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Chapter5: Creation of the Promiseland

In mid-2004, the ruling party of South Africa - the ANC, is found to be corrupt after documents linking the country's icon to corruption with the former Apartheid regime during the negotiations of the early 90s and onwards were leaked by Russian Secret Intelligence – the FSK(Federalnaya Sluzhba Kontrrazvedki), or the Federal Counterintelligence Agency, in a bid to discredit Western democracy and due to pressure back at home in there then RCU. The people of South Africa were furious at the news, and thus around the same time the evidence got leaked, the ANC was quickly overthrown by the extremely radical Azanian People's Party (APP). The APP had grown incredibly popular as it was its members who were responsible for capturing many of the ANC's high-ranking members, angrily executing them without a trial on June the 15th, something a majority of black South Africans heavily supported. Emboldened by public support and unhindered by the meagre competition around them, the APP quickly assumed power, with the army refusing to stand in their way even after repeated requests from the nosy US government. In fact, no better party could assume power, and it was common knowledge by this time that the army's black servicemen fully supported the ruthless coup.

The APP's Chairman - Jabulani Mashinini, assumed power as President of the nation almost instantly. Upon seizing power in the Republic, he would order the South African parliamentary building to be burnt to the ground on the same month of June, an order to which APP militias in collaboration with angry South African civilians, quickly carried out. Fearing for his life, the alleged traitor icon and former President Nelson Mandela instantly fled to London, UK as Mashinini's militias continued to burn and destroy anything that resembled the previously oppressive as well as incompetent government, declaring them to be symbols of oppression and treachery by the "Apartheid-ANC Government". With all the major powers trying to contain the expansion of Russian power in Eastern Europe by combating the RCUs economic influence around the world, not much was done to intervene. With Russia resurging as a clear threat to Western power, and its effects on Western economies, the problems of Africa seemed so far away. South Africa was a small country and it's new government was nothing compared to the threat posed by Maksym Orlov and his policy of "Federal Socialism", a term which he is largely noted as using as a substitute for "national socialism" due to the fact that unlike the latter, he considered his ideology to be just and fair since it did not deliberately misinterpret genetics or promote the racial superiority of Slavic people or any ethnic group, together with its open opposition to Fascism. Either way, the Western world considered it a threat to their established New World Order following an intense cold war with the USSR, the matters of Southern Africa, would have to wait.

Being inspired by the ongoing rapid Russian rise to power under Maksym Orlov, the President of South Africa quickly switched the party from its increasingly Communist stance to Refined Fascism whilst still heavily applying the party's old manifesto ideals of African Socialism based on solidarity and brotherhood amongst people of African descent. These two policies, particularly the latter doctrine, would heavily influence how the government was to be run. On June the 30th, 2014, the new President of the nation would declare the establishment of The Independent State of Azania (ISA), with the scrapping of the old constitution. The Azanian Revolution had been a success. To the majority of South Africans, now Azanians, the name South Africa was simply a result of the colonial ambition of the British and the Boers against the non-European population of the land. With the constitution gone, the old political system was now considered invalid, and APP dominance was supreme. This would allow Mashinini to apply his first Refined Fascist policy by jumping from President to Premier Supreme (Head of state) of the newly established ISA, a country that was not recognized by the UN. Dissidence to the establishment of the new government was quickly brought down with unbridled force. To combat competition against the APP, the media was quickly taken over, with the government passing the new nations first law – the Interior Act of 2004. With this act in force, basically no political party apart from the APP was allowed to exist, and the power to form and pass laws was in the hands of the Premier Supreme and the party's ESC (Executive Secretariat Council), the APP Totalitarian system, had been established.

Although Mashinini was a staunch believer in the party's founding ideology of African Socialism, and thus wished to build a large and powerful African Empire where he and the party were the supreme rulers of the mind and spirit of every civilian, he was extensively more intelligent than what his enemies thought. First, he wanted to stabilize the nation, this meant repairing the country's economy before any radical political policies were properly enforced. Economic sanctions against the Apartheid regime by the international community had severely damaged the country's economy, but it began to slowly recover after the regime was 'formally abolished' by the new ANC government. Even so, a series of ineffective economic policies, corruption, as well as a vast list of broken promises to the majority of the population soon caused the economy to stagnate, eventually destroying the country's currency when compared to the Dollar, Euro and Pound Sterling. Although Mashinini realized the advantages of keeping their currency cheap, it was obviously unstable, and its depreciation rates caused major inflation, and although the nation had discovered new natural Rareethrum Reserves, these were mostly being looted by the West, with elites being the only ones who benefitted. As a result of the incompetency of the previous government in running the economy, capitalists from all over the world, particularly the west, flooded the country from all sides and soon, local businesses were contributing very little to the economy, handing it's control over to foreigners. To Mashinini, this was absolutely unacceptable. Britain, France, Germany and the USA had to go.

The newly formed Azanian government now had to deal with the nation's biggest problem. It had inherited the fruits of the ANC government's incompetence and there was barely any change in the country even after a decade of "Freedom" since 1994. There had been no land restitution as promised by the so-called liberators, and the economic policies they passed ensured that the majority off the country's wealth remained with the minority white population of the country. This was another fact the APP considered to be absolutely unacceptable, and the majority of the country's black people agreed. Even so, the nation's black population was like the rest of Africa – heavily demoralized, inefficient and decaying into degeneracy due to alcohol abuse and loss of hope. Mashinini wanted to change this via a massive propaganda campaign called 'The People's Advance into the Future', which he promptly implemented via a massive stimulation of the media. On top of this, he would enforce policies that would mobilize the nations new working class into a united front against the perceived enemy of the nation – the West, and propaganda was to also be used for this initiative. In his eyes, this would separate the lazy, useless and treacherous "degenerates" from the general black population, allowing the people to flourish along with the nation. In his eyes, the small number of degenerates in the population were responsible for the decay of African society, he thus believed that if he did not do something about this culture of weakness, then all their policies would fail indefinitely. To avoid this, the Premier Supreme along with the APP, now converted into the Azanian People's Liberation Party (APLP), would begin efforts to control the type of information made available to the people of the country. Not only censoring the media, but the internet as well using RCU technology. Now most of the information the nations people were exposed to had to do with education and nationalism instead of gossip and celebrities, this would slowly transform Azanian society, of whom was being exposed to the internet by the RCU after the West had cut the nation off due to sanctions and as a rebuke to APLP regulated internet.

But to truly transform the nation into a world power, economics was the main concern for the ambitious government, and this was because it wished to grant more domestic control into its running, as Mashinini firmly believed that foreign interference was the reason the economy was failing. To this end, the Premier Supreme would pass The True Transformation Act of 2004. The provisions of this act were heavily based on the RCU model of development, even though they were slightly different in some instances as they called for rapid industrialization via direct legislation. The government felt that if it's economic programs were inscribed in law, then it would be obligatory for the nation to achieve them, allowing little room for corruption as severe punishment was promised by Mashinini to leaders who would fail because of this. These policies, if a success, were going to establish the ISA as a major industrial power not only in the continent, but in the world, and this industrial power would far surpass all of Africa combined. The economic programs of the True Transformation Act were truly ambitious, but the impoverished people of the country were hopeful. Since the ISA supported the RCU's leader so staunchly and rejected the latter nation's enemies, the UFAR (United Fascist Alliance of Russia), the sole ruling party of the RCU, were prepared to help in exchange for a number of concessions from the Azanian government. Although the Azanians weren't too keen on the idea of working with whites, their hate was mostly concentrated at those European countries that maintained colonies in Africa and since Russia never maintained such a morally clandestine apparatus in the continent, Mashinini tolerated them, some might even say that he adored them. After being invited to Moscow by the RCU President himself on August 25, 2004, Mashinini would be involved in one of the most important negotiations in the history of the ISA.

The Russians still needed a powerful ally in Africa so that they could exert more influence on the continent, thus preventing the West and the increasingly unfriendly China from mobilizing Africa against Russia in future. The cold war-like competition in Africa had grown increasingly costly for all sides involved, leading to civil wars and other kinds of conflicts from North to Central Africa, this thus meant the Russians also had an ideological reason for wanting to be close allies with the ISA. If the Azanian economy grew rapidly under RCU guidance, then it would be a defeat for the USA and its allies, plus they wanted to recruit the Azanians as part of their foreign policy of gathering as many allies as possible due to the RCUs paranoid Premier Supreme. To fund such a foreign policy was not cheap, and although their rapidly soaring economy could bare the cost, Russian policymakers and economist, not fully comprehending the increasing self-sufficiency of their country's economy, were nervous as to how long the boom might last due to the Russo-American and Russo-EU trade wars, which created uncertainty in Russia's command structure and the global economy. An intelligent negotiator, Mashinini looked to exploit Russian perceptions of Western domination in Africa, and he did this with amazing tactical brilliance.

The ISA would help the RCU maintain a huge presence in Southern Africa, and would not enter into any alliances or substantial economic blocs with the West, and as payment, the Azanians would receive massive amounts of economic aid in the form of huge subsidies, investments and once the Azanian economy had grown, massive loans. RCU State owned companies would also actively take part in assisting the ISA in its massive industrial, infrastructural and commercial mega-projects in exchange for special exposure to Azanian markets, particularly once they were fully stimulated to their capacity. The Azanians had to make some concessions themselves, the nation's strategic position in the world made it an obligation for Russia to establish massive naval and air force bases in the country as a show of force against the USA. Mashinini agreed, in his eyes this meant that Russia was taking the cost of financing his new nation's defence whilst he focused on the economy. He would even allow the RCU to open as many military bases (of all types) as it liked. This was a major advantage for the newly formed ISA, whom would not only be aided by a rising Superpower, but be defended by it as well due to the fact that a nation like his always had to worry about US military intervention, which would be a threat to his Dictatorship's survival.

As for the True Transformation Act itself, it granted the APLP and the Premier Supreme Jabulani Mashinini many new powers, and before the country knew it, a new Constitution was being drawn up and its provisions gave all power to the Office of the Premier Supreme as well as the APLP. As per the provisions of the legislation, almost all land belonging to Whites, which covered a somewhat massive 81% of the total land area of Azania was instantly taken away by the government. No efforts were to be made at compensation either. All the big Industries of the country were not to be spared as well and were promptly nationalized by the Azanian government. The APLP's new piece of legislation was even explicit in that a massive majority of the country's wealth and resource sectors were to be repossessed and committed into capital formation. The massive property the west had amassed in the country was instantly gone. British and American ownership of mines and other important properties of revenue as well as strategic sectors was instantly nullified. As predicted, the West withdrew almost all of its investments, going so far as to begin imposing massive economic sanctions on the ISA. But Azania had an insurance policy – the RCU. The Russians instantly came to their aid, granting the nation the promised subsidies it required for its massive and expensive Industrial and Infrastructure projects. Additionally, under the True Transformation Act, the nation's new central bank – the Central Reserve Bank of the ISA had to establish state owned satellite banks that would offer interest rate free loans to young black entrepreneurs so as to stimulate economic activities.

With the True Transformation Act establishing Special Economic Zones across the country, it was clear that building new cities, was the government's plans. Fortunately, with no more Rareethrum from the ISA, the world's second largest producer of the valuable energy source, many economies in Asia and South America felt the bite. This would result in one of the largest disregard for Western sanctions in history, with many nations from Asia and Central and South America rushing to the ISA in order to discuss new trade deals. The west was no longer able to sell the Rareethrum it had been looting from the ISA due to the fact that the APLP instantly closed the taps. Rareethrum from the ISA was getting very cheap due to their weakened currency, and many companies around the world, including Western companies, wanted to do business. Although they were threatened by the West, the Bern Conference of September 2004 in Switzerland would quickly change that, as many countries had been mobilized in order to declare a non-interventionist policy concerning the matter of the ISA. The same conference would recognize the existence of a nation called the ISA. America was not happy, and this was evident when an infuriated Senator suggested that all the countries involved in the Bern Conference must be sanctioned. Of course he was laughed at as it was common knowledge that American companies would never agree to that, let alone US allies, and since the RCU and China were involved in the conference, the suggestion was simply unthinkable, America could not sanction the whole world lest it wanted to isolate itself, and although the sanctioning of the ISA itself would continue, clearly economic sanctions would not suffice as a solution to the "Azanian Problem". With Rareethrum as its economic bargaining tool, the ISA looked to compete on the world markets, debunking Western myths about the Azanian government intention of establishing a one-party Totalitarian Communist state that shut off the rest of the world. Although Rareethrum could only be bought with the Rareethro-Ruble (Rareethrum sales denominated via Russian currency), the ISA government was smart enough to know the major advantages of accumulating foreign currency into its Central Bank, particularly Russian currency. "Gangster economics and strategic financial policies are required in order to grow an economy, not just private corporations", said an Executive Secretary (ESC council member) of the APLP.

In order to regulate government expenditure and enforce proper finance policy, the ESC and the Premier Supreme had passed the National Fiscal-Estimate Act of 2004, and Article 7 of the Act made it illegal for APLP party members and officials to receive more than one source of income. This was being done in an effort to battle corruption. Mashinini's makeshift tribunals had even executed multiple party members suspected of corruption in order to send a clear message to the ranks of APLP. Under the True Transformation Act, the government would begin selectively leasing land back to the people, black farmers were a particularly to be prioritized, and the unless land restitution was taking place, land was to be leased solely for commercial purposes, and the farmers had to receive proper training or be proven fit. At first, White farmers were allowed to keep their farms, although the surrounding periphery to those farms was to be instantly repossessed by the government without question, and these farmers would also be instructed by the government to help train new black farmers, but the new 'Boer Movement' had taken the nation by storm, and the farmers as well as the general white population of the nation rioted and instantly threatened to lynch any black man who came to take their "land". To the APLP, initiatives to keep the nation together were a failure. As revenge, the government would instantly spark a police action leading to the biggest disarmament of a population in history, gun stores would be invaded and cleaned out by the police, and their owners, who were particularly white, were sent to jail. With a huge purchase of weapons from the RCU government, Mashinini made it clear that he was willing to go to war for the "land of his people". This would lead to the militarization of the nations countryside as black men were conscripted into the army and white servicemen were instantly disarmed and expelled. To add insult to injury, the 'Azanian Regime' as it was now classified by the UN, would amend the True Transformation Act, leading to an outright confiscation of all farmland in the country. White farmers in particular, of whom owned almost all the farms in the country were instantly targeted by the amendment of the legislation via military force. The Boer Movement had been crushed, although more than seven massacres had occurred at the hands of police and military forces, it was clear that the new government did not mind bloodshed.

At first, the leasing of land to black farmers went smoothly, but the government anticipated a potential shortage in proper farmers, and called on the RCU to send expert help just in case. With farmers from the RCU coming into the country in order to train more black farmers so as to add onto their tally nationally, the number of farms in the nation was expected to dramatically increase in a few years time from 2004. With the government directly subsidizing irrigation and electricity, farmers would have their already low labour costs cut drastically, thus allowing whatever they produced to be sold cheaply both nationally and internationally. The Azanian Agricultural Bank, a satellite bank of the Central Reserve Bank of the ISA, would also offer huge loans to not only allow these farmers to get land via leasing from the government, but to expand the scale of their farms so as to increase production and create more jobs. Coincidentally, the rain season would also produce the most rainfall in the country's history, stimulating agricultural yields nationwide. Due to these reforms, the Azanian Agricultural Sector would instantly explode as new black farmers took over, plus, the resuming of international Rareethrum sales from September 2004 had sped up a process anticipated to take years due to the profits made, which in turn allowed more loans to be available for new aspirant farmers. As a result, an Agricultural improvement expected to take years, instantly exploded in a matter of months, a factor which shocked both RCU and Azanian policymakers. The new government was smart, in order to assess the agricultural ability of the new farmers whilst keeping the leasing prices low, they leased land to farmers for a small amount of time, meaning by the time lease agreements expire and thus have to be renewed, the government would be able to make this assessment, thus separating incompetent farmers from the general Agricultural society. Government inspections of farms was also highly frequent and efficient, which many economist attribute as the main reason for the agricultural boom in the ISA. With more tax revenue from Agriculture and cheaper local food on the shelves, the people of the nation were not only buying more, thus increasing economic growth, but high levels of production had also stimulated the secondary sector of the economy as many new factories had to be built in order to process the food and farm produce, which in turn led to more infrastructural development, thus creating even more jobs.

Infrastructure development and industrialization was the main driver for the Azanians, of whom believed contributed much more into the country's economy than the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which had closed after taking power. Although there was great debate about this decision within the APLP, in other sections of decision making, the party followed the provisions of the True Transformation Act regarding industrialization without question or quarrels. With the massive profit revenue from Rareethrum sales allowing their reserve bank to accumulate hard currency and thus more enrichment, as well as massive subsidies from the RCU and rapidly increasing tax returns from the stimulated primary (Rareethrum field-pumping and Agriculture etc.), secondary (Industries) and thus tertiary (commercial activity) sectors, the nation would begin buying massive amounts of industrial material from Japan, China and the RCU in an effort to industrialize the nation. This had led to one of the biggest industry purchases in economic history, and by 2005, the nation witnessed the fastest industrialization process in world history. The ISA government was obviously on a spending spree and wanted to boost the country's GDP in a big way. An emphasis on manufactory projects had been put, and opposition to the party's leadership was rapidly decreasing as the government's efforts were becoming more clear to the majority of the population, with a petrifyingly rapid decrease in unemployment. Although there were shortages at first due to stiffening Western sanctions, the economic reforms were granting relief on the nation's people, and as the country's economy grew, many companies from around world would flock into the ISA in order to invest. To accommodate new industries, the government would initiate massive infrastructure programs, not only improving existing infrastructure, but building it anew, going so far as to build new cities from the ground-up. With massive infrastructural programs countrywide massively boosting the GDP growth rate of the country, the government demanded discipline from its people in order to sustain the growth. Strategically, Mashinini ordered that many of these new cities be built along the nation's coastal-belt via massive contracts to Real Estate Corporations from the RCU, but most importantly, using newly built state owned real estate companies, which the government funded via the newly built Azanian Development Bank, another Satellite Bank to the ISA reserve bank. This massive build up of infrastructure along the coasts was clearly meant for trade. Although Totalitarian, the Azanians were obviously opening up to the world. With the government's ownership of land, major costs that would have been unavoidable in a privately owned country had been avoided, leaving more money to spare for other projects.

With the country's stability secured, investors were becoming very keen on investing onto the nation, and indeed they came flocking, particularly after the ISA joined the Russo-Japanese Trade Bloc in early 2005. This was directly against the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) on the nation, which forbade Russo-Japanese Trade Bloc member-states from allowing the Azanian Regime to join the trade partnership. With massive amounts of money being poured onto the nation's infrastructure, the Azanians would give massive amounts of development contracts to the RCU, China and Japan, partnering with them in the building of the massive multibillion dollar transit infrastructure project known as the Inter-Provincial Bullet Train Project (IPBTP), which would not only help improve transportation nationwide, but help decrease, even though slightly, the nation's pollution output as its rapid industrialization required a lot of this dirtiness to be released unto mother nature. Due to the rapid industrialization of the ISA, pollution had gotten so prevalent that by 2006, the UN, which the ISA was attempting to appease via the IPBTP, had accused the nation of planning Industrial Projects that "threatened the whole world", said the US Ambassador to the UN. But since the United States was one of the biggest polluters in the world themselves, the Azanians had a strong case for their defence. The ISA's Directorate for Urban Proliferation and Development remained firm, and made it clear to the whole world that the nation would not slow down it's Mega-Projects in response to "intimidation from an irresponsible and jealous international community", said the Director of the latter Directorate. Although the rapid industrialization was cause for concern environmentally, many neutral economist attributed this concern as being primarily aimed at the scary Azanian GDP growth rate, which many economists believed to be a lie.

By mid-2007, the nation's GDP Growth-rate had been multiplied many times over, allowing it to skyrocket to 43.9%, which was a GDP growth rate that was dangerously close to that of the RCU at the time, of whom were at the peak of their RCB Era with a GDP Growth rate of 45.9% of their Trillion Dollar economy. The Azanian economy was rising at a rapidly scary rate, and unlike the Russians, it had yet to even dream of seeing its peak. Although many would attribute the huge numbers to the fact that the ISA had a small economy globally, the fact was undeniable, the Socialist-Market economic policies of the Azanian government were working, and so were the people of the country. What shocked many is that although many whites had left the nation, a sizeable portion, particularly the Afrikaner people, who were clear on the fact that they weren't going anywhere, and were mostly "waiting for the Azanian Regime's policies to collapse the country so the blacks could begin begging us to come back", many of them said. Although by proportion, the RCU was many times ahead of the ISA in terms of growth rate per dollar, it was clear that the ISA economy was succeeding, and many of the nation's enemies didn't like this.

The West was not happy, their investment withdrawal had failed to collapse the Azanian economy, and with an economy booming from the get-go so rapidly, it meant its markets were expanding, and thus many Western Companies began putting pressure on their governments to lift their sanctions on the ISA so they could tap into these markets before it's internal commercial sector as well as that of the RCU and China took them all up. The ISA government was very protectionist too, and wanted to ensure the interests of local businesses and state owned companies before it ever considered those of foreign businessmen. This meant that they were running out of time, and if they wanted to move back into the Azanian market in order to compete, then they had to put aside their differences with the ISA aside. Negotiations had thus been organized by the West in late 2006 via the UN in New York City, USA, but they quickly went nowhere. The ISA was just not willing to accept Western demands and this was the case vice-verse. This intolerance was to be punished by an all-out economic embargo on the ISA by the EU in conjunction with the USA, who's internal turmoil and civil war was causing the world economy to crash. Then in 2007 it happened, due to relentless lending by Western European and American banks to property seekers in all of Europe, the Real Estate bubble that had been building up in the EU finally popped, and property prices instantly crashed, causing a worldwide recession. But thankfully for the ISA, they were one of the few of the countries unaffected by this due to their non-entanglement with Western democracies. During this crisis, the ISA had quickly taken advantage of the situation and stimulated their export-orientated economy even more via an addition of financial incentives for local producers. Although they were nowhere near the status of being regarded as one of the factories of the world like the PRC, RCU or USA, they were catching up very fast, and instead of accumulating dollars, they mostly chose to accumulate Russian Rubles into their central bank so as to battle debt and keep a stable fiscal policy. Of course, the Azanian leadership felt that this would not be enough due to the spending spree on Mega-Projects. As a result Mashinini was worried about government debt, and thus looked to secure funds from his population. To this end, the government would encourage more of its people to save money by giving high interest incentives to those who chose to keep their money in the state-owned banks for longer, this meant that the government had secured a huge alternative funding on top of tax returns, profit margins on trade as well as the projects at home.

For any of these fiscal policies to succeed, Mashinini felt that it was better to switch their monetary system by ditching the globalist Rand which was too vulnerable to Western economic fluctuations, and using a new currency system as mandated by section 117 of the National Fiscal-Estimate Act of 2004. With the introduction of a new currency – the Azanian Pesa (A₪), on December 2004, the ISA had ensured that Western efforts to destabilize their economy would fail. Comfortable with there then Central Reserve Bank of the Russian Union, Mashinini had immediately moved to peg to this new currency to the Russian Ruble, although he would keep the Pesa cheaper so Azanian products could compete better on the international state. The government had achieved this peg to the Russian currency in mid-2006, after the Central Reserve Bank of the ISA had finally accumulated enough Rubles onto its reserves to feel comfortable enough to begin the peg. Due to the fortunes of the RCU economy, many economists attribute this currency peg as one of the fundamental contributors to staggering Azanian economic growth, as by pegging their currency to the Ruble meant that the Azanian economy was largely reliant on the fluctuations of the RCUs economy, which were astronomical for Russia's era, thus for the ISA as well. Whether the Azanians were lucky or smart, it was clear that their economy was a success, and a miracle to behold.

The True Transformation Act's primary intentions of rapidly transforming Azania and turning it into an Industrial Power in less than 15 years were slowly being realized. Naturally, the USA threatened to attack the nation, but the presence of the Russian military quickly discouraged any military intervention against the ISA, plus the American Civil War of Morality soon began and America's attention shifted elsewhere. This threat to security would lead to the Azanians setting up a plan to modernize the nation's military in the later years to come so that the ISA could finally have the capability to not only control its defence internally and externally, but satisfy the party's fundamental manifesto of building a united African Empire that would protect the "oppressed people of the continent". Luckily for the Azanians, of whom wished to create an intelligent nation of innovators and nation builders, the Russian government had released a massive number of scholarships to the Azanian people since the inception of the ISA. These would allow future Azanian historians, industrialists, economists, scientists etc. to go and study in the universities of the RCU, allowing them to bring back massive amounts of intellectual value to their country. As a result, a massive emphasis had been put on the nations education from the get-go so as to produce large amounts of students that would be fit for some of the best universities in the world. Even though the Russians had gained Africa's strongest economy as an ally, it wasn't the case with the rest of Africa's countries.

Luckily for the UN, which was very much opposed to the policies of the ISA, most of Africa's leaders were still kissing up to the West and had followed the economic sanctions put on the ISA for it's apparent "abuse of the nation's White population" after enacting land reforms the APLP considered just and fair via the True Transformation Act. What was happening to Azania's only ally in Southern Africa – Zimbabwe, where African leaders refused to support their counterparts if they rejected Western efforts to control them, was now also happening to the ISA. Major corruption was also a plague on the continent, which was one of the main reasons why the Azanian government had welcomed their counterpart's rejection, which they mostly considered "treachery". Of course, due to Azania's detachment from the west, the sanctions would not have the same effect on the nation's growing economy as it did on Zimbabwe. Even so, the ideological isolation meant the ISA was relatively all alone in Africa, as apart from neutral Lesotho and Swaziland, as well as their ally Zimbabwe, they had no real allies on the continent. This was evident in how many African nations broke away from the Azanians by following Western economic sanctions. Even so, Russian influence in north Africa was slowly growing as US finances began to be diverted into the USA because of the Second American Civil War and thus away from the rest of the world because of the 2007-8 global financial recession, meaning the isolation of the RCU (due to 2007 EU sanctions after the Finnish crisis had ended in the occupation of Finland by the Russian Army) and its African ally would not last forever. As a result, the Premier Supreme would not be discouraged by the actions of his fellow African countries and would continue everything as planned. There would be no repeal of the True Transformation Act as demanded by the USA and it's NATO allies, and the legislation's provisions would continue to be enforced without question.

As mandated by the industrial projects of the True Transformation Act, the ISA did not only put the appropriate state owned satellite bank – the Azanian Industrial Bank to work, but had also put an emphasis on steel mining and the exploration for domestic crude oil supplies so as to not only help fuel the nation's industrial economic ambitions, but to facilitate the building of tanks, planes and ships for Mashinini's future military programs, which he began to enforce on the year 2010 as the country's revenue gains continued to swell because of the economic reforms enacted by the Azanian government. As diplomatic relations with Russia continued to strengthen due to ideological convergence, the Azanians received the expertise training and assistance of the RCU on how to build modern weapons, an asset that they quickly put to work. However, the militarization of the ISA was not welcomed by all. The second the year 2010 hit and the Azanian military budget spiked, tensions with France resurged almost immediately. French President Emmanuel Macron was not happy about Azania's military spending and had thus demanded for the budget to be cut. The Azanians were staunch opposers to French influence in West Africa, and had even gone so far as to accuse the French of imposing "Neo-colonial rule on the continental region". The Azanians were particularly opposed to the currency system used by those nations and had vowed to do everything in its power to remove President Macron from Africa after the African Union and the UN had defended French military action on the region as "Peacekeeping for security purposes". The French government believed either the ISA would send weapons to the rebels French forces were fighting in West African countries like Mali, Guinea, Cote D'ivoire etc. or worse, they would personally send in their military. Although tensions with France were at an all time high, the ISA government was way more concerned with the country's internal policy, particularly economic strategy implementation.

The ISA's massive projects were leading to the fastest creation of new cities in the history of humanity as well, and were even faster than those of the RCU as the ISA wanted to stimulate GDP growth rate via massive construction projects, much like the PRC to some extent. Even though each city itself was significantly smaller to newly built Russian cities, the Azanians were building more of these new urban centres, and they were doing it much quicker. The building of new cities made sense, new commercial centres were needed to accommodate the rapid build-up of new industries and their increasing number of workers. Even so, transitioning from a mainly globalist economy to one where central control was emphasized did put extreme pressure on certain parts of the economy as the government tried to adjust. Sanctions against Azania had some initial effect during the nation's inception in 2004 as although the nation was a rich African country, meaning its hostile neighbours suffered more severely from these economic barriers, there were still wide spread shortages in the ISA in mid-2004 due to the bite the economy felt as a result of disinvestment initiatives by the USA and the EU. Even so, the government was a quick learner, and aid from the RCU had helped a lot, particularly in late 2004, where the nation was in real turmoil as Western sanctions caused an economic crisis. However, the government adapted in record time and quickly began to enact economic policies that would diversify as well as stimulate every sector of the economy. Soon the shortages subsided, particularly in 2005, and the rest was history.

Since the Azanian Industrialization program began to include military armaments in 2010, this slowly expanded the nation's capability to independently wage war. Although the Azanians offered some military contracts to RCU Weapons Corporations, these were small as compared to how extensive the nation was in stimulating its ability to internally innovate and produce its own weapons independently. Even so, the Russians were, like with many other countries around the world, Azania's largest trade partner, meaning the economic barriers on Weapons Corporations did not offend the RCU leadership, although they were critical of it during trade talks due to how it denied some of their companies the Azanian weapons market. But, in the 2004 meeting in Moscow, the Azanians were clear that although they would open up their markets to the RCU, the latter could not interfere in the nation's ambitions on innovation, and the opening of markets never included Azania's weapons markets, with the Azanian Director of Economics and Trade going so far as to say "The RCU should be thankful for the compromises we've made by even allowing some of their weapons corporations to move in". Meanwhile, although economic growth began to soar from late 2004 onwards, the Azanians would begin to truly reap rewards for their True Transformation Act's First 15 Year Plan in the year 2015. On top of the fact that they were one in only three countries around the world to produce Rareethrum, in 2007, they had discovered new Rareethrum Fields to exploit in the country's southern provinces, and soon, the nation was producing so much of the bright blue energy resource that at one point in time, their production levels had become comparable to even those of the RCU, of whom dominated the huge international Rareethrum market.

The reason the Azanians were able to monopolize the Rareethrum business in Africa, was due to how they constantly interfered with the attempts of other fellow African nation's quest to find the energy source via espionage and sabotage. Even after EU operatives had been sent to help African countries searching for domestic natural reserves, the Azanians, along with their Russian allies, continued to secretly get involved, sabotaging them at every opportunity. Astonishingly, Zimbabwe had discovered a Rareethrum Field during the year 2013, but due to Western sanctions, the nation refused to trade it with the west, and with Azanian protection, sold it around the world, although it was extremely difficult to compete with major Rareethrum powers due to the nation having only discovered one Rareethrum Field, which the Azanian Development Bank had promptly bought from the Zimbabwean government in order to secure its "integrity". Of course, the Republic of Zimbabwe did benefit from the transaction, and taking into account the fact that by this time, the ISA government was sending more than US$5 250 000 worth of free aid per month to the troubled landlocked nation, Zimbabwe couldn't really resist Azanian efforts to procure the Rareethrum Field even if they had wanted to because on top of the latter factor, it was Azanian specialists that had discovered the plot of land full of natural Rareethrum reserves, and they had provided money for the necessary extraction infrastructure. Since the Zimbabweans were dependent on the Azanians, the nations leadership felt that the Rareethrum Field would be more productive in the hands of Azania, as it meant they could tax the ISA for creating jobs for communities living around the Field, a win-win in the eyes of the ruling party in Zimbabwe. Although there was some opposition to the purchase from opposing parties in Zimbabwe, there was nothing they could do about the sale. The alliance between Zimbabwe and Azania was certainly strong, and although Mashinini admired the nation's President Mugabe, even he had admitted to his inner circle that the alliance with the nation was not absolute. However, although their alliance Southern Africa was not absolute, their economic dominance in the region and on the continent, certainly was, and by this time (i.e. 2013), the nations of Southern Africa had long reopened up to the ISA.

As a result of the reaping the fruits of its economic miracle, Azanian standard of living quickly improved as major industrial centres kept on being erected, thus increasing production dramatically, stimulating the nation's new export-orientated economy. China's war with the RCU turned CRE in 2011 meant they could grow even faster as there was less cut-throat competition to deal with, although their peg with the Ruble did cause some issues with their currency as the Russo-Chinese War continued to rage on for three years straight. Even so, the ISA government had been strategic in how they manoeuvred in world economics and had not only bought multiple tankers from the CRE, but had built the third biggest containership in the world in 2009. This not only increased prestige in ISA trading, but allowed the ISA to maximise profits due to China's absence on the international market. New Trade Deals had already been set up with the West in mid-2009, particularly after the Russians repaired the world economy during the Great Recession of 2007-8. By 2011, real profits in the west were beginning to be made as cheap Azanian products flooded the markets of the EU and particularly the USA, which was still highly consumerist. It was obvious that Mashinini's economic policies were successful even though Western sanctions attempted to pull the economy down. Instead of the economy being pulled down, a lot of Azanians, specifically Africans, were pulled out of poverty. As the economy grew, Azania became fertile ground for investment opportunities, and even though at first the government wanted to go out of its way to prevent countries that had previously crucified the nation from investing into it, the nation's leadership accepted that it had to open up and trade with the West regardless of political tensions. Besides, the country was perfect for foreign investment too, as the CRE had helped in the creation of multiple Stock Exchange platforms inside the nation in late 2008 after the government had closed them since coming into power in 2004.

The Confederated Russian Empire was out to not only take as much credit as possible for the success of the Azanians, but to promote their late leader's political system – Maksymism. To this end, the Russians ended up sending even more technicians, advisors and technology to the ISA as part of their mega investment plans for the country. At one point, the CRE was releasing more than IR750 Million to the country every week as part of their aid policy and investment plan. The economic growth and industrial output of the ISA was also staggering, and even though the Russo-Chinese Conflict affected this rate of progression, the Azanians were clearly the undisputed economic power in the Southern Africa, and soon countries that had sanctioned it soon begged for trade as the economy continued to grow and diversify in what was to be known as – The Era of Maendeleo 21st (or simply "Era of Progression 21st) in the ISA. People from all over the continent were flooding the country, and with heavy demand for labour, many were welcomed not only as labour (of which was the world's most cost effective due to how cheap it was) but as citizens. From its inception in 2004, the nation experienced the fastest population swell in the history of the Southern Hemisphere, registering a population of more than 88 million people by 2010. The Azanian government's laws also played a huge role in this population swell as well, with the Labour Act of 2005 and the Continental Integrationist Act of 2004 leading to the Azanian government going from country to country on the African continent in order to recruit new workers and collect refugees and African people wishing to live in the ISA. Ultimately, the majority of these people had also flooded the ISA on their own, and these laws made sure that almost all of them became citizens via naturalization. Of course the government was weary of criminals, but government crackdowns on crime were so frequent and unending, it was never really going to be a major issue for the country. Although the government was highly Pan-Africanist in its approach to treating people of African descent, this Pan-Africanism was largely expansionist in nature.

In order to survive, the party felt the ISA needed to expand its territory, but with UN laws to abide by, the APLP knew that a militaristic expansionist program would not be feasible without a serious major global crisis to destabilize the world. Indeed, a series of dangerous global events would take place, particularly between the RCU and the West, but the most serious of these would be the Russo-Chinese Conflict in 2011. But even with that, the APLP was still skeptical about expanding northwards, especially since they knew they would have to deal with the nuclear powered West, of whom would never allow such a thing to take place without getting involved. Plus, since the ISA had just begun their vast militarization campaign, Azanian military leaders felt that the country was not ready for war, let alone one were Western forces would obviously be involved. As an alternative, 'gangster diplomacy' would be used against neighbouring nations in order to annex them. The ISA would start with the small nation of Lesotho, ever since the ISA was born, it had been targeted by the Azanian government for annexation, and with perfect timing, in the year 2011, the Azanians would come with their offer. The nation's borders were completely surrounded by those of the larger ISA, and it had no coasts, so Azanian diplomats were very confident. The economy of Lesotho was already reliant on what was South Africa, and the Azanians had worsened this dependency using debt-trap economics as well as depopulation via the emigration of its population into the ISA. Borders between the two nations were already eased up after the end of the Apartheid Regime, and the Azanians eased them up even more so people could leave the nation for the ISA. People from the small nation were not even regarded as illegal immigrants, and to obtain Azanian citizenship was made extremely easy for them, requiring them to live in the ISA for 4-6 months.

As the people of the Kingdom of Lesotho began hearing the stories of economic boom in the ISA, they began moving into the nation in massive droves in search of better work. This was the same story with the Kingdom of Eswatini (Swaziland), and although it wasn't entirely bordered by the ISA, it was still a landlocked country in a region dominated by Azania, and whatever the Lesotho and Swaziland government tried in order to keep their people inside their nation had failed miserably. Infrastructure Development Projects were used by both nations in order to encourage economic activity inside their countries, but the USA was still licking it's wounds fresh off a devastating Civil War, meaning they weren't really investing as much as they used to around the world, plus the EU was still paranoid about a lending spree after the Real Estate Crash had caused an economic recession, and were thus unwilling to borrow both nations large sums of money which they probably could not pay back. This thus meant that most of the Infrastructure Development Projects they had were funded by the Azanian Development Bank, as their biggest allies – the USA and EU, could not fund them even if they had wanted to, let alone at the scale of the Azanians. Lesotho and Swaziland were thus in huge debt, and were literally bankrupt by the beginning of 2011. What was a surprise though was that the Azanians wished to include both countries in the Inter-Provincial Bullet Train Project (IPBTP), and had done so by mid-2009, and continued to do so regardless of their economic troubles in 2011. The Project would link both countries with the ISA. Both Swaziland and Lesotho got the message, it was clear the it was clear that the Azanians wished to provincialize them, and were willing to sequestrate their leaders and make life difficult for them if need be.

Either the Azanians would destroy their economies by draining away their citizens (and the military enclosure of their borders was not only a logistical nightmare they could not afford, but it seemed like a bad idea as it would only provoke the Azanians into sanctioning both countries and making it impossible for them to trade or grow their economies, let alone escape the debt-trap they were caught in), or sequestrating their leaders and liquidating (selling away) the nations assets in order to get back what was owed to them. Either way, their economies were doomed if they did not concede to Azanian control. As a result of pressure from the ISA as well as their own civilians, the Prime Ministers of both nations would agree to meet the Premier Supreme of the ISA in Adeapolis, the new name for the capital of the Independent State of Azania in April 5, 2011. However, both Prime Ministers were smarter than what Mashinini thought, and had brought the President of the European Council - Herman van Rompuy on behalf of the EU, the US Secretary of State - Barack Obama, as well as the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations - Asha-Rose Migiro with them. Mashinini had been caught by surprise and only found out that these individuals had been brought into the country after their Planes had landed inside the newly built 'Fernando International Airport' in Adeapolis, ISA. The whole thing had become the kind of spectacle the Azanian leadership would have liked to avoid, and the planes had to circle the airport for two hours before being cleared to land in the airstrip after a direct order from the Premier Supreme in order to "avoid the escalation of already existent tensions" according to him. However, in reality Mashinini was furious, all these leaders had not only cleverly passed through his spy-network, but possibly the Russian's spy-network as well. What was more shocking however was the marvel of the Western visitors concerning the Capital City, and how modern and beautiful the city was becoming, clearly propaganda assumptions against the economy of what they still considered a Regime were relatively false. Azania was a living testament of how quick and astonishing an African nation can grow if left alone, given fair investment and purged off internal corruption.

During the Treaty of Adeapolis as it was to be known, the Premier Supreme was clearly annoyed by the presence of the Westerners as well as the Tanzanian Deputy Secretary-General of the UN in the meeting as they certainly were not invited, but his advisers beseeched him for diplomacy. The advice had merit, with the West in the meeting, there was no way the Azanian leader was going to pushover the Prime Ministers from Swaziland and Lesotho, and so he would have to sweeten the deal if he wanted to secure these territories. Thus after three days of tense debate, negotiations, compromise and Azanian hospitality, a consensus had finally been reached. This consensus was that both Swaziland and Lesotho would become part of the ISA, but they would both become Autonomous Administrative Regions (AARs), and although the ISA had full control over their foreign policy, defense and security, Adeapolis could not interfere with the AARs legislative rights, the appointment of government officials via free and fair elections, and the liberal freedoms (speech, association, assembly and expression) that were now more or less non-existent inside the ISA, but afforded in those nations. The West also agreed that no NATO member-state or the military alliance itself would install any offensive or defensive military bases in any nation who's border was adjacent to the Azanian border. However, in return, the ISA had to agree that its territorial claims were satisfied, and no further aggrandizement from the nation would take place. Also, the newly established AARs were to keep their status for four decades and only then could the ISA fully incorporate them as provinces or regions where the government could exercise wider regional jurisdiction. In return, the Premier Supreme agreed to release funds that would allow both the governments of Lesotho and Swaziland the ability to implement massive Economic Stimulus Packages in both AARs, allowing them to cope with deficits and avert economic disaster. In addition, 75% of their debts would be 'forgiven' by the Azanian Development Bank (a bank which held a significant chunk of both AARs external debts). The AARs would also be afforded completely independent public finance, not only meaning they would keep their existing currencies, but no tax revenue could be handed over to the central government in the Capital City, and the government of both AARs had a relatively free-hand when it came to fiscus and public spending, although some limits were in place. The Azanians would also not be allowed to block Western Corporations from investing into the AARs unless the circumstances were exceptional (this was a clear strategy for US and EU based corporations, so as to allow them a better chance at penetrating into the rapidly growing market in the ISA). The current Prime Ministers of both nation would also not be deposed, and on top of the money for the Stimulus Packages of both regions, the ISA was also obligated to send $1 Billion in yearly subsidies to each AAR for their economic rehabilitation and development. It was a lot to swallow, and Mashinini was clearly unhappy with the consensus, but so long as both nations were now an official part of the ISA, he was relatively consoled, and the UN General Assembly immediately recognized the Treaty of Adeapolis, giving it effect in international law. It was only up to spectators and political commentators to decide as to who out-negotiated who, but an agreement had definitely been reached. The Western Democracies of the Free World were hopeful, and thus wished to use these two AARs as a platform to spread their version of democracy and capitalism inside the ISA, on the other hand, Mashinini was adamant to the country's leadership that he would not let that happen. It was truly a battle of wits.

To be continued... (See Part 2)

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Chapter5: Creation of the Promiseland

In mid-2004, the ruling party of South Africa - the ANC, is found to be corrupt after documents linking the country's icon to corruption with the former Apartheid regime during the negotiations of the early 90s and onwards were leaked by Russian Secret Intelligence – the FSK(Federalnaya Sluzhba Kontrrazvedki), or the Federal Counterintelligence Agency, in a bid to discredit Western democracy and due to pressure back at home in there then RCU. The people of South Africa were furious at the news, and thus around the same time the evidence got leaked, the ANC was quickly overthrown by the extremely radical Azanian People's Party (APP). The APP had grown incredibly popular as it was its members who were responsible for capturing many of the ANC's high-ranking members, angrily executing them without a trial on June the 15th, something a majority of black South Africans heavily supported. Emboldened by public support and unhindered by the meagre competition around them, the APP quickly assumed power, with the army refusing to stand in their way even after repeated requests from the nosy US government. In fact, no better party could assume power, and it was common knowledge by this time that the army's black servicemen fully supported the ruthless coup.

The APP's Chairman - Jabulani Mashinini, assumed power as President of the nation almost instantly. Upon seizing power in the Republic, he would order the South African parliamentary building to be burnt to the ground on the same month of June, an order to which APP militias in collaboration with angry South African civilians, quickly carried out. Fearing for his life, the alleged traitor icon and former President Nelson Mandela instantly fled to London, UK as Mashinini's militias continued to burn and destroy anything that resembled the previously oppressive as well as incompetent government, declaring them to be symbols of oppression and treachery by the "Apartheid-ANC Government". With all the major powers trying to contain the expansion of Russian power in Eastern Europe by combating the RCUs economic influence around the world, not much was done to intervene. With Russia resurging as a clear threat to Western power, and its effects on Western economies, the problems of Africa seemed so far away. South Africa was a small country and it's new government was nothing compared to the threat posed by Maksym Orlov and his policy of "Federal Socialism", a term which he is largely noted as using as a substitute for "national socialism" due to the fact that unlike the latter, he considered his ideology to be just and fair since it did not deliberately misinterpret genetics or promote the racial superiority of Slavic people or any ethnic group, together with its open opposition to Fascism. Either way, the Western world considered it a threat to their established New World Order following an intense cold war with the USSR, the matters of Southern Africa, would have to wait.

Being inspired by the ongoing rapid Russian rise to power under Maksym Orlov, the President of South Africa quickly switched the party from its increasingly Communist stance to Refined Fascism whilst still heavily applying the party's old manifesto ideals of African Socialism based on solidarity and brotherhood amongst people of African descent. These two policies, particularly the latter doctrine, would heavily influence how the government was to be run. On June the 30th, 2014, the new President of the nation would declare the establishment of The Independent State of Azania (ISA), with the scrapping of the old constitution. The Azanian Revolution had been a success. To the majority of South Africans, now Azanians, the name South Africa was simply a result of the colonial ambition of the British and the Boers against the non-European population of the land. With the constitution gone, the old political system was now considered invalid, and APP dominance was supreme. This would allow Mashinini to apply his first Refined Fascist policy by jumping from President to Premier Supreme (Head of state) of the newly established ISA, a country that was not recognized by the UN. Dissidence to the establishment of the new government was quickly brought down with unbridled force. To combat competition against the APP, the media was quickly taken over, with the government passing the new nations first law – the Interior Act of 2004. With this act in force, basically no political party apart from the APP was allowed to exist, and the power to form and pass laws was in the hands of the Premier Supreme and the party's ESC (Executive Secretariat Council), the APP Totalitarian system, had been established.

Although Mashinini was a staunch believer in the party's founding ideology of African Socialism, and thus wished to build a large and powerful African Empire where he and the party were the supreme rulers of the mind and spirit of every civilian, he was extensively more intelligent than what his enemies thought. First, he wanted to stabilize the nation, this meant repairing the country's economy before any radical political policies were properly enforced. Economic sanctions against the Apartheid regime by the international community had severely damaged the country's economy, but it began to slowly recover after the regime was 'formally abolished' by the new ANC government. Even so, a series of ineffective economic policies, corruption, as well as a vast list of broken promises to the majority of the population soon caused the economy to stagnate, eventually destroying the country's currency when compared to the Dollar, Euro and Pound Sterling. Although Mashinini realized the advantages of keeping their currency cheap, it was obviously unstable, and its depreciation rates caused major inflation, and although the nation had discovered new natural Rareethrum Reserves, these were mostly being looted by the West, with elites being the only ones who benefitted. As a result of the incompetency of the previous government in running the economy, capitalists from all over the world, particularly the west, flooded the country from all sides and soon, local businesses were contributing very little to the economy, handing it's control over to foreigners. To Mashinini, this was absolutely unacceptable. Britain, France, Germany and the USA had to go.

The newly formed Azanian government now had to deal with the nation's biggest problem. It had inherited the fruits of the ANC government's incompetence and there was barely any change in the country even after a decade of "Freedom" since 1994. There had been no land restitution as promised by the so-called liberators, and the economic policies they passed ensured that the majority off the country's wealth remained with the minority white population of the country. This was another fact the APP considered to be absolutely unacceptable, and the majority of the country's black people agreed. Even so, the nation's black population was like the rest of Africa – heavily demoralized, inefficient and decaying into degeneracy due to alcohol abuse and loss of hope. Mashinini wanted to change this via a massive propaganda campaign called 'The People's Advance into the Future', which he promptly implemented via a massive stimulation of the media. On top of this, he would enforce policies that would mobilize the nations new working class into a united front against the perceived enemy of the nation – the West, and propaganda was to also be used for this initiative. In his eyes, this would separate the lazy, useless and treacherous "degenerates" from the general black population, allowing the people to flourish along with the nation. In his eyes, the small number of degenerates in the population were responsible for the decay of African society, he thus believed that if he did not do something about this culture of weakness, then all their policies would fail indefinitely. To avoid this, the Premier Supreme along with the APP, now converted into the Azanian People's Liberation Party (APLP), would begin efforts to control the type of information made available to the people of the country. Not only censoring the media, but the internet as well using RCU technology. Now most of the information the nations people were exposed to had to do with education and nationalism instead of gossip and celebrities, this would slowly transform Azanian society, of whom was being exposed to the internet by the RCU after the West had cut the nation off due to sanctions and as a rebuke to APLP regulated internet.

But to truly transform the nation into a world power, economics was the main concern for the ambitious government, and this was because it wished to grant more domestic control into its running, as Mashinini firmly believed that foreign interference was the reason the economy was failing. To this end, the Premier Supreme would pass The True Transformation Act of 2004. The provisions of this act were heavily based on the RCU model of development, even though they were slightly different in some instances as they called for rapid industrialization via direct legislation. The government felt that if it's economic programs were inscribed in law, then it would be obligatory for the nation to achieve them, allowing little room for corruption as severe punishment was promised by Mashinini to leaders who would fail because of this. These policies, if a success, were going to establish the ISA as a major industrial power not only in the continent, but in the world, and this industrial power would far surpass all of Africa combined. The economic programs of the True Transformation Act were truly ambitious, but the impoverished people of the country were hopeful. Since the ISA supported the RCU's leader so staunchly and rejected the latter nation's enemies, the UFAR (United Fascist Alliance of Russia), the sole ruling party of the RCU, were prepared to help in exchange for a number of concessions from the Azanian government. Although the Azanians weren't too keen on the idea of working with whites, their hate was mostly concentrated at those European countries that maintained colonies in Africa and since Russia never maintained such a morally clandestine apparatus in the continent, Mashinini tolerated them, some might even say that he adored them. After being invited to Moscow by the RCU President himself on August 25, 2004, Mashinini would be involved in one of the most important negotiations in the history of the ISA.

The Russians still needed a powerful ally in Africa so that they could exert more influence on the continent, thus preventing the West and the increasingly unfriendly China from mobilizing Africa against Russia in future. The cold war-like competition in Africa had grown increasingly costly for all sides involved, leading to civil wars and other kinds of conflicts from North to Central Africa, this thus meant the Russians also had an ideological reason for wanting to be close allies with the ISA. If the Azanian economy grew rapidly under RCU guidance, then it would be a defeat for the USA and its allies, plus they wanted to recruit the Azanians as part of their foreign policy of gathering as many allies as possible due to the RCUs paranoid Premier Supreme. To fund such a foreign policy was not cheap, and although their rapidly soaring economy could bare the cost, Russian policymakers and economist, not fully comprehending the increasing self-sufficiency of their country's economy, were nervous as to how long the boom might last due to the Russo-American and Russo-EU trade wars, which created uncertainty in Russia's command structure and the global economy. An intelligent negotiator, Mashinini looked to exploit Russian perceptions of Western domination in Africa, and he did this with amazing tactical brilliance.

The ISA would help the RCU maintain a huge presence in Southern Africa, and would not enter into any alliances or substantial economic blocs with the West, and as payment, the Azanians would receive massive amounts of economic aid in the form of huge subsidies, investments and once the Azanian economy had grown, massive loans. RCU State owned companies would also actively take part in assisting the ISA in its massive industrial, infrastructural and commercial mega-projects in exchange for special exposure to Azanian markets, particularly once they were fully stimulated to their capacity. The Azanians had to make some concessions themselves, the nation's strategic position in the world made it an obligation for Russia to establish massive naval and air force bases in the country as a show of force against the USA. Mashinini agreed, in his eyes this meant that Russia was taking the cost of financing his new nation's defence whilst he focused on the economy. He would even allow the RCU to open as many military bases (of all types) as it liked. This was a major advantage for the newly formed ISA, whom would not only be aided by a rising Superpower, but be defended by it as well due to the fact that a nation like his always had to worry about US military intervention, which would be a threat to his Dictatorship's survival.

As for the True Transformation Act itself, it granted the APLP and the Premier Supreme Jabulani Mashinini many new powers, and before the country knew it, a new Constitution was being drawn up and its provisions gave all power to the Office of the Premier Supreme as well as the APLP. As per the provisions of the legislation, almost all land belonging to Whites, which covered a somewhat massive 81% of the total land area of Azania was instantly taken away by the government. No efforts were to be made at compensation either. All the big Industries of the country were not to be spared as well and were promptly nationalized by the Azanian government. The APLP's new piece of legislation was even explicit in that a massive majority of the country's wealth and resource sectors were to be repossessed and committed into capital formation. The massive property the west had amassed in the country was instantly gone. British and American ownership of mines and other important properties of revenue as well as strategic sectors was instantly nullified. As predicted, the West withdrew almost all of its investments, going so far as to begin imposing massive economic sanctions on the ISA. But Azania had an insurance policy – the RCU. The Russians instantly came to their aid, granting the nation the promised subsidies it required for its massive and expensive Industrial and Infrastructure projects. Additionally, under the True Transformation Act, the nation's new central bank – the Central Reserve Bank of the ISA had to establish state owned satellite banks that would offer interest rate free loans to young black entrepreneurs so as to stimulate economic activities.

With the True Transformation Act establishing Special Economic Zones across the country, it was clear that building new cities, was the government's plans. Fortunately, with no more Rareethrum from the ISA, the world's second largest producer of the valuable energy source, many economies in Asia and South America felt the bite. This would result in one of the largest disregard for Western sanctions in history, with many nations from Asia and Central and South America rushing to the ISA in order to discuss new trade deals. The west was no longer able to sell the Rareethrum it had been looting from the ISA due to the fact that the APLP instantly closed the taps. Rareethrum from the ISA was getting very cheap due to their weakened currency, and many companies around the world, including Western companies, wanted to do business. Although they were threatened by the West, the Bern Conference of September 2004 in Switzerland would quickly change that, as many countries had been mobilized in order to declare a non-interventionist policy concerning the matter of the ISA. The same conference would recognize the existence of a nation called the ISA. America was not happy, and this was evident when an infuriated Senator suggested that all the countries involved in the Bern Conference must be sanctioned. Of course he was laughed at as it was common knowledge that American companies would never agree to that, let alone US allies, and since the RCU and China were involved in the conference, the suggestion was simply unthinkable, America could not sanction the whole world lest it wanted to isolate itself, and although the sanctioning of the ISA itself would continue, clearly economic sanctions would not suffice as a solution to the "Azanian Problem". With Rareethrum as its economic bargaining tool, the ISA looked to compete on the world markets, debunking Western myths about the Azanian government intention of establishing a one-party Totalitarian Communist state that shut off the rest of the world. Although Rareethrum could only be bought with the Rareethro-Ruble (Rareethrum sales denominated via Russian currency), the ISA government was smart enough to know the major advantages of accumulating foreign currency into its Central Bank, particularly Russian currency. "Gangster economics and strategic financial policies are required in order to grow an economy, not just private corporations", said an Executive Secretary (ESC council member) of the APLP.

In order to regulate government expenditure and enforce proper finance policy, the ESC and the Premier Supreme had passed the National Fiscal-Estimate Act of 2004, and Article 7 of the Act made it illegal for APLP party members and officials to receive more than one source of income. This was being done in an effort to battle corruption. Mashinini's makeshift tribunals had even executed multiple party members suspected of corruption in order to send a clear message to the ranks of APLP. Under the True Transformation Act, the government would begin selectively leasing land back to the people, black farmers were a particularly to be prioritized, and the unless land restitution was taking place, land was to be leased solely for commercial purposes, and the farmers had to receive proper training or be proven fit. At first, White farmers were allowed to keep their farms, although the surrounding periphery to those farms was to be instantly repossessed by the government without question, and these farmers would also be instructed by the government to help train new black farmers, but the new 'Boer Movement' had taken the nation by storm, and the farmers as well as the general white population of the nation rioted and instantly threatened to lynch any black man who came to take their "land". To the APLP, initiatives to keep the nation together were a failure. As revenge, the government would instantly spark a police action leading to the biggest disarmament of a population in history, gun stores would be invaded and cleaned out by the police, and their owners, who were particularly white, were sent to jail. With a huge purchase of weapons from the RCU government, Mashinini made it clear that he was willing to go to war for the "land of his people". This would lead to the militarization of the nations countryside as black men were conscripted into the army and white servicemen were instantly disarmed and expelled. To add insult to injury, the 'Azanian Regime' as it was now classified by the UN, would amend the True Transformation Act, leading to an outright confiscation of all farmland in the country. White farmers in particular, of whom owned almost all the farms in the country were instantly targeted by the amendment of the legislation via military force. The Boer Movement had been crushed, although more than seven massacres had occurred at the hands of police and military forces, it was clear that the new government did not mind bloodshed.

At first, the leasing of land to black farmers went smoothly, but the government anticipated a potential shortage in proper farmers, and called on the RCU to send expert help just in case. With farmers from the RCU coming into the country in order to train more black farmers so as to add onto their tally nationally, the number of farms in the nation was expected to dramatically increase in a few years time from 2004. With the government directly subsidizing irrigation and electricity, farmers would have their already low labour costs cut drastically, thus allowing whatever they produced to be sold cheaply both nationally and internationally. The Azanian Agricultural Bank, a satellite bank of the Central Reserve Bank of the ISA, would also offer huge loans to not only allow these farmers to get land via leasing from the government, but to expand the scale of their farms so as to increase production and create more jobs. Coincidentally, the rain season would also produce the most rainfall in the country's history, stimulating agricultural yields nationwide. Due to these reforms, the Azanian Agricultural Sector would instantly explode as new black farmers took over, plus, the resuming of international Rareethrum sales from September 2004 had sped up a process anticipated to take years due to the profits made, which in turn allowed more loans to be available for new aspirant farmers. As a result, an Agricultural improvement expected to take years, instantly exploded in a matter of months, a factor which shocked both RCU and Azanian policymakers. The new government was smart, in order to assess the agricultural ability of the new farmers whilst keeping the leasing prices low, they leased land to farmers for a small amount of time, meaning by the time lease agreements expire and thus have to be renewed, the government would be able to make this assessment, thus separating incompetent farmers from the general Agricultural society. Government inspections of farms was also highly frequent and efficient, which many economist attribute as the main reason for the agricultural boom in the ISA. With more tax revenue from Agriculture and cheaper local food on the shelves, the people of the nation were not only buying more, thus increasing economic growth, but high levels of production had also stimulated the secondary sector of the economy as many new factories had to be built in order to process the food and farm produce, which in turn led to more infrastructural development, thus creating even more jobs.

Infrastructure development and industrialization was the main driver for the Azanians, of whom believed contributed much more into the country's economy than the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which had closed after taking power. Although there was great debate about this decision within the APLP, in other sections of decision making, the party followed the provisions of the True Transformation Act regarding industrialization without question or quarrels. With the massive profit revenue from Rareethrum sales allowing their reserve bank to accumulate hard currency and thus more enrichment, as well as massive subsidies from the RCU and rapidly increasing tax returns from the stimulated primary (Rareethrum field-pumping and Agriculture etc.), secondary (Industries) and thus tertiary (commercial activity) sectors, the nation would begin buying massive amounts of industrial material from Japan, China and the RCU in an effort to industrialize the nation. This had led to one of the biggest industry purchases in economic history, and by 2005, the nation witnessed the fastest industrialization process in world history. The ISA government was obviously on a spending spree and wanted to boost the country's GDP in a big way. An emphasis on manufactory projects had been put, and opposition to the party's leadership was rapidly decreasing as the government's efforts were becoming more clear to the majority of the population, with a petrifyingly rapid decrease in unemployment. Although there were shortages at first due to stiffening Western sanctions, the economic reforms were granting relief on the nation's people, and as the country's economy grew, many companies from around world would flock into the ISA in order to invest. To accommodate new industries, the government would initiate massive infrastructure programs, not only improving existing infrastructure, but building it anew, going so far as to build new cities from the ground-up. With massive infrastructural programs countrywide massively boosting the GDP growth rate of the country, the government demanded discipline from its people in order to sustain the growth. Strategically, Mashinini ordered that many of these new cities be built along the nation's coastal-belt via massive contracts to Real Estate Corporations from the RCU, but most importantly, using newly built state owned real estate companies, which the government funded via the newly built Azanian Development Bank, another Satellite Bank to the ISA reserve bank. This massive build up of infrastructure along the coasts was clearly meant for trade. Although Totalitarian, the Azanians were obviously opening up to the world. With the government's ownership of land, major costs that would have been unavoidable in a privately owned country had been avoided, leaving more money to spare for other projects.

With the country's stability secured, investors were becoming very keen on investing onto the nation, and indeed they came flocking, particularly after the ISA joined the Russo-Japanese Trade Bloc in early 2005. This was directly against the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) on the nation, which forbade Russo-Japanese Trade Bloc member-states from allowing the Azanian Regime to join the trade partnership. With massive amounts of money being poured onto the nation's infrastructure, the Azanians would give massive amounts of development contracts to the RCU, China and Japan, partnering with them in the building of the massive multibillion dollar transit infrastructure project known as the Inter-Provincial Bullet Train Project (IPBTP), which would not only help improve transportation nationwide, but help decrease, even though slightly, the nation's pollution output as its rapid industrialization required a lot of this dirtiness to be released unto mother nature. Due to the rapid industrialization of the ISA, pollution had gotten so prevalent that by 2006, the UN, which the ISA was attempting to appease via the IPBTP, had accused the nation of planning Industrial Projects that "threatened the whole world", said the US Ambassador to the UN. But since the United States was one of the biggest polluters in the world themselves, the Azanians had a strong case for their defence. The ISA's Directorate for Urban Proliferation and Development remained firm, and made it clear to the whole world that the nation would not slow down it's Mega-Projects in response to "intimidation from an irresponsible and jealous international community", said the Director of the latter Directorate. Although the rapid industrialization was cause for concern environmentally, many neutral economist attributed this concern as being primarily aimed at the scary Azanian GDP growth rate, which many economists believed to be a lie.

By mid-2007, the nation's GDP Growth-rate had been multiplied many times over, allowing it to skyrocket to 43.9%, which was a GDP growth rate that was dangerously close to that of the RCU at the time, of whom were at the peak of their RCB Era with a GDP Growth rate of 45.9% of their Trillion Dollar economy. The Azanian economy was rising at a rapidly scary rate, and unlike the Russians, it had yet to even dream of seeing its peak. Although many would attribute the huge numbers to the fact that the ISA had a small economy globally, the fact was undeniable, the Socialist-Market economic policies of the Azanian government were working, and so were the people of the country. What shocked many is that although many whites had left the nation, a sizeable portion, particularly the Afrikaner people, who were clear on the fact that they weren't going anywhere, and were mostly "waiting for the Azanian Regime's policies to collapse the country so the blacks could begin begging us to come back", many of them said. Although by proportion, the RCU was many times ahead of the ISA in terms of growth rate per dollar, it was clear that the ISA economy was succeeding, and many of the nation's enemies didn't like this.

The West was not happy, their investment withdrawal had failed to collapse the Azanian economy, and with an economy booming from the get-go so rapidly, it meant its markets were expanding, and thus many Western Companies began putting pressure on their governments to lift their sanctions on the ISA so they could tap into these markets before it's internal commercial sector as well as that of the RCU and China took them all up. The ISA government was very protectionist too, and wanted to ensure the interests of local businesses and state owned companies before it ever considered those of foreign businessmen. This meant that they were running out of time, and if they wanted to move back into the Azanian market in order to compete, then they had to put aside their differences with the ISA aside. Negotiations had thus been organized by the West in late 2006 via the UN in New York City, USA, but they quickly went nowhere. The ISA was just not willing to accept Western demands and this was the case vice-verse. This intolerance was to be punished by an all-out economic embargo on the ISA by the EU in conjunction with the USA, who's internal turmoil and civil war was causing the world economy to crash. Then in 2007 it happened, due to relentless lending by Western European and American banks to property seekers in all of Europe, the Real Estate bubble that had been building up in the EU finally popped, and property prices instantly crashed, causing a worldwide recession. But thankfully for the ISA, they were one of the few of the countries unaffected by this due to their non-entanglement with Western democracies. During this crisis, the ISA had quickly taken advantage of the situation and stimulated their export-orientated economy even more via an addition of financial incentives for local producers. Although they were nowhere near the status of being regarded as one of the factories of the world like the PRC, RCU or USA, they were catching up very fast, and instead of accumulating dollars, they mostly chose to accumulate Russian Rubles into their central bank so as to battle debt and keep a stable fiscal policy. Of course, the Azanian leadership felt that this would not be enough due to the spending spree on Mega-Projects. As a result Mashinini was worried about government debt, and thus looked to secure funds from his population. To this end, the government would encourage more of its people to save money by giving high interest incentives to those who chose to keep their money in the state-owned banks for longer, this meant that the government had secured a huge alternative funding on top of tax returns, profit margins on trade as well as the projects at home.

For any of these fiscal policies to succeed, Mashinini felt that it was better to switch their monetary system by ditching the globalist Rand which was too vulnerable to Western economic fluctuations, and using a new currency system as mandated by section 117 of the National Fiscal-Estimate Act of 2004. With the introduction of a new currency – the Azanian Pesa (A₪), on December 2004, the ISA had ensured that Western efforts to destabilize their economy would fail. Comfortable with there then Central Reserve Bank of the Russian Union, Mashinini had immediately moved to peg to this new currency to the Russian Ruble, although he would keep the Pesa cheaper so Azanian products could compete better on the international state. The government had achieved this peg to the Russian currency in mid-2006, after the Central Reserve Bank of the ISA had finally accumulated enough Rubles onto its reserves to feel comfortable enough to begin the peg. Due to the fortunes of the RCU economy, many economists attribute this currency peg as one of the fundamental contributors to staggering Azanian economic growth, as by pegging their currency to the Ruble meant that the Azanian economy was largely reliant on the fluctuations of the RCUs economy, which were astronomical for Russia's era, thus for the ISA as well. Whether the Azanians were lucky or smart, it was clear that their economy was a success, and a miracle to behold.

The True Transformation Act's primary intentions of rapidly transforming Azania and turning it into an Industrial Power in less than 15 years were slowly being realized. Naturally, the USA threatened to attack the nation, but the presence of the Russian military quickly discouraged any military intervention against the ISA, plus the American Civil War of Morality soon began and America's attention shifted elsewhere. This threat to security would lead to the Azanians setting up a plan to modernize the nation's military in the later years to come so that the ISA could finally have the capability to not only control its defence internally and externally, but satisfy the party's fundamental manifesto of building a united African Empire that would protect the "oppressed people of the continent". Luckily for the Azanians, of whom wished to create an intelligent nation of innovators and nation builders, the Russian government had released a massive number of scholarships to the Azanian people since the inception of the ISA. These would allow future Azanian historians, industrialists, economists, scientists etc. to go and study in the universities of the RCU, allowing them to bring back massive amounts of intellectual value to their country. As a result, a massive emphasis had been put on the nations education from the get-go so as to produce large amounts of students that would be fit for some of the best universities in the world. Even though the Russians had gained Africa's strongest economy as an ally, it wasn't the case with the rest of Africa's countries.

Luckily for the UN, which was very much opposed to the policies of the ISA, most of Africa's leaders were still kissing up to the West and had followed the economic sanctions put on the ISA for it's apparent "abuse of the nation's White population" after enacting land reforms the APLP considered just and fair via the True Transformation Act. What was happening to Azania's only ally in Southern Africa – Zimbabwe, where African leaders refused to support their counterparts if they rejected Western efforts to control them, was now also happening to the ISA. Major corruption was also a plague on the continent, which was one of the main reasons why the Azanian government had welcomed their counterpart's rejection, which they mostly considered "treachery". Of course, due to Azania's detachment from the west, the sanctions would not have the same effect on the nation's growing economy as it did on Zimbabwe. Even so, the ideological isolation meant the ISA was relatively all alone in Africa, as apart from neutral Lesotho and Swaziland, as well as their ally Zimbabwe, they had no real allies on the continent. This was evident in how many African nations broke away from the Azanians by following Western economic sanctions. Even so, Russian influence in north Africa was slowly growing as US finances began to be diverted into the USA because of the Second American Civil War and thus away from the rest of the world because of the 2007-8 global financial recession, meaning the isolation of the RCU (due to 2007 EU sanctions after the Finnish crisis had ended in the occupation of Finland by the Russian Army) and its African ally would not last forever. As a result, the Premier Supreme would not be discouraged by the actions of his fellow African countries and would continue everything as planned. There would be no repeal of the True Transformation Act as demanded by the USA and it's NATO allies, and the legislation's provisions would continue to be enforced without question.

As mandated by the industrial projects of the True Transformation Act, the ISA did not only put the appropriate state owned satellite bank – the Azanian Industrial Bank to work, but had also put an emphasis on steel mining and the exploration for domestic crude oil supplies so as to not only help fuel the nation's industrial economic ambitions, but to facilitate the building of tanks, planes and ships for Mashinini's future military programs, which he began to enforce on the year 2010 as the country's revenue gains continued to swell because of the economic reforms enacted by the Azanian government. As diplomatic relations with Russia continued to strengthen due to ideological convergence, the Azanians received the expertise training and assistance of the RCU on how to build modern weapons, an asset that they quickly put to work. However, the militarization of the ISA was not welcomed by all. The second the year 2010 hit and the Azanian military budget spiked, tensions with France resurged almost immediately. French President Emmanuel Macron was not happy about Azania's military spending and had thus demanded for the budget to be cut. The Azanians were staunch opposers to French influence in West Africa, and had even gone so far as to accuse the French of imposing "Neo-colonial rule on the continental region". The Azanians were particularly opposed to the currency system used by those nations and had vowed to do everything in its power to remove President Macron from Africa after the African Union and the UN had defended French military action on the region as "Peacekeeping for security purposes". The French government believed either the ISA would send weapons to the rebels French forces were fighting in West African countries like Mali, Guinea, Cote D'ivoire etc. or worse, they would personally send in their military. Although tensions with France were at an all time high, the ISA government was way more concerned with the country's internal policy, particularly economic strategy implementation.

The ISA's massive projects were leading to the fastest creation of new cities in the history of humanity as well, and were even faster than those of the RCU as the ISA wanted to stimulate GDP growth rate via massive construction projects, much like the PRC to some extent. Even though each city itself was significantly smaller to newly built Russian cities, the Azanians were building more of these new urban centres, and they were doing it much quicker. The building of new cities made sense, new commercial centres were needed to accommodate the rapid build-up of new industries and their increasing number of workers. Even so, transitioning from a mainly globalist economy to one where central control was emphasized did put extreme pressure on certain parts of the economy as the government tried to adjust. Sanctions against Azania had some initial effect during the nation's inception in 2004 as although the nation was a rich African country, meaning its hostile neighbours suffered more severely from these economic barriers, there were still wide spread shortages in the ISA in mid-2004 due to the bite the economy felt as a result of disinvestment initiatives by the USA and the EU. Even so, the government was a quick learner, and aid from the RCU had helped a lot, particularly in late 2004, where the nation was in real turmoil as Western sanctions caused an economic crisis. However, the government adapted in record time and quickly began to enact economic policies that would diversify as well as stimulate every sector of the economy. Soon the shortages subsided, particularly in 2005, and the rest was history.

Since the Azanian Industrialization program began to include military armaments in 2010, this slowly expanded the nation's capability to independently wage war. Although the Azanians offered some military contracts to RCU Weapons Corporations, these were small as compared to how extensive the nation was in stimulating its ability to internally innovate and produce its own weapons independently. Even so, the Russians were, like with many other countries around the world, Azania's largest trade partner, meaning the economic barriers on Weapons Corporations did not offend the RCU leadership, although they were critical of it during trade talks due to how it denied some of their companies the Azanian weapons market. But, in the 2004 meeting in Moscow, the Azanians were clear that although they would open up their markets to the RCU, the latter could not interfere in the nation's ambitions on innovation, and the opening of markets never included Azania's weapons markets, with the Azanian Director of Economics and Trade going so far as to say "The RCU should be thankful for the compromises we've made by even allowing some of their weapons corporations to move in". Meanwhile, although economic growth began to soar from late 2004 onwards, the Azanians would begin to truly reap rewards for their True Transformation Act's First 15 Year Plan in the year 2015. On top of the fact that they were one in only three countries around the world to produce Rareethrum, in 2007, they had discovered new Rareethrum Fields to exploit in the country's southern provinces, and soon, the nation was producing so much of the bright blue energy resource that at one point in time, their production levels had become comparable to even those of the RCU, of whom dominated the huge international Rareethrum market.

The reason the Azanians were able to monopolize the Rareethrum business in Africa, was due to how they constantly interfered with the attempts of other fellow African nation's quest to find the energy source via espionage and sabotage. Even after EU operatives had been sent to help African countries searching for domestic natural reserves, the Azanians, along with their Russian allies, continued to secretly get involved, sabotaging them at every opportunity. Astonishingly, Zimbabwe had discovered a Rareethrum Field during the year 2013, but due to Western sanctions, the nation refused to trade it with the west, and with Azanian protection, sold it around the world, although it was extremely difficult to compete with major Rareethrum powers due to the nation having only discovered one Rareethrum Field, which the Azanian Development Bank had promptly bought from the Zimbabwean government in order to secure its "integrity". Of course, the Republic of Zimbabwe did benefit from the transaction, and taking into account the fact that by this time, the ISA government was sending more than US$5 250 000 worth of free aid per month to the troubled landlocked nation, Zimbabwe couldn't really resist Azanian efforts to procure the Rareethrum Field even if they had wanted to because on top of the latter factor, it was Azanian specialists that had discovered the plot of land full of natural Rareethrum reserves, and they had provided money for the necessary extraction infrastructure. Since the Zimbabweans were dependent on the Azanians, the nations leadership felt that the Rareethrum Field would be more productive in the hands of Azania, as it meant they could tax the ISA for creating jobs for communities living around the Field, a win-win in the eyes of the ruling party in Zimbabwe. Although there was some opposition to the purchase from opposing parties in Zimbabwe, there was nothing they could do about the sale. The alliance between Zimbabwe and Azania was certainly strong, and although Mashinini admired the nation's President Mugabe, even he had admitted to his inner circle that the alliance with the nation was not absolute. However, although their alliance Southern Africa was not absolute, their economic dominance in the region and on the continent, certainly was, and by this time (i.e. 2013), the nations of Southern Africa had long reopened up to the ISA.

As a result of the reaping the fruits of its economic miracle, Azanian standard of living quickly improved as major industrial centres kept on being erected, thus increasing production dramatically, stimulating the nation's new export-orientated economy. China's war with the RCU turned CRE in 2011 meant they could grow even faster as there was less cut-throat competition to deal with, although their peg with the Ruble did cause some issues with their currency as the Russo-Chinese War continued to rage on for three years straight. Even so, the ISA government had been strategic in how they manoeuvred in world economics and had not only bought multiple tankers from the CRE, but had built the third biggest containership in the world in 2009. This not only increased prestige in ISA trading, but allowed the ISA to maximise profits due to China's absence on the international market. New Trade Deals had already been set up with the West in mid-2009, particularly after the Russians repaired the world economy during the Great Recession of 2007-8. By 2011, real profits in the west were beginning to be made as cheap Azanian products flooded the markets of the EU and particularly the USA, which was still highly consumerist. It was obvious that Mashinini's economic policies were successful even though Western sanctions attempted to pull the economy down. Instead of the economy being pulled down, a lot of Azanians, specifically Africans, were pulled out of poverty. As the economy grew, Azania became fertile ground for investment opportunities, and even though at first the government wanted to go out of its way to prevent countries that had previously crucified the nation from investing into it, the nation's leadership accepted that it had to open up and trade with the West regardless of political tensions. Besides, the country was perfect for foreign investment too, as the CRE had helped in the creation of multiple Stock Exchange platforms inside the nation in late 2008 after the government had closed them since coming into power in 2004.

The Confederated Russian Empire was out to not only take as much credit as possible for the success of the Azanians, but to promote their late leader's political system – Maksymism. To this end, the Russians ended up sending even more technicians, advisors and technology to the ISA as part of their mega investment plans for the country. At one point, the CRE was releasing more than IR750 Million to the country every week as part of their aid policy and investment plan. The economic growth and industrial output of the ISA was also staggering, and even though the Russo-Chinese Conflict affected this rate of progression, the Azanians were clearly the undisputed economic power in the Southern Africa, and soon countries that had sanctioned it soon begged for trade as the economy continued to grow and diversify in what was to be known as – The Era of Maendeleo 21st (or simply "Era of Progression 21st) in the ISA. People from all over the continent were flooding the country, and with heavy demand for labour, many were welcomed not only as labour (of which was the world's most cost effective due to how cheap it was) but as citizens. From its inception in 2004, the nation experienced the fastest population swell in the history of the Southern Hemisphere, registering a population of more than 88 million people by 2010. The Azanian government's laws also played a huge role in this population swell as well, with the Labour Act of 2005 and the Continental Integrationist Act of 2004 leading to the Azanian government going from country to country on the African continent in order to recruit new workers and collect refugees and African people wishing to live in the ISA. Ultimately, the majority of these people had also flooded the ISA on their own, and these laws made sure that almost all of them became citizens via naturalization. Of course the government was weary of criminals, but government crackdowns on crime were so frequent and unending, it was never really going to be a major issue for the country. Although the government was highly Pan-Africanist in its approach to treating people of African descent, this Pan-Africanism was largely expansionist in nature.

In order to survive, the party felt the ISA needed to expand its territory, but with UN laws to abide by, the APLP knew that a militaristic expansionist program would not be feasible without a serious major global crisis to destabilize the world. Indeed, a series of dangerous global events would take place, particularly between the RCU and the West, but the most serious of these would be the Russo-Chinese Conflict in 2011. But even with that, the APLP was still skeptical about expanding northwards, especially since they knew they would have to deal with the nuclear powered West, of whom would never allow such a thing to take place without getting involved. Plus, since the ISA had just begun their vast militarization campaign, Azanian military leaders felt that the country was not ready for war, let alone one were Western forces would obviously be involved. As an alternative, 'gangster diplomacy' would be used against neighbouring nations in order to annex them. The ISA would start with the small nation of Lesotho, ever since the ISA was born, it had been targeted by the Azanian government for annexation, and with perfect timing, in the year 2011, the Azanians would come with their offer. The nation's borders were completely surrounded by those of the larger ISA, and it had no coasts, so Azanian diplomats were very confident. The economy of Lesotho was already reliant on what was South Africa, and the Azanians had worsened this dependency using debt-trap economics as well as depopulation via the emigration of its population into the ISA. Borders between the two nations were already eased up after the end of the Apartheid Regime, and the Azanians eased them up even more so people could leave the nation for the ISA. People from the small nation were not even regarded as illegal immigrants, and to obtain Azanian citizenship was made extremely easy for them, requiring them to live in the ISA for 4-6 months.

As the people of the Kingdom of Lesotho began hearing the stories of economic boom in the ISA, they began moving into the nation in massive droves in search of better work. This was the same story with the Kingdom of Eswatini (Swaziland), and although it wasn't entirely bordered by the ISA, it was still a landlocked country in a region dominated by Azania, and whatever the Lesotho and Swaziland government tried in order to keep their people inside their nation had failed miserably. Infrastructure Development Projects were used by both nations in order to encourage economic activity inside their countries, but the USA was still licking it's wounds fresh off a devastating Civil War, meaning they weren't really investing as much as they used to around the world, plus the EU was still paranoid about a lending spree after the Real Estate Crash had caused an economic recession, and were thus unwilling to borrow both nations large sums of money which they probably could not pay back. This thus meant that most of the Infrastructure Development Projects they had were funded by the Azanian Development Bank, as their biggest allies – the USA and EU, could not fund them even if they had wanted to, let alone at the scale of the Azanians. Lesotho and Swaziland were thus in huge debt, and were literally bankrupt by the beginning of 2011. What was a surprise though was that the Azanians wished to include both countries in the Inter-Provincial Bullet Train Project (IPBTP), and had done so by mid-2009, and continued to do so regardless of their economic troubles in 2011. The Project would link both countries with the ISA. Both Swaziland and Lesotho got the message, it was clear the it was clear that the Azanians wished to provincialize them, and were willing to sequestrate their leaders and make life difficult for them if need be.

Either the Azanians would destroy their economies by draining away their citizens (and the military enclosure of their borders was not only a logistical nightmare they could not afford, but it seemed like a bad idea as it would only provoke the Azanians into sanctioning both countries and making it impossible for them to trade or grow their economies, let alone escape the debt-trap they were caught in), or sequestrating their leaders and liquidating (selling away) the nations assets in order to get back what was owed to them. Either way, their economies were doomed if they did not concede to Azanian control. As a result of pressure from the ISA as well as their own civilians, the Prime Ministers of both nations would agree to meet the Premier Supreme of the ISA in Adeapolis, the new name for the capital of the Independent State of Azania in April 5, 2011. However, both Prime Ministers were smarter than what Mashinini thought, and had brought the President of the European Council - Herman van Rompuy on behalf of the EU, the US Secretary of State - Barack Obama, as well as the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations - Asha-Rose Migiro with them. Mashinini had been caught by surprise and only found out that these individuals had been brought into the country after their Planes had landed inside the newly built 'Fernando International Airport' in Adeapolis, ISA. The whole thing had become the kind of spectacle the Azanian leadership would have liked to avoid, and the planes had to circle the airport for two hours before being cleared to land in the airstrip after a direct order from the Premier Supreme in order to "avoid the escalation of already existent tensions" according to him. However, in reality Mashinini was furious, all these leaders had not only cleverly passed through his spy-network, but possibly the Russian's spy-network as well. What was more shocking however was the marvel of the Western visitors concerning the Capital City, and how modern and beautiful the city was becoming, clearly propaganda assumptions against the economy of what they still considered a Regime were relatively false. Azania was a living testament of how quick and astonishing an African nation can grow if left alone, given fair investment and purged off internal corruption.

During the Treaty of Adeapolis as it was to be known, the Premier Supreme was clearly annoyed by the presence of the Westerners as well as the Tanzanian Deputy Secretary-General of the UN in the meeting as they certainly were not invited, but his advisers beseeched him for diplomacy. The advice had merit, with the West in the meeting, there was no way the Azanian leader was going to pushover the Prime Ministers from Swaziland and Lesotho, and so he would have to sweeten the deal if he wanted to secure these territories. Thus after three days of tense debate, negotiations, compromise and Azanian hospitality, a consensus had finally been reached. This consensus was that both Swaziland and Lesotho would become part of the ISA, but they would both become Autonomous Administrative Regions (AARs), and although the ISA had full control over their foreign policy, defense and security, Adeapolis could not interfere with the AARs legislative rights, the appointment of government officials via free and fair elections, and the liberal freedoms (speech, association, assembly and expression) that were now more or less non-existent inside the ISA, but afforded in those nations. The West also agreed that no NATO member-state or the military alliance itself would install any offensive or defensive military bases in any nation who's border was adjacent to the Azanian border. However, in return, the ISA had to agree that its territorial claims were satisfied, and no further aggrandizement from the nation would take place. Also, the newly established AARs were to keep their status for four decades and only then could the ISA fully incorporate them as provinces or regions where the government could exercise wider regional jurisdiction. In return, the Premier Supreme agreed to release funds that would allow both the governments of Lesotho and Swaziland the ability to implement massive Economic Stimulus Packages in both AARs, allowing them to cope with deficits and avert economic disaster. In addition, 75% of their debts would be 'forgiven' by the Azanian Development Bank (a bank which held a significant chunk of both AARs external debts). The AARs would also be afforded completely independent public finance, not only meaning they would keep their existing currencies, but no tax revenue could be handed over to the central government in the Capital City, and the government of both AARs had a relatively free-hand when it came to fiscus and public spending, although some limits were in place. The Azanians would also not be allowed to block Western Corporations from investing into the AARs unless the circumstances were exceptional (this was a clear strategy for US and EU based corporations, so as to allow them a better chance at penetrating into the rapidly growing market in the ISA). The current Prime Ministers of both nation would also not be deposed, and on top of the money for the Stimulus Packages of both regions, the ISA was also obligated to send $1 Billion in yearly subsidies to each AAR for their economic rehabilitation and development. It was a lot to swallow, and Mashinini was clearly unhappy with the consensus, but so long as both nations were now an official part of the ISA, he was relatively consoled, and the UN General Assembly immediately recognized the Treaty of Adeapolis, giving it effect in international law. It was only up to spectators and political commentators to decide as to who out-negotiated who, but an agreement had definitely been reached. The Western Democracies of the Free World were hopeful, and thus wished to use these two AARs as a platform to spread their version of democracy and capitalism inside the ISA, on the other hand, Mashinini was adamant to the country's leadership that he would not let that happen. It was truly a battle of wits.

To be continued... (See Part 2)