Decades before Schapelle Corby in Bali and missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370…. Canberra man and former Australian Federal Parliament electrician Don Dimov, inexplicably caught in a real life 1970s James Bond Cold War espionage adventure, tells…. my tangle with Yugoslav intelligence, UDBa….and ASIO…
MISSING LUGGAGE – MISSING LEADER? The Dragan Bogdanovski kidnapping in France.
By Sasha Uzunov
DON DIMOV – On Wednesday 29 June 1977 Australian-Macedonian Don Dimov travelling by plane with two colleagues from Australia arrived in Paris, the capital of France. They were en route to an emigre Macedonian independence movement–known by the appropriate and quirky acronym DOOM–conference in the then West Germany. At about the same time it was alleged that DOOM leader Dragan Bogdanovski (1929-98) was kidnapped in Paris by agents of UDBa, Yugoslav intelligence, and then secretly smuggled into the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, then within Communist Yugoslavia to face trial and subsequent imprisonment for anti-Yugoslav activities.
Don and his companions’ suitcases went mysteriously missing at one of Paris’s two major airports. However, with literally just the clothes on their backs they continued their journey by train from Paris to Bremen, West Germany where their luggage unexpectedly turned up. From the northern port city of Bremen they caught a connecting train to the city of Goslar, in the state of Lower Saxony, Federal Republic of Germany–with the picturesque Harz mountains. This was the venue for DOOM’s conference.
When Don opened his suitcase in Bremen he found some documents missing namely the DOOM party platform and some copies of the Makedonska Nacija (Macedonian Nation), DOOM’s official newspaper.
Did French intelligence turn a blind eye to UDBa operating on French soil because of the Cold War? Or did French intelligence open the suitcases? Communist Yugoslavia because of its rivalry with the Soviet Union was regarded as a de facto ally of the West. The thinking at the time in Washington, London, Paris, Bonn, Ottawa, Canberra was to permit UDBa to carry on its intelligence operations unmolested as the price to pay for Belgrade’s anti-Moscow stance.
MOSCOW GOLD? 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.
What we do know for certain is Don was also being monitored by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO, as well as UDBa, who both incorrectly identified Don as being a Yugoslav citizen when he wasn’t. He was later able to gain access to his ASIO file.
In the 1970s Don Dimov was involved with DOOM – Dvizenje za Osloboduvanje i Obedinuvanje na Makedonija – the Movement for the Liberation and Unification of Macedonia. DOOM’s aim was to reunify partitioned Macedonia and turn it into an independent nation-state through peaceful means. In 1913 Macedonia had been carved up between Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria with Albania taking a small slice. The part under Serbo-Yugoslav control became the Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1944 within multi-ethnic Communist Federal Yugoslavia with more autonomy, but still with restrictions, than the other parts of Macedonia. The leader of what eventually became known as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the wily Marshal Josip Broz Tito who played one ethnic group against another. SFR Yugoslavia consisted of the republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In 1941–two years into World War II and just before the Soviet invasion, Yugoslavia then ruled by Serbian King Petar II was invaded by the armed forces of Nazi Germany, and her axis allies Fascist Italy and Bulgaria.
Yugoslav communist Josip Broz Tito, born to a Croat father and Slovene mother, started a partizan resistence movement, embracing Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Slovenians, Bosnians, Montenegrins, annd other ethnic groups.
However, because of its isolation, the part of Macedonia within Yugoslavia set up its own Partizan resistence movement which consisted of an uneasy alliance of Macedonian communists and nationalists. The Macedonian partizans as well as the civilian population endured a brutal occupation by the Bulgarians. Macedonia’s Jewish population was wiped out by Bulgaria.
After the war, the Macedonian nationalists where largely arrested and forced to face stage-managed and rigged Stalinist show trials at the instigation of Tito and carried out by his Macedonian followers: Lazar Kolisevski, Lazar Mojsov, later to become President of the United Nations General Assembly and Yugoslavia’s Foreign Minister, and Kole Chasule senior.
One of the most infamous communist show trials was of nationalist Metodija Andonov Cento, the first President of Macedonia within Federal Communist Yugoslavia. He was found guilty of trumped up charges in 1946. In 1990 a Macedonian court rehabilitated Chento.
Because large numbers of Macedonian nationalists had taken part in the Macedonian partizan resistence movement, they could not be accused of being fascist collaborators by Tito.
During the Greek Civil War, Tito had promised ethnic Macedonians autonomy within Greece if they sided with the Communists against the British and the American backed Greek monarchist forces. The result was a disaster as thousands of Macedonians, including children fled Greece for their lives. The United States under the command of General James Van Fleet had literally bombed parts of Greek controlled Macedonia back into the stone age.
Tito’s behaviour was later seen as opportunistic as he was simultaneously supporting the Communist uprising in Greece but cutting a deal with the West when he split from Moscow’s orbit in 1949. This balancing act, of playing off one group over another, the playing of the ethnic card became Tito’s calling card.
In 1974 a new Yugoslav constitution created within Serbia two autonomous regions, Kosovo-Metohija, predominately Albanian, and Vojvodina, with a large Hungarian minority. By the late 1980s fear within Yugoslavia at the rise of Serbian and Albanian nationalism in Kosovo as well as the faltering economy triggered off alarm bells, in particular Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia.
By the early 1970s the Macedonian diaspora became disenchanted with Tito’s Yugoslavia after it had abandoned the plight of ethnic Macedonians in neighbouring Greece, Bulgaria and Albania, who were being denied basic human rights.
DOOM with its political platform and rousing nationalist rhetoric found fertile soil amongst the Macedonian diaspora in Australia, North America and Western Europe. However, de-classified 1970s intelligence files from ASIO found DOOM not to be a terrorist organisation nor posed a threat to Australia’s internal security.
DOOM by the early 1970s had split into two factions, one led by the enigmatic and charismatic Dragan Bogdanovski, who ended up living in Norway and Sweden, and one faction led by his opponents. There where claims and counter-claims with Bogdanovski being accused of fabricating his story about kidnapping but his supporters remain adamant he was a genuine dissident who was imprisoned.
Two Australian-Macedonian intellectuals, Dr Chris Popov and A. Michael Radin in their 1990 strongly worded critique entitled ‘Who hijacked DOOM?’ (Panorama, Volume 1, No 1, 1990 published by the Macedonian Cultural Society, Iskra, South Australia) wrote:
“It is for this reason [DOOM’s popularity] that supporters and members of DOOM in Australia believe that the Yugoslav secret police, UDBA and Yugoslav diplomatic representatives tried so hard to destroy DOOM’s influence and organisational base.”
Both Popov and Radin were concerned with Bogdanovski’s fiery rhetoric especially his attack on the Macedonian Orthodox Church with its seat in Skopje, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
But as the ASIO files reveal DOOM was never involved in using violence even though in mid 1970s it led a strong campaign to stop Yugoslavia’s (via Skopje) takeover of the local Macedonian churches through the Yugoslav Consul General in Melbourne, Dr Georgi Trajkovski (1975-79), an ethnic Macedonian originally from Aegean Macedonia but who had thrown in his lot with Tito’s Yugoslavia and rewarded with a diplomatic career.
DOOM’s stance, complete with highly emotional tone, complained that the Macedonian Orthodox Church during the the 1970s and 80s of :
“…having today a Yugoslav brain and a Russo-Slavian soul….propagating Titoism and Communism, not Christianity. Slavism is glorified – Russian lies.”
Moreover, DOOM’s analysis of Yugoslavia’s economic policy up to the 1970s struck a chord with the many Macedonians migrating to the West and fleeing poverty:
“…Tito’s self-managed socialism, with the anarchy in the state economy which has driven a quarter of a million Macedonians out of the….Republic….the underdeveloped Macedonian Republic is held in neo-colonial bondage by the more developed Republics of Yugoslavia…On a Yugoslav wide-level, the living standards in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia are the lowest and unemployment the highest…the much publicised “brotherhood and unity” amongst the peoples and nationalities of Yugoslavia is greatly deceptive.”
Don as a young ethnic Macedonian boy was forced to flee his homeland, that part of Macedonia under Greek control but known as Aegean Macedonia, during the Greek Civil War (1946-49) and found temporary sanctuary in the part of Macedonia in the then Communist Yugoslavia before arriving in Australia. He left behind his village of Statica. Ilija Dimovski-Goce, a famous ethnic Macedonian partizan fighter during World War II and later in the Greek Civil War was Don’s uncle.
In 1948-49, about 30,000 ethnic Macedonian children were evacuated across the border to avoid the wrath of Greek Nationalist forces, supported by the West. They are referred to as the Deca Beglaci (Child Refugees). Don identified himself as a Macedonian and not as a Greek nor as a Yugoslav citizen.
Don married, raised a family and spent 30 years working as a qualified electrician in Australia’s Federal Parliament, starting in 1974. He was a highly respected Macedonian community member in the Australian Capital Territory and the surrounding New South Wales towns of Queanbeyan. On 14 September 1977 ASIO paid him a visit in his then home in Queanbeyan and asked him to visit ASIO’s Canberra office on 16 September 1977. Being a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide, Don went and answered some questions and then was left in peace.
Ironically and incredibly, as Don explains: “The next day I was at work and told to go into Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser’s office and check the lights, power sockets and so on. When I walked in the ASIO officer who had previously interviewed me was there and dumbfounded asked me what I was doing here?”
Don adds: “I told him I work here! The ASIO officer gave me a half-smile and left me to it.”
Don knew the spiritual founders of DOOM, including the enigmatic Dragan Bogdanovski (pictured), a long time exiled dissident who ended up founding the major Macedonian nationalist party, VMRO-DPMNE, in 1990 which would eventually come to power in post-communist Macedonia. However, Bogdanovski left the party in 1993 after falling fell out with Ljubco Georgievski, another party leader; accusing Georgievski of being pro-Bulgarian.
Georgievski became Prime Minister of Macedonia (1998-2002) but was later forced out of VMRO-DPMNE. He remains a controversial figure.
Don has kept all of his letters he corresponded with Bogdanovski during the 1970s and would no doubt be of enormous historical value to Macedonia’s national archive.
Another leading DOOM official was Blagoja Sambevski, later found murdered in West Germany in 1974. The murder remains unresolved with allegations that an undercover UDBa hitman, an ethnic Macedonian, had committed the assassination. But the hard evidence remains elusive.
What we do know now is that UDBa was using criminals, thugs, bank robbers, psychiatric patients, as sub-contractors for killings or destabilisation operations against emigre Croats, Macedonians and others.
American academic Dr John Schindler has done an incredible in depth study of UDBa and had uncovered that many of the warlords and criminal underworld that came to the fore in the wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s were ex-UDBa operatives.
One such character was infamous Serb warlord Zeljko Raznjatovic-Arkan, who began his career as a bank robber in Western Europe but did part time killings for UDBa in the 1970s before reinventing himself as a Serb nationalist after Yugoslavia’s disintegration.
In 1988 a Macedonian Child Refugee -Deca Begalci – 40th year reunion was held in Skopje, the capital of Socialist Republic of Macedonia, then within Communist Yugoslavia. Macedonia became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991. At the time Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic put pressure on the Yugoslav media to downplay the event as a favour to neighbouring Greece.
Don and his wife arrived for the 1988 Deca Begalci reunion and touched down at Surcin airport in Belgrade, the capital of both Serbia and Communist Yugoslavia. Don and his wife headed for their hotel and moments later a knock on the door came and Don was summoned to a police station to answer some questions. Don, thinking on his feet, told his wife to call the Australian Embassy.
It was apparent that Don was being monitored by UDBa. At the Police station Don was questioned about his activities.
“I told the police officers, I was an ethnic Macedonian from Aegean Macedonia and was not a Yugoslav citizen. I couldn’t even speak Serbian and only knew Macedonian and English,” Don said.
“They asked why I was involved in anti-Yugoslav activities. I kept on repeating I wasn’t even Yugoslav. I was only acting in a pro-Macedonian manner.
“They then asked how much money I had on me?”
Don’s response: “My wife has my money. Eventually they let me go.”
The 1977-78 ASIO assessment on DOOM – “Members of the pro-Yugoslav faction on the other hand allege they are being harassed by DOOM. From information received to date it appears that DOOM is the successor to the Macedonian Liberation Organisation known as VRMO…
The 1977 ASIO assessment paper on DOOM:
“DOOM is only of minor security interest to ASIO. It is not known to have participated in acts of violence in Australia or overseas.
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The Canberra Times picks up the story – link
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The Canberra Times picks up the story – link
Film lifts lid on Cold War-era spying activities in Australia
by Matthew Raggatt – 6 April 2014
AN EXTRA layer of Canberra’s Cold War-era spy history is set to be peeled back by a new documentary looking at foreign intelligence agents on Australian soil.
The film, UDBa Down Under, features long-time federal parliament electrician Don Dimov and considers the role Yugoslav secret police, known as the UDBa, played in infiltrating pro-independence groups of Croatian and Macedonian activists from the 1970s.
Mr Dimov said he suspected political documents were stolen from his suitcase at a Paris airport – en route to a Macedonian liberation group conference in 1977 – because of a tip-off from UDBa spies at a meeting of the Queanbeyan branch, of which he was a senior figure.
”The meetings were done not in public to know who goes to Europe, but just the organisation, and as soon as I arrive there [with two colleagues], bang, our suitcases were gone,” he said.
The suitcases mysteriously arrived at the men’s next destination in West Germany, minus the party platform and its official newspaper.
Mr Dimov’s ASIO file indicates his group – the Movement for the Liberation and Unification of Macedonia, known by its Macedonian acronym DOOM – was viewed as non-violent and of minor security interest.
Mr Dimov’s story adds to the intrigue surrounding the activities of the Yugoslav embassy, which was particularly focused on the more aggressive Croatian opposition.
Filmmaker Sasha Uzunov said his documentary, due for release in June, would explain the manipulation of Australian-Croat activists to shore up support for the multi-ethnic Yugoslav state.
”My premise is that in the ’70s and ’80s, there was a phoney kind of terrorism that was occurring – perpetrated by Yugoslavian intelligence,” Uzunov said. ”The endgame was to make the Croats look like terrorists … Yugoslavia needed to have foreign enemies.”
The Canberra Times’ editor-at-large, Jack Waterford, who also features in the documentary, said funding by emigre populations for propaganda and terrorist activity in communist Yugoslavia explained some of the spying actions.
”The Yugoslavs would say – and quite accurately – it was vital to their national security, because in a number of cases, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were actual armed incursions by Croatian emigres, some from Australia,” Waterford said.
”What was never clear, however, was whether [Yugoslav intelligence] was engaged in provocation work among those associations.”
A Fairfax Media investigation revealed new material in 2012 supporting the view that a UDBa operative set up the six Croatian tradesmen found guilty of planning terrorist activities in Sydney in 1979.
Croatian and Yugoslav tensions were also behind the overnight raid of Canberra’s ASIO office in 1973 by attorney-general Lionel Murphy, two weeks before a visit by the Yugoslav prime minister.
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Team Uzunov report:
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Team Uzunov report:
EX-DEPUTY AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER & DOOM ! – The Swedish connection !
How an ex-Australian Prime Minister Lance Barnard (1972-74) took an interest in DOOM (Movement for the Liberation and Unification of Macedonia – Dvizenje za Osloboduvanje i Obedinuvanje Makedonija)
During Australian-Macedonian DOOM member Don Dimov’s trip to the then West Germany for a DOOM conference in 1977 and later Sweden to meet local activist Mile Ilievski… ASIO was monitoring the trip…in fact the Australian Ambassador to Sweden, Norway & Finland at the time Lance Barnard was paying close attention, alerting Canberra of the trip…
ASIO and the Swedish Security Police were exchanging information. Mr Olof Franstedt of the Swedish police passed on information to Ambassador Barnard about DImov and his travelling companions. It was noted that they had travelled through Paris, France and FRG – Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) before arriving in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Barnard pictured (above on the left) with Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (1972-75) whose foreign policy was pro-Belgrade and pro-Tito at the time…Barnard was Whitlam’s deputy.