THE SECRET WAR IN BELGIUM
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In the Second World War Belgium was defeated and occupied by German troops. The Belgian government was forced to flee to London and remained in exile until the Allied Forces liberated Europe. During the traumatic exile in London the Belgian government and military established close ties with the British when the two nations cooperated in order to set up secret armies in occupied Belgium. As of summer 1942 the British SOE had established arms dumps in Belgium and erected and trained a secret army. The British managed the availability of radios and aeroplanes to transport men and material, and from London controlled the logistics and directed the training and debriefing of the agents who were sent secretly to occupied Belgium. Next to carrying out sabotage operations against the German occupiers the secret Belgian army collected information which the agents transmitted to London by radio, writing or microfilm. The overall impact of the network was marginal but the strategy served as an example: 'Towards the end of the hostilities, the activities of this first stay-behind were well organised 1 and admired by the British and American secret service.' |
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As the enemy changed from Nazi Germany to Soviet Communism the secret armies were created anew after the war. The stay-behind network which during the Cold War operated in Belgium, as the Senate investigation found, had two branches: SDRA8 and STC/Mob. SDRA8 was the military branch located within the military secret service, Service General du Renseignement (SGR), under the direction of the Defence Ministry. The branch SDRA8, also spelled SDRA VIII, stands for 'service de documentation, de renseignement et d'action VIII' (service for documentation, intelligence and action). The members of SDRA8 were military men, trained in combat and sabotage, parachute jumping and maritime operations. SDRA8, next to information gathering, was trained to organise evacuation routes if an occupation of Belgium should occur. If the entire territory were occupied, some SDRA8 agents had to accompany the Belgian government abroad and liaise 2 with the secret agents who remained in Belgium to combat the enemy. |
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The civilian branch STC/Mob of the Belgian stay-behind was located within the civilian secret service Security of the State (Surete de L'Etat, short Surete) under the direction of the Justice Ministry. STC/Mob stands for 'section training, communication and mobilisation'. The members of the civilian STC/Mob were |
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technicians trained to operate a radio station. Predominantly recrduited from groups
'with strong religious convictions as a guarantee for their anti-Communism' the
STC/Mob men, according to the Belgium Gladio investigation, were 'calm fathers
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[peres tranquilles], at times even a bit naive'. STC/Mob 'had the mission to
collect intelligence under conditions of enemy occupation which could be useful to the government. Furthermore STC/Mob had the task to organise secure communication routes to evacuate the members of the government and other
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people with official functions.' In order to coordinate the coexistence of the two
Belgian stay-behinds an 'Inter-Service' coordination committee was created in 1971. Reunions took place every six months, with the presidency rotating between SDRA and the Surete d'Etat. The reunions helped to assure a common position in
the international meetings of NATO's secret warfare centre Allied Clandestine
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Committee.
The somewhat unusual twofold structure of the Belgian secret army resulted directly from its origins in the Second World War. The units which during the war had collected intelligence which then had been sent by radio, by writing or by microfilm to London had been commanded by M. Lepage who directed the Surete within the Belgian Justice Ministry. This branch became STC/Mob. The Belgian agents who during the war were sent from London by parachute into the occupied country to engage in covert action and sabotage operations were coordinated by the Belgian army. They formed SDRA8. 'It therefore follows from the above explained', the Belgian Senate report on Gladio observed, 'that
Belgium, in contrast to other countries, has had right from the beginning a civilian
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and a military stay-behind organisation'.
The members of the Belgian secret army were 'on the whole Royalist in politics'
and thus did not include members of the Belgian Communist resistance, as
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a formerly classified British SOE report stresses. After D-day and the liberation
of Belgium both the United States and England were concerned about the strength of
the Belgian Communists. As in Italy and France, in Belgium too the Communists were
widely respected by the population for their courage and prominent role in the
resistance battle against the Nazis. Therefore British and Belgian authorities in
late 1944 were anxious to disarm the Resistance and to arm the police as quickly
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as possible. 'After the war a rather powerful Communist party arose having,
I think, twenty one members of parliament, which was unique in Belgium', Belgian historian Etienne Verhoyen later highlighted the delicate period in a Gladio documentary on BBC. 'It had never happened before and given the international context of Communism, right-wing people were of course afraid of what they
9 called "Communist Danger" in Belgium.'
Julian Lahaut was the charismatic leader figure of the Belgian Communists. After his arrest by the Germans, Lahaut had spent the war in captivity and upon his liberation in 1945 was appointed honorary President of the Belgian Communists. Lahaut openly and prominently agitated against the return of the Belgian king Baudouin, whom he and other leftists considered to be a puppet of the Belgian centre-right and the United States. 'The l e f t - wing was opposed to the return of the
King, so the right-wingers were for the return of the king and some of these groups
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established in 1948 t h e i r first contacts within the American embassy', historian
Verhoyen related in the Gladio documentary. The Belgian right in the US
embassy made contacts with an officer called Parker, allegedly working for the insisted also on the formation of stay-behind groups to assure anti-Communist 10 resistance'. |
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When King Baudouin returned to Belgium and in August 1950 took his oath, Lahaut shouted in protest in the Belgian Parliament 'Long live the Republic!' Many on the Belgian right considered this to have been an unforgivable action and feared that the Belgian Communists might radically alter the established system. The political climate in the country become very tense. Two weeks later, on August 18, 1950, two men shot Lahaut dead in front of his house. The assassination left large parts of the Belgian society in shock. The extreme right and its clandestine network 11 had eliminated the most popular Belgian Communist. |
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Whether the Belgian secret anti-Communist army was responsible for the assassination remains unclear. But it has been alleged that by the time of Lahaut's assassination the Belgian stay-behind was operational. Stewart Menzies, the chief of the MI6, in a letter dated January 27, 1949 to Belgian Socialist Prime Minister Paul Henri Spaak, had urged that the existing secret collaboration between the United Kingdom and Belgium started during the Second World War must continue. 'It was agreed', Menzies in his letter summarised a meeting which he had had with Spaak, 'that Anglo-Belgian co-operation between the special services should be pursued on the basis of those traditions which date from the First World War, and which were reaffirmed in discussions between both M. Pierlot [H. Pierlot, Belgian Prime Minister 1939-1945] and M. Van Acker [A. Van Acker, Belgian Prime Minister 1945-1946, predecessor of Spaak] and myself during the periods that they held office as Prime Minister.' Specifically Menzies stressed that 'the preparation of appropriate intelligence and action organisations in the event of war', thus the running of a Belgian Gladio, had to be continued. 'Demands for training and material will arise in the near future', Menzies explained in his letter and offered his assistance: 'I have already undertaken to provide certain training facilities for officers and others nominated by the Head of your Special Service, and I am in a position to provide items of new equipment now in production.' Menzies urged Spaak to keep the letter top-secret. Above all he urged Spaak not to collaborate with the CIA exclusively and suggested that 'certain officers should proceed to the United Kingdom in the near future to study, in conjunction 12 with my Service, the technicalities of these matters'. |
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Belgian Prime Minister Spaak replied to MI6 chief Menzies that he was glad to receive help from the British, but since the American CIA had also approached him on the subject he thought it important that the British and Americans cooperated so that Belgium would not get into an uncomfortable position of having to choose between them. 'I agree with you', Spaak wrote to Menzies, 'that it would be highly desirable that the three services (British, American and Belgian) should |
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collaborate closely. If two of them, the American and the British, refuse that
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collaboration, the situation of the Belgian service would be extremely delicate and difficult. I therefore think that it is unavoidable, that on the highest levels |
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13 negotiations take place between London and Washington to solve this question.' After high-level negotiations had taken place the American, British and Belgian secret services created an organisational body labelled 'Tripartite Meeting Brussels' (TMB) at times also called Tripartite Meeting Belgian' to oversee the creation of the Belgian stay-behind. Spaak was rewarded for his loyalty and in 1957 became NATO Secretary-General, the highest civilian position within the military alliance, a post which he held until 1961. Eleven years later Spaak died and could thus no longer be questioned by the Belgian Gladio investigation. 'Several documents establish thus that the responsible politicians of the time were aware of the gravity of the situation and endorsed the idea of negotiations in favour of close collaboration with the American and British secret services', the Belgian Senate report on Gladio summarised the period. 'This cooperation gained even further solid basis with the 14 creation of the Tripartite Meeting Belgian/Brussels towards the end of the 1940s.' |
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Most of the details on the secret warfare command centres remain unavailable as of now, but it is known that next to TMB other centres were also created which carried the acronyms CCUO, CPC, ACC and SDRA11. The Gladio evidence available as of now suggests that in the immediate post-war years trilateral structures were favoured, for at the same time the United Kingdom and the United States had also formalised their secret cooperation with the Dutch Gladio in a Tripartite Committee Holland (TCH), in which the United Kingdom, the United States and 15 the Netherlands each had a seat. Furthermore such a trilateral secret agreement seems to have existed also between the British and the French, who on May 4, 16 secret warfare centres on March 17, 1948 the so-called Western Union Clandestine Committee (WUCC) was founded. With the task of carrying out peacetime preparations against an eventual Soviet invasion, it was a clandestine Gladio coordination centre in which five nations had a seat: the United Kingdom, Belgium, 17 the Netherlands, Luxemburg and France. war were concerned', the Belgian Senators noted while observing that the United 18 States allegedly became a member of the WUCC only in 1958. 'Other countries thus also followed |
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According to Belgian Gladio author Jan Willems, the creation of WUCC in spring 1948 had been a direct consequence of a public speech by British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin held in London on January 22, 1948. In front of the British parliament Bevin had elaborated on his plan for a 'Union Occidental', an international organisation designed to counter what he perceived to be the Soviet threat in Europe, which consisted not only in the Red Army, but above all also in the Communist subversion of Western Europe. Together with Washington, as a US memorandum of March 8, 1948 indicates, Bevin was in agreement that 'The problem of the moment consists not so much any longer that we must prepare |
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against a foreign aggressor, but that we must prepare internally against a fifth column,
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19 missions on the security level. Guarantee that political and military discussions could be carried out in secrecy; and to develop forms of cooperation in the fight against subversion and infiltration activities. 'The aim was to develop mechanisms that allow to eliminate Communist candidates from the command of political 20 institutions; this aim, according to the American documents, was realised.' |
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After the creation of NATO in Paris in 1949 the WUCC, as the Belgian Senate found, was in April 1951 firmly integrated into the military alliance and changed its label to 'Clandestine Planning Committee' (CPC). 'In conclusion', Belgian Gladio author Willems stresses, 'The fight against the internal enemy has been an 21 intensified secret warfare next to the CPC a second secret command centre was established within the military alliance, the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC), which allegedly held its first meeting in France on April 29 and 30, 1958, under the presidency of France. When NATO had to leave France, the ACC moved to Brussels in 1968 and the clandestine ACC was, as section SDRA11, located administratively within the Belgian military secret service SGR with its headquarters in Evere, directly behind NATO installations. SDRA11, a front for ACC, was 'financed by NATO', as the Belgian Gladio report revealed while SDRA8, the covert action branch of the Belgian Gladio was paid by the Belgian Defence 22 Department. 23 The last confirmed meeting of the Gladio command centre ACC started to ask questions about the secret centre. |
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Michel Van Ussel, alias Georges 923, a member of the Belgian Gladio in the 1980s, explained in his book on the Belgian Gladio in 1991 that ACC had, above all, a coordination task. 'The activities which needed to be co-ordinated were debated in the ACC. The issues included the use of the radio systems, the marking of areas where parachuted agents would land, the ways by which agents would recognise each other, the transferral of agents across national boarders, etc.' Van Ussel elaborated that the military secret services used the ACC to exchange ideas and discuss clandestine operations: 'Within the fields of intelligence gathering, escape and evasion operations, as well as the air and sea operations, each ACC member country followed the same rules, which had furthermore been established by common agreement between the participants. Yet each member country was also free to carry out other "activities", which obviously were not mentioned at the 24 reunions, or, if at all, only secretly at the side among instructors.' |
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The Belgian Senate faced great difficulties to clarify the facts when it came to the secret NATO centres. General Raymond Van Calster deliberately misled the Senators during his interrogation when he failed to mention the existence of SDRA11, a front 25 military officers flatly rejected to testify to the Belgian Senators by stating that they had agreed to a Gladio secret which read: 'I hereby declare that I will never |
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discuss such information and material outside a secure area, nor with those
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unauthorised to receive it even after my retirement or release from the service of my |
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Country, unless freed from this obligation by specific, unmistakable and categorical official notice.' The Senators were frustrated and noted for the record that their investigation into the secret war of NATO 'has been hindered gravely by the refusal of the concerned military personnel who referred to obligations towards NATO 26 secrecy which also covered the activities which they had carried out in the CPC.' |
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Senator Cecile Harnie of the Belgian Green Party, later criticised that the Belgian Gladio commissar of which she was a member commission had been unable to find the truth on the Brabant massacres and that above all the links to NATO had not been clarified. Witnesses, she correctly highlighted, often hid behind NATO secrecy in refusing to answer questions about the links between the two international secre- tariats of the Gladio networks - the ACC and the CPC - and NATO's Supreme Allied Headquarters Europe (SHAPE). After the termination of the Belgian Senate inquiry into Gladio in October 1991, Madame Harnie therefore called for a further investigation focusing on the role of NATO. Given that NATO's European headquarters are located in the cities Brussels, Mons and Casteau, Belgium was arguably in an ideal position among European countries to inves- tigate NATO's secret armies in more detail. But despite this advantageous 27 position Harnie's request was turned down. |
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During their investigation, the Belgian parliamentarians noted with surprise how well hidden the secret army (SDRA8) was within the Belgian military secret service (SGR). At the time of the discoveries of the secret network, the military secret service was divided into five departments, one of which was SDRA which employed around 150 of the total 300 full-time SGR employees. SDRA had been created in the beginning of the 1950s by Colonel Charlier, who had before served in the British SAS Special Forces and at the time of the Gladio exposure was Lieutenant Colonel and Chief of Staff of the Belgium army. SDRA was again subdivided into 8 units, and next to the top-secret stay-behind SDRA8 included under the label SDRA6, for instance, the Belgian Gendarmerie. Only later the Senators learned that in most countries the paramilitary secret army had been hidden within the military secret service like Russian 'babushka dolls', where the first and smallest doll is contained inside the second larger doll, the second inside the third, the third inside a fourth and so on making it almost impossible for the legis- lative and its parliamentarians to carry out its constitutional duty to oversee, con- 28 trol and, in case of need, investigate the secret services. |
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SDRA8 like all other stay-behind networks in Europe was made up of instructors and agents with the former training the latter. Allegedly the number of instructors was but ten at a certain time, while 'there were a total of about 40 agents. As a general 29 the Senate investigation judged that the suggested total of 50 SDRA8 members was probably too low, yet as many relevant documents had been destroyed the issue could not be clarified. Like all stay-behind networks the SDRA8 and the civilian STC/Mob functioned according to the c e l l principle. In case of occupation the |
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instructors would go abroad, while their agents were to remain in the occupied
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territory and recruit their own networks: 'The agents were trained so they themselves |
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could recruit other agents in case of occupation of the country, with the aim of |
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building up a network of which they were the chiefs. The recruitment strategy fol- 30 lowed a pyramid structure. This way, the network could be expanded five times.' |
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In STC/Mob each instructor knew his own agents, but did not know the agents of the other instructors, and the agents did not know each other. The 'need to know principle' was rigorously applied to enhance the secrecy of the stay-behind, and only the Director of the Surete within the Justice Ministry knew the names of both the STC/Mob instructors and agents. M. Raes, powerful Director of the Surete from 1977 to 1990, in front of the Senate investigation, claimed that he had 'forgotten' the names of the agents, while insisting that he had studied their file 31 for security reasons. 32 correct then the Belgian Gladio STC/Mob was made up of a modest number of 7 instructors and 45 agents in November 1990, thus a total of 52 men. Justice Minister Wathelet claimed that STC/Mob counted |
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At least as of 1951 the missions of the Belgian Gladios SDRA8 and STC/Mob were outlined in writing to the Gladiators in a secret letter dated September 28, 1951 and signed by Belgian Prime Minister Van Houtte, Belgian Justice Minister Moyersoen and Belgian Defence Minister De Greef. In it the Prime Minister wrote: 'I have to specify to you the nature and the idea of the mission which the government has assigned to you. The mission basically consists in the co-ordination of the resistance activities against the enemy on the occupied national territory.' The letter continued: 'In times of peace your mission is to 1) study the conditions under which the resistance to the enemy could develop 2) Oversee the co-ordination of the general plans prepared to this purpose 3) Select the persons... who would remain in Belgium to continue in the occupied territory your work under your authority... 4) Be informed... on all the suggestions, dispositions and decisions taken on international and national levels on the subject of the defence in occupied territory.' The fact that the mission also included the order to react to international decisions worried some of the Belgian Senators investigating the secret army, for this implied that NATO and foreign countries including the US and the UK were in a position to influence the Belgian stay-behind. 'The chiefs of the two services [SDRA8 and STC/Mob] have the obligation', the letter continued, 'on all which concerns the preparations of military and civilian resistance in occupied territory, to keep you informed on the plans which they have elaborated, the activities which they will take, the general directives which they give to their subordinates, or the general 33 directives which they receive from national and international authorities'. |
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Then the letter went on to specify the missions in case of war. SDRA8 has to engage in: 'a) intelligence gathering for the military; b) counter-intelligence; c) actions: sabotage of military objectives, collaboration with elements of the Allied Forces [Special Forces], paramilitary actions, secret army and guerrilla; |
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d) organisation of liaisons and evacuation lines.' While STC/Mob had the following
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tasks: 'a) information gathering on political, economical and social topics; b) liaison 34 the above mentioned missions.' |
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In order to be able to operate independently of the regular forces the Belgian secret army like all stay-behinds across the continent was equipped with secret arms caches spread across the country containing guns, munitions, gold coins and explosives. Furthermore the Belgian secret army, as all other NATO stay- behinds in Western Europe as of the mid-1980s, was equipped with a total of 79 'Harpoon' communication centres that the government had purchased for a total of 155 million Belgian Francs. Belgian Justice Minister M. Wathelet, in front of the Senators, testified that NATO had suggested that the expensive Harpoon equipment should be bought by each state for the secret armies. 'Given the existing danger of detection or repair of the old machines, it was decided in ACC to develop a new type of radio machine', Wathelet explained. 'The project "Harpoon", often mentioned in the Surete de l'Etat, was thereafter realised by the German firm AEG 35 Telefunken' on the orders of the Gladio command centre ACC. |
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The powerful Harpoon machines operating on short waves with high frequency were able to communicate with another station 6,000 km away without the help of satellites by having the radio waves rebound on the natural ionosphere which surrounds the world. Using highly sophisticated encoding systems they produced 36 messages which were practicably undecodable. 37 decades, and could even be absent while sending their communication. Michel Van Ussel, a member |
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The Belgian Senate investigation found that STC/Mob agents were trained in 38 Belgium and sometimes also 'went abroad to follow courses'. 39 they had not informed their wives about that secret double life'. During inter- national stay-behind exercises STC/Mob agents had, for instance, to establish 40 a secure radio connection with the French Gladio.' The stay-behind |
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'One day a man came to my house and asked me if I would accept a confidential
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mission'. Van Ussel related his recruitment. 'He said that it was something within the framework of NATO. As I could still refuse his offer he didn't explain much. It was advisable not to be too specific, because this was one of the most secret organisations that has ever existed.' In the end Van Ussel agreed to become a secret soldier. 'We had a radio at our disposition. Our base was near London with 41 which made me do it', Van Ussel reflects upon his motives to become a Gladiator, 'to penetrate this strange world, which one depicts as made up of silhouettes, trench coats, and false beards'. As he saw it most Gladiators were simply curious and adventurous. 'This is a far cry', he notes in his book, 'from such noble motives as honour, sense of duty, or patriotism... which some have wanted to see as the motive of members, which in fact they did not even know'. Van Ussel thought that the best way to prevent dark conspiracies from spreading was for the secret Belgian soldiers to step out of the dark and explain their side of the story for 42 'now nothing prevents them from testifying themselves'. |
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Van Ussel stressed that the names of the secret soldiers were kept top secret by the CIA and the MI6. 'Exactly as in the best spy novel each Gladio agent had a code-name and a number. These were systematically used, above all during exercises.' Van Ussel himself was given the Gladio code name 'Georges 923', while other secret soldiers used such names as 'Charles', Tsabelle', 'Pollux' and 'King-Kong'. The real name to which the cover name corresponded 'was known only by two or three persons', Van Ussel alias Georges 923 explains, among which the officer who had recruited the Gladiator, as well as the officer 43 whom he met for instructions at regular intervals. 44 chief of SDRA8 went there regularly to update the files.' Van Ussel explained that 'The British and the Americans were privileged correspondence partners, 45 because the radio bases were (and still are) installed on their territory.' A personal file existed at |
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Most members of SDRA8 were recruited in the Belgian army among the parachutists. Training took place in the Meerdaal army camp, the training with explosives was carried out at the Polygone in Brasschaat. The recruited agents wore uniforms during the training and Belgian instructors took courses in Great 46 Britain and British instructors came to Belgium to give courses. 47 Cooperation between SDRA8 and the Belgian Gendarmerie, officially integrated These activities consisted above all in scuba-diving and parachute jumping. In order to |
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into the SDRA as section SDRA6, was close. The chief of the Gendarmerie testified
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that before 1990 the helicopter Puma of the Gendarmeriw was regularly used by 48 the SDRA for dropping missions in blackout situations. framework. The agents were told that they were part of a European organisation with bases in Washington and London. The structure of the entire organisation 49 was not revealed. were often destroyed once the exercise had been carried out'. The Commission 51 As in all secret armies the Belgian secret soldiers were also 50 could, however, confirm that 'per year several exercises were organised'. |
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As these exercises had to be carried out in total secrecy, agents were issued special identification cards, to be shown in case of arrest. 'All participants were given an exercise card, which they had to show in case of an accident, in order to prove that they were taking part in an official exercise. These cards gave the perman- ent phone number of SDRA, who in turn was ordered to contact the chief of 52 escape and evacuation operations. In one exercise SDRA8 agents had to observe for instance Soviet ships coming and leaving Belgian ports and communicate the information to headquarters. Such international stay-behind exercises took place during the entire Cold War. They included submarine operations on the Mediterranean French island Corsica where SDRA8 trained with the French secret stay-behind army. These exercises continued until 1990. Around April 1990, General Charlier, Chief of Staff, informed Defence Minister Coeme that he had ordered to terminate a series of activities of the section SDRA8 'regarding above 53 all the scuba diving and the exercises organised in Corsica'. 54 agents should not mix with military or social activities in times of peace.' Yet operations of |
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During international escape and evacuation missions in Europe SDRA8 agents and their international Gladio colleagues passed on persons along secret lines from save house to save house and effectively brought them secretly in and out of a country. 'Often these exercises were organised on an international level and trained the reception and exfiltration of a shot down pilot, or of foreign agents |
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who landed in the country with a special mission (intelligence, sabotage), to be
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carried out in a specified place.' The pan-European Gladios system worked |
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remarkably well as the Belgian Senators learned with some surprise: 'One must |
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note two points regarding these exercises. First of all, we are dealing here with an international network which could evacuate clandestinely a person from Norway to Italy. This implies a very close collaboration and strict co-ordination on an international level between a series of secret services', the Senators noted in their report. 'What secondly is astonishing is the perfect technical infrastructure which the stay-behind was equipped with: The persons and the material were moved on or intercepted by sea, by air, by parachute. Their arrival zones were marked and 55 controlled. The persons were housed in secure buildings.' |
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STC/Mob agent Van Ussel, alias Georges 923, relates that for scuba-diving operations the favourite territory was the Mediterranean and the Solenzara military base in Corsica which 'was therefore well known by the families of Belgium military 56 personnel on holidays'. 57 been guided by several dozen evacuation networks.' . Van Ussel stressed that the secret armies cooperated |
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SDRA8 officers were trained in the United Kingdom and also received training in the United States together with US Special Forces as the Belgian Gladio investigation found: 'The Commission could establish that several members of SDRA8 have profited from a Special Forces training in the United States' and participated in NATO exercises carried out in Europe with the participation of US Special Forces. 'The United States thus disposed as of 1947', the Senators critically observed, 'over an important instrument which allowed the United States to act on the domestic situation of a country in their 58 and elsewhere in Europe therefore is: Have the United States made use of this instrument also in the absence of a Soviet invasion? Has the Belgian Gladio used its arms and explosives in Belgium during times of peace, or, |
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alternatively, did it assist clandestine right-wing groups which engaged in such
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military operations? |
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After their investigation of the secret army the Belgian Senators answered this sensitive question in the affirmative. They were able to reconstruct at least one case, the so-called Vielsalm incident. In 1984 a squad of US Marines had set out from an airport north of London. Above Belgium they parachuted into a designated area and were met by a local Belgian agent from SDRA8 who offered them guidance. Living off the land for a fortnight, hiding from the Belgian population, the US Special Forces and the Belgian secret soldiers prepared for their mission: To attack the police station in the sleepy southern Belgian town of Vielsalm. Stealthily the US Marines approached their objective and opened fire. A Belgian warrant officer at the Vielsalm station was killed, and one US Marine 59 lost an eye in the operation. |
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The attack, as the Senators found, had been part of a so-called Oesling exercise. The forces of the national army and sections of the US Special Forces carried out these exercises, taking place at least once every year. 'The Commission has asked several times whether SDRA8 or its instructors have taken part in Oesling exercises.' 'Let us remember', they stressed in their report, 'that it was during one of these exercises, in 1984, that weapons were stolen from the arsenal of the Vielsalm station'. Initially Belgian stay-behind members claimed they had not been involved. 'The last commander of SDRA8 has denied all participation of his service in exercises of this kind, as they were not part of the mission of his unit and as the risk for his agents was too high', the Senate Gladio report notes. 'Contrary to this declaration a former chief of SDRA11 and former commander of the entire SDRA unit has confirmed that the network could participate in Oesling exercises. 60 Another official has confirmed that the network took part in two Oesling exercises.' 'For months the explanation the civilian authorities gave us was that the attack was the work of common criminals or of terrorists', Belgian journalist Rene Haquin remembers the Vielsalm terror operation. 'It was several months before I received a telephone call. That's how I went to France and met Lucien Dislaire who gave me his report and talked to me at length. He told me he had taken part in a secret manoeuvre which was to reproduce the operations of the 61 resistance and of support for the resistance as it was done at the end of war.' When in 1990 the entire stay-behind network was exposed, Belgian secret soldier Dislaire explained in front of the camera in a Gladio documentary that next to Vielsalm there had also been other exercises with US Special Forces. T am originally from the north of the province of Luxemburg', Dislaire explained in the docu- mentary. 'At that time I was manager of a bank as well as an ex-paracommando. One day some people came to my house and asked for help with some special manoeuvres in co-ordination with American Special Forces', he explained. 'The Belgian commandos were told to recover American paratroopers. After this operation they were to go to pre-determined spots and attack barracks belonging to the Gendarmerie. I had with me the supplies, the weapons and the radio transmitter 62 for co-ordinating it all.' |
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Rene Haquin recalls that the Vielsalm was but one among several
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other operations during which US Special Forces had clandestinely operated on Belgian soil. 'We read in the papers about the attack on a military camp of the Chasseur Ardennes here in Belgium. I went there along with other journalists', Haquin remembered in a Gladio documentary. 'They had cut the fences, attacked the armoury, wounded the guard and left with a certain number of weapons. I was able to get into the camp because I knew some people there. Inside I saw foreign 63 to journalist Haquin that US Special Forces had repeatedly been involved in clandestine operations in Belgium. 'There had been some trouble a few days before' the attack on the Vielsalm barrack, Dislaire recalls. 'The Americans had gone too far. These were people in their forties, officers, tough guys. They took the game too far. They had attacked barracks before. They had even thrown a grenade near the Attorney Generals office.' Dislaire alleged that the violent procedure of the US Special Forces had greatly angered those Belgians who knew of the clandes- tine operations: 'The civilian authorities reacted, saying this was too much. It was then that the planned attack on Vielsalm barracks was cancelled. The day of the attack we were told that it was cancelled.' Yet the US Special Forces could not be stopped. Dislaire recalls: 'But the Americans asked me to drive them to the camp as a stand-by. The next morning I went with my wife to Namur. I heard on the radio that the barracks had been attacked at midnight. I can't say what happened, because I had left at 8 p.m. that evening. I wasn't supposed to stay.' Dislaire was informed of what had happened the next morning. 'The following day the commander of Vielsalm barracks called me and updated me on the operation. He told me to tell the Belgian commando that the guard wasn't dead, he was in 64 |
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Belgian authorities covered up the traces after the mysterious operations in the 1980s and sensitive questions were not answered. The secret Belgian army was not exposed and only some attacks were confirmed. 'The American and Belgian authorities who were questioned, ended up admitting, after months, that there had been an exercise and admitted that certain attacks had taken place', Haquin recalls. T remember, for example, one attack on a military fuel depot in Bastogne. Another attack on a police station at Neufchateau. Gradually, the military admitted that there had been certain attacks.' Yet details on the Vielsalm incident were not available. 'Their last version of Vielsalm was that an attack had been planned but had been cancelled at the last moment' Haquin recalls, stressing that sensitively enough the arms stolen had been planted among a mysterious leftist group in order to blame the Communists for the crime: 'Some of the arms stolen at Vielsalm were found in a flat belonging to the Cellules Communistes Combat- 65 tantes (CCC, Fighting Communist Cells).' |
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Why were these operations carried out? And why were guns stolen in the Vielsalm operation by the US Special Forces later planted in the Brussels squat used by a Belgian Communist group? 'The objective of the exercise had been twofold: to jolt the local Belgian police into a higher state of alert, and, no less important, |
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to give the impression to the population at large that the comfortable and well-fed
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Kingdom of Belgium was on the brink of red revolution'. British journalist Hugh 66 O'Shaughnessy suggested in an article on Gladio. His principal aide, Marc De Laever, had later joined a German extreme right- 67 wing group. The Belgian Communists, |
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'In Belgium there have been a number of unexplained events - an armed band committed numerous murders in the mid-eighties and we still know nothing about this', Belgian Defence Minister Guy Coeme speculated on a connection between the secret Belgian stay-behind army and acts of terrorism in Belgium 68 when the Gladio network was discovered in late 1990. 69 from during the past years.' 'I have asked the chief |
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The Defence Minister was referring to the so-called Brabant massacres, a series of brutal and mysterious terrorist attacks carried out in the geographic area around Brussels called Brabant between 1983 and 1985 in which 28 people had died and many more were injured. The Brabant massacres had left the country in shock and remain the most traumatic episode of Belgium's most recent history. The Brabant massacres range among the worst cases of terrorism that Western Europe has seen in the second half of the twentieth century. All in all 16 armed assaults are subsumed under the term 'Brabant Massacres'. The first one took place on August 14, 1982 and was an armed attack on a food shop in the Belgian city Maubeuge in Brabant county. The last one, an attack on the supermarket chain Delhaize, took place on November 9, 1985 in me Belgian city Aalst, also in Brabant county. The other 14 attacks, all taking place in Brabant county, had targeted twice a restaurant, once a taxi driver, once a jeweller's store, once a textile factory, once a food store, and five times a Delhaize supermarket in five different towns. The police |
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noticed that in all attacks only very small amounts of money, often less than
$5,000, had been stolen while at the same time massive brutality and professionalism
70 was employed.
The Brabant massacres were designed to strike fear to the bones of the Belgian
population. This aim was accomplished, as the raid on the Delhaize super- market in Aalst on November 9, 1985 illustrates. A prominent date of the Christmas season, November 9 is St Martin's day in Belgium, the local Santa Claus, and children on the night before leave carrots in front of the house for the horse of St Martin and go to bed with wishes for wonderful Christmas presents. The next morning, a busy Saturday, people hurried to the Delhaize supermarket to make their last minute purchases. What happened thereafter was reconstructed from the testimony of witnesses. A Volkswagen GTI was parked outside the supermarket and three armed men with hoods over their heads came out of the car. The tallest of the three produced a pump-action shotgun, opened fire at point blank range and finished off in cold blood two shoppers instantly. Upon reaching the checkout counter he began to fire ran- domly at anything that moved. 'I saw three masked men coming out at the rear. A man said to his child "Drop down! There they are!"', an unnamed witness recalls the terror in a Gladio documentary shown on BBC. 'One bystander who tried to flee was shot at, seven or eight bullets through his car and a shot grazing behind the ear.' Total panic reigned. 'One woman whose face was covered in
71 blood, was screaming something about her child. I don't know exactly what.'
There was little cover or shelter for the terrified shoppers in the aisles of the supermarket from the three masked gunmen. In the ensuing massacre eight people, including a whole family, died, and seven more were injured. A husband and wife and their 14-year-old daughter were finished off in cold blood at the supermarket checkout. Another father and his nine-year-old daughter were killed in their car trying to flee. The takings from the raid amounted to a meagre couple of thousand pounds, found later in a canal in an unopened sack. The killers escaped without a trace and have not been identified, nor arrested, nor
tried ever since. The actors behind the series known as the Brabant massacres
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remain unidentified until today.
After the massacre Justice Minister Jean Gol went on television to promise greater security to the terrified population. The repeated terror reduced Belgium to a state of panic. Police outside supermarkets were reinforced with paratroopers and Jeeps mounted with light artillery. Witnesses and experts agreed that these massacres were not the work of petty criminals, but bloody operations of elite professionals. This applied both to the calm and professional way in which they had handled the situations and their arms, as well as how recklessly they had sped away with their GTIs under the very noses of the Belgian police. Always operating in very small groups, the tallest man also present in Aalst, whom witnesses and journalists started to call 'the giant' turned up time and time again in the attacks, giving orders and firing with his Italian made SPAS 12 shotgun. Brutality was their trademark. In one attack on September 30, 1982 a policemen was laying
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wounded on the wet pavement. He was finished off in cold blood at close range.
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In another attack on March 3, 1983 in a food store in Nivelles the killers - after having assassinated a couple and having set off the alarm - instead of fleeing waited for the police to arrive. The police ran right into the ambush. |
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'Have certain relationships existed between this network and the acts of terrorism and large scale banditry, as carried out in Belgium during the last ten years?', the Belgian parliament had ordered its select committee on Gladio to find out. Having otherwise carried out excellent work the Senators failed to answer this crucial question. The regrettable failure came largely because SDRA8 and STC/ Mob strictly refused to disclose the identity of their members. 'The Commission has found no indications which would allow to conclude that there has been any link whatsoever between the network and acts of terrorism and large-scale banditry', the Senators noted in their final report. 'The refusal, however, of the responsibles of SDRA8 and STC/Mob to provide the expert judges with the identity of all civilian agents has not allowed to carry out the verifications, which, probably, 73 Senate Commission was unable to prove that the Belgian stay-behind had been linked to the Brabant massacres. 'The expert judges have until now [1991] no element which would allow to believe that members of SDRA8 and STC/Mob could have played a role in the criminal activities which have greatly moved public opinion.' Like the Senators the judges also had not been able to investigate the mater sufficiently: 'The judges regret that they are not able to answer this question with more certainty: The silence which has been kept on the identity of the agents does not allow the judges to carry out the necessary verifications in 74 order to establish the whole truth.' |
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If the secret army has nothing to hide, then it must reveal the identities of its members, the Belgian press reasoned as the Senators faced stonewalling. Yet the two Gladio chiefs within the Belgian executive, M. Raes as powerful Director of the Surete de 1'Etat from 1977 to 1990 and thus chief of STC/Mob, and Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Legrand, chief of the Belgian military secret service, and thus chief of SDRA8, categorically and repeatedly refused to make the names available. The categorical refusal of the executive to answer the questions of the legislative and judicative sent storms of protest through the Belgian democracy. The refusal of Raes and Legrand to cooperate was illegal, because Justice Minister Wathelet, the superior of Raes, and Defence Minister Coeme, the superior of Legrand, had explicitly and imperatively ordered their subordinates to cooperate with the stay- behind investigation and had ordered them to hand out the names. However, without success. As the question of the Brabant massacres remains the most sensitive dimension of the history of the Belgian secret war the Senate commission had agreed with the Defence and Justice Ministers that the available names of the persons which were or are part of the stay-behind network would only be communicated to the three judges, who in turn would deal with the material confidentially. The magistrates would only reveal specific names if any of the persons were implicated in the |
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grave actions which took place in the 1980s.
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Thus privacy was guaranteed, unless
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stay-behind soldiers could be linkes to the Brabant massacres. It seemed like a fair |
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suggestion. But Raes and Legrand insisted that they were never going to reveal
names. Thereafter it was suggested that if not the names then at least the birth 'Whatever the Minister says, there remain very good reasons not to reveal the names of the clandestines. For different reasons, of social and family contexts, the clandestines rely upon the promise given to them', commander Legrand explained. 'I will remain firm. I will not give any names of the clandestines, unless proofs can be shown' he insisted, although he knew that proofs could only be found if names were available. 'This is a valuable organisation. I do not understand why such a lot of noise is being made on the subject', Legrand lamented. 'When I read the articles in the press, I can not believe that one can be so intensively interested in 76 and judges kept up the pressure for three more months. It was eyeball to eyeball. But in the end Raes and Legrand won the contest. The names were not revealed. And on March 28, 1991 the leading Belgian daily Le Soir printed the following encoded statement: '"Give us the names!" "Never!" reply the "Gladiators". The hour of truth [l'heure du choc] has come. This is Brussels calling. Dear friends in Operation Stay Behind, section SDRA8 assures you of its very high esteem and thanks you for your devotion to your country. They guarantee that the pressures and threats will 77 be empty and that undertakings will be honoured. Adolphe is looking well!' |
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The Gladio commission was humiliated. It was left to the Senators to establish that the article in Le Soir had been printed on the orders of Legrand and that 'it can be considered as a form of collective resistance against the intention of the 78 commission to get hold of the names'. The phrase 'Adolphe is looking well!' |
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While the Belgian press concluded that the British and the US secret ser- vice were responsible for the mysteries that continued to surround the Brabant massacres, the Belgian Justice Ministry in 1996 asked academics Fijnaut and Verstraeten of Louvain University to investigate why the secret could not be lifted in Belgium. Yet after only two months of research the professors resigned, |
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lamenting that a serious lack of cooperation from the Belgian government institutions
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80 |
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committee was formed to investigate why the Belgian democracy was unable to clarify the Brabant massacres. In October 1997 the commission presented a damning report of 90 pages. Detailing a litany of official incompetence in the investigations that had followed the Brabant massacres in the 1980s, the report accused the Belgian police of a dislocated and inefficient inquiry during which documents had been lost or destroyed, leads not pursued and information not 81 passed on to the neighbouring forces. |
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New light was suddenly shed on the Brabant massacres when Gladio researcher Allan Francovich successfully followed the thesis that segments of the Belgian secret army might have cooperated with the Belgian extreme right-wing organisations Westland New Post (WNP). Already in 1988 British investigative journalist John Palmer had reported that evidence for the Brabant massacres 'now points to the not insignificant extreme right-wing, including the neo-Nazi group 82 organisation Front de la Jeunesse (FJ) had been founded. Five years later WNP was created within FJ as the armed and highly militant branch of the right-wing organisation. 'The Front de la Jeunesse was born in 1974 and existed until the 1980s. At times it was a political group, at times militant', Francis Dossogne, head of the FJ, described his organisation in the Gladio documentary of Francovich. 'Extreme right wing', he confirmed it was, adding that it 'was essentially a youth 83 violence in numerous cases: 'The Front de la Jeunesse carried out actions which upset things. It put many things into question, things which were well established. The Front really upset things so much that they wanted to destroy it.' Carrying out their paramilitary training more and more openly the FJ started to face criticism. 'The Front were condemned for their camps. In fact, all we did was what scouts 84 do. What certain companies do in incentive courses goes much further.' |
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Most sensitively Dossogne admitted in the Gladio documentary that within FJ they had set up a militant branch made up almost exclusively of members of the Belgian Gendarmerie. As SDRA6 the Gendarmerie was part of the Belgian military secret service SGR which under the label SDRA8 also directed the secret armies. The new branch within FJ was first labelled 'G' for Gendarmerie and later became WNP. 'Group G was a section of the Front in the Gendarmerie. As Gendarmes they didn't want to be mixed up with the rest - and risk being involved during demonstrations and so on', Dossogne relates. Gendarme Martial Lekeu played a prominent role in Group G and later in WNP. 'Lekeu was part of Group G, he was one of its first members', Dossogne explained in the Gladio documentary. 'He was so much part of Group G that he later informed the Chief 85 of Staff of the Gendarmerie of their existence.' |
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Lekeu served as a Belgian Gendarme from 1972 to 1984. Thereafter he fled to Florida in the United States. In the Gladio documentary he testified in poor English that elements of the Belgian military secret service and the security apparatus |
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were linked to the Brabant massacres: 'My name is Martial Lekeu, I used to be
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with the Belgian Gendarmerie. I left Belgium in August 1984 after precise death |
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threats against my kids', Lekeu testified. 'In the beginning of December 1983 |
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I did go personally to the BSR [Brigade Speciale des Recherches, branch of Gendarmerie] of Wavre who were doing the investigation about the [Brabant] killing.' Lekeu had discovered that the massacres were linked to groups within the security apparatus. 'I was surprised that no arrests had been made and I know that I did report myself what was going on - we were respecting killing like that - random killing or going into supermarket and killing people, even kids. I believe they kill about thirty people. So I told a gentleman I met: "Do you realise members of the Gendarmerie of the army are involved in that?" His answer was "Shut up! You know, we know. Take care of your own business. Get out of here!" What they were saying was that democracy was going away the leftists were in power 86 the socialists and all this and they wanted more power.' |
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A Belgian parliamentary report on the Brabant massacres published in 1990 only months before the discovery of the Belgian secret army supported this finding. 'According to the report, the killers were members or former members of the security forces - extreme right-wingers who enjoyed high-level protection and were preparing a right-wing coup.' 'It is now believed', British newspapers reported after the parliamentary report had been presented to the public, 'that the Brabant killings were part of a conspiracy to destabilise Belgium's democratic 87 line was followed by camouflaged people, people belonging to the security apparatus, or those linked to the state apparatus through rapport or collaboration', Italian right-wing terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra observed on maybe the most sensitive feature of the secret stay-behind armies. Right-wing organisations across Western Europe 'were being mobilised into the battle as part of an anti-Communist strategy originating not with organisations deviant from the institutions of power, but from the state itself, and specifically from within the ambit of the state's relations 88 Agalev Hugo Van Dienderen attempted to find out more about the clandestine operations in Belgium by contacting NATO. Two years before the Gladio discoveries he asked in writing in 1988 whether NATO had some secret 'Security Committee'. NATO first inquired why he was asking this, and then refused to 89 hand out any specific information on the subject. |
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Suspicions mounted that the right-wing organisation WNP enjoyed special protection from NATO when in October 1990 seven WNP members charged with having stolen hundreds of NATO and Belgian army documents in the early 1980s were acquitted mysteriously by the highest military court in Belgium. This despite the fact that the documents had been found in the WNP offices and the con- firmation of the WNP activists that the top-secret material belonged to them. At the same time the accused strongly rejected the charge that the documents had been stolen. 'We only followed the wishes of authority!', accused WNP member Michel Libert explained, stressing that when he had gotten hold of the material he |
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had acted out of patriotism and with authorisation from NATO superiors. Fellow
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WNP right-winger Frederic Saucez protested: 'If I stole any NATO telexes, it was on the orders of state security.' The state, as Vinciguerra had correctly predicted, proved unable to punish itself. First the trial was dragged on and on, with the accused appealing always to higher instances, whereupon in October 1990 finally the highest military tribunal, The Council of War, ruled that the offences happened too long ago for any sentence to be passed on the seven WNP members. The court added that the crime was mitigated by the fact that it had been committed when the Cold War was 'more than just a phrase'. The WNP members were ordered to hand over the stolen NATO and Belgian army documents to the 90 Justice Ministry and walked free. |
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One of the accused, right-winger Michel Libert, a WNP member from 1978 to the 1980s, thereafter confirmed in a Gladio documentary that higher officers had protected them during their operations. 'The fittest members', Libert proudly spoke of the WNP, 'can form an action branch'. Head of WNP Paul Latinus gave the orders for covert action operations. 'When an operation was to be carried out, Latinus was given the job. To get us to do it he had to have an aide in case of problems.' Protection by higher echelons was mandatory. 'You can't send young members into the field. Within two hours they would have a bullet between the eyes. There were always risks. They could be stopped by the local police for an identity check. The police turn up like a hair in the soup. One can't say: "We're here on such and such a mission." "Doing what?" "Can't tell you." Click, the handcuffs 91 and that's it.' |
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Was right-wing extremist Libert willing to confirm that WNP and the Belgian security apparatus had been involved in the Brabant massacres, investigative journalist Allan Francovich wanted to know in his Gladio documentary? Was Brabant one of their 'missions'? 'One received orders. We can go back to, say, 1982. From 1982 to 1985' Libert replied, referring to the period in which the Brabant massacres were carried out. 'There were projects.' Very sensitive projects Libert admitted. According to his own testimony he had been told: 'You, Mr. Libert, know nothing about why we're doing this. Nothing at all. All we ask is that your group, with cover from the Gendarmerie, with cover from Security, carry out a job. Target: The supermarkets. Where are they? What kind of locks are there? What sort of protection do they have that could interfere with our operations? Does the store manager lock up? Or do they use an outside security company?' The operation was top-secret and right-wing extremist Libert followed the order: 'We carried out the orders and sent in our reports: Hours of opening and closing. Everything you want to know about a supermarket. What was this for? This was one amongst hundreds of missions. Something that had to be done. But the use it 92 was all put to, that is the big question.' |
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'If the object was to sow terror', journalist Davison observed, 'the killers chose the perfect targets: Women, children and the elderly, cut down by rapid gunfire 93 command WNP right-wing extremist Michel Libert was on the lower end. He |
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received his orders from WNP commander Paul Latinus. 'It is cleat that Latinus
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is one of the most interesting pieces of the puzzle in order to understand the political-juridical mysteries of the 1980s', journalists of the Belgian magazine Avancees judged after having compiled an entire dictionary on the Belgium terror years. He was, the Belgian journalists concluded, the link 'between the extreme- 94 right, the classical right, and the foreign and Belgian secret services'. |
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Paul Latinus was a high-ranking European right-wing terrorist. According to his own testimony he was, amongst other sources, paid by the military secret service of the Pentagon, the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). A former nuclear science technician and informer for the Belgian Surete Latinus had been recruited in 1967, aged 17, by the DIA. Later NATO trained him. Belgian journalist Haquin who had written a book on terrorist Latinus relates that 'during a juridical investigation in which he was involved, Latinus named this foreign organisation: It was the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), the military equivalent to the 95 Club (BROC), a conservative military organisation created in 1975 and obsessed with the 'red peril'. In 1978 Latinus joined the right-wing organisation FJ and within that organisation set up the WNP covert action department. With excellent contacts Latinus during the same period worked in the Belgium government as Assistant Adviser to the Labour Minister and counsellor to several committees. When in January 1981 the left-wing magazine Pour exposed the right-winger in the government, Latinus abandoned his public offices and fled to Pinochet's Chile. Yet after not even two months in exile Latinus due to his excellent contacts came back to Belgium exactly at the time when the Brabant massacres began. He reassumed the command of the WNP and among other activities collaborated with the Surete in the anti-Communist struggle by providing the Justice Ministry 96 with data on the left. |
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'Latinus had been implanted into Front de la Jeunesse with a specific task' Jean-Claude Garot, editor of the magazine Pour, recalls: 'To teach the Front de la Jeunesse how to carry out violent attacks, attacks on immigrant Arab cafes, how 97 Garot while investigating the Belgian extreme right had followed the Latinus trace to covert action training camps of WNP. 'In the training of their groups for active intervention, para-military groups, they had to form and train elements from the extreme-right, ex para-commandos, ex militaries (gendarmes), militant rightists', Garot discovered long before the Belgian secret army was exposed in 1990. 'This kind of exercise involves the firing of machine-guns and the throwing of grenades. This makes noise and attracts attention. We knew that this camp was taking place. We knew about it and organised the necessary photographic equipment 98 in order to record part of the action.' The training camp was located in the |
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When Garot published his findings, officials were alarmed and tried to cover
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up. 'With friends from radio and TV, we interviewed General Beaurir. At that time he was number one in the hierarchy of the Gendarmerie', Garot recalls. 'In the interview he said "That never happened." The same day the examining judge intervened. But where? Here [in the office of the Journalist]. They searched the premises and made a statement "Jean-Claude Garot has lied. He has fabricated 100 that Garot had discovered the extreme right-wing branch of the Belgian stay-behind SDRA8 which allegedly included right-wing extremists of WNP. Paul Latinus commanded the terrorist hit squad. Belgian journalist Haquin personally inter- viewed Latinus who confirmed to him that he was a member of a clandestine anti-Communist network. 'Latinus was charged with forming a group, an army on the model of the SS', Haquin explains. They had a secret service, a security service in the group. Each member had a double name, a code-name, usually in German. The members didn't know the others.' Haquin recalls: T contacted Paul Latinus again. We met in a country restaurant and talked all night. Certain authorities, he wouldn't say which at first, had given him the job of creating a secret resistance group in Belgium. It was to fight certain Soviet penetration, and 101 stop certain Belgian authorities form collaborating with the Soviets.' |
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Former WNP member and former Gendarme Martial Lekeu in Florida confirmed to Gladio researcher Francovich that the secret army in Belgium had been involved in the Brabant terror massacres in order to discredit the Belgian left. 'The guns they were using were coming from far away and that's exactly what we had planned, to organise gangs and groups like that and let them go by themselves, but make sure they will survive and make sure to supply them and you know just to create a climate of terror in the country', Lekeu explained. 'They'd have two plans. The first one was to organise gangs to do hold up of hostage, you know, killing; the second one was to organise the so called "Left movement" who will do a terrorist attempt just to make believe, make the population believe that 102 these terrorist attempts were done by the Left.' |
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Was this terror supported and encouraged by the administration of US President Ronald Reagan, who during the same time brutally cracked down on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Gladio researcher Francovich wanted to know from WNP member Michel Libert. Libert, who had gathered the data on the super- markets on the orders of WNP chief Paul Latinus reluctantly confirmed that his chief had collaborated very closely with the United States: 'He [Latinusl met people from the [US] Embassy, but I never met them like we meet now', thus face to face in the interview. 'That wasn't in my domain. His was, you might say, the domain of diplomacy, that is, relations with foreign authorities. Our sole concern was with action', terrorist Libert recalls. 'We knew we were protected, by all the possible authorities depending on the type of mission. Was he [Latinus] 103 Roger Lallemand, head of the Belgian Gladio investigation, had thus drawn the correct historical analysis when he summarised that the Brabant massacres had |
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been 'the work of foreign governments, or of intelligence services working for
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104 foreigners, a terrorism aimed at destabilising democratic society'. |
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Senator Lallemand was cautious in his wording and refrained from accusing the United States directly, while he insisted that the terror had to be seen in a Cold War anti-Communist political context: 'This gratuitous killing of people could have a political motive, one recalls what happened in Italy. At the station at Bologna 80 innocent people died. We think a political organisation was behind 105 the Brabant-Wallon killings.' 106 authorities. I pushed him and he eventually said American military secret services.' At the end of the Brabant massacres Paul Latinus was arrested. Yet before he could speak out the right-wing commander was found hanged by a telephone cord in his prison cell with his feet on the ground on April 24, 1985. 'In the circles around Paul Latinus all, or almost all, remain convinced that the boss of WNP had not committed suicide, but that he had been liquidated.' 'Each time when they attempted to reconstruct the suicide, the telephone cord broke.' Haquin wondered: 'If the United States have nothing to do with the massacres, why then do they not 107 communicate, keep silent, and leave suspicions grow?' It was Haquin who later provided the missing |
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11
THE SECRET WAR IN THE
NETHERLANDS
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