MACEDONIA - THE UNCERTAIN ROAD AHEAD

THE ROAD AHEAD - so many questions still remain unanswered over the present crisis in Macedonia.

by Sasha Uzunov

Will it become clearer within the next 12 months or so ? We don't know If a numberr of issues will be put on the table by the European Union either officially or unofficially and that is will Macedonia be forced to change its name to please Greece and the Federalisation of Macedonia...as the price it must pay for entry into the EU…and for the ending of the present crisis brought upon by the Opposition Leader Zoran Zaev's claims of government corruption and illegal wiretapping of opponents. 

All of this remains speculation and may not occur but you can never rule out anything.

The intended or unintended consequences of the crisis is to have drawn world attention to every move Macedonia now makes and having to jump through impossible hurdles not placed in front of say Bulgaria, Kosovo, Serbia, Albania and Greece who all have bad records, probably far worse. Kosovo is a failed state, an economic basket case where one of its leaders Agim Ceku actually lives in Zadar, Croatia but commutes to Pristina, the Kosovo capital.

We can see an example of this double standard or inconsistency by EU financed Macedonian human rights activists who complain about say Homophobia but then give pro Serb cleric and homophobe Zoran Vraniskovski a free pass. It's as clear as day the blatant paradox.

All governments in Macedonia, regardless of whether they are VMRO-DPMNE or SDSM need to be held accountable. The problem is that society is divided by loyalty to a particular party and corruption sadly is nothing new. Under SDSM governments there were many cases of corruption, including the horrendous pyramid scheme scandal of TAT in 1997 and bugging of phone calls by the then Interior Minister Ljubomir Danailov Frckoski. In terms of investigations nothing happened. Likewise a number of scandals rocked the former VMRO-DPMNE government of Ljubco Georgievski. Nothing happened in prosecuting Georgievski. There has been corruption within the ethnic Albanian parties, DUI and DPA, as well.

In principle all politicians, including the Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, and Opposition Leader Zoran Zaev and DUI leader Ali Ahmeti and DPA boss Menduh Thaci, must be scrutinised in Macedonia. Focusing on only one party but ignoring others is inconsistent by the EU.

The EU's unofficial policy is the principle of "least resistence" meaning it's easier to subvert Macedonia and to get it to change its name rather than deal with an obstinate Greece or aggressive Kosovar Albanian nationalists. We have web access to leaked US diplomatic cables by Julian Assange which reveal the threat of physical violence upon ethnic Albanians  by Albanian politicians if they don't vote for either DUI or DPA.

That's something Brussels doesn't want to talk about ! 

EU's NASTY SEXUAL POLITICS: contradictory?

One of the tactics used by those within the European Union for undermining a sense of Macedonian national identity has been to play the sexual or gender orientation card, as in gay rights in Macedonia.

In short the pro-EU supporters in Macedonia have painted their conservative opponents as savages but what is contradictory is the support for a pro-Serb nationalist cleric and homophobe Zoran Vraniskovski and his activities in Macedonia.

BELGRADE CAFE TRUMPS HELSINKI- the deliberate use of sexual politics to destroy Macedonian identity.

Contradictory: Macedonian homophobia is "bad" but Serbian "homophobia" is "good !"

Pro Serbian nationalist cleric and homophobe supporter Zoran Vraniskovski is given a free pass in Macedonia but Macedonian intuitions get attacked? Why the contradiction? Why no protest against Vraniskovski or outside the Serb Embassy in Skopje?

Serb Patriach Irinej who is Vraniskovski's spiritual mentor:

"...the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, his holiness Irinej, explained to the masses that floods are God’s will, and a reminder to Christians of God’s anger for the Gay Pride Parade in Belgrade. Irinej did not explain why God did not punish homosexuals and their supporters from Belgrade, instead of sending flood to innocent people in the western part of the country. His holiness also didn’t explain why God flooded Bosnia and Croatia for the sins of the Serbian gay population. We don’t know how many of the victims are homosexuals or their allies, but we have seen some great humanity in this region, often mentioned in the past as a region of war. Maybe that’s the biggest problem of church officials, because in wars and disasters people are in despair and need salvation, so priests need enemies. In the past the enemies were communists, Muslims, Catholics and today the archenemies are gay people. The church’s logic is simple. Floods are God’s will, and he is angry at the organizers of the Gay Pride Parade. Therefore, every good Christian in Serbia must eliminate every gay person she/he knows. The last statement is the real message of Irinej."

Helsinki Watch boss in Macedonia Mirjana Najchevska defending Vraniskovski:

Quote:

"It's absolute nonsense in the framework of international articles and European conventions," says Mirjana Najcevska, president of the Macedonian chapter of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.

The committee filed their case with the European Court of Human Rights last month after Macedonia's highest court upheld a law forbidding the establishment of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the country. The committee's action was also prompted by ongoing police and mob harassment of Vraniskovski's followers."

Najchevska has been on the front foot, at the behest of her EU handlers, to play the gender card against conservative elements but in trying to undermine them she has been happy to contradict her self in supporting Vraniskovski-- supported and paid by the Serbian state to destabilise Macedonia by having it dragged through human rights commissions--and his battles against the Macedonian authorities.

So the issue is not so much about gay rights but more a wedge or a political hammer to be used in bludgeoning opponents with.      

JOINING THE EU WON'T SOLVE MACEDONIA'S PROBLEMS

Why does Macedonia want to be another EU basket case like Greece?

The fundamental problem is not traditional Macedonian culture but getting Macedonians to think for themselves, invent technology. The problem lies with the remnants of what I call the Belgrade Intellectual Cafe lifestyle, a leftover from communist times when Macedonia was a part of federal socialist Yugoslavia before declaring independence in 1991.

You have an educated elite who have these unrealistic expectation of getting a state-subsidized or life or an EU scholarship or grant.

Sweden is a member of the EU but it still makes things such as cars, mobile phones, etc etc.

You can't build an economy and an elite which draws its income from scholarships or grants. You need to produce something or offer something such as tourism, technology etc etc.

You can only have so many EU funded journalists and activists in the country. What about 99% of the population that will not get those jobs? What do they do?

You need to get more young people into science, information technology etc.

South Korea was at one stage poorer than the Socialist Republic of Macedonia (when it was within SFR Yugoslavia). South Korea is now an advanced economy because its elite doesn't sit in cafes drawing scholarships.

Question how many members of Macedonia's elite have invented something? Or run a successful business?

1973 - Serb leader says Croats set up

Australian-Serb community leader in Canberra says Croats set up by Yugoslav government over "terrorist" bombings !

The Canberra Times - 24 March 1973.

Croats 'given bad name' - INCIDENTS BEING STAGED'

A leading member of the Australian Serbian community said yesterday he was convinced that Croatians in Australia were being given a bad name to appease the Yugoslav Government over genuine opposition to the Belgrade - regime.

The Serbian leader, who at first agreed to the use of his name, said later he had been advised he could be victimised if it were published.

A statue of the Yugoslav World War II Chetnik leader. General Mihailovic  outside the Serbian Church in Forrest was guarded during the visit this week of the Yugoslav Prime Minister. Mr Bijedic, because of fears that it might be attacked.

The statue was bombed about two years ago. The Yugoslav Embassy has complained of its presence in Canberra.

'"It was guarded because we feared that Yugoslav communist agents in Australia might bomb it and use this as an excuse to attack the Croats", the Serbian leader said.

"I fought with Mihailovic during the war against the Germans and the Italians who occupied our country and against their allies.

"I believe that incidents have been deliberately staged by the Yugoslav secret service in Australia in order to bring suspicion against the Croats.

"I have no time at all for Croat extremists but I believe that the Yugoslav communists have arranged many of the incidents for which they have been blamed.

"Once they have convinced the Australian Government to wipe out the Croat opposition to them they will start on the Serbs, the vast majority of whom also oppose Tito and his methods".

The Serbian said it appeared that many of the bombing incidents being blamed on Croats were the work of other parties. Large numbers of Croats working in construction and allied industries knew how to use explosives to get their full effect.

One particular explosion in Melbourne which had received great publicity he believed to have been "staged". The explosion had blown outward from its reputed target. Any skilled Croatian explosives expert would have known how to direct it inward, so as to destroy the property.

Link:  To Canberra Times story (archive)

MILOS CURCIC

TANJUG IS AUTHORISED TO ANNOUNCE AGAIN: Milos Curcic 

By Sasha Uzunov

We broke the story some time ago about a Yugoslav Military Counter-Intelligence agent (KOS) posing as journalist by the name of Zoran Pavlovic who was on a visit to Australia in 1976.

Link: 

He came to the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) which noted:

"Pavlovic has visited Australia previously...Pavlovic is a former Army man..."

There was a second Yugoslav intelligence (UDBA or SDB) operative. His name was Milos Curcic, who arrived in Australia in 1969 and worked as a correspondent for TANJUG, the official Yugoslav state news agency.

Curcic was a curious fellow, a wanderer who spent time in Austria, Germany and even Iraq in the late 1960s undertaking some interesting tasks.

He has the dubious distinction of being sacked by both pro-Yugoslav newspapers in Australia, Novosti and Nova Doba, before starting up his own short lived paper called Jedinstvo (Unity) in 1972 and which folded about 1975.

Where he got the funding remains a mystery but sources in the Melbourne Macedonian community have told us that there where some naive Macedonians who kicked in some bucks to Curcic.

In an interview with prominent Serb journalist Marko Lapusina, Curic made the extraordinary claim:

Link: 

"Pre dolaska australiskih ustaška u BiH, na planinu Radušu 1972. godine, gde su hteli da izvedu ustanak i stvore novu NDH, objavio sam spisak 80 ustaša na petom kontinentu i njihove veze sa tajnom službom ASIO - seća se Ćurčić. - Zbog toga sam u Hrvatskoj proglašen za najopasnijeg jugoslovenskog novinara, koji „ruši Jugoslaviju, bratstvo i jedinstvo“.

Kaže da ga je zatim saslušavala australijska tajna služba ASIO. Pitali su ga: „Vi ste prozvani kao komunistički agent? Da li se bojite smrti?“. Odgovorio je: „Nije me strah. Ubićete me ili vi iz ASIO ili jugoslovenska SDB!“.

Curcic claimed he published a list of 80 "Croatian terrorists" who in 1972 planned an attack in the Radusa mountains in the then Yugoslavia.

He further claimed that these Croats were being backed by ASIO. We now know this not to be true because of ASIO's acquiescence to UDBa/SDB in its set up of six Croats on false terrorism charges in Australia in 1979-80.

Curcic fits the role of agent provocateur/trouble maker used effectively by UDBa in destroying opposition abroad, rather than the Western stereotype of a debonair covert agent.

It was something that ASIO had trouble understanding. We tracked down the ASIO files in which Curcic is named, and not suprisingly Curcic admitted to ASIO he was an UDBa / KOS operative. It was met with disbelief.

The curious character, TANJUG correspondent Milos Curcic, came to the attention of ASIO in 1972-73...over his role in Yugoslav intelligence operations against Australia's Croat community.

Curcic also claimed he infiltrated the emigre Albanian community in Europe.

DIRECT LINK TO RANKOVIC

Newly de-classified Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) documents reveal that an Australian man, Lewis Kent, later to become a Federal Member of Parliament had a direct link to Alexander Rankovic,  the infamous Chief of Yugoslav Intelligence (UDBa / SDB) and deputy to Marshal Tito, in 1964 and was certainly working as a spy for communist Yugoslavia in Australia.

DIRECT LINK TO RANKOVIC
Marshal Tito's Number 2 running operations in Australia

by Sasha Uzunov

Photo: Serbian National Archives. Rankovic with cigarette holder talks with Serb Orthodox Bishops, Belgrade, 1961.

The National Archives of Australia has just released the second ASIO volume on Lewis Kent (Volume 1)... It released Volume 2 first.

In a 1965 a Commonwealth Police report to ASIO, a bunch of letters were intercepted which reveal that Lewis Kent and his sidekick Marjan Jurjevic (an associate of Australian leftist politicians Jim Cairns and Bill Hartley) were instructed by the very Chief of UDBa, the infamous Alexander Rankovic, who later fell in 1966 after being discovered tapping Tito's phones, to provide intelligence for Yugoslavia under the cover of a group called the Yugoslav Settlers Association (YSA) in Australia

The equivalent would be Yuri Andropov, the Chairman of the KGB, directly running an US Congressman as a spy... This is an incredible find...

The document also reveals that prominent people in Skopje, The Socialist Republic of Macedonia, then a part of the Yugoslav federation wanted to be included in the loop. 

-----

Our previous story: link 

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

AUSTRALIAN MP - a Yugoslav spy?

Was Lewis "Bata" Kent  (1925-2014) - an Australian Labor Federal Member of Parliament an intelligence operative for Communist Yugoslavia?

by Sasha Uzunov

LEWIS "BATA" KENT - Federal MP for Hotham (1980-90)

Team Uzunov exclusive - after a 2 year wait our application for access to Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) documents is finally processed

EXPLOSIVE: ASIO files reveal a former Australian Federal MP, before entering parliament, wanted in 1964 to bomb Croat activists in Australia...

In a 1982 ASIO report on Federal MP, Lewis Kent, his "activities" were listed:

7-1-1964: "Kent suggested that they set fire to the home of Srecko Rover [controversial Croat leader in Melbourne, Australia] and that other known fascists would be given attention (either by fire, bombing or by kidnapping)

on 13-2-1964 Kent said: "we will have to burn ROVER's home, then the church, everything."
In 1964 Kent had dinner with the Yugoslav Consul General, Dejan Popovic, on a visit to Melbourne.

In the same year Popovic telephoned Kent twice during a visit to Melbourne and visited his home.


In 1976 Kent invited Dr Georgi Trajkovski, Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne and believed to be the Croatian Six set up mastermind, to dinner.

Kent was chairman of the controversial Australian Yugoslav Welfare Society, set up by Trajkovski, and which was accused of spying upon members of the Croat, Macedonian communities in Melbourne.

source: ASIO file available in the National Archives of Australia.www.naa.gov.au

AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE (formerly Commonwealth Police)

You have to shake your head in amazement at Australian law enforcement and counter intelligence "naivety." Australian Federal Police Agent, DetectiveSenior Sergeant Arnold 'stumbled upon the fact' that an translator used to examine seized Croat documents was also close toYugoslav diplomats.

In fact Detective Snr Sergeant Arnold spoke to the man at a Yugoslav consulate cocktail reception for Aco Petrovic, from the Serbian Matica, visiting Australia in November 1983.

This is an AFP report handed to ASIO and inside Lewis Kent's ASIO file.www.naa.gov.au

In another report from 1983, Kent got in contact with Anton Buneta, identified as a Yugoslav intelligence officer by ASIO.

Money shot quote:
PLO TELLS YUGOSLAVIA - we'll choose our friends, Left wing Croats !

LEFT ON LEFT & "Radical Croat Chic" - In the 1980s a splinter group, HDP, from the mainstream Croatian nationalist movement emerged, moving to the left and aligning itself with "progressive forces" such as the Australian Trotskist group, the Socialist Workers Party... but also agitating for Croatian independence from Socialist Yugoslavia.

In the ASIO file of ex Federal MP Lewis "Bata" Kent, Kent, a hardcore leftist himself and supporter of Tito's Yugoislavia, was determined to destroy this group...HDP and its links with the Australian Left.

It also undermines the stereotype of all "Croatian nationalists" being labelled as right wing Ustashas, as was being pushed by Socialist Yugoslavia at the time.

Radical Croat Chic & George Seitz

In 1982, the HDP organised a dinner-dance in Melbourne, Australia and invited a representative from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), Anton Shaer, and the Irish Republican Movement, Barry Hughes to give a talk. Also present was the ALP MP for the state seat of Keilor, Australian-Croat, George Seitz.

The event was reported in the local Croatian newspaper, Hrvatski Tjednik and a copy sent to PLO Heaquarters in Damascus, Syria. On finding out, Yugoslavia, a long time supporter of the PLO, protested.

The money shot quote: "PLO will choose its friends."

ASIO took this development very seriously...the Croats playing the "leftist card."

UPDATE - TEAM UZUNOV EXCLUSIVE - 1986 declassified ASIO document lodged with the National Archives of Australia - www.naa.gov.au

OUTRAGEOUS - The domestic Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) slams Australian Federal Police (AFP) for doing investigative work for Yugoslav Intelligence (YIS or UDBa/SDB) by passing on addresses to Yugoslav consulate staff in Melbourne. That man Georgi Trajkovski is at it again... see link for background story

1986 ASIO report: quote: "We now have the extraordinary situation of the AFP doing owner-occupier checks for YIS [Yugoslav Intelligence Service, UDBa/SDB] officers enabling them to carry out intelligence gathering interviews in Aust. [Australia]."

TANJUG IS AUTHORISED IS ANNOUNCE?

Yugoslav agent (KOS) posing as journalist? 

by Sasha Uzunov

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was paying close attention to a visiting Yugoslav "journalist" by the name of Zoran Pavlovic in 1976.

The ASIO report noted:


"Pavlovic has visited Australia previously...Pavlovic is a former Army man..."

Pavlovic, according to ASIO, lied in his visa application about being a journalist but was discovered to be a high ranking official in Novosti, the Yugoslav Communist newspaper in Belgrade, a subsidiary of Borba newspaper.

ASIO revealed that Pavlovic was a man of many talents: businessman, negotiator on behalf of the Yugoslav government, an official with the Serbian Matica (Emigres Institute), of which there where six from each of the then Yugoslav republics: Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Hercegovina.

The Matica served as a parallel diplomatic service and was a training ground for diplomats and intelligence officers who monitored the various ethnic groups of Yugoslavia.

Reading between the lines he was probably an officer with KOS - Yugoslav Military Counter-Intelligence, which worked hand in hand with Yugoslav State Security, UDBa or SDB.

Pavlovic, according to ASIO, was in Australia this time to take over the local version of Novosti newspaper and place it under Yugoslav government control.

 The 1976 ASIO documents

GERMAN POLICE RULE OUT MURDER OF DISSIDENT

Exclusive:  BLAGOJE SAMBEVSKI - died of natural causes

by Sasha Uzunov

In 1974 a Macedonian anti-Communist dissident Blagoja Sambevski, an opponent of Tito's Yugoslavia and Secretary of the emigre organisation DOOM (Movement for the Liberation and Unification of Macedonia), was found dead at the hotel he was working at as a night porter in Munich, West Germany. 

The Yugoslav intelligence service (UDBa /SDB) was believed to be behind his death, however, German police has just revealed that his death was ruled to be of natural causes after an autopsy was conducted.

The official statement in German translated reads:

"Mr. Blagoje Sambevski was found dead on 01.08.1974, at 10:00 clock, at his workplace, a hotel in Munich, Schillerstrasse. 11 a.

"The body was autopsied on behalf of the Munich Public Prosecutor at the Institute of Legal Medicine Munich.

"Because his death was due to natural, disease-related, it was not recorded as a murder by the police nor the prosecutor.

"Bavarian State Police investigations in the context of Ex-Yugoslavia associated from the 1960s to the 1980s revealed there was no connection with the death of Mr Sambevski. There is also no current investigation into the death of Mr Sambevski.

If you have any evidence which could prove that killing of Mr Sambevski, please contact us at the Bavarian State Police."

Offical response from Detective Chief Inspector Herbert Linder, Bavarian State Police:

Sehr geehrter Herr Uzunov,

Meine Recherchen haben ergeben, dass Herr Blagoje Sambevski am 01.08.1974, gegen 10.00 Uhr, an seinem Arbeitsplatz, einem Hotel in München, Schillerstr. 11 a, tot aufgefunden wurde.

Der Leichnam wurde im Auftrag der Staatsanwaltschaft München I im Institut für Rechtsmedizin München obduziert. Aufgrund der dabei erhobenen Befunde wurde von einem natürlichen, krankheitsbedingten Ableben ausgegangen. Deshalb sind zu diesem Sterbefall weder bei der Polizei, noch bei der Staatsanwaltschaft Unterlagen archiviert.

Nach Auskunft des für die Ermittlungen im Zusammenhang mit Tötungsdelikten an Exiljugoslawen in den 1960er bis 1980er Jahren zuständigen Bayerischen Landeskriminalamtes liegen auch dort keine weiteren Erkenntnisse im Zusammenhang mit dem Tod von Herrn Sambevski vor. Es werden deshalb auch aktuell keine Ermittlungen zum Tod des Herrn Sambevski geführt.

Sollten Ihre Recherchen weitere Anhaltspunkte oder Beweise ergeben, die eine Tötung des Herrn Sambevski belegen könnten, wenden Sie sich bitte an das Bayerische Landeskriminalamt in 80636 München, Maillingerstr. 15.

 Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Herbert Linder
Erster Kriminalhauptkommissar


PREVIOUS STORY:

Friday, August 29, 2014
SAMBEVSKI - DISSIDENT BANNED FROM AUSTRALIA - link 

LIBYA BILL HARTLEY & 1973 ASIO RAID

WAS "LIBYA BILL" HARTLEY PRIVY TO MURPHY RAID?

William "Bill" Hartley (1930-2006) was an Australian hardcore ALP Victorian Socialist Left heavy hitter, who developed close links to the Arab world and was a supporter of the Palestinian cause. He was also tight with the Gadaffi regime of Libya (1969-2012). 

According to a declassified Australian Security Intelligence (ASIO) file, Hartley placed a phone call on 15 March 1973 to the Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne, Stanisa Cvetkovic, wanting to speak with him. Cvetkovic was on a plane flight to Canberra.

The receptionist disclosed Cvetkovic's whereabouts to Hartley; she asked Hartley not to reveal her indiscretion !

Hartley's call  coincidently was a day before Attorney General Lionel Murphy's raid on the Melbourne ASIO heaquarters in 1973. link to further story

The raids on ASIO were conducted in light of the visit of the Yugoslav Prime Minister Djemal Bijedic on 20 March 1973.

Hartley during the phone call made a big song and dance about how he was close to the Yugoslav Embassy in Canberra, in particular the First Secretary.

Was Hartley tipped off by Murphy's office in advance? Was the Yugoslav Consulate General in Melbourne also aware of the raid before hand, which would explain Cvetkovic getting out of town and heading to the Yugoslav Embassy in Canberra? This can only be speculation, wild speculation at this point. Or there is an innocent explanation, in that prepartions were being conducted for the impending visit to Australia by Yugoslav Prime Minister Djemal Bijedic on 20 March 1973. (Bijedic is pictured below with Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam-on the right of photo).

Interestingly, another de-classified ASIO document, an intercept, reveals there was a phone call from a staff member from Senator Murphy's office wanting to speak with Franjo Rukavina, Cvetkovic's deputy at the Yugoslav Consulate General in Melbourne, on 19 April 1973, a month after the ASIO raids. The recepetionist would not give out Rukavina's private home number.

One of the key foreign policy objectives of Australia's Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (1972-75) was to develop links with Tito's Yugoslavia, who in turn had excellent relations via the Non-Aligned Nations Movement with Arab countries such as Libya and Iraq.

In 1975 Hartley together with Australia's Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and ALP National Secretary David Combe raised $500,000 election campaign funds from the Iraqi regime but the money never arrived--a middleman embezzled the cash ! see link for further story