Blowing up all of the various bits of infrastructure around the island in Just Cause 2 doesn't cause the citizens as a whole to start rioting or rebelling. However, it does help the groups that are fighting it. Duh, people are joining one of the three factions against the dictator rather than fighting on their own!
The secret resource of Panau is oil which isn't so much a spoiler because the island is littered with pipelines, fuel depots, and gas stations.
Why is there a ship in the middle of a desert? Because the desert is actually a recently dried up ocean bed, like the Aral sea. The proof? "Lautan Lama" means "Formerly a sea" in Indonesian.
Rico's very own name has a nice meaning for the context of the story. Rico as a word in Spanish means "rich", which makes sense for him as his profession of being an Agent for the CIA means that he is paid handsomely for his work. Rico as a name means, "strong" or "hardy", Rico is a very strong soldier and is quite hardy or durable in the face of the all the danger he faces on a regular basis. Rico can some times be a derivative of the name Ricardo which means, "Powerful leader". Rico works for the United States which is in fact a powerful country, a "powerful leader", with a great deal of influence in global politics, and also acts as a (very effective) leader for various groups of gang members in the takeover missions.
In one cutscene, Rico says "Considering the value of the Panauan buck, shooting you would have been more expensive." What's one of the most common and convenient ways to refill ammo on your guns? Just ordering another gun from the Black Market and refilling your ammo off of that.
Two of them occur with the Chevalier Ice Breaker:
Out of all of the Black Market vehicles, the Ice Breaker is the only one that's bright pink instead of the usual black. Why? Because a bright-pink ice cream truck is arguably less conspicuous than the myriad of black-colored government(-esque) vehicles that comprise the rest of your arsenal.
You have to destroy government infrastructure in order to destabilize the country. In addition, you receive no real negative feedback for killing civilians (unlike, say, Mercenaries). Why are you doing this? Because the new leader (admittedly a pretty nasty fellow) didn't want to dance to the United States' tune. Yes, you are basically committing state terrorism.
To be fair, Baby Panay's bad enough that Saddam looks like a cute cuddly kitten of peace and happiness.
Get a good look at the factions' territories and the way they're spread across the island. Panau is going to be a hotbed of violent infighting between them long after Baby Panay's been deposed and the oil fields nuked.
Gang leaders seem to be unusually confident when flying in one helicopter with Rico, despite knowing fully just whohe is.
Or maybe they're confident because they know who he is, and he's on their side each time he comes with them. Besides, Rico does need himself to be on good terms with them.
At one point, Rico goes "I hate Ninjas" when a trio of them appear. How often does this guy fight Ninjas to know he hates them?
He's Rico and he's always in for trouble, so anything that he fights, he hates.
Several powerful countries are interested in Panau's resources and have agents working there, but no one seems to care about Panau having nukes being sent their way.
Then again, the U1 carries nuclear missiles, but it only ever displays and fires them in the final mission. Baby Panay probably wanted to prepare a nasty surprise for them.
, said tune bears some resemblance to the Cavalry Charge