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unusual move the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the country's counter-intelligence agency, has withdrawn a de-classified file on a former Yugoslav diplomat believed to be the mastermind behind the 1979-80 Croatian Six set-up, one of Australia's worst miscarriages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Today, TEAM UZUNOV received a phone call from a National Archives of Australia employee informing that ASIO had withdrawn the file on Trajkovski from public viewing.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	27/4/79/21	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	5468	TRAJKOVSKI, George Dr Volume 1 Access status: Closed Location: Canberra	1975 - 1975
12880071	A6180	27/4/79/20	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	5472	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, 

###########

e@naa.gov.au

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? Monday, 25 July 2011, 4:53 pm Column: Sasha Uzunov

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 Melbourne."

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

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.

Special Forces burn out?

Herald Sun newspaper link

Source: Herald Sun Newspaper, Melbourne. 
SAS death in Afghanistan raises workload question

UPDATE: Australia's 33rd soldier to die in Afghanistan will be remembered as a ''soldier's soldier'', but his death has raised questions about the operational tempo of the Special Air Services Regiment (SASR) in the conflict. read more....

-----------

Some of us warned about the Special Forces burn out back in 2008.

Go to the link for the archived full story...

link

extract:....from 2008 article

NELSON-HOWARD MILITARY DOCTRINE: contradiction?

To top that off, a legacy of the Nelson-Howard military doctrine has the Special Forces doing most of the fighting, because of the fear of casualties to our regular infantry units. The long term effect could be burn out of our Special Forces. But the irony is if we withdraw our SF units and do not replace them with infantry units, then the pressure on Taliban is eased. It is one contradictory military doctrine, to say the least.

SF BURN OUT?

"Twice now we have had to deploy special forces in Afghanistan and twice now we have had to withdraw them because they are too tired," said Neil James, of think tank the Australian Defence Association in October 2006.

The highly respected Brigadier Jeff Sengelman DSC CSC, deputy commander of Special Operations, revealed the SAS had faced problems with recruiting and retaining soldiers but put a positive spin by also saying that it did not affect its operational capability.

The Australian Defence Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, was on the money when he said days ago that the increase in Taliban activity against Australian troops in Afghanistan was a last attempt to inflict casualties before the northern winter set in, bringing a close to the traditional war season for another year. But let us take a closer look and read between the lines, if we can.

"It was an ambush. My understanding is it was gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades," Brigadier Robert Dawson, Defence PR, said.

Brigadier Dawson said the Taliban were fighting hard to repel Coalition incursions into their heartland areas. "Some of the operations which ISAF are conducting are in areas where Coalition soldiers have not been before," he said. "I think we can expect more heavy fighting." (Herald Sun, 4 Sept 2008).

Our diggers were operating against the Taliban in the strategic Chora valley north east of Tarin Kowt.

KARMEIN CHAN COLD CASE

KARMEIN CHAN COLD CASE

by Sasha Uzunov

Australians, and humans in general and the media by extension, have had a morbid interest in controversial crimes such as the murder case of Azaria Chamberlain, the baby taken and killed by a dingo more than 30 years ago. So much so that the simple facts can easily be overlooked by focusing on elaborate conspiracy theories or allowing prejudices to rule our emotions. Another murder that has captured the public imagination is the still unsolved Karmein Chan case from 1991.

Patrick Carlyon, a Herald Sun newspaper reporter and the son of legendary newspaperman and Anzac yarn teller Les Carlyon, summed it up pretty well:

www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/will-the-public-now-clear-lindy/story-fncw91kq-1226393565152

"Azaria haunts all of us, largely, because we wanted her to. She wasn't just a little girl lost. She never lived a life, but her name will continue to blaze longer than almost all celebrities or politicians.

"She has come to be a byword for suspicion, book deals, media deals, autobiographies, prison terms, weirdo religions, wacky scientists and more conspiracy theories than Craig Thomson, Roswell and the Bermuda Triangle bundled together."

Lindy Chamberlain, the mother of Azaria, was found guilty of her daughter's murder in 1982 and served time before having her conviction overturned and recently a Northern Territory Coroner's Inquest finally ruled that the baby's death was caused by a dingo taking he child from the family's tent near Uluru (Ayers Rock) in 1980. As Carlyon has pointed out:

"To accept that the Chamberlains did not kill their baby demands more than a simple acknowledgement. It means the "lucky country" be condemned, in this at least, as the "bastard country". It requires that the Chamberlains be recognised as victims of ignorance and incompetence."

So now we turn our attention to the 1991 Karmein Chan case. Thirteen year old Chinese Australian girl Karmein was taken from her home in the north-eastern Melbourne suburb of Templetowe by a masked man, later believed to be a serial child attacker dubbed Mr Cruel also involved in a spate of other attacks on young girls. Karmein was babysitting her two younger sisters as her parents ran a busy restaurant in nearby Eltham when the kidnapping (or abduction) occurred.

A year later Karmein's decomposed body, with three bullet wounds to the back of the skull, was found in Thomastown, 15 kilometres directly north of Melbourne's city centre. Anyone who has ever watched the television news and seen the enormous grief shown by the Chan family has been deeply moved by it.

The Karmein Chan case still remains a mystery; the alleged Mr Cruel has never been found. A number of theories have been floated but Victoria Police has discounted most of them and stuck with the Mr Cruel angle. I will touch upon this particular point further down in this story.

The interesting link from a media perspective between Karmein Chan and Azaria Chamberlain and for that matter any story relating to crime is the amount of anonymous information or tips that gets passed onto journalists in the hope of “breaking” the case.

This is where it can get tricky. A free for all could jeopardise the investigation or unnecessarily hurt relatives by raising false expectations or pervert the course of justice with conspiracy theories as in the Azaria murder.

But there are times when police investigations stall and help from the media is needed. But who can judge that accurately? Moreover, how hard is it to know the veracity of an informant's tip?

In the space of three months in 2004, Frank Cole, a pensioner living in Melbourne, stepped forward to claim he could solve both the Azaria case and the then unsolved murder of Mersina Halvagis, the Greek Melbourne women whose body was found at Fawkner cemetery, in Melbourne's north, in 1997.

Cole, who was interviewed by legendary TV reporter Ray Martin on the A Current Affair program, said he was a shooter in the Northern Territory in 1980 who had shot a dingo near Uluru with baby Azaria in its mouth. Cole undertook a lie detector test but Lindy Chamberlain was not convinced, namely over Cole's description of the baby's clothing.

In some media circles Cole was looked upon with doubt when he claimed that jailed killer Peter Dupas, free at the time, was the murderer of Mersina Halgavis.

See links on Frank Cole:

www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/06/1094322711909.html?

www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/04/1091557909627.html

But in 2006 Victoria Police charged Dupas with her murder--and later found guilty--after a 2002 jail house confession given by Dupas to fellow inmate and disgraced lawyer Andrew Fraser.

Where does that place Cole's tip? No one at the time was publicly aware of Dupas's jail house confession. Was Cole's tip simply true? A lucky guess? Deduction from reading newspaper stories? Psychic intuition?

As newspapers go into decline because of the changing technology, more and more members of the public with information to give, are turning to independent or citizen journalists or bloggers online.

In Australia we are undertaking a semi sort of serious investigation into the role of the media, especially the obligations of bloggers. However, the mainstream media's traditional role of news breakers have been eroded by technology.

My interest in police and crime reporting began purely by accident in 1989 when I was simultaneously undertaking a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and an old fashioned newspaper cadetship with the Australian Macedonian Weekly newspaper. Out of the blue I received a phone call at work from a Detective Senior Constable Geoff Gardiner, a Victorian Police officer with an interest in ethnic related crime and counter terrorism.

We developed a good working relationship which revolved around the trading of information. When I was at the RMIT city campus I would pop in for a coffee and a chat in the old Russell Street Police HQ. Geoff wanted to know if there were any trouble-makers within the Melbourne Macedonian community and I wanted to know who were the Macedonians with links to foreign intelligence organisations.

I still remember his threatening words that he “would chopper me” if I ever revealed his identity whilst he was alive. I kept my end of the bargain for over 20 years. In 2010 he sadly died after a long illness.

More on Geoff Gardiner at this link: www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13223

In 1995, taking time out from journalism I became an Australian soldier for seven years and made some great friendships and experienced incredible adventures. Over the years I have received some incredible tip offs from ex-service personal and “civilians” alike.

One of my favourites tips was a raging battle that took place in 2006 between Australian infantry soldiers from the Townsville based unit 2RAR and Iraqi insurgents, I received a frame by frame account of the ferocious shoot out hours after it had happened whilst sitting back in the comfy armchair in my Melbourne home. The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper was quick to pick upon it:

www.smh.com.au/news/national/australian-troops-close-shave-in-iraq-firefight/2006/09/28/1159337280510.html

Australian troops' close shave in Iraq firefight

by Gerard Noonan, Craig Skehan, and Desmond O'Grady in Rome

September 29, 2006

AUSTRALIAN soldiers in southern Iraq were pinned down for at least an hour in a fierce firefight with insurgents two days ago, the Department of Defence has confirmed.

A report from a former Australian soldier and now freelance journalist, Sasha Uzunov, first raised the alert about the incident.

Mr Uzunov said soldiers from the Townsville unit 2RAR had contacted him to tell their story "in case it was ignored and to highlight inadequate equipment".

Air Chief Marshall Houston said Defence was concerned that emails purporting to be from soldiers involved in the incident were being mailed to the media.

-----------

But there are times when you have to take a bullet for your sources, if you pardon the pun. In 2008 two angry Vietnam War veterans contacted me with a story about well known The Age newspaper writer and anti-Vietnam War activist Garrie Hutchinson being in charge of government funded student trips to Gallipoli. When I broke the story all hell broke loose, so much so that soon to be defunct The Age newspaper interrupted its front page coverage of Russia's invasion of neighbouring Georgia and the Beijing Olympics to do a takedown. But you know you have arrived when you hit page 1.

see link: http://www.theage.com.au/national/truth-still-a-casualty-long-after-vietnam-20080816-3wrr.html

One lesson learnt is the mainstream media are very protective of their own, in this case Garrie Hutchinson. But as independent or civilian journalists or bloggers we learn to take a punch and develop a thick hide to do our job.

The Age however did not let that stop it from picking up another story of mine in 2009, this time by Suzanne Carbone:

“But [Tim Holding then Victorian Water minister] moment to shine may have arrived. Former Australian soldier Sasha Uzunov, now a photo-journalist, writes in his blog that Holding (below) could be destined for Afghanistan as Kevin Rudd's "eyes and ears" on the ground. You see, Holding is well credentialled as a former member of the Army Reserve in the 1st Commando Regiment - and he's Tourism Minister. A "prominent Canberra strategic analyst" told Uzunov: "Mr Holding is an intelligent young politician with links to special forces. The Australian media underestimate his ability, which is why he would be ideal for the mission: he would slip under the media radar."

This now brings me to two bits of information I have received from sources which still stick in my mind. Both have never been published before. One I have discounted simply because it is not true and the other I do not know what to make of it. I have inclduded them to give you the reader an idea of what is sent unfiltered to me. People's motive in giving information might be genuine, well intentioned or has a ring of truth to it. But that does not make it necessarily true.

The first was a tip from a woman who claimed that Victoria Police had used a psychic, a Turkish woman, to locate the body of dead toddler Jaidyn Leski from a country dam in 1998. I know that Victoria Police does not use psychics or clairvoyants. So we can discount this one.

In 2011, I bumped into someone who I had met before and spoken to about on a wide variety of issues. As we sat down to lunch the person, the source, mentioned to me that he had been to a barbecue sometime ago in a suburb close to Templestowe. As the barbecue progressed the source had been involved in a marathon drinking session with two unnamed “nasty looking blokes” belonging to a, let's just say, recreational/ alleged crime association. These two, unprompted, boasted of being hired to kill Karmein Chan. But no reason was given. The informant said he believed every word that these two had said by their menacing body language. But is that enough to go on?

We know that this recreational/alleged crime association has a code of conduct, an honour amongst thieves so to speak, where children are not to be harmed in any criminal activity. Was it a freelance job, unbeknownst to the recreational/alleged crime association's hierarchy?

Are these two simply making up a story and mischief making? Police will tell you of many who falsely claim responsibility for acts of crime they never committed.

If you don't believe the Mr Cruel angle, perhaps this would make an excellent conspiracy theory!

The girls previously taken by Mr Cruel were assaulted but returned alive, whilst Karmein was murdered, execution style with three bullets in the back of the head. Was it the same person? We still wait for answers, as does the long suffering family of Karmein Chan.

When also fails then psychics are seen as the last resort. Australian/New Zealand paranormal franchise television show Sensing Murder ran an episode on Karmein Chan but without finding the killer or killers.

Youtube clip of Sensing Murder - Mr Cruel case / Karmein Chan

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Wq_wl0SDk 

(end)