SBS TV & that Commando "scandal"

Reality show proposal: Dibb's Deli. Australia's premier Arm chair General Professor Paul Dibb and his views on Army cooks.

EXPERTS WITH EGG ON THEIR FACES?

By Sasha Uzunov

Lance Corporal Andrew Jones was first and foremost a trained Australian soldier who was also an army cook. His tragic death at the hands of a rogue Afghan soldier in May of this year highlights the dangers that support troops face in the Afghanistan War and also hammers home how out of touch our highly paid defence experts are.

The irony of it all is that you the Australian taxpayer, not once but twice, have to pick up the tab every time an “expert” comes up with a harebrained scheme or a journalist from the state owned media chases a “boutique defence scandal” in the hope of winning an award.

Let us start proceedings with the Lord High Priest of Australian defence experts, Professor Paul Dibb. In 2008 I wrote:

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com/2008/09/aussie-defence-becomes-old-canadian.html

“Let us not forget some of the hair-brained schemes to save money from the Defence budget. Highly paid academic and a former Secretary of Defence, Professor Paul Dibb, proposed in 2006 to "civilianise" some trades within the Army. He complained that there were too many Army cooks.

“But what he failed to understand is first and foremost cooks are trained soldiers who can be used to patrol bases, and secondly how many civilian cooks are prepared to work in a warzone. Maybe if we hired many Gordon Ramsey styled chefs, they could hurl abuse at the Taliban!

“Maybe we need to employ some unorthodox methods to beat the Taliban. Here is a suggestion to the Defence Minister why don’t you commission Professor Dibb to go to England and recruit these foul-mouthed cooks who would strike terror into the terrorists.

“Let us call it Dibb’s Deli. It would also be televised. Great reality television.”

Dibb together with his disciple, Hugh White, a former Fairfax newspaper journalist turned defence expert, came up with the “brilliant idea” of cutting back our frontline combat troops, such as infantry, in the mid 1990s. When the East Timor crisis erupted in late 1999 the Australian Army did not have enough infantry “gunslingers” and was forced to canabalise reserve units for soldiers.

In 1998 the then Chief of Australia's Army Lieutenant General Frank Hickling was so concerned that our army was run down at the hands of Dibb-White that he issued his famous back to basics directive ordering all soldiers sharpen up their war fighting skills. A year later his move had potentially saved the lives of many young Australian soldiers engaged in a conflict with pro-Indonesian militia in East Timor. General Hickling had to fight off opposition from some of Canberra's desk warriors and self-appointed experts who "knew better."

Moving right along here…The Australian My Lai Massacre that never was story, being pushed by the taxpayer funded Special Broadcasting Service’s (SBS TV) Dateline program, and aided and abetted by the other state owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC TV) as well as Fairfax newspapers.

In February 2009 Australian Commandos entered a Taliban compound in the Oruzgan province of Afghanistan and were fired upon. And in the fog of war a grenade was thrown into a room to subdue the Taliban but instead six civilians were tragically killed.

The Australian newspaper’s Rory Callinan and Jeremy Kelly summed up the dilemma for the soldiers involved:

www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/fateful-oruzgan-grenade-was-part-of-training/story-e6frg6nf-1225911089567

“A source said the troops came under fire from a building in the compound and they responded with a grenade. When the firing continued they responded with another one as their training required, the source said. "What were they supposed to do?"

“The source said there was anger among the troops about what they would do if prosecution for a possible manslaughter went ahead. "Every time someone goes into a compound and gets shot at they will be thinking will we get charged with manslaughter if we use a grenade."

SBS TV’s Dateline program reporter, the self-styled media tough gal, Sophie McNeill, broke the story, which initially got off to a false start, and Tom Hyland and Rafael Epstein, self-appointed defence experts, have followed it for Fairfax.

In 2010 I predicted that the McNeill story would win an award, simply because it had the media template of “bad” Australian soldiers, a controversial war and an obstructionist Defence Department. But as we shall see the story simply had no legs. Why it won an award is hard to fathom:

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com/search/label/Afghan%20war

“The ABC TV’s Media Watch program, hosted by Jonathan Holmes, revealed that SBS Dateline on 8 March 2009 with such haste put together a story by McNeill, which ended up quoting Zahir Khan, a survivor of the commando raid. But it turned out he was an imposter.

www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2853029.htm

“A year later McNeill went to Afghanistan and finally tracked down the real Zahir Khan. SBS Dateline threw the blame on wily Afghan media fixer Fazel Reshad “Arshad” Wardak for the mistake in the first story. If all else fails, blame the hired help!

“You can see Wardak boasting about his services to SBS in 2008 on this youtube clip. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-5TaNvLsrk

“Jonathan Holmes then smacks naughty Sophie McNeill on the hand with the full force of a feather duster: as if the second story somehow redeems the first big mistake, a sack able offence. Great spin by Holmes. If only all journalists got such second chances.

“Holmes:

““Sophie McNeill's second report is compelling. It includes film of the surviving family, and the graves of the victims, in their village in Oruzgan. And it poses serious questions about the ADF's original account of the incident, and why a year later it has said nothing more, and not even interviewed this family.”

““You’re now beginning to get the picture: a boutique scandal which has Walkley Award, Australia’s version of the Pulitzer Prize, written all over it.” “

As a consequence, taxpayer dollars were spent in prosecuting some of the Commandos involved in the raid. But the charges against two were thrown out this year.

The honourable thing for McNeill to do is to apologise and return her Walkely Award and for the Executive Producer of Dateline Peter Charley to fall on his sword and resign. The media expects politicians to be accountable, why not journalists?

There is a public perception that journalists have become a law onto themselves that is they have a special media sheriff’s badge they can flash, whilst the rest of us cannot even ask a question.

Let us take Rafael Epstein, former ABC TV reporter and now with Fairfax.

In 2010, the taxpayer funded journalist got up to some shenanigans and tied up valuable court time:

www.theage.com.au/national/police-wont-charge-bushfire-reporter-20100203-ndlm.html

“Victoria Police will not prosecute a former ABC journalist accused of breaching police roadblocks after the Black Saturday bushfires.

“Rafael Epstein and a cameraman were stopped by officers in the main street of Kinglake on February 24 last year.

“Mr Epstein, who now works at The Age, admitted to deliberately entering an area restricted by the coroner. Mr Epstein's lawyers and the Office of Public Prosecutions agreed charges would not proceed, no conviction be recorded and that the matter would be dealt with through the Magistrates Court diversion program.

“Under diversion, Mr Epstein donated $2000 to Strathewen Primary School and admitted wrongdoing. He said: ''I apologise to local residents and police. I do wish to stress that my intention was to provide constructive and responsible coverage.''

I am trying to come up with a nick name for Epstein: Rafael “Roadblock” Epstein or Rafael “Smokey and the Bandit” Epstein:

I can just picture Epstein with a Burt Reynolds moustache and cowboy hat in a car with Sophie McNeill, as the Sally Field character, and the former Victoria Police Chief Simon Overland playing the role of Buford T. Justice.

Perhaps Epstein did not have a media sheriff’s badge but simply a note giving him permission to breach the roadblock “signed Epstein’s Mother!”

Would the law have been lenient with a 17-year-old boy or girl, acting as a citizen journalist, with a video camcorder wanting to shoot a youtube clip?

(end)

BRAVE COP WHO KEPT VICTORIA SAFE

PART 4 – THE FIGHT AGAINST YUGOSLAV INTELLIGENCE IN AUSTRALIA

Fourth part in a series on Yugoslav intelligence activities on Australian soil from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

BRAVE COP WHO KEPT VICTORIA SAFE

The full story can now be told…

By Sasha Uzunov

International terrorists must be rubbing their hands with glee at the news that the Australian state of Victoria’s Police Force will abolish its highly effective counter terrorism unit, the Security Intelligence Group (SIG).

Why you would tamper with something that has been successful is hard to fathom? In comparison, the United States has learned its lessons after the initial 9/11 intelligence gap and recently after a decade has finally taken out terrorism mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Australia is a federation of six states and two territories, each with their own police force. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is a separate entity. The domestic spy service is the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

In light of this, a little known Victoria Police operation 20 years ago helped to stop the flood of illegal weapons getting onto the streets and into the hands of home grown terrorists. The impact it had was to send a message--loud and clear-- that overseas linked crime and terror were not going to be tolerated in the state of Victoria, Australia.

That story can now be told because one of the leading figures behind that operation passed away early last year after a long illness.

Detective Senior Constable Geoffrey Ian Gardiner, who retired in 1998, was part of the PSG (Protective Services Group) within the Victoria Police at the old Russell Street complex in Melbourne’s city centre. His office was situated on the 5^th floor, East Wing. He was a clean, honest, hard working cop.

Det Snr Const Gardiner was tasked with investigating terrorist organisations including the Tamil Tigers, and ethnic-linked crime. He was very knowledgeable about the activities of Yugoslav intelligence (UDBa) on Australian soil and even knew some of the key agents of influence!

As detailed in a previous scoop article: www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1003/S00021.htm

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

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 and Mossad 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 of UDBa.

Even though he passed himself as a member of PSG, Det Snr Const Gardiner no doubt would have worked side by side with SIG.

I got to know Det Snr Const Gardiner in 1989 as a young cadet reporter working for the Australian Macedonian Weekly newspaper, who was interested in ethnic-related crime. My parents are Macedonian migrants.

He in fact tracked me down. He was a canny operator who would pump you for information and would never reveal anything unless it was in his interest to do so.

When he got wind of me investigating a leading UDBa agent of influence based in Melbourne with links to the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) Socialist Left faction and the national multicultural broadcaster The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), he offered some fatherly advice by warning me that the agent of influence was “being protected by people high above.”

But then to my surprise Det Snr Const Gardiner proceeded to reveal to me that the agent of influence had between 1968 and 1979 amassed criminal convictions in the state of Victoria for stolen goods, illegal gaming and financial deception. The last conviction was obtained for passing off a bogus cheque in the name of Red Star Belgrade, an overseas Yugoslav soccer team, at a pub in the Melbourne western suburb of Footscray.

The UDBa agent of influence was permitted to work as a state public servant despite their criminal record. ASIO had sealed their rap sheet from ordinary police access. The inference being that the agent of influence may have been cultivated as a “double agent.” But questions remain as to why an employee police check was never conducted by both the Victorian Public Service or SBS?

In a visit to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia in 1993, a year after it declared independence from Yugoslavia, I met with Mr Aleksandar Dinevski, a former Interior Ministry Officer, who confirmed the above-mentioned individual was an UDBa informer in Australia. The Interior Ministry is responsible for policing and the secret service

Another name supplied by Det Snr Const Gardiner was an individual who was a member of a Balkan mafia group based in Melbourne. In 2002 when I mentioned this name to another Macedonian Interior Ministry Officer, he confirmed that the individual was involved in drugs and illegal weapons.

One of Gardiner’s favourite warnings was" If you write anything about me, I'll chop you! Wait till I’m long gone." I kept my end of the bargain for 20 years!

In 1990 he telephoned me out of the blue asking for some information on a stolen weapons racket and if I had heard anything. He said he was deeply concerned about weapons getting into the hands of the wrong people. I told him I knew nothing and asked if he would elaborate.

But being the loyal policeman he did not go into detail. Months later, the story unfolded about a Police operation targeting stolen weapons. One of those unexpectedly caught in the dragnet was Oliver Bubevich (aka as Bubev, Bubevski), also the son of Macedonian migrants, and a Vic Roads (vehicle licensing office) employee and the then owner of a pub (bar) in Fitzroy, a Melbourne’s northern inner suburb. Bubevich was an obsessed illegal gun collector without links to organised crime or Yugoslav intelligence.

According to a Herald Sun newspaper report, dated 22 March 1991, "A MAN who hid a gun in his stove and ammunition in his kitchen cupboards was fined $2500 yesterday for possessing 15 unregistered firearms. Magistrate Mr David McLennan also ordered Oliver Bubevich to perform 300 hours of unpaid community work.

"Melbourne Magistrates' Court heard on Wednesday that Bubevich was fascinated with guns and had 23 weapons - all with serial numbers drilled out or stamped over. The weapons, hidden throughout his Thomastown house, were found when police raided the property last year. Bubevich, 36, of Winamarra Cres, pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful possession, one count of possessing silencers and 15 counts of possessing unregistered and unlicensed firearms.

The court was told police raided Bubevich's house after finding two unregistered handguns in his car and another two unregistered weapons in a second man's car after Bubevich had sold them to him.

"Bubevich denied supplying guns to the underworld and said his fascination with guns had led him to disregard the fact the serial numbers had been deleted. He told the court he had bought two of the guns from a man at a Fitzroy hotel and had found the rest on the site of a demolished Preston house.

" On 21 March 1991, the Herald Sun wrote: "Prosecutor Sen-Constable Maurice Lynn told the court Bubevich was arrested after police found two guns in his car on November 7, 1990. "They found two more guns, a .38 Rossi revolver and a .32 Webley and Scott pistol in a second man's car after Bubevich had sold them to him, he said. Sen-Constable Lynn said police then raided Bubevich's house and found 23 unregistered guns, two silencers and a large quantity of ammunition in kitchen cupboards.

"Bubevich's lawyer, Mr Peter Finkelstein, said his client was a "gun collector gone wrong". Magistrate David McLennan said he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Bubevich had supplied guns to crime figures."

Mr Aco Talevski, a long time Macedonian human rights activist and former Orthodox Church leader, gave an interview filmed on camera last year. Freeze frame photo by Sasha Uzunov.

Mr Aco Talevski, a long time Macedonian human rights activist and former Orthodox Church leader, gave an interview filmed on camera last year.

He revealed:

“I met Geoff Gardiner in the early 1980s through my friend Stojan Sarbinov (another long time Macedonian activist). Geoff Gardiner was a member of the Victorian Police anti-terrorism squad.

“I had numerous meetings with Geoff Gardiner as a representative of the Macedonian community (in Melbourne) because in the past we organized a lot of protests…He was assigned to communicate with the ethnic groups.

“As a democratic society here in Australia everybody has the right to express their opinion…but it has to be conducted in a civilized and peaceful manner.”

Mr Talevski said that Gardiner had confirmed to him that a number of individuals who were saboteurs of Macedonian community events were connected to the Yugoslav government.

“These people were well connected and protected by certain forces. He (Gardiner) didn’t go further in saying…” Mr Talevski said.

Police of the calibre of Geoff Gardiner are very rare. It was because of his attention to detail, the willingness to be flexible that the shenanigans perpetrated by UDBa in the state of New South Wales, and aided indirectly by the incompetence of NSW Police Special Branch and ASIO, in the 1970s, such as the Croatian Six case did not happen in the state of Victoria.

Infamous ex-NSW Police Detective Roger Rogerson, freeze frame image from a video interview with Sasha Uzunov, May 2011. Rogerson was one of the arresting officers in the Croatian Six case. He has called ASIO "amateurs." Photo by Sasha Uzunov.

Infamous ex-NSW Police Detective Roger Rogerson, now an author, was involved in two of Australia’s highly contentious cases, the Ananda Marga-Hilton Hotel bombing and the the Croatian Six case. In February 1979 Rogerson led the raid on the Sydney home of Mile Nekic, one of the Croatian Six.

In 1991 legendary ABC TV investigative reporter Chris Masters dropped a bombshell on the Four Corners program.

Masters filed a story 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).

In a filmed interview last month, Rogerson revealed to me that ASIO were “amateurs.”

Victoria Police's motto is Uphold the Right...Tenez Le Droit...It certainly did that back in 1990-91 in keeping our streets safe from weapons falling into the hands of the bad guys. But we should never remain complacent.

(end)

If you have any information about UDBa activities on Australian or New Zealand soil, then I would like to hear from you. We can talk on or off camera and confidentiality is assured - Sasha Uzunov. You can contact me on sashauzunov8@gmail.com

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

links:

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com/2010/06/part-3-fight-against-yugoslav.html

The Fight against Yugoslav Intelligence in Australia, parts 1, 2, 3

Part 1 - PART 1 – published in scoop.co.nz

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1003/S00021.htm
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
ASIO’S POOR RECORD

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CROATIAN SIX CASE - 4 Corners, ABC TV, 1991 Report by Chris Masters.

Part 1 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2v4118TV8c

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Obtain your DVD copy of TIMOR TOUR OF DUTY - A Luke Leon Media production in conjunction with SASHA UZUNOV

go to the film link at:

http://timortourofduty.blogspot.com/

MARTINKUS SIDELINED?

Why is Australia's top war reporter John Martinkus not being used to cover the war in Afghanistan?


SCOOP - Independent news - New Zealand's premier news website

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1007/S00040.htm

Top Australian War Reporter Sidelined?
Monday, 5 July 2010, 12:37 pm
Opinion: Sasha Uzunov

Top Australian War Reporter Sidelined?
By Sasha Uzunov

No doubt many who have been watching the 2010 Soccer World Cup from South Africa have been puzzled by some of the tactics used by a number of coaches, namely Australian boss Pim Verbeek. Equally puzzling is one Australian media boss’s stubborn refusal to change his tired game plan.

I am referring to Peter Charley, the Executive Producer (coach) of Dateline, flagship current affairs program on Australian public broadcaster the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS TV).

Is Peter Charley the Pim Verbeek version of Australian television journalism?

Verbeek came up with a strange plan to counter the powerful Germans in Australia’s opening World Cup match , which resulted in a 4-0 drubbing. He kept his powerful strikers on the bench and used superstar Tim Cahill out of position. By the time Australia was allowed to play its natural game against Ghana and Serbia it was too late, Australia was out of the World Cup and rueing what could have been.

In contrast, New Zealand national soccer coach Ricky Herbert (pictured above) had his players fighting like unchained wild lions against Slovakia, Italy and Paraguay and remained undefeated. The irony is that Shaun Brown, the head of SBS TV, is a Kiwi. We can only hope he draws strength and inspiration from his fellow countryman Herbert and encourages his Aussie subordinate Peter Charley!

“Team Dateline” has become a parody of its former hard-hitting best with Charley not using top “strike” reporter, John Martinkus, in covering the war in Afghanistan but instead opting for a predictable plan. Dateline had a huge gaff in one story when the identity of an Afghan man was confused relating to a botched Australian Army Commando raid last year which resulted in the deaths of civilians. Under previous ‘Team Dateline coach’ Iron Mike Carey, ironically a mate of Charley’s, this would never have happened.

Verbeek used Cahill in the role of lone striker up forward but anyone knows that the player is better suited to playing deep and then attacking from out of the blue. Likewise, Martinkus, one of Australia’s most respected and fearless war reporters who has worked for “Team Dateline” in the past, is not being used to cover the war in Afghanistan. He has taken up an academic job in Tasmania, Australia’s deep south state.

Martinkus’ style is similar to Cahill’s, in that he plays deep and then strikes. In media terms this means that the news story takes precedence, not Martinkus’ face on camera wearing a flak jacket and helmet in a contrived tough guy pose.

Instead, we have Dateline reporter Mark Davis, former lawyer turned war reporter, who carries his own camera into a combat zone but the camera is fixed on himself at all times, except for toilet breaks! This is ripe material for a sit-com. Why no one has satirised Davis and his “style” beats me? It is absolutely hilarious---though unintentional--and it detracts from the story being covered.

Then there is Charley’s obsession with the “media tough guy/gal” play so popular in the 1970s and 80s under American-Australian media guru Gerald Stone, who took a group of Aussie reporters and made them national heroes by sending them into warzones and playing tough for the camera. In reinventingthis game plan, Charley has reporter Sophie McNeill as the 21st century media tough gal. But this has encountered some problems, namely over the Afghan story mentioned above.

The Team Dateline website once hyped:

“Pick, arguably, the most dangerous region in the world today and that’s where you'll find Sophie McNeill.”

But not according to the Media Watch program on Australia’s other public broadcaster ABC TV, www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2853029.htm

“Sophie McNeill was in Australia when the story broke, and she stayed there. She couldn't have travelled safely to the remote village in Oruzgan (Afghanistan) where the killings took place.”

SBS TV is based in Sydney, Australia; to be fair to McNeill we can regard some of the suburbs in that city as warzones!

To top that off, we have the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper’s self appointed defence expert the Irish-Australian Paul McGeough turning up on “Team Dateline” in cameo roles, complete with flak jacket and helmet in Afghanistan. It has overtones of media mates chewing the fat on camera.

Martinkus is well known for going where angels fear to tread. He spent years covering the conflict in East Timor; was kidnapped in Iraq and has been to Afghanistan. In other words, the man is a heavy hitter but with a low key and soft spoken stage persona. There are no cheap theatrics for the camera.

Australian taxpayers who pay Charley’s wages at the public broadcaster SBS have a right to know why the best man for the job in reporting what is actually going in Afghanistan is not being used. Charley should be catching a flight down to Tasmania and getting Martinkus back into the team!

Related Stories on Scoop

Sasha Uzunov: ASIO’s Poor Record 02/03/2010
AFP Hasn't Been Asked To Investigate Moran Murder 09/12/2009

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