This press message was released by the Government of the Federal Commonwealth of Sekowo.
The nations of Sekowo and Beiteynu have been at odds for years, centuries even. During our expansions, undertaken over a century ago, we moved to incorporate into our Federal Commonwealth's Protectorate the small island of Tropica. This provoked an uproar from the Jews of Beiteynu. “Our homeland,” they cried! “Our ancestors! Our culture!” Beiteynu demanded it back, claiming it to be part of Squibble, a wasteland that the Federal Commonwealth had no interest in. Their claim was summarily denied. They took it to the international stage, and it was again and again denied. As our colonization continued, a certain Christian Zionist Party anonymously fabricated stories of the natives being mistreated by the Sekowan explorers and colonizers, absolute bunk.
I submit to Sekowo and Beiteynu both that this latest request is just as ridiculous as the last. You Beiteynuese try to woo us with sugar and honey, as your threats of military intervention had died without even spreading their deformed and fledgling wings. Your “homeland,” you still claim, and it is still not a proper claim. Can Sekowo lay claim to Artania? It has thriving civilizations, and it was indeed the birthplace of millions of ancestors of the Sekowan people. Your “ancestral people,” yet they are farther removed from you than we are from Artanians. As for your “culture,” I remember seeing no Stars of David, no menorahs, no yarmulkas, nothing like that in the reports of the natives.
But this insult to our intelligence is not the greatest yet. No, the greatest is that you expect us to give up an island which Sekowans worked to build. An island whose infrastructure is unchangeably Sekowan. An island whose people have been Sekowans as long as almost all of them can remember. But even worse is that you ofer a piddling one-fourth of tourism profits (not even gross revenues, profits!) for less than a third of the time we have held Tropica as a protectorate!
We have not forgotten the threats and blind antagonism of Beiteynu in the past, and we shall not give up the product of a century of Sekowan lives for a trivial sum of money.Signed,
the Government of the Federal Commonwealth of Sekowo
