Finding political solutions to conflicts should take priority as the main precondition for rebuilding or extending functional state capacity that is essential for effectively tackling organized crime. This explains why the fight against organized, especially transnational, crime should not be divorced from conflict resolution efforts. In such conflict areas, organized crime and the shadow economy can only be effectively addressed once the state has already regained some basic elements of functionality, such as the ability to provide minimal law and order. The case of Afghanistan shows the multifunctional role that the deeply embedded opium economy plays in conflict and post-conflict environments: not only financing armed opposition groups, but yielding profits to most major local politico-military actors, including those loyal to the government, alongside criminal trafficking networks. While overall global crime levels increase slowly, 2009 saw a notable rise in some types of transnational crime, including in armed conflict.Īs demonstrated by the rising piracy based in Somalia, high-profile criminal business in some conflict settings may have even broader transnational implications and resonance than the conflict itself. Decline in numbers of armed conflicts since the early 1990s has not been matched by a global decline in homicide rates. On a global level, criminal violence is far more widespread than organized political violence. In a complex web of fragmented violence, militias and other local powerbrokers fight for control of power and resources and exploit opportunities offered by insecurity and war economy. Traditional distinctions between politico-military groups contesting control over territory or government and criminal actors prioritizing illicit profit become less relevant in conflict areas, especially in dysfunctional or failed states. Growing reliance by armed non-state actors on shadow economic activity contributes to the erosion of boundaries between political and criminal violence. Criminal groups and profit-driven motives account for a substantial proportion of violence in many areas of armed conflict.
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