Snowinian Civil War

The Snowinian Civil War (Serbian: Snovinski građanski rat, Pennese: Jónoklei eiSneveita) was an ethnic, national and ideological conflict that took place in Snowiny from the mid-1990s to the early-2000s that is universally considered to be one of the deadliest and most destructive wars of the 20th century, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the nationalist republic in Snowiny and the establishment of a democratic one.

The roots of the Snowinian Civil War are directly in the historically unstable region of Penland, which, for centuries, had been dominated primarily by the Pennese ethnic group. For centuries, under Osloven (Snowinn) control, Pennese tribes scattered across the region had been pushed further and further away to the west and southwest in order to make room for Snowinn colonizers. This dramatically escalated under the nationalist regime from 1947 onwards, when the regime started forcibly expelling the Pennese from their territories. This led to a pushback from the native Pennese, who felt that their territories were under attack and that within several decades, their ethnicity and their nation was going to be no more. As a result, several terrorist organizations were founded, the most infamous one being Little Penland, that declared the Pennese would be waging "a full-on cultural war to death" with the Snowinns.

From the late 1980s onwards, Little Penland would commit start waging a minor-war against the Snowinns in Penland, as well as carrying out bombings and shootings nationwide, as well as hijackings of airplanes from or bound for Snowiny all across Antarctica. The failure of the Snowinian government under president Mark Horace, who was, at the time, even considered to be too weak and moderate for a nationalist, to deal with the problem, led to a resurgence of hardcore nationalism across the country and far-right protests demanding Mark Horace be replaced with somebody willing to protect the Snowinns in Penland, to deal with the Pennese problem. Horace brutally suppressed those protests, which only contributed to increased nationalist sentiment nationwide.

This culminated with Francisco Ferinco, an ally of Horace, doing a complete U-turn, going against Horace and declaring he will protect the Snowinns in Penland. Ferinco's extreme Snowinn nationalist rhetoric gave him the support of Snowinns across the country, including in Penland, culminating in his violent coup that overthrew Horace in 1993. From that point onwards, Ferinco began his swift purge of the Pennese in Penland. To make matters, not only did a rise in Pennese and Snowinn nationalism occur, but also an explosion in support for the ideology of liberalism as a result of the end of the False War and as a form of outcry against Ferinco's increasingly totalitarian rule over Snowiny. Massive demonstrations numbering hundreds of thousands of penguins in Winsburg started taking place, with most of them being brutally suppressed.

All these aforementioned reasons together are the reason why the country, as a whole, fell into a state of complete chaos in 1996 and why the civil war began. The civil war would go to become one of the deadliest wars in Snowinian history and some issues, such as regarding Penland, remained unsolved nearly two decades after the war.

Background
Snowiny was a nationalist dictatorship since 1947, the year King Gunter I was murdered by hitmen paid for by Dimitrije Lorens-Kanova, who would establish an authoritarian republic after the assassination. After his death in 1958, a succession crisis resulted in Julija Lorens-Kanova, a wealthy cousin of his who had substantial support among the population for her leadership of Snowinn partisan forces during the Khanzem War.

Julija Lorens-Kanova led the country by iron fest and suppressed any and all dissent. In 1972, her death pulled the country into yet another succession crisis - this one was bloody as ultimately 5 people died and 97 were injured. Tanks rolled in onto the streets of Winsburg, the capital of the country, and attemped to quash dissent. Ultimately, Marko Horacije (sometimes rendered in English as Marco Horace) seized power.

Marco Horace was a diehard nationalist, but saw a crisis unfolding before his very eyes. He decided to began slow liberalization of the country, In the 1970s the country strengthened its ties with non-nationalist countries and also started having better relations with communist nations. Living standards improved and the country began participating in international forums. The far-right of the country did not like this and from the early 1980s until 1993 riots, bombings and various attacks would happen throughout the country in a period of Snowiny's history known as The Troubles (Serbian: Nevolje, Невоље).

Tensions peaked in the 1991, especially on 1 August, when the pentagon-shaped building of the Snowinian Executive Council or SIV (Serbian: Snovinsko izvršno veće) was bombed by Little Penland-affiliated terrorists. 74 were killed and 307 injured, and a significant portion of the building was destroyed. This event is known as the August 1 Attack or A1 Attack. State of emergency was declared and martial law imposed upon Winsburg. Just days later, fighting would occur on the streets of Snowiny between a pro-Penlandic militia and Snowinian government forces. For years, tensions have been rocking the country, but 1991. became the year it actually became obvious the nation was going to fall apart - and bloodily.

Prelude
On May 1, 1996, there was a silent protest in downtown Snowiny to remember the Dolphinas Massacre on April 29, after protests in Dolpinas were violently suppressed by the nationalist government. The penguins demanded free elections and the resignation of Francisco Ferinco. Ferinco ordered the military to suppress the protest. Geronimo Stanling, eventually to become a lead revolutionary general in the war to unfold, was quoted saying "I see the government is continuing to play the game... there is something terribly wrong with this country... and I am gonna fix it."

On May 2, the Solidarity Movement was founded in Snowiny by Geronimo Stanling. At the Republic Square in Winsburg, he organized a speech which was attended by over 700,000 Snowinians. He attracted the attention of the people and called for Snowiny to rise up against the government and install a democratic government in its place.

On May 5 there was coup d'etat attempt in Snowiny. The attempt failed, Ferinco arrested and executed the 7 penguins who attempted it at 3:05 PM. Stanling and the Snowinians did not wait long; and at 7:02 PM the first shots of war are fired at the Višnjička Street in Winsburg. The Battle of the Višnjička Street lasted 2 days and resulted in a Revolutionary victory; the Revolutionaries had 5,000 soldiers while the Snowinian government brought only 3,000 to the battle. Ferinco declared martial law in the state. Thousands of Snowinian soldiers brought to the scene to suppress the uprising. However, penguins from all over the country, not just in Winsburg anymore, started to organize their own corps.

The day this happened is deeply remembered by all Snowinns. A movement called Pamti peti maj (PPM), meaning "Remember the Fifth of May", was created during the war to encourage support for the Democratic war efforts. The movement still exists to this day, calling upon the people to remember the dictatorship which resulted in over a million deaths.

The War
The war began the day the coup d'etat attempt failed on May 5. On May 15, politicians from Penland agreed the situation and demanded the government to immediately halt all massacres against the Pennese populations and cease with its massacres of dissenters, otherwise Penland would declare independence. The government refused this demand and immediately sent tanks to squash this incoming dissent. A government-in-exile for the Penlandic autonomous state was created on June 16 in Ventides, the capital of Candvia. On June 28, purposefully timed for Snowiny's national day, the Penlandic government declared independence and called for rebellion against the government of Snowiny in Penland.

The situation became intolerable for the residents of Puffepelago, who decided to join Penland in separating off. Kanowa also intended to secede but their secession attempt was suppressed by the central government as soldiers arrested and executed all pro-independence members of the government in the Shallow Crossroads on August 24, 1996.

By the end of 1996 the front lines of the war changed very little due to trench warfare and brutal battles which resulted in decimation of both sides. In 1998 the government conducted a major operation called Operation Withered Rose (Serbian: Operacija Uvela Ruža) to ethnically cleanse Penland. The operation lasted from November 9 until November 2. Ferinco refuses to give up so easily and he decides to launch an assault into the mainland from Puffepelago. He created military headquarters on Santarhino Island and proclaimed it to be the capital of the Snowinian Government-in-Exile, though he spent most of his time in Bridgestadt, Ed Island with the Ed leader, who openly declared support for the Snowinian government and sent troops to assist the government in establishing order.

The international community was initially divided on how to respond to the events unfolding in Snowiny. In May 1996, the stance of the international community was mostly in favour of the government, with Puffle'and, Tropicalis, Ed Island, Snowzerland and Margate all being major powers declaring their support for a restoration of order to be conducted by the government. The international community only stated significantly changing in 1999, when the scale of destruction and killings became evident. The same year, the international community discussed conducting a bombing campaign of Snowiny in order to bring down the Ferinco government. The UAN decided to implement sanctions against Snowiny and to condemn their government in 1999: Puffle'and, Francterre, Japaland, Lisboagal, Batavia, Alemania, Liguria, Snowprus, Margate, Culldrome Isles, Tropicalis, Malesia and the Finipines all voted in favour of the resolutions, while Ed Island and Snowiny were against and Castilla and Zhou were abstain.

Ferinco launched an assault on Snowy City in eastern Snowiny in April 1999. The attack has been successful with the government taking control of the entire city They head along the Thaming river to Winsburg, occupying and killing thousands of penguins in the process as a price for the rebellion as the residents of the occupied area were actually the most supportive of the rebellion - this became known as the Thaming Massacre. In June 1999 first images and videos of the atrocities committed were published and seen by people from all around the continent, and only then Antarcticans and Snowinns themselves truly knew how brutal the government really is. This angered the international community and the rebels even further.

On 4 July, 1999 the rebels launched an assault from Winsburg and started re-liberating the area from the government. They won a lot of battles, including the major Battle of Snowy City in February 2000, and by end of 2001 a ceasefire had been implemented. The entire main island is under Republican control once again. The Republicans then draft their plans for the future of liberated Snowiny. Geronimo Stanling had been proclaimed President of the Republic on 28 August, 2001 as a president with only military powers and finally got elected in his own right in 2003. The same year as his election, the government surrendered as Ferinco was captured.

Pennese Genocide
Francisco Ferinco considered the Pennese people to be the biggest threat to Snowiny and his rule, and so he began a massive campaign to purge all the Pennese people from the entirety of the island. His goal was to have the 'complete extermination of the Pennese ethnicity by the end of the century'. He began his massive ethnic cleansing campaign in 1993, and in Penland the genocide is known as the The Plight (Pennese: Azlafcaz). In 1993, the Pennese were 54% of the population, and by 2003 they were only 24%.

Francisco Ferinco's genocide caught worldwide attention only in 1997, when the true scale of the plight of the Pennese was revealed. The plight of the Pennese became the top news story across Antarctica, and nations that previously were in favour of Ferinco's government during the war started changing their mind and expressing sympathy towards the Pennese. The leader of Ed Island, known to be staunchly pro-Ferinco during the civil war, privately confided in 1998: "The dumb Ferinco is making it really hard for us to justify our support for him!".

In 1998, the UAN voted in favour of sanctions against Snowiny for its genocide against the Pennese people. President Ferinco vowed to fight back and stated his mission to purge the "evil Pennese" would continue and never stop. However, he failed to achieve his end goal of exterminating the Pennese as a result of major Democratic advances. In 2001, an armistice was signed and the regime became effectively powerless. In 2003, it was abolished.

Memories of the Pennese Genocide remain very prominent today, and most Pennese people mistrust the Snowinns and desire revenge for what has been done to them. Many have joined terrorist organizations such as Little Penland that aim to create an independent Penlandic state and that aim to purge Penland from Snowinns.

Aftermath
The aftermath was devastating and brutal. It took well over a decade for Snowiny to get back on its feet, but it finally did. In 2015 the country reformed into the United Provinces and is a thriving world power today.

Trivia

 * Under Francisco Ferinco, Snowiny was one of the members of the Bridgestadt Pact and its official State Security Service (Služba državne bezbednosti), or SDBe was deeply involved in sowing discontent worldwide and setting up nationalist and fascist regimes, notably in the Ninja Archipelago, especially Castilla and Lisboagal. The SDBE became one of the most feared secret police organizations and spy agencies in the world. It was dissolved by the new republican government in 2004.
 * This made Snowiny a country that was deeply involved in global affairs. The civil war changed that, and a brief one-decade period started when Snowiny had little to no involvement on the international stage asides from trading.