by Sasha Uzunov

ASIO – The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has released three more dossiers, bringing the total to five so far, for Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne Georgi Trajkovski, believed to be the mastermind behind a covert operation to discredit emigre Croats and Macedonians during the 1970s.

ASIO, the domestic counter-intelligence service, kept a close watch on Trajkovski, who was Consul General from 1975-79.

According to this 1978 ASIO report, local Macedonians were not regarded as terrorists or posed a security threat. The report suggests that the violence within the community was caused by the Communist Yugoslav government’s battle to take control of Australian Macedonian Orthodox Churches.

This same report reveals the struggle between the Yugoslav government and an apocryphally named Macedonian nationalist organisation DOOM (MLUM – Movement for the Liberation and Unification of Macedonia).

In 1976 the situation was worsened when Bishop Kiril (Cyril) was sent by Communist Yugoslavia to induce the local churches to hand over their assets to the Skopje patriarchy. (Photo: National Archives of Australia, 1973)