Aldo Moro, Italian Prime Minister
(1963-68, 74-76), kidnapped by Italian leftist group Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) in 1978, and later murdered. Could he have been saved by
Marshal Tito, the ruler of Communist Yugoslavia?
by Sasha Uzunov
Italy's equivalent to the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy is the kidnapping and subsequent murder of ex-Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 by a radical leftist group known as the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse). But was the Yugoslav Communist intelligence service (UDBa) involved?
The official story is that Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigades and held hostage for two months before being murdered. The Red Brigades demanded that the Italian authorities release prisoners in exchange for the politician's life. But the Italian government refused to negotiate with the "terrorists."
Italian journalists have thrown up a number of conspiracy theories to explain the murder, ranging from United States involvement to Moscow's interference.
I came across the Aldo Moro story by chance when researching for my up-coming documentary film: "UDBa down under: Yugoslav spying in Australia." I have gone through de-classified Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) files on Yugoslav communist intelligence service known as UDBa and its activities in spying upon emigre Croats and Macedonians on Australian soil. I have also read a number of memoirs of ex-Soviet bloc spies.
One book that caught my attention was Red Horizons by former Romanian intelligence chief Ion Pacepa, who defected to the west in 1978, a few months after the Moro murder.
It has a chapter discussing how Yugoslav intelligence UDBa, also known as SDB, collaborated with Nicolae Ceausescu's Communist Romanian regime and its intelligence service, known as the DIE or Securitate, during the 1970s in kidnapping or murdering each others opponents living abroad. Moro is also mentioned in the chapter.
Silvo Gorenc - Tito's "Slovenian Supervisor" of the Red Brigades
Pacepa writes that the Red Brigades was the creation of Communist Yugoslavia in order to destabilise Italy and NATO. When Moro was kidnapped, Tito unconvincingly pleads that he could not convince his "creation" the Red Brigades to release the ex-Italian Prime Minister.
Gorenc was also kept busy in looking after the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) which had set up shop in Yugoslavia in the 1970s.
Denis Strangman, Private Secretary to Australian Senator F.H. McManus of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), revealed in a 1974 book that Italian Guido Giol was caught by Italian military intelligence (SID) spying for Yugoslavia in March 1970 but had hanged himself in his cell after receiving a 15 year prison sentence. He had passed on NATO secrets to Belgrade.
Days later after Giol's suicide, according to both Strangman and British intelligence expert Nigel West, Eugene Rousseau, a section chief with French intelligence (SDECE), was imprisoned by French authorities for being a Yugoslav spy. He had been blackmailed by UDBa since the late 1950s when his teenage daughter had fallen pregnant to a "Yugoslav" during Rousseau's diplomatic posting to the French Embassy in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital.
Background
To understand the dynamics of the Yugoslav versus Croat showdown: Communist Yugoslavia was a federation of Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Muslim Bosnians, and other ethnic groups, led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito who broke away from the Iron Curtain in 1949. A rivalry developed between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, which Tito managed to use to his advantage by squeezing aid out of the West in order to stay out of the Soviet Camp.
In the early 1970s the Yugoslav government began a campaign to discredit emigre Croats, Macedonians and others opposed to the regime, whether their opposition translated into terrorism or just peaceful means. So a dirty tricks strategy was commenced with agent provocateurs and infiltrators, ironically learned from the Soviet Secret Police, known variously as the Cheka/ OGPU/ NKVD /KGB.
Ceausescu tried to use Tito's trick, known as influ-communism, of acting independent from Moscow in order to fool the West to gain economic benefits.
Nicolae Ceauşescu (second from the right), Josip Broz Tito (left) and others at the Romanian-Yugoslav friendship meeting in Bucharest 1966. The banner in the back reads: "Long live the brotherly friendship between the Romanian nation and the nations of Yugoslavia."
Preview / Trailer no 4 - UDBa down under - Yugoslav spying in Australia.
Legendary Australian newspaperman Jack Waterford reveals that the Soviets may have had an interest in the Yugoslav versus Croats showdown in Australia during the early 1970s. His interview in the preview clip - Preview / Trailer no 4 - UDBa down under - Yugoslav spying in Australia.
Award winning Australian journalist Hamish McDonald talks about the Croatian Six case. His interview in the preview clip - Preview / Trailer no 4 - UDBa down under - Yugoslav spying in Australia.
Award winning Australian journalist Hamish McDonald talks about the Croatian Six case. His interview in the preview clip - Preview / Trailer no 4 - UDBa down under - Yugoslav spying in Australia.
MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 2012
MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 2012
MOSCOW GOLD ? - SOVIET INTERFERENCE OR BELGRADE'S FOOL'S GOLD?
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 08, 2012
1974 WHITLAM PAPER REVEALS:
YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT "IGNORED" ITS OWN SECURITY PROPOSAL TO COMBAT "TERRORISM"
FRIDAY, JULY 27, 2012
PHOTOS OF YUGOSLAV SPY MASTER
SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2012
ASIO KNEW YUGOSLAV SPY GAME PLAN IN 1977
FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012
ASIO FILES RELEASED - YUGO SPYING RAMPANT- YUGO SPY DREAM TEAM TAKES ON CROATS, MACEDONIANS
MONDAY 25 July 2011.
Scoop - New Zealand news website - Who Was The Croatian Six Mastermind?
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Timor Tour Of Duty, which looks at the Indonesian military's secret war against Australian and New Zealand troops and international peacekeepers in East Timor in 2001, received a special commendation Platinum Reel Award from the 2009 Nevada Film Festival.
The film made its US and international screen debut at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in October 2009.
THE DVD includes 4 extra minutes of two scenes cut from the original film festival screening.
Official film website: order your copy
ABC news website story clipping:
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