind, as it is about giant robots fighting. The choices made in it have realistic consequences and often there is no perfect answer to the questions raised. Consequently most of the events in it will not be scheduled MUSH-wide events as it is not a story well-suited to big unwieldy scenes.

Background
As a gumbyseeker, no one is entirely sure how long Boomslang has been operating on Earth after Megatron's awakening on the Ark and subsequent reestablishment of communication with Cybertron. He changes his paint scheme on a regular basis and is somehow capable of becoming completely invisible, making his presence at even well-documented events hard to pin down. He has been known to lay claim to being either involved with or directly responsible for several conflicts, assassinations, terror actions and civil wars from the 1980s onward, most famously the Second Sudanese Civil War. However, as Boomslang is an inveterate liar who combines a perfect poker face with the habit of lying for no other reason than the pleasure of deception, his involvement or non-involvement in any single event has been difficult if not impossible to establish. More to the point, no one normally bothers to look into these events in the first place as the death of one warlord or another in countries suffering a more or less continual state of anarchy tends to go unremarked on by the Autobots, the EDC and the world at large.

Until Red Alert decides he's going to take a closer look at the latest byline in the newsfeed, that is...

Senegal, Basse Casamance, and the MFDC
"Rebels in Senegal's southern Casamance [Cassamance] province have been waging a bloody independence campaign against the central government in Dakar since 1982. The Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC) has long used Senegal's southern neighbor Guinea-Bissau as a launching pad for attacks inside Cassamance. Guinea-Bissau's former president, Joao Bernardo Viera, was accused of supplying the rebels with weapons until he was overthrown in a coup in May 1999.

With few natural resources and a per capita income of $500 per year, Senegal is one of the poorest countries in the world.Unless it can create the conditions to unlock the productivity of its people and, in so doing, create jobs for thousands of unemployed youth, improve access to education and health care, and give people hope for the future, the country risks falling prey to the despair and demagoguery that have destabilized many of its neighbors.

The area of Senegal called the Casamance is located between The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Agriculturally one of the potential richest regions in Senegal, the Casamance has suffered from the effects of an 18-year separatist movement. Approximately 60,000 civilians have been displaced, and many have lost their means of livelihood. Land mines have been laid in many formerly productive areas. Villages have been abandoned. Infrastructure has been neglected, and investment has come to a virtual standstill.

Tropical Senegal is lauded for its natural beauty, from its urbane capital, Dakar ñ to the fertile forests and farmlands called the Casamance. The lush landscape contrasts with the vast deserts that surround Senegal. The country brings in more visitors than any other country in the region. The physical environment in the south is somewhat different than the northern regions of Senegal. Largely as a result of higher annual rainfall the forest is much more considerable in the Casamance. Still the year has very distinct wet and dry seasons. The forest, as a result of the dry season, is more sub-tropical than jungle type forest, but still there are some areas with very large, old trees and areas with palm trees and vines, etc... The temperature in general is quite warm (between 30 - 40 degrees Celsius) though in Dec. and Jan. at night it cools off enough to need a light blanket.

The causes of the conflict and its perpetuation are complex. Factors often cited as contributors include historical factors, economic neglect, lack of job opportunities for youth, land rights issues, and disrespect for indigenous cultural norms. The conflict has had negative effects on virtually every aspect of life in the Casamance: the environment has degraded due to uncontrolled exploitation or neglect, normal village life and social support systems have been disrupted, poverty has increased, the cities are overcrowded, schools and health posts have been closed or displaced, and investment and tourism have declined.

Senegal is a moderately decentralized republic dominated by the Socialist Party, which has held power since independence. President Abdou Diouf, who had been in office since 1981, was succeeded in early 2000 by the newly elected president, Abdoulaye Wade. In 1996 the Socialist Party won control of all 10 regional governments and many local governments in the country's first subnational level elections, which were marked by credible allegations of widespread fraud and procedural irregularities, gerrymandering, illegal fundraising, and voter list manipulations. Due in part to the flaws in these elections, the Government's decentralization program has had limited success in defusing the secessionist rebellion in the Casamance region.

The Casamance region is an important focus area for the economic development of Senegal due in part to its rich tropical environment. The region is centrally located to facilitate trade with neighboring countries and has some of the largest traditional markets in Senegal. At one time, Casamance was also well known as a major tourist destination in Senegal. Currently, a major constraint affecting development in the Casamance region is its armed separatist struggle that has lead to a sharp decline in the economic and social well being of the population.

In 1982, supporters of the Mouvement des Forces Democratiques de la Casamance demanded that the Govern-ment of Senegal grant independence to the Casamance region, an isolated section of southwestern Senegal located between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. This demand sparked a two-decade-long conflict, which only recently began to be resolved." -- Global Security

Initial Investigations
Spotlight: Boomslang, Issue 1 - Following up on a hunch and some tantalizingly suspicious radio traffic he happened to overhear only thanks to his typical hypervigilance, Red Alert takes the biggest bodyguard he can get on short notice and heads to Senegal to try to follow up what seems to him to be the tip of an ugly iceberg...