EX-SBS RADIO BOSS UNAWARE OF ASIO PHONE TAP
by Sasha Uzunov
Mr Peter Horton (pictured above), the former Melbourne radio station manager of Australia's multicultural public broadcaster SBS, has told TEAM UZUNOV of his surprise that Australia's domestic counter-intelligence service was tapping SBS telephones.
"If I had known, I would have let the management in Sydney know about," he said. "I would ask why was ASIO tapping the phones? I don't think that SBS office receptionists or staff knew about it."
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), according to newly de-classified files, monitored an SBS radio journalist and newsreader with the Macedonian language program, Mr Boris Trajkov, before and during his tenure at SBS (1975-2000). TEAM UZUNOV broke the story in a previous blog.
The 66 page file on Mr Trajkov has surveillance notes and transcripts of tapped (bugged) telephone conversations, including a 1983 phone call made by a member of the public, a listener, to what is believed to be the SBS Radio (3EA) Melbourne Croatian language program.
Because of the 30 year rule relating to the release of government documents, it is unknown if ASIO kept monitoring SBS telephones or if any other SBS staff member had their phone bugged.
TEAM UZUNOV provided a copy of the bugged phone call transcript for Mr Horton to read.
The ASIO file can be viewed at the National Archives of Australia website
Mr Horton said that as Station Manager had he become aware he would have questioned the reason for and the legality of ASIO tapping SBS telephones.
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) caters to Australia's many ethnic groups and consists of two components: television (which was established in 1980) and radio (established in 1975 as two stations in Melbourne known as 3EA and 2EA in Sydney).
Mr Horton was Melbourne SBS Radio Station (3EA) Manager from 1988 to 1996 before serving two years as National Marketing Director. He left the public braodcaster in 1998 to set up his own successful marketing business LOTE.
ASIO MONITORED SBS JOURNALIST – BORIS TRAJKOVBy Sasha Uzunov Australia’s domestic counter-intelligence service monitored a Melbourne SBS Radio journalist before and during his tenure at the multicultural public broadcaster because of his association to Yugoslav diplomats during the 1970s and 80s, newly de-classified files reveal. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) opened a file in 1971 on Mr Boris Trajkov who joined SBS Radio (then known as 3EA) in 1975 as a Macedonian language program newsreader and journalist until his departure in 2000 from SBS. read on....
Australia’s domestic
counter-intelligence service monitored a Melbourne SBS Radio journalist before
and during his tenure at the multicultural public broadcaster because of his
association to Yugoslav diplomats during the 1970s and 80s, newly de-classified
files reveal.
The Australian Security
Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) opened a file in 1971 on Mr Boris Trajkov who
joined SBS Radio (then known as 3EA) in 1975 as a Macedonian language program
newsreader and journalist until his departure in 2000 from SBS.
ASIO took an intense
interest in Trajkov because of his association with Yugoslav diplomats,
including Dr Georgi (George) Trajkovski, the Yugoslav Consul General in
Melbourne from 1975-79.
The ASIO file lists Boris
Trajkov’s financial affairs, car registration, purchase of house, his business
interests in running a restaurant called the Golden Grill, his political activities, and his work at
3EA Radio (SBS).
ASIO tapped (bugged) telephone conversations as well as conducting surveillance operations and speaking to informants in gathering information on Trajkov. SBS (3EA) Melbourne office switchboard was also monitored by ASIO.
The 66 page file has been placed with the National Archives of Australia and is available for viewing on its website . TEAM UZUNOV applied and was given access to Mr Trajkov's ASIO file after waiting six months. The file covers the period from 1971 to 1983 under the National Archives Act or better known as the 30 year rule.
A sample of the file.
TEAM UZUNOV will be seeking a response from Mr Trajkov and SBS Management. Tuesday 11 December 2012 MR TRAJKOV's response: THE CONSUL AND I WERE JUST FRIENDS
Mr Boris Trajkov said that he was not surprised that ASIO was monitoring him because of his high profile within both the Macedonian and Yugoslav communities:
"They were doing their job...That was a normal situation...I was one of the most educated people here in Australia when I arrived."
Mr Trajkov, according to the ASIO files arrived in Australia in 1967 from Macedonia, then part of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until its independence in 1991.
Mr Trajkov said that ASIO had tried to recruit him as an inside source or informer but had failed.
"I'm sure that I heard that from inside information that they give up because I was too open."
Mr Trajkov was an officer bearer with the Co-Ordinating Committee of Yugoslav Orgainsations, the Australian Yugoslav Welfare Society, and the Sveti Georgi (Saint George) and Sveti Prorok Ilija (Saint Elijah the Prophet) Macedonian Orthodox Churches in Melbourne. He was also a Macedonian language broadcaster and journalist with SBS Radio (3EA) in Melbourne from 1975 until his departure in 2000.
Mr Trajkov said he was a politician in Macedonia, then within Communist Yugoslavia before migrating to Australia.
Mr Trajkov dismissed claims of anything sinister over his friendship with then Yugoslav Consul General of Melbourne (1975-79), Dr Georgi Trajkovski (pictured below pointing to Yugoslav map on the wall with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in 1979)
Dr Georgi Trajkovski's ASIO file reveals that he had boasted in 1976 of infiltrating the Croatian and Macedonian communities and putting them under Communist Yugoslav control.
Mr Boris Trajkov said they were good friends who went shopping together but never discussed anything that was not appropriate.
"I was friends with Georgi Trajkovski and with other diplomats and Macedonian [post 1991] diplomats and the Macedonian ambassador," he said.
ASIO was interested in Mr Trajkov's restaurant the Golden Grill in Melbourne.
In response, Mr Trajkov said:
"The restaurant wasn't just a Macedonian or Yugoslav restaurant but a restaurant in general...people coming not just different ethnic groups from Yugoslavia but business people, professional people, many singers from the former Yugoslavia and Macedonia... Many diplomats knew me so they would come for dinner."
Mr Trajkov said he was proud of his achievements both in the Macedonian and Yugoslav communities. He was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to the Macedonian community in 1990. However, opposition to Mr Trajkov developed in the late 1980s over his driving role, with support from Federal ALP Members of Parliament Dr Harry Jenkins Senior and Lewis "Bata" Kent, in building an Australian-Yugoslav Welfare Society Childcare Centre in Lalor, in the heart of a large Macedonian migrant population, many of whom were ethnic Macedonians from within the modern borders of Greece and felt marginalised or saw it as a way of dividing the community. A disillusionment with Yugoslavia began to take hold within the Australian-Macedonian community in the late 1980s as Belgrade was seen as not standing up for Macedonian ethnic rights in Greece. In 1991 Yugoslavia disintegrated into the successor states of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia(Serbia-Montenegro), Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and later Kosovo in 1999. The whole region was racked by war for nearly a decade. In 1988 The Australian Macedonian Weekly newspaper and its editor Jim Thomev campaigned against Mr Trajkov's Yugoslav Childcare Centre in Lalor as this front page shows:
Mr Thomev wrote: "If Mr Trajkov believes that he has the legitimacy to represent the Macedonian people as Yugoslavs let him consult democratically with all the 130 odd organizations in Victoria to test his mandate. Better still he should tried to tell the 5,000 Macedonians who marched on La Trobe [University, in Bundoora, Melbourne] on 5 March this year that they were 'Yugoslav.'"
Balkan passions stirred-- the momentous 1988 Melbourne Macedonian community demonstration at La Trobe University against a Greek academic seminar trying to "prove the Greekness of Macedonia. Originally a rallying cry for human rights for ethnic Macedonians living in Greece it also was a turning point in the community's relationship with Socialist Federal Yugoslavia and its refusal to raise the human rights issue with neighbouring Greece. At a fairwell cocktail party for Dr Georgi Trajkovski in 1979 after completing his term as Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne, the then Greek Consul toasted the departing Yugoslav diplomat. The ASIO file includes the guest list.
NSW LABOR MP FEARED CORRUPT COPS BEFORE ASSASSINATION by Sasha Uzunov
John Newman, a Labor Party New South Wales State Member of Parliament who was assassinated by a political rival in 1994, feared corrupt NSW Police before his death, a former Yugoslav diplomat now living in Australia has revealed in his unpublished memoirs. Miodrag Ilickovic, a Montenegrin, who is is now living in Australia after being granted political asylum because of his opposition to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, has written a manuscript in Serbian and is trying to get it published as a book in English or Serbian. His memoir is titled: Uloga Australije u Razbijanju Jugoslavije -Australia's role in the destruction of Yugoslavia. Ilickovic (pictured below) was posted to the Yugoslav Consulate in Sydney in 1990 and was tasked with reopening it after it had been closed down for 2 years by the Australian government--a 16 year old Croat protester Josip Tokic whilst climbing a wall was shot by a consular guard in 1988. Ilickovic accused the Australian authorities, in his manuscript, of inadequate security, whilst the Australian media at the time condemned the Yugoslav government for the shooting.
He says in his manuscript that he met John Newman on numerous occasions in the NSW Parliament on official business. Newman, whose real name is Naumenko, was the son of a Ukrainian father and a Slovenian mother. Slovenia was a part of Yugoslavia until its independence in 1991. Ilickovic says that he and Newman would discuss issues relating to Slovenian migrants living in Australia.
"Because of his openness and willingness to help was popular among expatriates."
Newman was an anti-crime campaigner and came under threat from Asian gangs predominant in his Cabramatta constituency in South-Western Sydney.
He was the Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly (lower house) for the seat of Cabramatta from 1986 to 1994.
"He realized that the problem of crime in Cabramatta was far more complex, because it is part of a chain of organised crime to the police," Ilickovic says.
Newman told Ilickovic: "The threat [to his life] could come from the police."
In September 1994 Newman was assassinated outside his front door. Two shots were fired into him.
Phuong Ngo, a local politician, was found guilty of orchestrating the murder. Ilickovic gave an off camera interview to TEAM UZUNOV, to offer the other side in the story that TEAM UZUNOV has been following, that of Yugoslav spying in Australia of emigre Croats and Macedonians. Our documentary filmUDBa Down Under, which details Yugoslav spying in Australia is due for release in early 2013. His uncle Vladimir Rolovic, the Yugoslav Ambassador to Sweden, was assassinated by Croatian nationalist in 1971. (go to link for the full story) Other explosive claims made by Ilickovic in his manuscript Uloga Australije u Razbijanju Jugoslavije -Australia's role in the destruction of Yugoslavia- --Thousands and thousands of files were kept on Australians hostile to the Yugoslav government and were seen by Ilickovic who found them in the Sydney consulate in 1990; --Australian politicians and diplomats sympathetic to the Yugoslav regime passing on sensitive information to Belgrade; and --In one example, two large sacks full of ASIO documents were handed over by "Australian friends" and given to a Yugoslav Embassy official and taken away in the boot (trunk) of a car and sent to Belgrade via the diplomatic pouch.
Photo: Soon to be assassinated Yugoslav diplomat and former intelligence office Vladimir Rolovic (left), with Yugoslav Labour Minister Anton Polajner (centre) and Australian Federal Minister for Labour and National Service (Sir) Billy Snedden share a friendly drink, Canberra, Australia 1970 during an official visit. source: National Archives of Australia
Vladimir Rolovic (left), Anton Polajner (centre) and Gjoko Sekulovski, Yugoslavia's Ambassador to Australia (1967-70) visit Captain Cook's Cottage in Melbourne in 1970.According to an ASIO report, Sekulovski asked and was given permission by the Australian authorities in 1969 to have a Yugoslav intelligence officer (UDBa) operate on Australian soil and liaise with Australian counterparts to combat "Croatian terrorism." For reasons unknown Yugoslavia could not find a suitably qualified UDBa officer who could speak English very well. This raises the question was Yugoslavia serious about the Croatian threat?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TEAM UZUNOV exclusive: A Rockin', Rolovich-ing and a Rover-ing: Sex, microphone bugs, rock'n'roll, & Yugoslav spying in Australia and Europe in the 1960s & 70s.
by Sasha Uzunov
The 1971 assassination by Croatian nationalists of Yugoslav Ambassador to Sweden, the Montenegrin Vladimir Rolovic, was an open and shut case. Or was it? Was there an Australian connection?
In April 1971 two Croatian nationalists, Miro Baresic and Andjelko Brajkovic, walked into the Yugoslav Embassy in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, and Baresic shot the Yugoslav Ambassador and former intelligence officer Rolovic, who died days later of his wounds.
Baresic and Brajkovic, both members of the Croatian National Resistance (Hrvatski Narodni Otpor-HNO), surrendered to Swedish authorities and served prison time before being released in exchange when a Swedish domestic aeroplance was hijacked by Croats. Baresic eventually found himself in Paraguay, South America, as a government "security expert" before returning to fight in Croatia's War of Independence in 1991 against Yugoslavia. But was killed in combat that same year.
Recently, the nephew of Rolovic, Miodrag Ilickovic, himself a former Yugoslav diplomat and now living in Australia after being granted political asylum, gave an interview to TEAM UZUNOV, to offer the other side in the story that TEAM UZUNOV has been following, that of Yugoslav spying in Australia of emigre Croats and Macedonians. Our documentary film UDBa Down Under, which details Yugoslav spying in Australia is due for release in early 2013.
We have detailed in previous blogs how Yugoslav intelligence (UDBa) waged a dirty tricks campaign to discredit Croats and Macedonians. For the sake of fairness, whether you agree or disagree with Ilickovic's assertions, we allow him a chance to offer his version on the killing of his uncle.
Ilickovic (pictured above), a Montenegrin who is is now living in Australia after being granted political asylum because of his opposition to Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, has written a manuscript and is trying to get it published as a book in English or Serbian. His manuscript is titled Uloga Australije u Razbijanju Jugoslavije -Australia's role in the destruction of Yugoslavia- Ilickovic's main thesis is that Australia played a leading part in the collapse of communist federal Yugoslavia. Ilickovic was posted to the Yugoslav Consulate in Sydney in 1990 and was tasked in reopening it after it had been closed down for 2 years by the Australian government--a 16 year old Croat protester Josip Tokic whilst climbing a wall was shot by a consular guard in 1988. Ilickovic accused the Australian authorities, in his manuscript, of inadequate security, whilst the Australian media at the time condemned the Yugoslav government for the shooting. Ilickovic argues in his memoirs that Australia gave postwar sanctuary to Croat nationalists who served with the pro-Nazi Ustasha movement during World War II in Balkans, and alleges the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the domestic counter-intelligence service, turned a blind eye to anti-Yugoslav activities and "terrorism" by Croats launched from Australia. He asserts that a leading Australian-Croat activist Srecko Rover, with alleged ASIO backing, was involved in coordinating from Australia the assassination of Vladimir Rolovic in 1971. Rolovic was in Australia in early 1970 as part of a Yugoslav government delegation headed by Yugoslav Labour Minister Anton Polajner. According to Ilickovic, his uncle Rolovic handed over a list of names of "Croatian terrorists" to the Australian authorities, included in that list was Rover's name. ASIO files reveal that Rover visited the Americas and Europe, including Sweden, in late 1970 (see document further down the page). However, controversial Commonwealth Police Officer, Superintendent Kerry Milte, spoke to Rover over alleged threats made during the Polajner/Rolovic visit. This is page 1 of 3 (below). Rover tells Milte: "You must have the wrong information about me. I'm always being blamed for these things."
What complicates this story is the Yugoslav Communist government in the early 1970s did not follow through on its own security proposal to combat "Croatian terrorism" on Australian soil, despite Australia agreeing to the proposal.
The proposal dating back to 1969 and first raised by then Yugoslav Ambassador to Australia, Gjoko Sekulovski (pictured above wearing glasses), and repeated in early 1970s included the sending of a Yugoslav intelligence (UDBa) officer to Australia to exchange information on "Croatian terrorists" with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Commonwealth Police Force (the forerunner of the Australian Federal Police).
But incredulously the Yugoslav government could not find a suitable UDBa officer with English language skills ! Why did the Yugoslav government ignore its own security warnings? In light of the attacks on Yugoslav diplomatic missions and businesses on Australian soil, the 1971 assassination of Rolovic, the failed 1972 Croat incursion-inspired rebellion into Yugoslavia, Belgrade's inability to find an intelligence officer who spoke English comes as something too hard to comprehend.
A search of ASIO records, including those already publicly released into the National Archives of Australia, has turned up nothing on Rolovic except a travel file, which was inexplicably destroyed on 22 August 2002. The question is why was this document destroyed? A number of photos from the 1970 visit are on record with the National Archives of Australia.
Other explosive claims made by Ilickovic in his manuscript Uloga Australije u Razbijanju Jugoslavije -Australia's role in the destruction of Yugoslavia-: --Thousands and thousands of files were kept on Australians hostile to the Yugoslav government and were seen by Ilickovic who found them in the Sydney consulate in 1990; --Australian politicians and diplomats sympathetic to the Yugoslav regime passing on sensitive information to Belgrade; and --In one example, two large sacks full of ASIO documents were handed over by "Australian friends" and given to Yugoslav Embassy official Bogoljub Rađenović–Rađen and taken away in the boot (trunk) of a car and sent to Belgrade via the diplomatic pouch. BACKGROUND Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic communist federation founded in 1945, modeled on the Soviet Union, and fell apart in 1991 into various independent nation states of Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Yugoslav intelligence (UDBa) later known as SDB, together with Yugoslav military counter-intelligence (KOS) were largely pre-occupied with silencing dissident Croats, Macedonians, Serbs and Albanians living in Western Europe, North America and Australia, who were agitating for independence from Yugoslavia. UDBa was so ruthless and efficient it at one time rivaled the old Soviet KGB in liquidating opponents. Communist strongman Marshal Josip Broz Tito ruled Yugoslavia until his death in 1980 and during the height of the Cold War managed a great balancing act between East and West. He was seen as an indirect ally of the West after his infamous split with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1949. A number of Australian left-wing politicians, including Victorian State MP Joan Coxsedge, began to allege that ASIO was turning a blind eye to extremist Croatian elements, who were secretly training on Australian soil to undertake terrorist attacks on Yugoslav territory or upon Yugoslav diplomatic missions in Australia. In this atmosphere of terrorism mania during the 1970s Australia’s Croat community were looked upon as the bad guy. No doubt this was not helped by the fact that a sizeable number of Croats, known as Ustashas, during World War II had collaborated with the Nazis. However, a large number had also fought against the Nazis as Partizans, including Franjo Tudjman later to become President of independent Croatia in 1991. Likewise, a large body of Serbs had served with the Royalist Chetniks led by Draza Mihailovic and were accused of Nazi collaboration, as well as their being a quisling Serbian government under General Nedic. And a big number of Serbs also served as Partizans. But UDBa began to target the émigré Macedonian community in Australia, which had no history of large-scale Nazi collaboration, in fact the opposite, but had grown disillusioned with Yugoslavia over the rise of Serbian nationalism with the advent of the Slobodan Milosevic regime. However, ASIO was deeply concerned about a schism that had developed within dissident Croatian ranks abroad, namely Australia and Western Europe in the 1970s.
A 1971 assessment paper for ASIO and the then Commonwealth Police--declassified and in the National Archives of Australia-- raised concerns about a faction headed by the mysterious Dr Branimir "Branko" Jelic, a Croat right wing nationalist living in West Germany who believed that an independent Croatian homeland could only break away from then communist Yugoslavia with assistance from the Soviet Union.
In 1972 Dr Jelic, Moscow's man, was assassinated by UDBa, the Yugoslav Secret Police, and no doubt Washington would have looked the other way, as the enemy of my enemy is my friend ! A rivalry developed between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, which Tito managed to use to his advantage by squeezing aid out of the West in order to stay out of the Soviet Camp. But Tito was also adept at cosing up to the USSR when it suited him, especially after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1953. In the early 1970s the Yugoslav government began a campaign to discredit emigre Croats, Macedonians and others opposed to the regime, whether their opposition translated into terrorism or just peaceful means. So a dirty tricks strategy was commenced with agent provocateurs and infiltrators, ironically learned from the Soviet Secret Police Cheka/OGPU/NKVD/KGB. The Moscow faction within the Croat dissident community remains a touchy and mysterious subject. It is hard to know whether it was genuine Soviet interference or another fiendish double cross thought up by Belgrade. However, the importance is that the West, and in particular ASIO, believed in the Soviet plot. There were genuine threats against communist Yugoslavia but it is difficult to untangle which ones were real, which ones were manufactured by UDBa. The Yugoslav government had complained long and hard and loudly to western governments to combat "international Croatian terrorism." Many experts such asDr John Schindler agree that UDBa rivalled the American CIA and the Soviet KGB in ruthless efficiency. ONE MAN'S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN'S FREEDOM FIGHTER A source within Australia's Croatian community has told TEAM UZUNOV that it was highly unlikely that Rover played any part. "Baresic was the real deal," he said. But the source made the point that if Rover did take part then he would be regarded as a hero. "It's that old line of one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," the Croat source said. "It depends where you sit, pro-Yugoslav or pro-Croat."
Leading Australian journalist Jack Waterford (pictured below), a former student activist during the late 1960s and no friend of ASIO, believes that Rover was not a serious threat but was placed under ASIO surveillance because of a fear, as it turned out unfounded, that he may have fallen under the influence of the Soviets.
Jack Waterford's interview (below) on ASIO's concern about Soviet infiltration of the Australian Croatian community.
SRECKO BLAZ ROVER (1920-2005) -
The Australian Left's bogeyman and ASIO's surveillance.
ASIO compiled more than 10,000 pages in many volumes of files, including phone wire taps, on Melbourne-based Australian-Croat leader Srecko Rover beginning with his biography: his military service with the extreme right wing Ustasha during World War II, his split with Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic, his alleged links to the Soviets--which proved unfounded; ASIO's surveillance of Rover's movements, including how many miles/kilometres he drove in his car, even his private romantic life and the 1966 attempt on his life by disgruntled fellow Croat Vlado Pernar. There are conflicting reports in the files: Rover was accused of terrorism and bombings against Yugoslav diplomatic missions; and other reports say he was not involved. He remains an enigma. Prominent Australian Left author and journalist Mark Aarons accused Rover of being a Nazi war criminal, which Rover denied and blamed the Yugoslav regime for trying to discredit him. No Australian court ever prosecuted Rover.
Rover's biography in the ASIO files (see below), including his escape to neighbouring Austria at the end of WWII, and being the lone survivor of a 1948 attack on Yugoslav soil, and consequent break with Croatia's Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic. Note the stamp on top - ORIG ON 33/3/13 - SENT ATT.GEN 24.3.73 - meaning it was given to the then Federal Attorney General Lionel Murphy, who became infamous for his raid on ASIO Headquarters in 1973.
OPERATION AMBER - was a 1973 joint ASIO/Commonwealth Police operation to protect the visiting Yugoslav Prime Minister Dzemal Bijedic. Rover's every move was monitored, including how far he traveled in his car.
The Commonwealth Police (the forerunner of the Australian Federal Police) claimed Rover had gone Red by joining Jelic's pro-Moscow Croats. But this was later contradicted by a 1972 ASIO report which revealed the dislike between Rover and Jelic.
The 1966 attempt on Srecko Rover's life by Vlado Pernar who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Victorian Supreme Court, Melbourne, Australia.
The daring kidnapping of Montenegrin dissident Vladimir "Vlado" Dapcevic by UDBa on Romanian soil in 1975 highlighted the cosy intelligence partnership that had developed in the 1970s between Tito's Socialist Federal Yugoslavia and Ceausescu's Communist Romania (photo below).
Josip Broz Tito (far left), his wife Jovanka Broz (far right) and next to her is Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausecu. The banner in both Romanian and Croatian/Serbian languages reads: "Long live the fraternal friendship between the Romanian and Yugoslav peoples." Source: Romanian national archives.
We now know the workings of this operation because of the memoirs of ex-Romanian spy chief Ion Pacepa, who detailed it in his book Red Horizons after defecting to the United States in 1979. Dapcevic (1917-2001), the brother of Yugoslav Partizan hero and Army General Peko Dapcevic, had risen through the ranks of Marshal Tito's Yugoslavia but sided with the Soviet Union when Tito broke off from Moscow's orbit in 1949. Dapcevic did prison time before eventually arriving in the Soviet Union via Albania. He left the Soviet Union in the mid 1960s and lived in Western Europe before being lured to Bucharest, the Romanian capital, in 1975, where an UDBa (Yugoslav intelligence) team, some posing as athletes, kidnapped and smuggled him across the border into Yugoslavia. Ion Pacepa (far left) pictured with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during a visit to Washington in the early 1970s.
According to Pacepa's book, Tito tells Ceausescu that he needs to neutralise Vlado Dapcevic.
Vlado Dapcevic was imprisoned until 1988 and was probably saved from execution by the fact his older brother Peko remained loyal to Tito.
World War II Montenegrin Partizan Hero and Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) General Peko Dapcevic (1913-99) chose loyalty to Marshal Tito over his younger bother and political dissident Vlado Dapcevic. Photo source: Wikipedia
By Sasha Uzunov- posted Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Some of us who grew up as "ethnics" in writer Catherine Deveny's allegedly infamous and "rough" Melbourne suburb of Reservoir during the 1970s would have looked upon the likes of conservative columnist Andrew Bolt as a stern high school teacher, offering you tough advice you did not want to hear but knew deep down was right. So we should heed Bolt's recent warnings about the rise of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism on Australian soil.
But in this age of permanent adolescence, to borrow a term from Canadian pundit Mark Steyn, many of our cultural elite who should know better have to trash our elders for the sake of pretend or feigned radical chic.
However, some of us as writers/bloggers, as part of our shtick, don't have professional ethnic angst, an Anglo-Celtic Australian angst, a Catholic angst, patriachal angst, matriachal angst, heteronormative angst nor ex-soldier angst. In fact we don't want to punish society because of any personal angst nor are we on a "curious crusade" to use a term coined by a now retrenched Age newspaperman! We simply want to discuss and debate hot issues of the day. Ok, that's out of the way...!
I want to talk about Balkan Blowback and how it impacts Australia and the rest of the Western world. How in our naivety in trying to help we have ourselves become the target since 9 September 2001.
The Americans love coming up with catchy and punchy terms. Take for instance "blowback", a term used in espionage to describe the unintended consequences of covert operations. In the war on terror context it means former Mujahaddin Islamic holy war warriors once sponsored by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Cold War who have now turned against their former paymaster by morphing into Al Qaeda.
Balkan Blowback refers to events in the former Communist multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, namely Bosnia-Hercegovina and how this now impacts upon security in the West, including Australia.
The Bosnian war, 1992-95, was a result of the break up of the former Yugoslavia and in a three-way struggle which pitted Muslim Bosnians (Bosnjaks) against ethnic Serbs, against ethnic Croats, in a bid to control the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosna-Hercegovina). No one can forget the images of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo being bombarded constantly by Serb artillery or the infamous Serb concentration camp with emaciated Muslim Bosnian prisoners or the UN's inability to stop the slaughter of Muslim Bosnians at Srebrenica. The war ended with the US-brokered Dayton Agreement in 1995.
The Muslim Bosnians were regarded as the "good muslims" by the United States. In fact so much so that in this pre 9/11 environment, Islamic militants from around the world, including Iran were "allowed" to enter Bosnia and even the score against the Serbs and Croats. When things got out of hand the militants were ordered to leave by the US, especially when many of the post 9/11 attacks against the West were coming from Bosnian training camps.
An American academic, Dr John Schindler, a lecturer at the prestigious US Naval War College, was an international war crimes investigator in Bosnia. He reached two startling conclusions: one, many of the war criminals from either the Serb, Croat or Bosnian side were former Yugoslav intelligence service (UDBa) officers from the old communist regime who had switched their allegiances to their respective sides, and secondly, and most importantly for the West, the growth of Iranian influence over the Muslim Bosnian government.
Dr Schindler reveals an interesting story about Fikret Muslimovic, "Bosnia's true eminence grise and the man who engineered the alliance with Iran back in the early 1990... Muslimovic was a career Yugoslav military counterintelligence (KOS) officer and convinced Communist who spent the 1980s locking away Islamic radicals in Bosnia, yet who upon Bosnian independence in 1992 suddenly became an Islamic hardliner and advocate of linkages with Iran and Al-Qaeda … sometimes it's better not to ask too many questions."
A different report titled, Jihad, bought and sold on January 26, 2009 by ISA Consulting, a non-profit international think tank reveals an interesting individual offering his services in the fight on terror:
"He is an Islamic warrior who fought in Bosnia during the war, a fierce follower of jihad who has pledged to die in the name of God, a convicted terrorist and proclaimed al-Qaida commander. Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad is now trying to sell information about atrocities committed by his warriors in Bosnia in return for asylum."
The report adds:
"A native of Bahrain, Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad, known during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war as "Ubaidah al-Bahraini", was released on 30 December 2008 from a Bosnian prison where he served a 12-year sentence for robbery and terrorism."
Ali Hamad was a high-ranking officer of the notorious El-Mujahid unit, composed of foreign fighters from Islamic countries, and under the command of the Bosnian Army. El-Mujahid committed war crimes against ethnic Serbs and Croats in Bosnia. In 1997 Ali Hamad was eventually locked up for masterminding a terrorist car bomb attack in the Bosnian town of Mostar (Old Bridge) aimed against the ethnic Croat population.
Irony of ironies, he later sough asylum in Serbia, his former enemy in the Bosnian war, after his Bosnian citizenship was revoked but was reportedly deported to his native Bahrain.
So how on earth does this all have an impact down under, Australia? Concerns have been raised within Muslim Bosnian emigre communities in the West, who are predominately moderate, over the radicalisation of their youth by fanatical preachers. It also does not take a great deal to conclude that where a former Yugoslav military counterintelligence (KOS) officer of the calibre of Muslimovic has thrown in his lot with the radical Islamists then you know we here in Australia are in very big trouble. Convicted terrorist Nacer Ben Bricka is an amateur in comparison.
We are in big trouble, when your consider the former Yugoslav intelligence service (UDBa) ran rings around our own domestic spies ASIO, the CIA and even the KGB. I have spent 20 years investigating UDBa and have read the many de-classified ASIO files. During the 1970s and 80s, communist Yugoslavia was waging a dirty tricks campaign against Croats, Macedonians and others who had left Yugoslavia and settled in Australia and wanted to paint them as terrorists or trouble makers .
One of UDBa's greatest "jobs" was the Croatian Six set up in 1979, where an agent provocateur was able to frame six Sydney based Croats as "terrorists" and decades later owned up about his misdeed. The Croatian Six, as they became known, served their time in jail, and the current Federal Attorney General, Nicola Roxon, has refused to open an inquiry.
The Australian people of all religions, creeds, in facing the Islamic fundamentalist terror or any other terror, have a right to know the workings of UDBa, considering there are some ex officers and informers living in Australia. What I fear is that these people could be bribed or bullied into helping Al Qaeda or any other terror franchise by sharing UDBa tricks of the trade in spycraft. In our vigilance, and I have warned about this in previous articles, we should not allow those people who are Islamophobic a chance to use these fears as a vehicle for their own political agenda.
However, Roxon's refusal to open a judicial or government inquiry into the Croatian Six and UDBa activities could be placing us all in danger.
About the Author
Sasha Uzunov graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, in 1991. He enlisted in the Australian Regular Army as a soldier in 1995 and was allocated to infantry. He served two peacekeeping tours in East Timor (1999 and 2001). In 2002 he returned to civilian life as a photo journalist and film maker and has worked in The Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. His documentary film Timor Tour of Dutymade its international debut in New York in October 2009. He blogs at Team Uzunov.
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