OOC:PNM Affair Planning

A page for planning the current state of affairs of the PNM affair, primarily located in Southern Aureumterra and Southern Peuramaa and Lumisaari.

Velikoslavia

Velikoslavia considers Peuramaa a key buffer against western Belisaria, limiting the ability of its western borders to be menaced by opposing powers, and a key part of its sphere of influence, also providing another point in which Ostrozava can be pressured. The current queen, Sigrid Kyöstitytär, is also first cousins with the Tsar of Velikoslavia, Alexis, through his paternal aunt Mena Ivanov. When the PNM and PLF were removed from Aureumterra, Velikoslavia applied some diplomatic pressure in order to attempt to ensure that those members responsible for acts of terrorism were prosecuted under applicable international law on wartime conduct via a tribunal composed of military and judicial officials from all parties involved. Velikoslavia has remained mostly on the sidelines, allowing both concerned parties to work out their issues via negotiation, offering mediation where necessary in order to safeguard the state of affairs.

When the Aureumterrans began to launch an ethnic cleansing of the Põjhamaa, Velikoslavia, along with several other nations all agreed to send aid to Peuramaa and take on some of the upwards of 800,000 displaced people, many of which were resettled in communities in Svefnland. The refugees that were sent to Velikoslavia were screened for connections to the PLF and were disarmed, and confirmed militants that could be reasonably tried under Velikoslav law were brought to justice. This was effectively a token gesture as it is not illegal to resist the Aureumterran government in Velikoslavia. Several notable militants who had committed war crimes against civilian populations were tried, however. It was surmised that settling the refugees in Svefnland, which is far removed from Aureumterra, would reduce the risk of newly resettled populations continuing to support actions against their country of origin and reduce the risk of international incidents.

Peuramaa and Lumisaari

From the Peuramaan perspective, the Põjhamaa people are Peuramaan and those that flee over the border did so as refugees rejoining their mother country. Members of the PNM and PLF were not required to surrender any weapons because they were legally allowed to carry rifles and other firearms for hunting purposes in the south. Peuramaa denies that anyone was granted amnesty, as none of them were criminals under Peuramaan law. They were also not required to admit their involvement in either group and official rolls of suspected membership included only a few dozen names, nowhere near the number of likely members which fled into Peuramaan territory especially when considering the number of names that later turned out to falsified.

Out of the between 500 and 800 thousand refugees, the vast majority filtered through Peuramaa first, a large number settling but most moving on to other countries from there. The massive influx of displaced people caused a crisis in Peuramaa which required a vast investment into housing and food safety in the southern regions where most Põjhamaa were located.

In order to agree to locate, arrest, and try members of the militant groups, Peuramaa requested aid money from the states asking it to do so, namely Aureumterra and Velikoslavia. If Aureumterra refused to provide aid, then Peuramaa escalated to requiring that all suspected war criminals on both sides be brought before a neutral court for trial, including Aureumterra's own leadership and monarch (presumably Lisette). Regardless of Aureumterra's response to those options, this ultimately culminated in a brief, underfunded attempt to track down suspects which yielded only a handful of minor trials in Lumisaari. Those convicted were imprisoned in Lumisaari's penal system.

Since Peuramaa maintains an unpopulated, militarized, controlled border with Aureumterra there are no towns within five kilometers of Aureumterra. This leaves Aureumterra population centers outside of the range of the most common rockets potentially in use by the PLF.

Peuramaa does not consider the PLF a terrorist organization, citing that if it did then it is likely that the PLF would simply reorganize under a different name and it is not willing to spend government resources playing whack-a-mole on what it considers to largely be a non-issue. It also maintains that it is Aureumterra's responsibility to secure its side of the border, and Peuramaa already goes above and beyond by not allowing non-military personnel within 5 km without a military escort with the exception of the highways connecting the two states. Peuramaa maintains that it is highly improbably that any organized militant group could feasibly cross the border, and therefore most attacks in Aureumterra are likely the result of their own resistance factions, or lone wolf attacks by radicalized youth.

Lumisaari takes no position on the issue, but consistently offers to be a neutral arbiter and has hosted those militants which Peuramaa has convicted of crimes under Peuramaan law.

Aureumterra

The Põjhamaa Liberation Front (PLF) and Põjhamaa National Movement (PNM) had been waging an insurgency in Southern Aureumterra, in the Põjhamyrsky Region for much of the 1970s, the period commonly referred to as the Years of Chaos. At the height of the insurgency, the PLF and PNM controlled about half of the forest and village areas of the region. Both groups operated through a People's War doctrine, focusing on capturing countryside and utilizing rural areas a scattered base of operations to perform hit and run attacks. Despite having common goals and fighting side by side, the PNM and PLF remained separate groups with seperate armies and leaders - althought they cooperated extensively over the course of the insurgency.

Following the Three Glorious Days and the enthronement of Lisette II, the Empress made a public proclamation of ending the terrorists by all means necessary. The Imperial Army had previously pursued a tactical counterinsurgency campaign, attempting to isolate villages and civilians in rural areas from contact with insurgents. The Empress reshaped this to be a total war policy, where large scale indiscrimate bombing of forests where any suspected rebel activity was commenced. In the meantime, infighting between the PNM and PLF, including questions over leadership in a united front and disputes between the groups led to the two splintering and turning on each other as well. Channels of communication between the Imperial Government and some leadership of the PNM was opened.

Eventually, insurgent leader Veikko Kekkonen, one of the paramount leaders of the PNM, struck a deal with the Government to turn on the rebels in exchange for his faction of the PNM having de facto control over resources and local governance in the region following the war. Kekkonen's betrayal turned a majority of the PNM forces on the insurgency, and assisted by the Imperial Army, a mass scale campaign of indiscriminate bombing and killing of anyone suspected to have rebel connections commenced, resulting in neaarly 100,000 deaths, and displacing almost 500 thousand people, almost all ethnic Põjhamaa.

The campaign was eventually successful in its military aims, securing de facto control of the Põjhamyrsky region to the PNM acting on the proxy of the Imperial Government. The mass killings were not targeted by ethnicity, nor were they meant to be an extermination or genocidal campaign, however the outcome has led many observers to label it as a de facto genocide. The PNM, led by Kekkonen, continues to govern the Põjhamyrsky region to this day at the behest of the Emperor, despite rising disputes between Kekkonen and the newly enthroned Frederik IV.

The PLF and its leadership, with most of its arms and militants relocated to the border regions of Peuramaa, along with the majority of the displaced refugees. The remainder of the PNM regrouped under the banner of the Põjhamaa National Movement (In Opposition) (PNMIO) and relocated to Peuramaa as well. The Aureumterran state continues to allege the Peuramaan government actively sheltering known terrorists. Since the end of the Põjhamyrsky conflict, terrorist attacks from these groups have continued in Aureumterra, resulting in civilian deaths of Aureumterran subjects.

Lisette II pursued a policy of internal counterterrorism, using I9 and Aureumterra's security apparatus to thwart terrorist plots to the best of its ability, however, this did not prove foolproof and many notable attacks continued throughout the 1980s and into the present. Since Frederik IV's enthronement, the Emperor has taken a more aggressive stance against Peuramaa and Lumisaari, making overtures to striking back and implicating the government as a state sponsor of terrorism. Aureumterra has furthermore pursued a policy of harshly criticizing aid to the Peuramaan state in any form, particularly from Velikoslavia, which it considers a strategic partner in the region.

Foreign Minister Lundholm has repeatedly hinted that, were the issue to come to blows, "HMDEIM will not hesitate to use all means necessary to wipe out the terrorist threat to His subject."