Friday, July 27, 2012

PHOTOS OF YUGOSLAV SPY MASTER

by Sasha Uzunov

Responding to a request from TEAM UZUNOV, the National Archives of Australia (NAA) has released two photos of Dr George (Georgi) Trajkovski, the Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne between 1975-79, believed to be the mastermind behind a successful campaign to infiltrate and discredit the local Croatian and Macedonian communities, as well as other groups opposed to then Communist Yugoslavia.


In both photos, taken in 1979, Trajkovski meets an unsuspecting Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (1975-83), after the Prime Minister donated a cheque for earthquake victims in then Yugoslavia.

The release of the photos follows in the footsteps of ASIO de-classifying its files on Trajkovski, once again at the request of TEAM UZUNOV.

This short man, who ASIO underestimated as a peasant, led one of the most succesful attempts at infiltration and destablisation of emigre and dissident groups !

The ASIO files on Trajkovski have been placed on the www.naa.gov.au website for public access.

It took me 6 months and a copying fee to get the hard copies. 2 volumes, over 300 pages. Some pages have been removed by ASIO and the years 1978-79 are missing.

But there is still so much explosive stuff in these files. The telephone wire taps of conversations, ASIO field agents surveillance notes etc. ASIO initially believed that Trajkovski was the front man with others in the background at the Yugoslav consulate in Melbourne pulling the strings. They couldnt accept the Joe Pesci-Robert de Niro (Taxi Driver) wise guy act put on by Trajkovski. 

If you read the ASIO notes they were expecting a tall, quiet KGB guy straight out of a Hollywood Cold War movie...

BACKGROUND - 

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/asio-knew-yugoslav-spy-game-plan-in.html



SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2012

ASIO KNEW YUGOSLAV SPY GAME PLAN IN 1977

By Sasha Uzunov

A 1977 ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) assessment paper, heavily redacted, found in a newly de-classified file on Yugoslav diplomat, Dr George Trajkovski, reveals that Communist Yugoslavia threatened to step up its campaign to silence Croatian dissent on Australian soil and the consequence would lead to violence.

The conclusion reached in the ASIO paper is startling in light of the fact that in 1979-80 six Australian Croats were set up by a Yugoslav agent provocateur and sent to prison as as "terrorists." 

"Yugoslav national security is seen as being as being threatened by internal dissension perhaps encouraged...

"The likelihood of (Croatian extremist violence) this occurring depends very much upon the determination of the Yugoslav government to destroy Croatian extremist bodies in Australia once it is realised that their diplomatic offensive at the most can have only partial success."

In other words, if Yugoslavia could not get Australia to clamp down on Croatian dissent it would take the law into its own hands. It sounds like a threat.

The rationale for all this was the fear Yugoslavia would disintegrate after the expected death of Marshal Tito, then in his 80s, the ruler of the country. The irony is that Yugoslavia did fall apart in 1991, eleven years after Tito's death but it was ethnic Albanian and Serb tensions in the then Yugoslav province of Kosovo which lead a spooked Slovenia, regarded as a prosperous Republic with no violent extremists abroad, to leave the Yugoslav Federation.

ASIO is Australia's counter-intelligence and domestic spy agency.
------------------------------------------------

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

ASIO FILES RELEASED - YUGO SPYING RAMPANT

YUGO SPY DREAM TEAM TAKES ON CROATS, MACEDONIANS 
– newly released ASIO files reveal a clever Yugoslav spy plan and a powder keg of information from the mid 1970s. These revelations could put pressure on the New South Wales government for a judicial review of the 1980 Croatian Six set up.

By Sasha Uzunov

In one of the cleverest Good Cop, Bad Cop, Worse Cop Routines used, a three man Yugoslav diplomatic spy team lulled ASIO into a false sense of security and managed to create mayhem within Australia's Croat and Macedonian communities as well as other Yugoslav emigre groups in the mid 1970s.

After a six month wait and a false start, ASIO has released two volumes on Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne Dr Georgi (George) Trajkovski. The files cover the 1975-77 period.

The ASIO files reveal a three man team made of Trajkovski, playing the part of loud-mouth, uncouth peasant; Petar “Pero” Lombardic, faithfull Trajkovski hatchet man and man-servant, and a third member, Anastas “Aco” Stojanovski, as the quiet back room plotter.

There is a veritable goldmine of information, an intelligence powder keg, revealing names of local people passing on information to the Yugoslav consulate in Hawthorn, Melbourne; ASIO wiretaps of telephone conversations; and surveillance of Trajkovski's every move.

According to a 1976 ASIO report, an Australian government interpreter/translator heard Trajkovski boasting to a visiting Yugoslav Parliamentary delegation:

“that none of the Croatian or anti-Yugoslav clubs or societies in Australia posed a serious threat to the security of Yugolavia....the Consulate had successfully either infiltrated, undermined or obtained control of every society that had in the past been a threat.”

Other explosive revelations include:

An unsuccessful attempt to win over Canberra Croat leader Mario Despoja, father of future politician Natasha Stott-Despoja;

Trajkovski's bullying of Melbourne Macedonian Orthodox Church leaders into coming under Yugoslav Communist control in 1976.

The bullying and physical intimidation was so bad that the leader of the St George (Sveti Georgi) Macedonian Church, Christos Pandelis Altis (aka Risto Altin, Chris Altis), a former brother in law to Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner, Paul Deliannis, went straight to ASIO headquarters to lodge a complaint.

Trajkovski's gatecrashing, uninvited, to a Slovenian community function in Eltham;

Monitoring of the Muslim Bosnian community;

The setting up of a rival “Croatian” group, the Croatian Brotherhood Union of Australia, as a front for Yugoslav government activities;

Trajkovski's mysterious disappearance, and losing his ASIO surveillance team, in Adelaide and missing a meeting with flamboyant South Australian Premier Don Dunstan in 1976;

ASIO confirmation of the existence of Victoria Police officer and counter-terrorism expert, Geoff Gardiner, who I wrote about in previous articles as being my source for Yugoslav spying activities in Australia.

Link to Geoff Gardiner story:
www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1105/S00247/brave-cop-who-kept-victoria-safe.htm

Brave Cop Who Kept Victoria Safe
Tuesday, 31 May 2011

Sunday, July 22, 2012

SCHINDLER'S LIST !


An excellent blog on security and intelligence matters run by well respected US academic Dr John Schindler.


Dr Schindler has done some remarkable work in examining the activities of the former Yugoslav Communist spy service (UDBa).


His blog is the 20 Committee (XX Committee) . link:

http://20committee.com/

      

About


John R. Schindler is professor of national security affairs at 
the U.S. Naval War College, where he’s been since 2005, and 
where he teaches courses on security, strategy, intelligence, 
terrorism, and occasionally military history. Before joining 
the NWC faculty, he spent nearly a decade with the 
National Security Agency as an intelligence analyst and
counterintelligence officer.

 There’s not much he can say about that, except that he 
worked problems in Eastern Europe and the Middle East with a counterespionage 
flavor, and he collaborated closely with other government agencies who would 
probably prefer he didn’t mention them. He’s also served as an officer specializing in
cryptology (now called information warfare for no particular reason) in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
He is a senior fellow of the International History Institute at Boston University and 
is chairman of the Partnership for Peace Consortium‘s Combating Terrorism 
Working Group, a unique body which brings together scholars and practitioners 
from more than two dozen countries across Eurasia to tackle problems of terrorism, 
extremism, and political violence. He has lectured on terrorism and security in over 
twenty countries.
He is a historian by background, with a B.A. and M.A. from the 
University of Massachusetts and a Ph.D. from McMaster University
His books deal with topics like the Italian front in World War I
Islamist extremism in the Balkans, and an insider’s look at how Al-Qa’ida 
thinks and operates. He’s currently writing a couple books on cool stuff.
John speaks several languages, lives on the water in lovely Newport, RI, and 
enjoys good food and wine, traveling to the Alps, and spy stories.

ASIO KNEW YUGOSLAV SPY GAME PLAN IN 1977

By Sasha Uzunov

A 1977 ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) assessment paper, heavily redacted, found in a newly de-classified file on Yugoslav diplomat, Dr George Trajkovski, reveals that Communist Yugoslavia threatened to step up its campaign to silence Croatian dissent on Australian soil and the consequence would lead to violence.

The conclusion reached in the ASIO paper is startling in light of the fact that in 1979-80 six Australian Croats were set up by a Yugoslav agent provocateur and sent to prison as as "terrorists." 

"Yugoslav national security is seen as being as being threatened by internal dissension perhaps encouraged...

"The likelihood of (Croatian extremist violence) this occurring depends very much upon the determination of the Yugoslav government to destroy Croatian extremist bodies in Australia once it is realised that their diplomatic offensive at the most can have only partial success."

In other words, if Yugoslavia could not get Australia to clamp down on Croatian dissent it would take the law into its own hands. It sounds like a threat.

The rationale for all this was the fear Yugoslavia would disintegrate after the expected death of Marshal Tito, then in his 80s, the ruler of the country. The irony is that Yugoslavia did fall apart in 1991, eleven years after Tito's death but it was ethnic Albanian and Serb tensions in the then Yugoslav province of Kosovo which lead a spooked Slovenia, regarded as a prosperous Republic with no violent extremists abroad, to leave the Yugoslav Federation.

ASIO is Australia's counter-intelligence and domestic spy agency.





Friday, July 20, 2012

ASIO FILES RELEASED - YUGO SPYING RAMPANT


An ASIO report detailing the Yugoslav communist government interference into the affairs of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in Australia.

YUGO SPY DREAM TEAM TAKES ON CROATS, MACEDONIANS 

– newly released ASIO files reveal a clever Yugoslav spy plan and a powder keg of information from the mid 1970s. These revelations could put pressure on the New South Wales government for a judicial review of the 1980 Croatian Six set up.

By Sasha Uzunov

In one of the cleverest Good Cop, Bad Cop, Worse Cop Routines used, a three man Yugoslav diplomatic spy team lulled ASIO into a false sense of security and managed to create mayhem within Australia's Croat and Macedonian communities as well as other Yugoslav emigre groups in the mid 1970s.

After a six month wait and a false start, ASIO has released two volumes on Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne Dr Georgi (George) Trajkovski. The files cover the 1975-77 period.

The ASIO files reveal a three man team made of Trajkovski, playing the part of loud-mouth, uncouth peasant; Petar “Pero” Lombardic, faithfull Trajkovski hatchet man and man-servant, and a third member, Anastas “Aco” Stojanovski, as the quiet back room plotter.

There is a veritable goldmine of information, an intelligence powder keg, revealing names of local people passing on information to the Yugoslav consulate in Hawthorn, Melbourne; ASIO wiretaps of telephone conversations; and surveillance of Trajkovski's every move.

According to a 1976 ASIO report, an Australian government interpreter/translator heard Trajkovski boasting to a visiting Yugoslav Parliamentary delegation:

“that none of the Croatian or anti-Yugoslav clubs or societies in Australia posed a serious threat to the security of Yugolavia....the Consulate had successfully either infiltrated, undermined or obtained control of every society that had in the past been a threat.”

Other explosive revelations include:

An unsuccessful attempt to win over Canberra Croat leader Mario Despoja, father of future politician Natasha Stott-Despoja;

Trajkovski's bullying of Melbourne Macedonian Orthodox Church leaders into coming under Yugoslav Communist control in 1976.

The bullying and physical intimidation was so bad that the leader of the St George (Sveti Georgi) Macedonian Church, Christos Pandelis Altis (aka Risto Altin, Chris Altis), a former brother in law to Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner, Paul Deliannis, went straight to ASIO headquarters to lodge a complaint.

Trajkovski's gatecrashing, uninvited, to a Slovenian community function in Eltham;

Monitoring of the Muslim Bosnian community;

The setting up of a rival “Croatian” group, the Croatian Brotherhood Union of Australia, as a front for Yugoslav government activities;

Trajkovski's mysterious disappearance, and losing his ASIO surveillance team, in Adelaide and missing a meeting with flamboyant South Australian Premier Don Dunstan in 1976;

ASIO confirmation of the existence of Victoria Police officer and counter-terrorism expert, Geoff Gardiner, who I wrote about in previous articles as being my source for Yugoslav spying activities in Australia.

Link to Geoff Gardiner story:
www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1105/S00247/brave-cop-who-kept-victoria-safe.htm

Brave Cop Who Kept Victoria Safe
Tuesday, 31 May 2011

Thursday, July 19, 2012

ASIO RE-RELEASES SUSPENDED SPY FILE




ASIO RE-RELEASES SUSPENDED SPY FILE
by Sasha Uzunov


In another extraordinary twist, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has lifted a suspension on a de-classified file on a former Yugoslav diplomat, Dr Georgi (George) Trajkovski, believed to be the mastermind behind the 1979-80 Croatian Six set up, one of Australia's worst miscarriages of justice.

The file, which is a two volume set from 1975 and 1977, does not include any material from 1978 onwards.

I applied for access under the National Archives Act for access to the file. It took more than six months and a formal complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman before ASIO agreed to release the document relating to Trajkovski. Earlier this week, ASIO, without giving a reason, removed the file from public access at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra.

 Today the suspension has been lifted. Once again, no reason was given for the U-turn.

This document is a vital piece to my research for a documentary film, UDBa down under: (Yugoslav spying in Australia during the Cold War period), that I have been working on. Release date is 2013.

I am still wating to receive a copy of the file.

PREVIOUS STORY:

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/asio-withdraw-spy-file.html
Monday July 16, 2012
ASIO WITHDRAWS SPY FILE





Monday, July 16, 2012

ASIO WITHDRAWS SPY FILE

Archival article from The Melbourne Age newspaper - 5 December 1977, page 29, quoting then Yugoslav diplomat Dr Georgi Trajkovski. The article mysteriously appeared on the internet recently.

ASIO WITHDRAWS SPY FILE
by Sasha Uzunov


In an unusual move the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the country's counter-intelligence agency, has withdrawn a de-classified file on a former Yugoslav diplomat believed to be the mastermind behind the 1979-80 Croatian Six set-up, one of Australia's worst miscarriages of justice.

An earlier TEAM UZUNOV report on 30 April 2012 revealed  - link: http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/normal.html

"TEAM UZUNOV has tried to obtain under Australia’s National Archive Act access to the ASIO file of the late Dr Georgi (George) Trajkovski, the Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne during 1978-79.

"Any federal government documents over 30 years become open to the public. Exemptions can apply on the grounds of national security. However, ASIO has 90 days to respond to any request."

The request, made on 4 November 2011, took more than six months to process. ASIO agreed to release the 2 volumes on Trajkovski on the 26 June 2012, a day after a formal complaint was lodged with the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Today, TEAM UZUNOV received a phone call from a National Archives of Australia employee informing that ASIO had withdrawn the file on Trajkovski from public viewing. No reason was given.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The National Archives of Australia on-line search catalogue - ASIO file on Dr Georgi (George) Trajkovski now closed.

Item barcode
Series no.
Control symbol
Item title
Date range

11634717
A6180
International relations - Diplomatic representation - 
Mr Malcolm Fraser presents cheque to Yugoslav 
Consul General, Dr George Trajkovski for earthquake victims. PHOTO
Access status: Open
Location: Canberra

1979 - 1979

11634717
A6119
TRAJKOVSKI, George Dr Volume 1
Access status: Closed
Location: Canberra

1975 - 1975

12880071
A6180
International relations - Diplomatic representation - 
Mr Malcolm Fraser presents cheque to 
Yugoslav Consul General, Dr George Trajkovski for earthquake victims. PHOTO
Access status: Open
Location: Canberra

1979 - 1979

11634716
A6119
TRAJKOVSKI, George Dr Volume 2
Access status: Closed
Location: Canberra

1977 - 1977

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

The email from the NAA informing of ASIO's approval to release files on Dr Georgi (George) Trajkovski.

Subject: Your Inquiry - Ref: 11/21566 [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:16:56 +1000
From: @naa.gov.au
To: sashauzunov@hotmail.com

UNCLASSIFIED
Dear Mr Uzunov,

I am writing to advise you that ASIO have transferred two items into our custody in response to your application for access to records relating to Dr George Trajkovski.

Some material on the files has been withheld from public access in accordance with the exemption categories prescribed by section 33 of theArchives Act 1983.  A statement of reasons outlining the exemptions applied to the files is attached. 
Here is a link to the Fact Sheet on the types of information that are commonly exempted from ASIO records -http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs52.aspx. As required by the Archives Act, here is a link to the Fact Sheet outlining your rights of appeal - http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs12.aspx

If you would like to order copies of these records, please fill in and return the attached remittance advice at your earliest convenience.

Please do not hesitate to contact us again if we can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely, 
###########
Queen Victoria Terrace,Parkes ACT 2600
PO Box 7425, Canberra Business Centre ACT 2610

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original story: 

Scoop - New Zealand

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1107/S00270/who-was-the-croatian-six-mastermind.htm

Who Was The Croatian Six Mastermind?



Who Was The Croatian Six Mastermind?

Why did Australia's domestic spy catchers ASIO keep Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (1975-83) in the dark over a foreign diplomat's true identity?
By Sasha Uzunov
July 24, 2011
One of Australia’s worst miscarriages of justice, the Croatian Six terrorism case in 1979-80, may have been perpetrated by a Yugoslav master spy posing as a diplomat and who, would you believe it, not once but twice managed to outsmart Australia’s domestic spy catchers, ASIO, and even shook hands with an unsuspecting Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.
Intelligence sources in Washington and in the Republic of Macedonia, one of the successor states of the former communist Federal Yugoslavia, have confirmed that Dr Georgi Trajkovski, the Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne, Australia during 1978-79 was “hardcore UDBa (Yugoslav intelligence) and a key player in the Croatian Six set up.”
In 1988, Trajkovski with the same modus operandi, the use of agent provocateurs and exaggerated claims of anti-Yugoslav subversion, had a fellow Yugoslav diplomat removed from his post in Melbourne right under the nose of ASIO. This story, told for the very first time, will be detailed in one of my upcoming stories.











In 1991 legendary ABC TV investigative reporter Chris Masters dropped a bombshell on the Four Corners program about The Croatian Six case.
An agent provocateur set up members of Australia's Croatian community in 1979. Six Croats were imprisoned on false charges of wanting to plant bombs in Sydney.
Masters tracked down the agent provocateur, Vitomir Visimovic, who was an ethnic Serb living in Bosnia but had passed himself off as a Croat.
In fact, ASIO, the Australian Federal Police (successor of the Commonwealth Police) and the infamous and corrupt New South Wales Police Special Branch were all aware that Visimovic was an UDBa operative but suppressed the information during the trial of the Croatian Six. Moreover, the alarming thing was the Australian authorities let the man depart the country. This was during Malcolm Fraser’s tenure as Prime Minister (1975-83).
An UDBa hitman Vinko Sindicic was arrested in Scotland in 1988 after a failed assassination attempt on Croat dissident Nikola Stedul. At Sindicic's trial it was revealed he “had been in Australia in 1978, working with another Yugoslav agent on a plan to link Croatian political activists with terrorism.”
In all probability co-ordinating with Trajkovski the Croatian Six set up.
The irony is that two months after NSW Police arrested the Croatian suspects in early 1979, Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser paid a visit to the Yugoslav Consulate General in Melbourne to offer his condolences at the death of Yugoslav leader Edvard Kardelj, and shook hands with Trajkovski.
We know this because a book "Art Treasures of Yugoslavia" with a special annotation was offered on the web by the prestigious auction house Downies:
“Inside the book is an inlaid letterhead dated 18th April 1979 addressed to the Honourable J.M.Fraser MP, Prime Minister of Australia with typewritten message "With this small token,we wish to express our thanks that you found the time to visit this Consul General (which represents the Yugoslav community) to express your condolences. Please accept this book in appreciation of your thoughtfulness" and hand signed by Consul General Dr Georgi Trajkovski.”
The question remains why did ASIO keep Fraser in the dark over Trajkovski's true identity?
Trajkovski, an ethnic Macedonian, was regarded as a fanatical Titoist and a specialist on foreign affairs. He authored Diplomatski Protokol, regarded as a text book on international relations in the then Yugoslavia. He passed away in the late 1990s.
Having pulled off the Croatian Six set up in 1979, Trajkovski repeated his shtick in 1988 with the removal of a fellow Yugoslav diplomat right under the nose of ASIO.
BACKGROUND
Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic communist federation founded in 1945, modelled on the Soviet Union, and fell apart in 1991 into various independent nation states.
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, Australia and New Zealand, who were agitating for independence from Yugoslavia. UDBa was so ruthless and efficient it at one time rivalled the old Soviet KGB andMossad in liquidating opponents. In Munich, West Germany, a whole section of a cemetery was set-aside for Croats assassinated by UDBa 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.
We now know that the alleged Croatian terrorism on Australian soil was the work ofUDBa.
One of Australia's most distinguished investigative reporters and authors, Hamish McDonald of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, has told me in a filmed interview that he became interested in the Croatian Six case after following the Balibo Five story, the murder of five Australian based newsmen at the hands of the Indonesian military during its invasion of neighbouring East Timor in 1975.
According to McDonald, vital evidence in proving the innocence of the Croatian Six and Indonesian culpability in the murder of the Balibo Five was suppressed by the Australian federal government on the grounds of "national security."

Hamish McDonald

Respected Australian journalist Hamish McDonald's 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 Mel
bourne."
----------------------
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.

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