FIGHTING THE NEW TERROR IN UKRAINE

by Neel Chakrabarti with Vincent Lyn

Pursuing human traffickers in Kherson

Praetorian Global recently partnered with Chris Lomas of the charity Hope4 to fight human trafficking and crime in Moldova. However, our exploration took us to the center of the Ukrainian conflict and uncovered a shocking tragedy taking place amongst the cataclysm of war. 

Two books have helped me make sense of the chaos experienced whilst conducting this investigation: 'The economics of violence: How behavioral science can transform our view of crime, insurgency and terrorism' by Gary M. Shiffman and 'Death in the City of Light' by David King. Both opened my eyes to the range and depth of war and the multiple of ancillary narratives that lay beneath the surface. 

'The economics of violence: How behavioral science can transform our view of crime, insurgency and terrorism' was the first of its kind to remove the demarcation boundaries assigned by identity labels that often contribute to grave misunderstandings. If it is accepted that an organized crime network, a non-state terrorist organization, an insurgent group and a hostile state all operate in an immutable, specific and completely independent way then the concept of confluence within these criminal markets is completely lost. Identity labels can often hinder as much as help, Especially when they lead to a category error. A good example of this is when considering the offense of terrorist financing. Terrorist financing is considered to be a criminal offense in which a suspect provides financial support to terrorist groups.That definition is only sufficient when defining the terrorist organization solely as a one-dimensional terrorist group with purely political goals. Many terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, ISIS, FARC etc double as organized crime gr oups running various criminal enterprises such as protection rackets. Thus, if a payment is demanded by a terrorist organization from a successful business, and this demand is not complied with, then the corporate infrastructure of the non-compliant business will be targeted with extreme violence. Once the payment is made they are viewed as supporting terrorism. The 'terrorist' financier could just as easily be termed a victim of extortion using a different definition. In short, this book appealed to fluidity, first principles and diversity of knowledge when trying to make sense of crisis .

The relevance of this perspective quickly became apparent during our investigation in Ukraine. The intelligence was related to state-sponsored forcible abductions of women and children in Ukraine from a Moldovan source. The significance of the intelligence transformed what was a human traffic ing investigation into a war Crimes Investigation. War Crimes Investigations Are General Conducted One Hostilities Have Ended. Ever, The Best Evidence is Collected at the Scene of the Alleged Crimes, as is user for any inversion. 

The identity of the perpetrators changed the very nature of the inquiry. Different strategies, tools and legal mechanisms became part of the investigative roadmap, which were wildly different from a traditional human trafficking investigation. The International Criminal Court is the only perman ent international court with Jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. There are strong arguments that either Article 6 (Genocide) or Article 7 (Crimes against humanity) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court have been violated. Article 7 appears the most relevant,but a further complication is that crimes against humanity lack a clear definition and there is an ongoing movement by the war crimes committee calling for a multilateral convention focusing on clarifying the aforementioned atrocity crime.