THE OCCUPATION of Panama in 1993 by the United States began a twenty-year era of Yankee domination of that small country. The occupation began as a reaction to the rise of right-wing death squads after the assassination of President Argenta. When these quasi-military units began intimidating and then killing United States citizens, the RDF was dispatched to occupy Panama City. The landing of the 82nd Airborne along the coastal plains meant the virtual destruction of the local “defense force.” In a matter of weeks the U.S. had completely overwhelmed the country, and radicalized all of the other Central American nations in the process. The Panamanian occupation and the annexation of Northern Mexico were two of the greatest factors that brought about the formation of the Confederation.
Once the United States had occupied Panama, it was left with the problem of what to do with the country. The current administration had to run on the Free Enterprise ticket. As a result the entire country was leased to the Tirner Corporation. It was the ultimate step in corporate government, the leasing of a conquered nation to a private corporation.
In order to administrate Panama thousands of administrators were imported from the States. Soon the corporate headquarters of the Tirner Corporation was moved to Panama City, bringing a further influx of almost ten thousand former residents of Atlanta. The reaction of the Panamanians was to be expected. A war of liberation, complete with arms supplied by their neighbors, gained momentum. The response was also as expected, a growing sense of alienation and a concurrent increase in violent repression.
After over a decade, the managers formed a separate society within that of Panama. Dwelling in separate enclaves, the Tirner managers and their families had virtually no contact with the residents of the country they controlled. Soon they developed their own culture, consciously modeled upon that of the antebellum South. Soon hundreds of persons whose parents had never been within thousands of miles of the Old South were enjoying mint juleps.
In 2008 the election of the People’s Party resulted in the revocation of the occupation contract, Not surprisingly, the executives of the Tirner Corporation refused to relinquish control. Unwilling to repeat its earlier assault, the United States placed an embargo on the country and refused to negotiate with their former citizens. This increasing isolation enhanced the cultural shift by the managers, until they had nearly succeeded in recreating most of the forms of the antebellum South, substituting economic for legal slavery. Considering the similarity of the situations, their system proved quite successful.
When the Confederation finally achieved enough strength to mandate an end to the situation, the Panamanian managers had been in place for a generation. Further, their skills and expertise were too valuable to be simply destroyed. Equally important was the fact that massive wealth was still controlled by the Tirner managers. Still, the Confederation could not allow a continuation of the situation. Nor could the members of the unpopular culture of the Tirner executives safely remain once they had lost their control of the population.
The Confederation’s solution was both inspired and amazingly effective. The former Tirner executives, as a group were assisted in a mass immigration to Ganymede. The result was a complete success. The Tirner “Southerners” were able to transplant and maintain their already isolated culture into an area where their expertise and initiative would be of the most benefit. The Confederation turned a problem into an asset. When war with the United Nations became inevitable, there was no question as to where the transported Southerners’ loyalties would lie. Their pilots formed some of the most highly decorated units in the Confederation Interstellar Aviation Corps.