EXPERTS DOUBT UDBa "TORTURE CHAMBER"

Australian counter-intelligence experts, speaking on the strictest conditions of anonymity, have told TEAM UZUNOV they doubt the existence of a torture chamber in the old Yugoslav Embassy in Canberra, Australia.

The extraordinary claims were made by Melbourne photographer Nikola Stavrevski in a filmed interview for an upcoming documentary film, UDBa down under.

Mr Stavrevski was invited by the Ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia to Australia, Mr Pero Stojanovski, to photograph the handover-takeover ceremony of the former Yugoslav Embassy in Canberra by the Macedonian government in July 2011. Serbian diplomatic officials handed over the keys.

After the collapse of Communist Federal Yugoslavia (SFRJ) in 1991, the various diplomatic missions were split up amongst the successor states, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia.

“Ambassador Stojanovski told me,” Mr Stavrevski said, “that I wasn't permitted to photograph a particular room inside the embassy. This room had been left closed up and unused for many years.”

“When we opened the door to have a look inside, I was shocked at what I saw,” Mr Stavrevski.

“The room was sound proofed, dark, and had a bathtub in the middle with a wooden rack used to either tie down or secure something.”

He said that he immediately got the impression it had been a torture chamber used by the then Yugoslav Embassy and its secret police, UDBa.”

“Ambassador Stojanovski said to me that it was a delicate matter at the moment and that in due course the matter would be revealed in full detail.”

Australian counter-intelligence experts have told TEAM UZUNOV that it would be highly unlikely that UDBa would have run a torture cell on Australian territory.

“Anything is possible but ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) would have been monitoring the Yugoslav Embassy in Canberra during the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. They would’ve bugged the place. If anything of that nature occurred, then there would be details in ASIO files. The Australian media would have gotten wind of it long ago.”

Another expert said: “It would’ve been too risky for UDBa to have kidnapped people off the streets and taken them back to the Canberra. For that to happen you would need ASIO or the various Australian state police forces to have been either incompetent or outsmarted by UDBa.”

Mr Stavrevski stands by his allegations.

TEAM UZUNOV is in the process of trying to contact Mr Pero Stojanovski, the ex-Republic of Macedonia Ambassador to Australia, for comment.

(end)

UDBa "TORTURE CHAMBER" IN CANBERRA

“UDBA down under” – documentary film about Communist Yugoslav spying in Australia.

FILM'S SHOCKING ALLEGATION: COMMUNIST TORTURE CHAMBER IN CANBERRA

The Former Yugoslav Embassy in Canberra with the alleged torture chamber. In 2011 it was handed over to the Republic of Macedonia.

Photo: The handover takeover ceremony of the Embassy of the Republic of Macedonia, July 2011. Mr Nikola Stavrevski is on the far right of photo. The Ambassador Mr Pero Stojanovski is in the centre, white shirt, black suit and wearing glasses.

Mr Nikola Stavrevski, who runs a successful photography business in Melbourne, has revealed in a camera interview for an upcoming Australian documentary film, that he saw what appeared to be a torture chamber in the old Yugoslav Embassy in Canberra, the Australian capital.

Mr Stavrevski, also the editor of a popular news website for the Australian-Macedonan community known as Informator, agreed to make his shocking allegation on camera for the documentary film “UDBa down under”, directed and produced by Melbourne independent film maker Sasha Uzunov, which details the former Communist Yugoslav regime's use of its secret police to discredit emigre Croats, Macedonians and other dissidents.

Mr Nikola Stavrevski agreed to make his allegations on camera for the documentary film: "UDBa down under." Photo by Sasha Uzunov 2012.

Mr Stavrevski was invited by the Ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia to Australia, Mr Pero Stojanovski, to photograph the handover-takeover ceremony of the former Yugoslav Embassy in Canberra by the Macedonian government in July 2011. Serbian diplomatic officials handed over the keys.

After the collapse of Communist Federal Yugoslavia (SFRJ) in 1991, the various diplomatic missions were split up amongst the successor states, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia.

“Ambassador Stojanovski told me,” Mr Stavrevski said, “that I wasn't permitted to photograph a particular room inside the embassy. This room had been left closed up and unused for many years.”

“When we opened the door to have a look inside, I was shocked at what I saw,” Mr Stavrevski.

“The room was sound proofed, dark, and had a bathtub in the middle with a wooden rack used to to either tied down or secure something.”

He said that he immediately got the impression it had been a torture chamber used by the then Yugoslav Embassy and its secret police, UDBa.”

“Ambassador Stojanovski said to me that it was a delicate matter at the moment and that in due course the matter would be revealed in full detail.”

Mr Stavrevski further alleged in the filmed interview that he knew of Australian-Croats and Macedonians who had been “kidnapped” off the streets in Melbourne and Sydney and tortured by UDBa officers during the 1970s and 1980s.

Ambassador Stojanovski later became the centre of controversy over a legal dispute with his then girlfriend Lidija Dumbaloska over a failed relationship.

Link: Sydney Morning Herald article:

www.smh.com.au/national/exlover-menaced-diplomat-20110101-19cin.html

Film details

UDBa down under (45 minutes running time) – release date: late 2012 / early 2013.

An Australian a documentary film about the Yugoslav secret police (UDBa) in Australia, with a release date in early 2013. Directed and produced by Sasha Uzunov/Luke Leon Media. Interviewed on camera are Croatian and Macedonian community leaders, ex-Australian state police officers involved in counter-intelligence operations, and former spies both here in Australia and overseas.

The trailer/preview of UDBa down under - Yugoslav spying in Australia.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuMIDTPyGe0&feature=share

Sasha Uzunov's film making resume:

Director/Producer

Timor Tour of Duty (Documentary film) 2009

Brave Love (Short film) 2011 -

Kate's Screen test (Short film) 2012 -

UDBa down under (Documentary film) - 2012/13

Cameraman

Afghanistan: Outside the wire (Documentary film) – Canadian Cable TV News (CPAC) 2011.

------------------------------------

Hamish McDonald

Respected Australian journalist Hamish McDonald's recent article titled, Framed: the untold story about the Croatian Six, in the Sydney Morning Herald, dated: 11 February 2012,

www.smh.com.au/national/framed-the-untold-story-about-the-croatian-six-20120210-1smum.html

McDonald in the longer e-book version (kindle) of his article writes:

“In a new video, the Macedonian-Australian documentary journalist Sasha Uzunov says he has evidence Sindicic set up the Croatian six conspiracy with the main UDBa official in Australia, Georgi Trajkovski, who operated under diplomatic cover as Yugoslav consul-general in Melbourne."

Who was the Croatian Six Mastermind? article by Sasha Uzunov.

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/croatian-six-mastermind.html”

CAN WE TRUST ASIO?

ON LINE opinion - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13223

CAN WE TRUST ASIO?
by Sasha Uzunov
Thursday 9 February 2012

Mr David Irvine, the Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Australia's domestic spooks, has called for more spies from within the country's Islamic communities, but can ASIO be trusted to do an efficient job? History shows that our counter-intelligence service has a poor record in thwarting foreign spies. Should Australia's Islamic communities place their trust in such an organisation to do the right thing?

Terrorism-mania in Australia is nothing new; we experienced this back in the 1970s when émigré Croats were portrayed as the bad guy, a role now filled by Australia's Muslims. In fact ASIO remains a laughing stock within the émigré Croatian and Macedonian communities for its decades long ineptitude in dealing with the then Communist Yugoslav secret police, UDBa, and its dirty tricks campaign against those two communities on Australian soil at the height of the Cold War.

I have spent 20 years researching UDBa activities in Australia and will soon complete producing a documentary film about UDBa in Australia, with a release date in early 2013. I have interviewed Croatian and Macedonian community leaders, Australian state police officers involved in counter-intelligence operations, and former spies both here in Australia and overseas. They all agree that UDBa ran rings around ASIO.

In one infamous case, ASIO recruited a “double agent” within Melbourne's Macedonian community during the 1970s. This individual was also an agent of influence for UDBa. What benefit he gave to ASIO remains doubtful and only when the secret files are declassified will we know for sure.

But according to a Victorian Police counter-terrorism expert, the late Detective Senior Constable Geoff Gardiner, this “double agent” had an extensive list of criminal convictions ranging from illegal gaming, receiving stolen goods, selling liquor without a license to passing off a counterfeit cheque in 1978 in the name of Red Star Belgrade (Crvena Zvezda) Soccer club, then touring Australia from Yugoslavia.

This individual was employed as a public servant and never underwent a standard police check. According to Detective Gardiner, this individual was being protected at the very top.

Mr Aco Talevski, a former Macedonian Orthodox Church Community leader in Melbourne and a long standing human rights activist, revealed in a filmed interview for my documentary that Detective Gardiner had in the mid 1980s also tipped him off about the “double agent.”

We can only be grateful that such individual police officers with integrity existed in the state of Victoria and did not buy the ASIO or UDBa spin.

Across the border in New South Wales, corrupt Police with ASIO connivance arrested six innocent Croatians suspected of plotting to blow up Sydney's water supply in 1979. The six were imprisoned on the testimony of a known UDBa agent provocateur who ASIO allowed to return to Yugoslavia.

The Australian taxpayer cannot have a vote of confidence that ASIO has picked up its game in fighting terrorism if it remains secretive and refuses to come clean over the whole Yugoslav episode dating back to the Cold War. ASIO refuses to hand over any documents relating to the Croatian Six case on the grounds of national security but more likely to hide its incompetence and political interference from above.

During the Cold War, Communist multi-ethnic Yugoslavia under the rule of strongman Marshal Tito used its intelligence service UDBa to portray émigrés opposed to the regime as bloodthirsty terrorists. Agent provocateurs infiltrated Croat and Macedonian organisations abroad and urged violent action against the regime, namely planting bombs against Yugoslav diplomatic missions.

This clever technique used to silence opposition abroad was created by the Tsarist Russian police in the late 1890s and later perfected by the Bolsheviks when they seized power during the October Revolution in 1917. UDBa would use the exact same technique, known as the TRUST operations.

In the 1920s, the Soviet Secret service, which began as the Cheka and evolved along the way as OGPU/NKVD/KGB, began to “lure émigré agents into the arms of the OGPU, including the Trust, an imaginary counter-revolutionary union of monarchists and social revolutionaries.” In other words, Russian dissidents living in Paris were fooled into returning to fight the Soviet regime but were executed on their arrival.

In the early 1970s UDBa managed to lure Croat nationalists back to Yugoslavia in a similar manner. UDBa also infiltrated some Macedonian organisations in Western Europe, namely Belgium, and Australia. In 1977 a leading Macedonian dissident Dragan Bogdanovski, with a large following in Australia, was kidnapped from France, drugged and smuggled out in the boot of a Yugoslav diplomatic car and returned to Yugoslavia to face trial and later 11 years imprisonment. Amnesty International adopted him as a cause celebrity.

The only prominent academic to undertake a serious examination of UDBa remains the American Dr John Schindler. So far dribs and drabs of ASIO files have been released under the 30-year rule and can be accessed at the National Archive of Australia in Canberra.

Dr Schindler's discoveries reveal how Western governments turned a blind eye to UDBa because Yugoslavia, despite being communist during the Cold War was anti-Soviet. In other words political expediency trumped rule of law and justice. In this current war on terror what guarantees do we have that ASIO will adhere to the principles of justice when pursuing Islamic terrorists and not lock up innocent people?

If Mr Irvine wants to build trust within the country's Islamic communities he needs to set the record straight with the Croat and Macedonian communities over ASIO's past behavior. Otherwise will we be condemned to see innocent Muslim locked up on the word of agent provocateurs acting on their own agenda?