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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 12:15 pm
Time: 12:15 pm
Results for crime-conflict nexus
4 results foundAuthor: Felbab-Brown, Vanda Title: Myanmar Maneuvers: How to Break Political-Criminal Alliances in Contexts of Transition Summary: The Myanmar case study analyzes the complex interactions between illegal economies - conflict and peace. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the effects of illegal economies on Myanmar's political transitions since the early 1990s, including the current period, up through the first year of the administration of Aung San Suu Kyi. Described is the evolution of illegal economies in drugs, logging, wildlife trafficking, and gems and minerals as well as land grabbing and crony capitalism, showing how they shaped and were shaped by various political transitions. Also examined was the impact of geopolitics and the regional environment, particularly the role of China, both in shaping domestic political developments in Myanmar and dynamics within illicit economies. For decades, Burma has been one of the world's epicenters of opiate and methamphetamine production. Cultivation of poppy and production of opium have coincided with five decades of complex and fragmented civil war and counterinsurgency policies. An early 1990s laissez-faire policy of allowing the insurgencies in designated semi-autonomous regions to trade any products - including drugs, timber, jade, and wildlife - enabled conflict to subside. The incorporation of key drug traffickers and their assets into the state structures significantly strengthened the state and the military regime. The Burmese junta negotiated ceasefires with the insurgencies, and underpinned the agreements by giving the insurgent groups economic stakes in resource exploitation and illegal economies. Under pressure, including from China, opium poppy cultivation was suppressed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, even as unregulated and often illegal trade in timber, jade, and wildlife continued. Although local populations suffered major economic deprivation, the ceasefires lasted. The armed ethnic groups, however, did not lose their source of revenues, compensating for the diminished heroin business by switching to methamphetamines and, with the participation of Chinese businesses, augmenting the legal and illegal extraction of other resources, such as timber and gems. Since the middle of the 2000s, however, the ceasefires have started to break down, and violent conflict has escalated. As of this writing in February 2017, it is probably at its most intense at any time since the early 1990s. Among the reasons is the effort of the previous Myanmar government and military since 2008 as well as powerful Bamar and Chinese businessmen and powerbrokers (many linked to the military and military business conglomerates) to restructure the 1990s economic underpinnings of the ceasefires so their economic profits increase. Business conglomerates linked to the Tatmadaw, such as Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL), came to enjoy special access to the significant gem mines and other resource economies and trade more broadly, serving crucial political survival interests of the military. Control of the jade economy became a key enrichment and strategic priority for the junta. The military also sought to guarantee a steady pension for former Tatmadaw officials and soldiers and thus keep them from potentially rebelling. The MEHL and other military-linked economic conglomerates and cronies hence were accorded monopolies on the import of various consumer goods. Meanwhile, however, illegal and unregulated resource economies, including the drug trade, logging, mining, and wildlife trafficking, have thrived and devastate Burma's ecosystems, even as the plunder-underpinned peace has slid into war again. In 2011, the Myanmar military embarked on political and economic liberalization that, though a miscalculation of the military, culminated in the election of the Aung Sang Suu Kyi government in November 2015. However, the military has retained significant formal and informal power. Indeed, despite the military's electoral miscalculation, the entire transition had been at the discretion of the junta. Illicit economies played an integral part of the transition process, being a crucial element of the golden parachute that the junta awarded itself. Moreover, with its continuing lock on constitutional power, the military regime also guaranteed itself a sufficient budget. Any reforms that took place, including those directed at illicit economies, such as the embrace of greater transparency measures in mining, greater enforcement in logging, and the significant weakening the power of the cronies, were still at the direction of the military. Reforms and actions against illicit economies and organized crime that would not be advantageous to the military's institutional power or enrichment of key individuals have not taken place and could be subverted or vetoed by the key powerbrokers of the military. Similarly, the selective suppression of organized crime and aspects of the illicit economies has served crucial political and strategic objectives of the military. Nonetheless, under President Thein Sein, significant economic liberalization was in fact undertaken, with a surprising willingness to change economic arrangements with privileged economic actors. As a result of growing economic competition, the footprint of the military conglomerates and crony companies in the formal economy was reduced. Thein Sein also launched an anti-corruption drive, limited in its reach and determination mainly to the civil service, but nonetheless not insignificant. A comprehensive new land law was passed, and some stolen land was returned to local populations as a result of civil society mobilization. Details: Tokyo: United Nations University, 2017. 35p. Source: Internet Resource: Crime-Conflict Nexus Series: No 9: Accessed June 19, 2017 at: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2445/Myanmar-Maneuvers-How-to-Break-Political-Criminal-Alliances-in-Contexts-of-Transition.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Burma URL: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2445/Myanmar-Maneuvers-How-to-Break-Political-Criminal-Alliances-in-Contexts-of-Transition.pdf Shelf Number: 146260 Keywords: Crime-Conflict NexusIllegal DrugsIllegal LoggingResource ExploitationTrafficking in MineralsTrafficking in WildlifeWildlife CrimesWildlife Trafficking |
Author: Shaw, Mark Title: Global Illicit Flows and Local Conflict Dynamics: The Case for Pre-Emptive Analysis and Experimental Policy Options Summary: INTRODUCTION This paper seeks to address three interconnected policy questions: - First how do global illicit flows impact on local conflict dynamics? Are there specific conceptual features that can be identified that may assist us to analyse this phenomenon across cases? - By understanding these, second, what can be done to limit the negative impact of organised crime on violent conflict? Are new ideas required or is it only a question of recalibrating existing policy alternatives? - Third, what are the implications for international involvement in conflict affected states? Given the potential complexities of engaging in conflict spaces on what are often hidden or little understood criminal resource flows, are these even viable objectives for policy intervention, for either development or security actors? The paper draws at the outset on two contrasting case studies - that of conflict in Libya and Nigeria in the recent past - both of which have shaped our work and thinking on the topic. Libya and Nigeria have some interesting parallels and some important differences. In both cases the oil economy is an important resource and driver of some aspects of the conflict. However, in Libya's case transnational or cross-border flows and their control have played a more important role then in Nigeria. In the case of the latter, the Boko Haram insurgency shows little evidence of resourcing from wider criminal flows; the movement has largely survived on extortion or protection money of local trade to raise funds. In Libya, payments from proxies and the state (in the form of legal transfers) have sustained the conflict. In Libya the central state has little reach. In Nigeria, the central state is comparatively stronger, but suffers from a debilitating level of corruption, providing opportunities for collusion between state and non-state actors which sustain conflict. Thus, with respect to the conflict in the Niger Delta, there is strong complicity between state, business and criminal actors. While the paper's focus is largely on Africa, given that much of the discussion on the political economy of conflict has had a link to conflicts on the continent, it also seeks to build on our wider experience of working in and researching conflict zones elsewhere and engaging with the range of stakeholders involved. The discussion begins with a short overview of the history of the debate on the linkages between organised crime and conflict with an African focus. This schematic serves as an introduction to a series of analytical issues that we have drawn from both the Libyan and Nigerian case studies as well as our own analytical work conducted on organised crime and illicit networks in several other conflict zones. While we do not claim these to be a definitive list, we hope that they serve to promote debate about the state of the evolving discussion and the linkages between global flows and local conflicts. Referring to the connection between criminal flows and conflicts is not necessarily new. However, the scale of the challenge has changed as has the analytical discourse that is increasingly being adopted. The current debate in our views reflects a merging between an older literature on "greed or grievance" as a cause of conflict, and a newer (and less developed) one that has sought to identify organised crime as one 'driver' of conflict. Driver in this context has four overlapping dimensions: 1. Conflict over the control of illicit markets; 2. Illicit markets providing resources for continuing conflicts; 3. Illicit revenue streams associated with conflict (and the disruption that it brings) postponing peace by ensuring that incentives from the criminal economy are seen as more advantageous than from peace; and, 4. External resourcing of conflict actors and/or wide spread corruption associated with illicit markets which is a "bleeding sore" that erodes the state, preventing a decisive end to conflict (and through collusion in illicit markets provides incentives for state actors to gain from its continuance). As these points suggest, and as we will argue as the paper unfolds, there are important overlaps between the older work on "greed and grievance" and the emerging focus. What is lacking is a better way of conceptually framing the connections to allow a more sophisticated policy discussion. We conclude that policy in this area is better informed by identifying a set of principles around which to frame responses rather than a set of 'actions' that are unlikely to be replicable across conflicts. Details: Tokyo: University Nations University, 2017. 14p. Source: Internet Resource: Crime-Conflict Nexus Series: No 2: Accessed June 20, 2017 at: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2518/Global-Illicit-Flows-and-Local-Conflict-Dynamics.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Africa URL: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2518/Global-Illicit-Flows-and-Local-Conflict-Dynamics.pdf Shelf Number: 146316 Keywords: Crime-Conflict NexusIllicit GoodsIllicit marketsIllicit TradeOrganized Crime |
Author: Felbab-Brown, Vanda Title: Afghanistan Affectations: How to Break Political-Criminal Alliances in Contexts of Transition Summary: The case of Afghanistan analyzes how counterinsurgency, stabilization, and reconstruction dynamics have interacted with the generalized predatory criminality in Afghanistan and how the latter became the crux of Afghanistan's dire and fragile predicament. The transition choices by the Afghan government and the international community, particularly the embrace of problematic warlords for the sake of short-term military battlefield advantages and as tools of political cooptation, shaped and reinforced criminality and corruption in post-2001 Afghanistan and thus delegitimized the post-Taliban political dispensation. The analysis identifies four possible inflection points where the international community and the Afghan government could have fundamentally altered the course after the initial choices of the informal distribution of power and its connections to criminality were made in 2001. These four possible inflection points provided opportunities for tackling corruption and criminality in order to limit power abuse and strengthen the rule of law and political inclusiveness-namely: (1) the 2004 disarmament effort; (2) the beginning of the Obama administration and its surge of resources in Afghanistan; (3) the 2014 formation of the NUG whose two protagonists crucially campaigned on an anti-corruption platform; and (4) the 2015 missed opportunity to react resolutely to the Taliban's takeover of Kunduz City. But the international community and the Afghan government failed to take advantage of these possible inflection points. Or to the extent that they tried, such as during the first two years of the Obama administration, other strategic directives, timelines, and imperatives interfered with them and directly contradicted them. Thus, the anti-corruption and anti-criminality efforts were not underpinned by political heft and power, such as cutting off aid to or otherwise sanctioning particular powerbrokers. Hence pernicious individual powerbrokers and the political system quickly learned how to ride the anti-corruption and anti-crime efforts, further delegitimizing the system and enabling a significant intensification of the Taliban's insurgency in Afghanistan. No doubt, the Taliban itself has become deeply involved in all kinds of illicit economies, including drugs, timber, and gems. This involvement has grown over time despite the fact that since its inception in 1994 and as a product of the brutality and chaos of the 1990s civil war, the Taliban defined its purpose as improving governance in Afghanistan and acting against the rampant criminality that swept the country. Indeed, during the administration of President George W. Bush, it was the Taliban's involvement in the drug economy that received most international attention out of all the illicit economies, corruption, and predatory criminality that went on in Afghanistan. Yet the counternarcotics policies which were chosen both failed to accomplish their stated goal of bankrupting the Taliban and turned out to be highly counterproductive. Far from delegitimizing the Taliban in the eyes of local populations as a mere cartel or as narco-guerrillas, efforts to eradicate opium poppy cultivation as well as particular designs of drug interdiction allowed the Taliban to present itself a protector of people's livelihoods and thereby to obtain significant political capital. Thus, the international community mounted the most intense efforts precisely against the wrong type of illicit economy and criminality: the labor-intensive poppy cultivation that underpins much of the country's economic growth and provides elemental livelihoods and human security to vast segments of the rural population. Instead, the anti-crime efforts should have focused on the predatory criminality and non-labor intensive aspects of transactional crimes, such as drug smuggling. The Obama administration at least defunded eradication, but its efforts against predatory crime ultimately proved unsatisfactory. Its efforts against predatory criminality were held hostage to the administration's own strategic decision to define the mission there as principally one of limited couterterrorism and to de-emphasize state-building and also to impose restrictive and counterproductive timeliness on U.S. assistance, particularly military, efforts. Thus, from the very beginning of the U.S. intervention, when there was the largest window of opportunity to embrace Afghan aspirations for good governance and shape the outcome, and throughout 2014 when the number of U.S. troops in Aghanistan was radically reduced, Washington neglected to commit itself to rebuilding Afghanistan in the right way. And earlier inflection point that perhaps could have countered the basic mis-governance trends in the country and the rise of predatory criminality was in 2004 when the first disarmament effort was undertaken. However, that opportunity was missed, with most of the crucial warlords not fully and sufficiently disarmed. Details: Tokyo: United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, 2017. 37p. Source: Internet Resource: Crime-Conflict Nexus Series: No 8: Accessed June 20, 2017 at: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2442/Afghanistan-Affectations-How-to-Break-Political-Criminal-Alliances-in-Contexts-of-Transition.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Afghanistan URL: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2442/Afghanistan-Affectations-How-to-Break-Political-Criminal-Alliances-in-Contexts-of-Transition.pdf Shelf Number: 146319 Keywords: Crime-Conflict NexusDrug SmugglingDrug WarlordsIllegal EconomiesIllicit DrugsIllicit EconomiesOpiumPolitical Corruption |
Author: Jesperson, Sasha Title: Conflict Obscuring Criminality: The Crime-Conflict Nexus in Nigeria Summary: Both conflict and organised crime are deeply entrenched in Nigeria. In 2015, the Global Terrorism Index listed Boko Haram as the deadliest terrorist group, with Fulani militants in the Middle Belt of Nigeria responsible for the 4th most fatalities globally. Although there has been a reduction in fatalities in 2016, new militant groups emerged in the Niger Delta region, making Nigeria home to three active conflicts. Conflict in all three regions is connected to economic and political grievances, which suggests that armed groups are strategic in nature, responding to the needs of civilians in their area of operation. Increasing literature on the strategic nature of criminal organisations and warring parties highlights a variety of criminal and political motives that evolve over time, adapting to changing situations in order to maximise opportunities. While armed groups in all three regions may engage in criminality to sustain their activities, there is no evidence that they are filling governance roles or supporting civilians in their regions. In parallel, the World Bank identified conflict and fragility as creating conducive conditions for organised crime. While in some countries, such as Afghanistan and Colombia, illicit and criminal economies are closely linked to insurgency and conflict, this is not the case for Nigeria. Despite several conflict-affected regions and a high concentration of organised crime entities, for the most part crime and conflict remain separate. The prevalence of corrupt officials and the entrenchment of organised crime means that conflict is not required as a cover to move illicit goods. The banking and transport infrastructure of major cities is more important and useful, whereas the three conflicts underway in Nigeria are in rural areas. But criminal activity continues to influence local conflict dynamics in all three regions. Despite claims of a linkage by Boko Haram's leadership, organised crime entities have little to do with the group aside from supplying illicit goods. But Boko Haram has created a profitable protection economy in northeastern Nigeria that is exploited by many other groups and individuals. Organised crime activities in the Niger Delta are largely driven by politicians who use militant groups to assist and provide plausible deniability. Militants in the Middle Belt continue to engage in cattle rustling in order to target their opponents. Aside from the Delta region, criminality is not linked to global illicit flows, but in all three regions criminal activities are fuelling conflict. Given this complexity, this case study seeks to understand how crime and conflict intersect in Nigeria, focusing on the insurgency of Boko Haram and the emergence of new militant groups in the Niger Delta. The aim is to assess the impact of global illicit flows on local conflict dynamics, while also considering how international actors can respond. The paper first engages with the nature of conflict in Nigeria and how it has evolved alongside, but separate from 'organised' crime. The forms and function of criminal activity in the two conflict-affected regions is then discussed, followed by an analysis of the impact of criminality on conflict and some recommendations on how international actors can respond. The analysis presented in this case study is based on extensive desk-based research and fieldwork conducted in Nigeria in November 2016. Local researchers conducted fieldwork in Maiduguri, Kano and Yobe, interviewing government representatives, NGOs, and community members. In Lagos and Abuja, interviews were conducted with journalists, researchers, security analysts, government representatives, NGOs, UN agencies and embassy officials. Although fieldwork was not conducted in the Niger Delta region, NGOs and experts were consulted either in Lagos or Abuja or via Skype. Details: Tokyo: University Nations University, 2017. 14p. Source: Internet Resource: Crime-Conflict Nexus Series: No 4: Accessed June 20, 2017 at: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2455/Conflict-Obscuring-Criminality-The-Crime-Conflict-Nexus-in-Nigeria.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Nigeria URL: https://i.unu.edu/media/cpr.unu.edu/attachment/2455/Conflict-Obscuring-Criminality-The-Crime-Conflict-Nexus-in-Nigeria.pdf Shelf Number: 146323 Keywords: Cattle RustlingCrime-Conflict NexusIllicit GoodsOrganized Crime |