The challenge of organized crime in the Balkans and the political and economic implications

Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics

Volumn 23, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 327-351

  Giatzidis, Emil ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34548652112     PISSN: 13523279     EISSN: 17439116     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13523270701507022     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. 'Rule of law' is a shorthand term for a legal system in which justice is administered openly and fairly according to prescribed statutes and regulations; individuals and organizations are held accountable; judges are impartial; minority rights are protected; access to the courts is available to all; and legitimate court rulings are enforced. It encompasses both criminal and civil law, the latter being crucial for economic development.
2. The difficulty of capturing theoretically organized crime is portrayed by the fact that even the traditional perception of hierarchically structured crime groups is being challenged. According to Europol, recent developments suggest that 'a greater percentage of powerful crime groups are far more cellular in structure, with loose affiliations made and broken on a regular basis and less obvious chains of command': Europol, European Union Crime Report (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2003), p.8.
3. Albanians in the Balkans are divided into two distinct groups with different dialects and social structures. Those who live in the former Yugoslavia and the mountainous regions of the northern half of Albania are known as Ghegs. Those who live south of the Shkumbini River are Tosks. The traditional social organization of the Ghegs was tribal, based upon a tightly knit clan system connecting various isolated homesteads, and thus more fragmented than that of the lowland village-based Tosks. Since in the pre-communist period the Ghegs were overwhelmingly nationalist and anti-communist, the Tosk-dominated communist regime suppressed the Ghegs both politically and culturally. Although contained under communism, most of the Code's elements have reappeared in the post-communist period. A thorough account of the Code of Lek Dukagjin is provided by Shtjefën Gjeçov (ed.), The Code of Lekë Dukagjini/Kaunui I Lekë Dukagjinit, trans. Leonard Fox (New York: Gjonlekaj, 1989).
4. Uros Komlenovic,'State and Mafia in Yugoslavia', East European Constitutional Review, Feature: Crime and Corruption after Communism, Vol.6, No.4 (Fall 1997) p.72.
5. Center for the Study of Democracy, Corruption and Illegal Trafficking: Monitoring and Prevention, 2nd edn (Sofia: CSD, 2000), p.12.
6. Ivan Krastev, 'The Balkans, Democracy without Choices', Journal of Democracy, Vol.13, No. 3 (2002), p.41.
7. For example, Franjo Tudjman and his associates, during the decade of his rule, turned Croatia into a state ruled by a small, corrupt, privileged and greedy clique. After Tudjman's death in 1999 and his party,s electoral defeat shortly afterwards, an investigation revealed that Croatian diaspora funds intended for weapons purchases during the early 1990s were mostly used by Tudjman,s political circle to buy up companies that were being privatized.
8. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, Nations Hospitable to Crime and Terrorism (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2003), p.86.
9. Ian Traynor, 'Milošević Ally Linked to Heroin Stash', The Guardian, 16 March 2001.
10. John Mueller, 'The Banality of Ethnic War', International Security Vol.25, No.1 (2000), p.50.
11. The illegal arms trade has been fed by an estimated 550,000 military weapons that were removed from military stockpiles. Although only about half of the weapons have been recovered in the government's guns-for-money swap programmes, in August 2002 the government abolished the special police unit assigned to collect weapons. Continued discoveries of weapons caches in the former Ground Safety Zone (a buffer strip between Serbia proper and Kosovo) indicate that large numbers of illegal arms are still in circulation.
12. Robert Hislope, 'Crime in a Disorganized State: How Corruption Contributed to Macedonia's Mini-War', Problems of Post-Communism, Vol.49, No.3 (2002), pp.1-9.
13. United States Institute of Peace, Lawless Rule versus Rule of Law in the Balkans, Special Report 97 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2002), p.10.
14. See also Andreas Heinemann-Gruder and Wolf-Christian Paes, Wag the Dog: The Mobilization and Demobilization of the KLA (Skopje: Bonn International Center for Conversion, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, 2001).
15. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2006: Events of 2005 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2006), p.396.
16. Umberto Pascali, 'KLA and Drugs: The "New Colombia of Europe" Grows in Balkans', Executive Intelligence Review, Vol.28, No.24 (22 June 2001) pp.70-73.
17. United National Development Programme, Early Warning Report Macedonia December 2005 (Skopje: UNDP, 2005), p.18.
18. That was the case of Bulgaria in the mid-1990s when semi-criminal structures, mostly bogus so-called 'insurance companies', criminalized society. In order to increase demand for their services, they had to induce violence in the society, create a supportive subculture, and 'invent' relevant industries such as gambling, prostitution, etc.
19. Peter Lock, Pervasive Illicit Small Arms Availability: A Global Threat, HEUNI Paper No.14 (Helsinki: European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, 1999), p.8.
20. Ase B. Grodeland, Tatyana Y. Koshechkina and William L. Miller, 'Foolish to Give and Yet More Foolish Not to Take: In-depth Interviews with Post-communist Citizens on their Everyday Use of Bribes and Contacts', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.50, No.4 (1998), pp.651-77 (p.653).
21. Kempe Ronald Hope, Sr, 'Corruption and development in Africa', in Kempe Ronald Hope, Sr and Bornwell C. Chikulu (eds.), Corruption and Development in Africa: Lessons from Country Case-Studies (New York: St. Martin's, 2000), pp. 17-39 (p.19).
22. Daniel Treisman, 'The Causes of Corruption: A Cross-national Study', Journal of Public Economics, Vol.76, No.3 (2000), pp.399-457 (p.439).
23. Southeast European Legal Development Initiative - SELDI, Anti-corruption in Southeast Europe: First Steps and Policies (Sofia: Center of the Study of Democracy, 2002), p.6.
24. In both countries the fight against corruption has become the focus of government policy efforts but still the number of successful prosecutions remains low, particularly for high-level political corruption. Moreover, since 2000 more than 150 contract killings in public places took place in Bulgaria with no convictions yet made. The most recent is the case of Emil Kyulev, one of the richest men in Bulgaria, the head of DZI Group, the biggest insurance and banking firm in the country with more than 12,000 employees and with close connections to all the major political parties, who was killed in broad daylight in October 2005.
25. Krastev, 'The Balkans, Democracy without Choices', pp.44 and 52.
26. Pino Arlacchi, Mafia Business: The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Martin Ryle (London: Verso, 1986), pp.229-30.
27. Kosovo-based groups have also been known to make investments abroad, and there are reports of assets being held across Europe. This is a relatively invisible financial consequence of crime; criminal network investments in the financial sector in stable Western economies bring about a criminalization of legal capital in Europe and North America.
28. According to 2003 official data, the unemployment rate in Kosovo was about 50 per cent of the labour force, in Macedonia almost 40 per cent, in Bosnia more than 42 per cent, in Montenegro above 25 per cent, with the lowest figures seen in Serbia at 14.6 per cent, in Albania about 15 per cent, in Bulgaria 13.6 per cent and in Romania 7.1 per cent.
29. United National Development Programme, Human Development Report Serbia 2005: The Strength of Diversity (Belgrade: UNDP Country Office, 2005), p.33.
30. H. Anderson and Cheryl W. Gray, Anticorruption in Transition 3. Who Is Succeeding... and Why? (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006), p.82.
31. Anastas Angjeli, 'The Challenge of Terrorism and Crime', Mediterranean Quarterly, Vol.14, No.3 (2003), pp.34-40 (p.40).