Trucial Rangers

Trucial Rangers
Vertragsranger
Active	1910-1971
Allegiance	Trucial Territory of the Northern Chieftaincies (1910-1952) Zomi Confederal State (1952-1970) Union of Zomia (1970-1971)
Type	Paramilitary Police
Motto(s)	Brotherhood and Courage!

The Trucial Rangers was a native paramilitary force raised by the Weranian Government in 1910, to replace the various irregular tribal levies that had previously been entrusted with enforcing the terms of the 1883 Territorial Demarcation Treaty. These levies, predominantly composed of ethnic Hsan-Lue, often abused their authority to instigate the very conflicts they were intended to prevent. Under a more unified command structure, and with officers appointed by the Weranian Political Agent, the Trucial Rangers were effective in suppressing banditry, feuding and slave trafficking, and were entrusted with providing escorts for Weranian and Estmerish political representatives travelling in the region.

During the 1930s, when socialist agitation reignited long-standing ethnic tensions between the politically dominant Hsan-Lue and the marginalised Ryo minority of Southeast Zomia, the Weranian Political Office dismissed numerous allegations of Rangers selling modern Euclean arms and ammunition to ethnic militias and Princely retainers. Officers were not screened for past involvement in the tribal levies, so long as they were not personally known to have taken part in proscribed incidents, or belonged to anti-Trucial groups. This oversight is often considered to have been instrumental in sparking the Trucial Wars of 1958-1970, providing Prince Paramount Hpkeng II's supporters the weapons with which he consolidated a loose multi-ethnic confederation of tribal rulers into an authoritarian Lue-dominated ethnic junta.

When the Weranian Tripartite Government commenced its programme of decolonisation in 1951, the Zomi Trucial Assembly was given full authority over the Rangers, and upon the declaration of the Zomi Confederal State in 1952 they became the professional core of its armed forces, and a significant political force. Officially the Rangers did not participate in the Trucial Wars, nominally continuing their peacekeeping duties throughout the conflict. The majority of its officers, however, were loyal to the Paramountcy. The Rangers armed and trained royalist militias, and deployed their 'peacekeeping' forces to stall enemy offensives.  

The Trucial Rangers briefly served under the post-war Union of Zomia, until the political debacle of the Teyvada Crossing Incident, during which a Ranger patrol group participated in an illegal incursion by the Union-aligned Hsan Salvation Front into Lavanan territory. Under trial the unit's officers claimed to have intervened between Lavanan forces and HSF paramilitaries, but under diplomatic pressure from Lavana were found guilty of taking part in the protracted looting and violence against civilians. The leaders of many Zomi paramilitary groups were purged in the aftermath, including the Trucial Rangers, which were dissolved and incorporated into the newly founded Union Defence Force.