Satu Pulau Satu Negara
Overview
History
Ethno-cultural differences combined with a significant socioeconomic gap and differing interpretations of Belesia?s majority religion, Islam, created a situation where the Mindamoro felt marginalised and oppressed. This was exacerbated when, shortly after independence, the Belesian government attempted to eliminate unrest on Mindanao through a strategy of "plantation". This involved incentivising internal immigration to the island as a form of population replacement. By the middle of the 1950s immigrants from other Belesian islands outnumbered the Mindamoro by four to one and frictions were compounded by the fact that many of the new immigrants were granted rights to land which had been considered by the Mindamoro to be traditional tribal possessions. Adding further tension was the fact that much of the infrastructure built in the rapidly growing towns was seen as being provided in spite of, rather than for the Mindamoro population, leading to their being effectively cut out of civil and commercial society by the newcomers.
Constant low level conflict, occasionally flaring into small scale warfare, plagued the island for most of the latter half of the twentieth century, prompting the Belesian government to attempt a variety of programs to pacify the region. One of the earlier plans involved the granting of university scholarships en masse to Mindamoro males in an attempt to "civilise" the largely rural and tribal groups. Contact with university culture, combined with the realisation of how negatively they were viewed in major urban centres led to the emergence of a number of ideologically motivated separatist activist groups. Many of these espoused political strategies, but some favoured armed resistance. The SPSN was one such armed group which quickly attracted attention and support in the form of arms and funding from various Islamic nations such as Ariana and rogue states such as North Torbia. Their early success locally can be attributed to their strict adherence to the Shafi?i madhab, a juristic version of Islam and the original version of the faith brought by their mediaeval settler and trader ancestors. This helped to enhance their local image of being defenders of Mindamoro peoples and religions against the influx of mostly Hanbali Muslim urban immigrants who came to both the island and greater Belesia over the course of the twentieth century.
The SPSN quickly grew to an estimated twenty thousand members by the early 1960s, peaking in the 1980s at approximately thirty to forty thousand members. The SPSN began conventional warfare against Belesian military and security forces, but rapid and heavy losses resulted in a quick transition to guerrilla and asymmetric tactics. Easily able to claim territory, which they call "camps", in poorly administrated remote areas of Mindanao, the SPSN subsumed the role of local government in sizeable stretches of territory often encompassing several large villages. They did not, however, gain control of any cities.
Alliances
| Group | Relationship | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tantoco Cartel | Ally | SPSN fighters will frequently contract for criminal enterprises such as the Tantoco Cartel, and therefore tend to maintain good relations with them. |
| Free Sulu Movement | Neutral | Despite multiple attempts to join forces, SPSN has never been able to successfully forge an alliance with the FSM, despite strenuous efforts on both sides. These repeated attempts, however, have guaranteed a level of peaceful co- |
| Visayan People?s Front | Rival | SPSN fighters will usually attack VPF cadres on sight, and vice versa. The depth of this enmity originates in the deadly violence between Muslim and Christian militias which erupted in various islands in the late fifties and sixties. Members of VPF leadership were key players on the Christian side, and the feud had never been forgotten. |