Decades of Suspension

The Decades of Suspension is the common name for the conflict in Histalpol between "Evolved Organised Crime" organisations and Histalian security forces, including police and the Histalian territorial army (Armée Territoriale). The Decades of Suspension started in the late 1960s, running parallel with the Irish Troubles and is considered by many to have ended with the signing of the Fortstole Agreement in 1992, however, organised crime has not depleted entirely in Histalpol.

The Decades of Suspension primarily came around with the evolution of organised crime groups to their worst years in which they followed the Irish Republicans modus operadi of using attacks with no civilian causalities, and as few state force casualties and little damage as possible, and used this to blackmail money out of organisations and councils to not bomb the areas affected again, as well as scaring the public into buying weapons sold by them for self-defence, along side selling weapons to the Irish Republicans.

Background
Since the end of World War 2, organised crime grew, originally from soldiers returning from war and unable to support their families. This had slowly escalated through the 1940s, 50s and into the 60s until it groups were not exclusive to former soldiers but also increased to more serious crimes such as robbery, counterfeiting, racketeering and rarely murder. During the 60s, the Troubles intensified in Ireland, giving organised crime groups open chances for further profits through a wider amount of crime. Running parallel to the Troubles, the organised crime groups began to sell arms and explosives to the Irish republicans.

As well as this, organised crime groups started using the modus operandi of republican groups like the Official and Provisional IRA, in committing victimless attacks against establishments, because of limited or none existent causalities through informing authorities of times and locations of bombs, but added on blackmail to these establishments including government and council buildings, banks, retail venues, locations holding major events and other major targets that pay a large profit for them not to attack them again, which they often withheld and very often never attacked the same establishment more than once.

As a response to the uprising on attacks, organised crime groups also drummed up support for the sales of weapons by their groups to the public for defence against them, once again giving another chance to solicit money from the public through illegal means.

The start of the war has been disputed largely by Histalian historians, but the most accepted date that the war started was the declaration of war between the Irish UVF and the IRA. This declaration was thought to have started the organised crime groups practises of selling arms and explosives to the IRA. Another date that is widely known as the start of the war was the first attack which was by the largest crime syndicate in Histalpol at the time, O'Douggle's Army, which also had an Irish leader named Lochlann O'Douggle. The attack was against the Sivonshire Building Society in Sivonshire in which damage had been done to the lobby of the headquarters which was evacuated with the rest of the building but police not attend to the bomb threat given.

1970 Milrun-Scott Scandal
A major event that changed the course of the war was a scandal revolving around the term of Chancellor Milrun-Scott of Emerald party who had won the chancellorship in 1968. During 1970, Milrun-Scott was thrown out of chancellorship and his upper house in the Major Exposition Hall after mass protesting and riots against a variety of issues with his term.

Milrun-Scott during his term from 1968 was focussed more in raising company and civilian taxes and cutting budgets from public sectors such as Histalpol National Networks (HNN) and Nationale Télécom-Radio Corporation (NTRaC), which dramatically broke his election promises. This caused mass protesting and strikes and into the later section of his term, riots against him. Accompanying this in his downfall was a scandal amongst the Major Exposition House members of the Emerald Party when it was revealed by Le Classique Federal that some members were accepting bribes to not let some acts pass from organised crime groups, as well as claiming luxury items on their expenses made from MJEH.

On 18 May 1970, Milrun-Scott resigned from his position as chancellor and months later on 6 August 1970 after an emergency election, Chancellor Félicien of Travailleurs D'origine Party (TDP) was sworn into chancellorship which changed the political leaning from right wing to left wing politics and lead to a swift entry into war against organised crime, and in 1971 created the Civilian Crimson Guards which replaced the police and the Histalian Armée Territoriale with the tasks of counter-terrorism, man-hunts, raids and hostage rescue.

1970s Escalation
During the 1970s, organised crime groups, new and off-spring from the original organised crime groups because of a change in approach in their methods. These new crime groups did not care for civilian causalities as they saw it as a better way to scare the public into buying their guns and blackmailing governments and companies because of the new fear of civilian causalities. By this time the Civilian Crimson Guards, police and the armed forces of Histalpol managed to decrease the rate of attacks, but with this change in method, this meant that though the rates had gone down, the severity of the attacks increased dramatically.

The first attack that was recorded as a "mass murder" (as set by the Ministry of Justice as 4 deaths and above) occurred outside of a Industrielle Banque de Histalpol bank in Madison which killed 5. The bomb detonated inside of a briefcase placed between the bank and a bus stop, killing 5 people and injuring 7.