Udba i emigracija: Zajedno u politiku (četvrti nastavak)
U rano proljeće 1987. godine počinje posljednja faza raspada Jugoslavije, te započinje irecverzibilni proces cijepanja države, a događaji se nižu usporedno u Sloveniji, Srbiji i Hrvatskoj.
U Ljubljani izlazi 57. broj čaopisa "Nova revija", gdje slovenski intelektualci, povezani s republičkim partijskim rukovodstvom, razmatraju nacionalni program i navješćuju napuštanje zajedničke države. Jedina prepreka razdruženju je JNA, koju tada napada časopis "Mladina", omladinsko glasilo u izdanju državne izdavačke kuće "Delo".
U Srbiji, Slobodan Milošević izabran je iste godine za šefa srpske partije i u aprilu dolazi u Kosovo Polje, gdje će izgovariti rečenicu koju će televizija i novine ponoviti milijun puta: "Nitko ne sme da vas bije!" To je bilo njegovo samoproglašenja za vođu srpskog naroda u "godinama raspleta", ili je u medijima tako prezentirana njegova ovlašna opaska, pa je postala slogan pokreta koji će prerasti u "balvan revoluciju". Uza nj stoji cijeli aparat državne sigurnosti i ključni operatici, šef SDB Srbije Jovica Stanišić i načelnik specijalne policije Franko "Frenki" Simatović, sa svim svojim vezama. U Srbiji, dakle, Udba se svrstala uz državno-partijsku vlast koja započinje rekompoziciju Jugoslavije, a umjesto inozemne emigracije, beogradska Služba svoje mitarbajtere ima među inteligentima i inteligencijom na unutrašnjoj opoziciono-disidentskoj sceni, koju je oblikovala kao i hrvatska služba emigraciju.
Potencijalni šef hrvatskog projekta političkog osamostaljenja dobit će manje od potpore hrvatskog državno-partijskog vrha. Ostavit će mu slobodu djelovanja, a ljudi iz aparata podupirat će ga kao i druge pretendente, dok ne vide tko će najviše postići. Tako u Kanadu i SAD putuje dr. Tuđman koji će se u vili Mate Meštrovića u Saddle Riveru u New Jerseyu, susresti i sa Zbigniewom Brzezinskim, kreatorom američke vanjske politike prema Istoku, profesorom na Yaleu i ranijim šefom Ureda za nacionalnu sigurnost demokratskog predsjednika Cartera. To nije pribilježio u svojim "Dnevnicima" publiciranim poslije dolaska na vlast.
Dr. Tuđman imao je u Zagrebu vrijedne zagovornike. Josip Manolić, njegov prvi susjed u drugoj vili na Tuškancu, bio mu je za vrijeme Drugog svjetskog rata neposredno pretpostavljen u SKOJ-u, koji je 1941. u Zagrebu vodio Mika Špiljak.Tako su lako okupili ekipu - Manolić je potom doveo bivšeg ministra inutrašnjih poslova Josipa Boljkovca, a Boljkovac Stipu Mesića, sina jednog svog ratnog druga. Prilikom osnivanja Hrvatske demokratske zajednice Tuđman je imao čvrstu potporu tajne službe. O tome ne može biti sumnje - kad su osnivali stranku u NK Borac na zagrebačkoj periferiji, Udba je imala - kaže operativac koji je osiguravao tajni nadzor - audio i video-link, unutra dva svoja ubačena čovjeka (potencijalni svjedoci dođe li stvar na sud) i leteću ekipu koja će svih pohapsiti stigne li takav nalog. Ali od koga? Od Špiljka i svih onih starih partijaša koji su znali da je ionako sve gotovo, te da će, ako komunizam još ostane na snazi makar i najkraće vrijeme, u cijeloj zemlji prevladati Milošević uz pomoć JNA? Zato je bilo smiješno gledati, kaže čovjek koji je vodio nadzor, kako se ponaša Vladimir Šeks, jedan od "otaca osnivača" HDZ-a. Izlazio je na cestu pa se navirivao lijevo i desno, da vidi ima li koga sumnjivog... Poslije je isti operativac omogućio da se HDZ useli u čuvenu Baraku, koja je pripadala Jugoslavenskim željeznicama, rekavši željezničkom nadležnom udbašu: "Daj, molim te, da ne moramo stavljati nove mikrofone, ondje je sve ozvučeno još otkako je Slavko Goldstein tu držao svoje izdavačko poduzeće Liber pa su se tu skupljali svakojaki ljudi!"
I Šeks je, uostalom, poput Tuđmana u Kanadu, uz Perkovićevu asistenciju išao u Australiju, po istom poslu. Ondje je, kako sam kaže, dobio 100.000 dolara koje je donio za najam famozne Barake. I, stranka je rođena.
Nadzor nad hadezeovskim domoljubima, dakle, više je nalikovao na političku zaštitu koju je i Tuđman nesumnjivo uživao kad mu je, kao antirežimskom aktivistu, zatvaranom disidentu, 1987. vraćen pasoš pa izdavane vize za put u Njemačku, Kanadu i SAD, gdje je odlazio te i iduće godine pa se nametnuo kao jedan od pretendenata za tranzicijsku vlast. U istom aranžmanu putovat će i Vladimir Šeks, koji je u Strasbourgu, gdje ga je doveo Meštrović, ostavio bolji opći dojam od Tuđmana. No, obojica nisu znali ni jedan strani jezik, pa su sve komunikacije s političkim kontaktima na Zapadu bile otežane. Tuđman, Perković i Šušak, dakle, tri su najbliža suradnika koji su stvorili Hrvatsku kakvu danas poznajemo. Kad je HDZ održavao svoj utemeljiteljski sabor u koncertnoj dvorani "Lisinski", gdje će ustoličiti Tuđmana, na vratima je s jedne strane akreditive delegata, pogotovo onih iz emigracije, kontrolirao Josip Perković, a s druge Gojko Šušak, za kojega se još nije znalo tko je, ali su tu scenu registrirali i zapamtili je svi sudionici i akreditirani novinari.
Emigrantskoj skupini bila je namijenjena ključna uloga na političkoj sceni - postali su jezgra novih obavještajnih službi. Perković je, dakle, za Tuđmana iskadrovirao ljude koji su zatim preko svojih kriminalnih i zavičajnih veza angažirali vojne specijaliste - legionare iz Legije stranaca. Tako je nastala Tuđmanova opričnina, "paralelna linija", njegov "hercegovački lobi". Od manolićevaca i pridruženih kadrova u vanjskoj trgovini (nafta, oružje, strateške sirovine...) nastalo je pak "lijevo", "tehnokratsko", krilo HDZ-a. Špiljkovi su ponovo trijumfirali pod zagorskom diktraturom. Vanja Špiljak je i uz Tuđmana zadržao holding off-shore kompaniju registrirane u Švicarskoj (InterINA) preko koje je išao uvozno-izvozni biznis s naftom. Tu je, osim toga, bio pohranjen cachet novca s kojim će se provesti najvažnije hrvatske privatizacije.
Uslijedili su beskonačni sukobi na hadezeovskoj desnici. U Gospiću, gdje revolucionarni hadepeovci predvođeni Tihomirom Oreškovićem ostvaruju genocidni program "luburićevske antiutopije", pomirenja svih Hrvata uz likvidaciju svih Srba, Manolić intervenira, hapsi i trpa ih u zatvor, odakle ih vadi Šušak... Tu je na srpskoj strani poginuo Giška: maknuli su ga sami Srbi, kao što će, malo kasnije, hadepeovci kod Zadra, maknuti Mira Barešića, koji se vratio u zemlju, gdje se nije nikako uklapao, kao što se nije uklapao ni u emigraciji, jer su on i njegovi "odporaši" uvijek daleko prednjačili u nekim kontraproduktivnim bezumnim akcijama.
Kao i Barešić, nastradat će i Blaž Kraljević, koji se iz Hrvatskog revolucionarnog bratstva (HRB) u Australiji, hardcore ustašije, vratio u zemlju za vrijeme ratova devedesetih i došao na čelo oružanih postrojbi HOS-a, pravaškog vojnog krila, što je, uz ostalo, izazvalo nenavist druge maroderske specijalne postrojbe u Hercegovini, "kažnjeničke bojne" Tute Naletilića, koja se sastojala od manjeg broja pravih gangstera i četristo fantomskih pukovnika za koje je Tuta osobno dolazio u Zagreb ubirati plaće.
Hadepeovska tvrda jezgra bila je u zemlji sve uspješnija. Toliko da je zakonomjerno došla u sukob sa svojim tvorcem i tri "časnika" SIS-a, ugledna hadepeovca, napisali su famoznu "Predstavku", pismo Tuđmanu u kojem su ocrnili Perkovića. Perković je smijenjen, Šušak ga nije zaštitio, a onda je Tuđman uklonio i "predstavkaše", jer je njegov režim iz barakne po završetku rata ušao u baroknu fazu i banditi više nisu bile potrebni u prvim političkim redovima. Šušak se adaptirao, zamalo đentrificirao. On je Perkoviću, inače, bio lojalan: kad je dr. Tuđman kod Vice Vukojevića, jednog od Perkovićevih suradnika, naručio dokumentarni film o ubojstvu Bruna Bušića, gdje su za represiju domoljuba kao vodeći ljudi Udbe prokazani Perković i Manolić, Šušak je malo gunđao u kutu sale gdje se održavala specijalna projekcija za vrhovništvo. Tuđman mu se okrenuo pa rekao - "Pa ne spominje se toliko često, zar ne?" Šušak je samo slegnuo ramenima, jer gazdu nije nikad javno dezavuirao, ali je poslije nazvao na televiziju direktora Tomislava Marčinka pa ga upitao bi li se na mjestim gdje se spominje Perkovićevo ime mogao ubaciti onaj piiip-piiip kojim se pokrivaju psovke u američkom talk-showu...
Perković je, na kraju, ipak izvisio, pa otišao u legendu. Njegov srpski opposite number, Jovica Stanišić, šef beogradskog SDB-a, koji je također postao uzdanica postkomunističke diktature kad joj je stavio na raspolaganje sav represivni aparat komunističke državne sigurnosti, optužen je u Haagu. Šef hrvatskog SDS-a i jugoslavenskog SDB-a, Perković i Mustač, osuđeni su pak u Muenchenu na po 25 godina zbog organizacije Đurekovićeva ubojstva na njemačkom teritoriju. To je simboličan gest lustracije, koji je zahvatio one koji su formalno odgovorni. U Njemačkoj se nikako ne isplati formalno sudjelovati u pripremanju zločina - ondje su svi formalisti, i za čas vrlo formalno zaglaviš na doživotnu robiju.
Bilješke uz tekst
(8) Gojko Šušak bio je u Ottawi na raspolaganju kad je trebalo izvodito kakve provokacije. Na jedno prase, primjerice, napisao je "Tito", pa ga pokušao priklati na insceniranim antijugoslavenskim demonstracijama, samo što je taj politički čin spriječilo Društvo za zaštitu životinja. Goja je vodio piceriju i farbao stubišta, ali je imao kontakte - on je u emigraciju otišao s Krka, gdje mu je ostala prva žena. Njen otac radio je u jugoslavenskoj policiji. I sam Šušak dolazio je u jugoslavenski konzulat na različite domjenke. Objavljene su fotografije koje to dokazuju, ali tu epizodu iz njegove karijere nitko i nije pokušao objasniti. Činjica da je dolazio, ukazuje da nije bio operativac, jer bi se držao diskretno, što ne vrijedi za njegova brata ni obitelj, koju su u Hercegovini smatrali režimskom.
PRILOG
Dr. John R. Schindler - Agents Provocateurs: Terrorism, Espionage, and the Secret Struggle for Yugoslavia, 1945-1990
Interview**: Dr. John R. Schindler**
Subject**: Schindler's book, Agents Provocateurs: Terrorism, Espionage, and the Secret Struggle for Yugoslavia, 1945-1990**
1. How did you get idea to write a book about UDBA assassinations?
Back in the 1990s, when I was involved in the hunt for war criminals in Bosnia and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, I was intrigued by the fact that many of the most wanted men - Arkan was the only most famous example of this type - had extensive histories with state security, ie UDBA, under Communism, and many had participated in "special actions" against radical émigrés abroad for Tito. As a counterintelligence officer, I was initially puzzled by how so many thugs could be organized crime members, ie Mafiosi, but also be high-ranking collaborators with UDBA. They all had "VIP" - veza i protekcija. I soon learned that this was entirely intentional, and a perverse outgrowth of the decades-long war waged by Tito's secret police against the "enemy emigration." One cannot understand much about the former Yugoslavia since 1991 - murders, corruption, mass killings, assassinations - without understanding how UDBA's secret struggle against terrorism politicized crime, and criminalized politics. We think of events such as the 2003 murder of Zoran Djindjic as "normal," but when the prime minister is murdered in broad daylight by assassins who are simultaneously state security officials and organized crime bosses, who have murdered people in several countries - this is not normal, this is the legacy of UDBA, what I call "Tito's Ghost".
2. When and how did you for the first time find out about UDBA assassinations, and which case was that?
Like everyone who gets close to UDBA veterans - as President Putin famously said, "There are no former intelligence officers" - I heard the stories, after drinks. Tales of operations against terrorists in Stuttgart or Sydney. Stories about surveillance leading to killings all over the West during the late Cold War. Exciting but very bloody stories, like nothing I had heard before. I didn't believe it at first, but I was curious, so I started looking into it, part-time, what spies call a "hobby file." I was astonished to find that much of what the Udbasi said was true. The first case I looked into deeply was the murder of the Croatian dissident Bruno Busic in Paris in October 1978 - a clear-cut UDBA killing. While Busic was very sympathetic to Croatian nationalism, he was no "terrorist" but he was murdered anyway, shot in the head at close range, like most victims of what UDBA called the "black program." The Busic case also illustrates the double standards in the West regarding UDBA crimes. Only a month before, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by the Bulgarian secret police in London, the famous "umbrella murder," which caused outrage in the West. That investigation is still open, British police continue to try and make an arrest, 32 years later. But nobody in the West much cared when Busic was brutally assassinated a few weeks later in Paris. The case has been forgotten. Tito was useful to the West, so UDBA crimes were mostly ignored, even when Yugoslav agents killed abroad, frequently. During the Cold War, UDBA assassinated many more people in the West than the Soviet bloc did, but it has received very little attention - then or since.
3. How much time did you spend on research and collecting material for the book?
I have spent years looking into this matter, but mostly as a "hobby file" - taking notes, talking to people across the region, digging up old newspaper clippings in many languages. It has been a gradual process, getting stories right - and some things will never be fully known, because UDBA was very secretive, and many of those involved have died, often violently. It is hardly a coincidence that many of the UDBA officers and agents most involved in "black actions" are now dead - and they have seldom died in bed.
4. Did you have access to American secret service (CIA, of FBI or others) archive concerning UDBA activities, and did you maybe have access to such archive in other countries?
I have seen some U.S. secret files on these cases during my time with American intelligence. However, those have not been used in the writing of my book, as they are off-limits to researchers. It is important to get the story right, to cut through myths, to be fully accurate, and if a fact cannot be checked, I won't use it. I am confident that, years from now, when U.S. intelligence files about UDBA are released, they will tell an interesting story that will reinforce my book. Most UDBA files relating to the "special program" were destroyed in the early 1990s when Yugoslavia fell apart. However, some files have come to light in Belgrade, Sarajevo, and Zagreb and have appeared, and I have used them. In many cases, UDBA was careful to write not much down in the first place, which was good for spies but bad for historians!
5. During your research did you find any common characteristic in UDBA assassinations?
Most UDBA assassinations abroad followed a standard model. Yugoslav agents planted disinformation in émigré circles in the West, to create confusion and in-fighting inside groups. Assassins would conduct surveillance, then kill the target, usually with gunshots at close range. UDBA killings were often very brutal, more brutal than needed to kill. In some cases, victims were killed with knives and stabbed dozens of times. In all cases, UDBA tried to portray killings as the "result of squabbles among émigrés" - a story which Western police and intelligence agencies, which seldom understood Yugoslav émigrés well, often accepted at face value.
6. How many assassinations do you describe in your book, and do you maybe know how many persons UDBA kill abroad overall?
It is difficult to say with absolute certainty, but between the mid-1960s and 1990, UDBA attempted over a hundred assassinations or abductions in the West - heavily West Germany, but all over Western and Central Europe, plus Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, even South Africa. Wherever there were Yugoslav émigrés, UDBA followed. Over 60 Croats were murdered by UDBA abroad, as well as some Serbs and Albanians - certainly at least 80 confirmed UDBA killings during the late Cold War, all in Western countries friendly to Yugoslavia. There were nearly a dozen murders in the USA alone.
7. Do you know who was responsible in UDBA for abroad operations and most of the assassinations?
In some cases, we can say with a high degree of certainty exactly who approved assassinations and conducted them, because survivors have talked since 1991. In a few cases, paperwork survives. The general pattern is clear. The political leadership, usually at republican level, would request a "special action" against a troublesome émigré - some real terrorists, others not - and the republican UDBA would do the killing, sometimes with help from the Federal UDBA in Belgrade. In other words, most killings of Croats abroad were performed by the Croatian UDBA. In most cases, the actual assassination was performed by an agent with mafia connections, not someone easily tied to the Yugoslav government. In the few cases where assassins were caught by Western police, it was nearly impossible to show their links to UDBA, due to this solid tradecraft.
8. What was, for you, most spectacular case of UDBA assassinations, and why?
There were many cases which were indeed spectacular - the murder of Busic in 1978 was unusually brazen, as was the murder of the Croatian émigré Stjepan Djurekovic in West Germany in 1983, a really bloody and brutal affair. Perhaps UDBA's most impressive operation was the assassination of the notorious Ustasa Vjekoslav "Maks" Luburic (the commander of Jasenovac during World War II) in Spain in 1969, by Ilija Stanic, who lives in Bosnia today. UDBA patiently infiltrated Stanic into Luburic's inner circle of Ustasa émigrés, and then killed "Maks" savagely. The most troubling cases, for me, are those where innocent people were murdered by UDBA. In 1972, Tito's assassins caught up with Stjepan Sevo, a member of the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood (HRB) in Italy. Sevo was a terrorist, but the assassin gunned down not just Sevo but his entirely innocent wife and his nine-year-old step-daughter, Tatjana. Five years later, in Chicago, an UDBA assassin brutally stabbed to death Dragisa Kasikovic, an extremist Serb émigré, but in the process also murdered his girlfriend's nine year old daughter, Ivanka Milosevic. I have never heard of any other intelligence service doing such a thing intentionally.
9. How will you shortly describe UDBA organization after your research?
After the fall of Yugoslavia, UDBA disappeared, yet it didn't. No ex-Yugoslav republic has really come to terms with UDBA crimes at home and abroad, and none of their secret services was cleansed of UDBA operatives with blood on their hands. To cite just one example, witness the indictment of Josip Perkovic by German authorities in 2005 for his role in the 1983 Djurekovic murder - but Perkovic was Tudjman's right-hand-man on security matters in the early 1990s, and his son Sasa has been a senior advisor to President Mesic! Across ex-Yugoslavia, Udbasi simply became servants of new states and regimes, without many questions being asked. It is clearly in no one's interest that UDBA crimes be really investigated and solved. For years Croatian authorities half-heartedly tried to prosecute Vinko Sindicic, the most prolific UDBA assassin, probably responsible for more than a dozen murders in the West (he was convicted by British authorities for the 1988 attempted murder of Croatian émigré Nikola Stedul in Scotland, and served a decade in prison), and got nowhere, and Sindicic lives openly in Croatia today. In Serbia, the situation is even worse, and the UDBA infrastructure, the vital nexus of spies and criminals and dirty money, has been only partially dismantled. Milosevic was happy to use it for his own purposes, and few people in Serbia seem to want to know the truth about UDBA crimes.
10. In comparison with secret service like CIA, or Mossad etc., do you think that UDBA was professional, successful and dangerous organization?
In pure espionage terms, UDBA was an outstanding service. It thoroughly defeated the terrorist groups fighting globally to destroy Tito's Yugoslavia - and we must not forget that despite the fact that UDBA declared all its opponents to be "terrorists" and "war criminals" there really were such groups, and they were real and violent - and did so magnificently. The defeat of the enemy was total, and UDBA successfully cloaked its violent acts in secrecy. The USA has much to learn operationally from UDBA tactics and techniques against terrorism: no service has ever done it better. But the price paid by the peoples of former Yugoslavia for UDBA's success against terrorism has been enormous. We have UDBA and its methods to thank for the criminalization of politics and police that is endemic across the region, and we have Tito and his spies to thank for creating the likes of Arkan and countless other mass murderers who got their start in UDBA's "special program." For anyone who wants to really defeat terrorism, UDBA has shown how - but be careful what you wish for!
Objavljeno: 26. jan 2018 | Denis Kuljiš
