POPULATION:	31 Million
LITERACY RATE:	49%
SELF DEFENSE FORCES:	EDF
LANGUAGES:	eleven official languages, including Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu
ETHNIC GROUPS:	Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, and Bapedi
BORDERING COUNTRIES:	Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia,  Zimbabwe

SOUTH AFRICA- Mired in turmoil for decades, suffering under apartheid and inner strife, things began to look up for South Africa in the late 90's.  The world wide push that ended apartheid in South Africa in 1990, led to 4 years of bloody atroes and genocidal civil war as the whole country seemingly went insane.  Finally things calmed down, although in the more remote regions tribal wars and atroes against whites continued on a lesser scale.  With the election of President Nelson Mandela in 94, South Africa started turning itself around.  It was a long slow road and the damage done to the country had been more than at first realized.  After a brief war with Botswana in 96 over border disputes, many of the black population became disheartened at the slow time it was taking to change, and bloody riots and outbreaks were still fairly common, mostly against whites.  The white population was extremely bitter, and by 2006 most who could had fled to europe or asia.  And then just as things were beginning to look bright tragedy struck in the form of the wasting plague.

 South Africa was one of the countries in Africa most prepared for it, but its vast land expanses and still relatively poor health systems meant little care could reach outside the major es.  So the majority of people inside the es were saved, but the majority of people outside were unable to receive aid and died.  It also left the economy shattered.  It was even worse in Lesotho and Maputo who were so devastated that they had no choice but to once again become part of South Africa.  In 2010 a new president, Daviv Mosumba was elected, and almost immediately he went to bed with the europeans.  Many blame his greed, some his ego, but regardless his open invitation and lack of control of the new european corporations that flocked to the country severely crippled his relationship with the people.  Fear of a resurgence of minority rule, or corporate rule (which was considered by most to be one and the same), was still very real to the people of South Africa, and after months of tension it boiled to the surface.  Open rioting began in Johannesburg after an incident involving MESinc., a European corporation, similar to and in competition with Trauma Team.  During the extraction of a white business owner the crew of the MESinc. AV-6 allegedly mistook a group of civilians for hostiles and opened fire, killing 22 innocent people.  The initial riots were soon quelled, but after charges were dropped against the AV crew bloody riots erupted that made the Watts and LA incidents in America look like a school yard brawl.  Africans stormed through the es, attempting to lay waste to everything with a european logo, and beat, killed and raped every raped found on the streets.  The riots didn't die, instead they seemed to turn overnight into civil war.  The South African military was called in, but many of the soldiers refused to fight, in some cases entire divisions turned to the rebels side.  The rebels known as the Black Liberation Army grow even stronger.  Things get worse when Arasaka dicovers rare metals underneath a training ground and begins to illegally mine them, ignoring the native complaints.  In a deal with the BLA  Arasaka buys the rights to the land.  After corporate pressure and a failed coup on the president which resulted in him losing an arm he let the EDF loose in his country, turning full control of his remaining military over to the Europeans.  What followed was a long bloody police action which finally ended after the assassination of the rebel leader Jonda Bukata and her council in 2018.  Now South Africa is once again on the road to recovery. Although the Europeans are in full control of the countries military it remains a somewhat independent country.  Mosumbo is even deeper in the pocket of the EEC and anti-EEC resentment lays under the surface of nearly every smile in South Africa.  Most of the surviving rebel forces have fled to the north, and occasionally conflict still breaks out in the region.