Belgian stay-behind network
Encyclopedia
The Belgian stay-behind network, colloquially called "Gladio" (meaning "sword") was a secret mixed civilian and military unit, trained to form a resistance movement
in the event of a Soviet
invasion and part of a network of similar organizations in NATO-countries. It functioned from at least 1951 until 1990, when the Belgian branch was promptly and officially dissolved after its existence became publicly known following revelations concerning the Italian branch
of the stay-behind network.
and Minister of Justice Paul Struye gave the Staatsveiligheid
(State Security Service) permission to discuss with allied intelligence services the organization of a clandestine stay-behind network. These negotiations mainly happened with Sir Stewart Menzies
of the British SIS
and representatives of the then freshly founded CIA
. The explicit objectives of this collaboration were outlined in a top-secret letter from Menzies to Spaak:
The amount of influence at this early stage, accredited to the CIA varies from source to source. CIA did not yet have full authority over the Office of Policy Coordination
, which directed U.S. covert action until 1952. During the initial negotiations Menzies proposed to keep the US
out of the organization, but Spaak objected a further developments not being in a tripartite (Belgium–Great-Britain–United States) or multilateral setting. In the final report of the parliamentary inquiry there is little mention of CIA involvement, but investigative journalist Walter de Bock points, based on Pentagon
documents, at the CIA's significant early organizational role and de facto control until 1968. Similarly, Colonel Margot complains in an internal note, dated April 8, 1959, about the influence of the US intelligence services on the Belgian branch of the Gladio-network.
These initial negotiations led to closer collaboration between the three countries' secret services under the name Tripartite Meeting Belgium. Following this meeting, the Belgian stay-behind network became operational, but it was not until January 4, 1952 that the first formal instructions for stay-behind operations were issued to Ludovicus Caeymaex (Staatsveiligheid) and General Etienne Baele.
Growing polarization between East and West and awareness of the need for continental collaboration led to the foundation in 1949 of the Comité Clandestin de l'Union Occidentale (C.C.U.O.), which contained Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg
, France
and Great-Britain. The C.C.U.O. laid the base for the formation of the NATO and coordinated the various stay-behind networks in the five member countries. Its functions were transferred to the Clandestine Planning Committee (C.P.C.), another NATO-organization in 1951, which was renamed in to Coordination and Planning Committee in 1959. The C.P.C. elaborated a plan for installing two taskgroups, one for communications and one for secret networks, a structure reflected in the Allied Coordination Committee (A.C.C.) founded in 1958 to relieve the C.P.C. of some of its tasks.
The A.C.C. consisted of the members of the C.C.U.O. plus the US and coordinated the stay-behind activities, as was stipulated on its first meeting in April 1959 under French supervision:
These interlocking coordination organizations, like the C.P.C. and A.C.C, were initially headquartered in Paris
, but moved along with SHAPE
, NATO's central headquarters, to Mons
in Belgium after the French withdrawal from NATO's unified command structure in 1966. After the initial six counties, Germany
, Italy
, Denmark
and Norway
became members of the A.C.C.. Though all of the counties were members of NATO, an official link between the A.C.C and NATO was denied. The parliamentary committee noted "... one can not do away with the impression that in practice closer and closer relations did come to exist".
The following decades the stay-behind activities were mainly coordinated through A.C.C.-meetings. These activities consisted officially of (multinational) training activities like infiltration, parachute jumping and long range communications, of which numerous were held at least between 1972 and 1989. Due to the secretive nature of the network, the milieu of various operatives involved and the Cold War
setting, allegations were raised that the stay-behind network was during this time also at least indirect involved with clandestine actions on Belgian soil. The last documented meeting of the A.C.C took place on the 23 and 24 October 1990 under supervision of General Van Calster, where the participants discussed a.o. a scaling-back of the stay-behind network in light of changing international relations.
This was the meeting Andreotti was referring to following the October 24, 1990 revelation of the existence of Gladio in Italy
, a revelations several others governments' spokespersons reacted to by claiming that any stay-behind in their own country was history. This only exasperated Andreotti, who declared to the press that the last stay-behind meeting had taken place in Belgium a few days ago. After the exposure of the Italian branch and inquiries by Italian officials to their Belgian counterparts, Defense minister Guy Coëme
and Prime Minister Wilfried Martens
made the existence of the Belgian section of the Gladio-network public in a press meeting on November 7, 1990.
The government decided on November 23, 1990, a few days after the proposition for a parliamentary investigation to officially disband the network.
S.D.R.A VIII was one of the sections of S.D.R.A (military security service), which in its turn is part of the S.G.R. (general military intelligence and security service). The S.G.R's functions are formally described in a decree
from 1989 and are twofold: intelligence gathering and ensuring the security of military personnel and installations, issuing clearances etc. The S.D.R.A is mandated with the second task, and is dived into functional sections: for instance, S.D.R.A III is contra-infiltration (for S.D.R.A XI, see further).
The members of S.D.R.A VIII were military personnel, trained in unorthodox warfare, combat and sabotage, parachute jumping and maritime operations. The operatives were trained to accompany the government aboard in case of a Soviet invasion, and then establish liaisons with the Belgian resistance movement and engage in warfare.
The final parliamentary report stressed the resulting incomplete insight into the functioning of the C.P.C. and its relation to S.D.R.A. VIII, which formally organized the military section of the Gladio-network. The report noted that the C.P.C. was responsible for the relations between the Belgian secret services and the NATO high command
(especially SHAPE
), and that the witnesses denied being involved with stay-behind activities. The reason was, the latter claimed, that that NATO was "forward defending"-oriented and thus not interested in stay-behind activities in countries like Belgium, which did not bordered Warsaw Pact
-nations. The commission then further noted the discrepancy between these claims and given reason, and the fact that the C.P.C. co-coordinated the S.D.R.A. VIII and participated in the A.C.C.-meetings.
Both military intelligence and Staatsveiligheid maintained dossiers on Gladio training activities, of which incomplete versions were made available to the parliamentary committee. Events from the list of operations by the military branch was provided by Coëme and is denoted by A, while events from the list from the archives of the Staatsveiligheid (titled "Overzicht oefeningen in het kader ACC – periode 1980-1990") is denoted by B:
Minister Melchior Wathelet
testified before the parliamentary inquiry that secret weapon depots were created in the fifties, of which a first one was discovered in 1957 due to a landslide, and a second one in 1959 by playing children. He further stated that after these discoveries it was decided to abandon the depots and transfer the weapons to a military depot. An inventory report, dated 1991, for the military section of Gladio mentions inflatable boats, video-equipment and around 300 weapons, including M1 carbine
s, MP40 submachine guns
and "armes en cocon", weapons packaged for longterm storage.
Chairman senator Roger Lallemand
The commission convened from 16 January 1991 until 5 July 1991, during which fifty seven meetings were held and thirty seven witnesses were heard. Amongst those who testified before the commission were ministers Guy Coëme, Melchior Wathelet and Louis Tobback
; former administrator-director-general of the Staatsveiligheid (77-90) and head of STC-MOB Albert Raes
, Ludo Caeymaex (administrator-general Staatsveiligheid 58-77); then current administrator-general of the Staatsveiligheid Stéphane Schewebach, Jacques Devlieghere (Staatsveiligheid 78-89, nr. 2); S.D.R.A.-operative André Moyen; Gladio-instructors Guibert Nieweling (code name
"Addie"), Michel Huys ("Alain"), Etienne Annarts ("Stéphane")
Firstly, due to the nature of the case, and the various legal, professional and military requirements of confidentiality, the commission went to great lengths in limiting public access to discussed material. For instance, the parliament did forgo an earlier proposition for a parliamentary in favor for the proposition by Lallemand which included the requirement that the commission operated behind closed doors (in contravention to the regular parliamentary inquiry procedures). Lallemand placed also additional restriction on the ability to communicate with the press, handling of documents, etc. These restrictions were criticized both for being undemocratic, unnecessary or counter-productive and for not being strict enough.
The committee initially envisaged a solution whereby the names of the operatives were handed to three selected magistrates, familiar with the relevant unsolved criminal investigations. The relevant agencies and witnesses refused to do so, with the refusal varying from polite claims of forgetfulness or references to oaths of secrecy to outright hostility. This issue was compounded by the fact that records on former operatives were systematically purged and the magistrates were not up to date with more recent investigations. Gijsels noted that order... ?Names with the CIA/London? The final report then concluded that the cooperation from both the military and the Staatsveiligheid was generally satisfactory, but deplored the stubborn withholding of the names of civilian operatives. Parlementaire Commissie (1991), p. ?
Secondly, the commission faced time-related problems. The time allotted to the commission was initially five months, a period which the final report deplored as "very little" and short in comparison to other inquiries. The Senate granted on July 12, 1991 a request for extra time, which enabled the committee to work for another three months. Unfortunately most of the allotted time fell during the parliamentary recess, which further frustrated the effort to fully pursue the intended lines of inquery. For instance, the commission had planned to interview several investigative journalists, people like Richard Brenneke and had requested several "dossiers chauds" ("hot cases") like
investigation. The conclusions of this inquiry, as well as the earlier Senate inquiry on SDRA8 and the Chamber inquiry on banditism, resulted in the preparation of new legislation governing the mission and methods of the Belgian State Security Service
and Belgian General Information and Security Service
, which was passed in 1998.
, chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium
(PCB) had doubtless both a national and international signification, in which Gladio's influence has been suspected. Repeated requests have been made in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives for an investigation into Lahaut's death. Only recently it has become known that François Goossens, a Leopoldist
, was his killer.
A September 10, 1973 note from the Belgian Brigade de Surveillance et de Renseignement intelligence agency described the organization of a coup d'état by certain "financial networks and far-right organizations", naming among others Emile Lecerf, boss of the Nouvelle Europe magazine (NEM) and political godfather of Francis Dossogne (future leader of far-right Front de la Jeunesse
- FJ) and Paul Latinus, founder of the Westland New Post
extremist group, in which Gladio's influence has been suspected, although ultimately never proved in justice. Paul Latinus would escape to Pinochet
's Chile
for a few months in 1981, before "committing suicide" in 1984. On the other hand, Emile Lecerf was also a member of the Jeune Europe
far-right group.
was linked in 1985 by the press to a conspiracy among the Belgian stay-behind SDRA8, the Belgian Gendarmerie
SDRA6, the Belgian neo-Nazi group Westland New Post
, and the Pentagon secret service Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA). However, after a parliamentary inquiry, no hard proof substaining these claims was found, and investigations into the Nijvel gang continue to this day. However, the mystery of how those cold-blooded massacres were committed did convince the Belgian Parliament to create a Permanent Committee of Surveillance of Intelligence Agencies' activities.
, founder of the Order of the Solar Temple
with Joseph di Mambro, had helped far-right activist Jean Thiriart organize a split in the Communist Party of Belgium
(PCB) in the 1970s, creating the "Parti Communautaire Européen
, a "Nazi-Maoist" party which succeeded to the Jeune Europe
far-right group. According to Bruno Fouchereau, author of La mafia des sectes and collaborator of Le Monde Diplomatique
, quoted by Amnistia, this Belgium "Nazi-Maoist group" was in fact controlled by the SDRA-8, Belgium's branch of Gladio. SDRA-8 other's creation was the Westland New Post
group.
newspaper caused a public uproar by revealing the existence of a classified document, dated August 1995, and titled "Plan de base de la défense militaire du territoire" ("Base plan of the military defense of the territory"). The newspaper quoted some passages of what it called a "racist plan": "Many communities of immigrants have settled themselves in large agglomerations. If these population groups should reach a position of strong disagreement with Belgian politics, they could launch actions destined to counteract these policies or to make their concerns known [...] We consider that there exists no open threat in Belgium [...] But there is a clandestine threat with a permanent character" ( - sic).
The dissolved SDRA-8 had been replaced by the "Commandement territorial interforces" (CTI), a military intelligence agency organized by provinces and essentially composed of about a thousand reserve officers. Its goal was to infiltrate civil society and find informants, with the mission to be especially concerned by the "immigrant communities which represented a permanent clandestine threat". According to Le Soir, if the CTI is not closely linked to the military agency Service Général du Renseignement et de la Sécurité
(SGRS), then it is "nothing else than a new structure of military intelligence... particularly suspicious of anything that is foreign to it".
Defense minister Poncelet replied in the Belgian Senate
that the plan was only an internal draft proposal, which was never approved by the military command or the defense minister himself.
Finally, the activities of the Belgian military intelligence agencies prompted the Parliamentary Committee of Surveillance (Comité R) to investigate various abusive wiretappings. "The central documentation of the SGR is composed of 450 000 files", stated Le Soir.
in September 2006 made the Belgian press recall the "Bloody Eighties", during which the Brabant massacres were carried out (28 deaths), and the Marxist organization Communist Combatant Cells
carried out terrorist attacks (2 deaths). According to Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx
and Interior Minister Patrick Dewael
, the suspects (11 of whom were members of the military) were preparing terrorist attacks in order to "destabilize" Belgium
.
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
in the event of a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
invasion and part of a network of similar organizations in NATO-countries. It functioned from at least 1951 until 1990, when the Belgian branch was promptly and officially dissolved after its existence became publicly known following revelations concerning the Italian branch
Gladio in Italy
While "stay-behind" anti-communist networks existed in all NATO countries, the Italian branch of Operation Gladio was the first one to be discovered. It was set up under Minister of Defense Paolo Taviani's supervision...
of the stay-behind network.
History
The history of the Belgian branch of the Gladio network starts in 1948 when Prime Minister Paul-Henri SpaakPaul-Henri Spaak
Paul Henri Charles Spaak was a Belgian Socialist politician and statesman.-Early life:Paul-Henri Spaak was born on 25 January 1899 in Schaerbeek, Belgium, to a distinguished Belgian family. His grandfather, Paul Janson was an important member of the Liberal Party...
and Minister of Justice Paul Struye gave the Staatsveiligheid
Belgian State Security Service
The Belgian State Security Service, known in Dutch as Veiligheid van de Staat, or Staatsveiligheid , and in French as Sûreté de l'État , is a Belgian intelligence agency...
(State Security Service) permission to discuss with allied intelligence services the organization of a clandestine stay-behind network. These negotiations mainly happened with Sir Stewart Menzies
Stewart Menzies
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, KCB, KCMG, DSO, MC was Chief of MI6 , British Secret Intelligence Service, during and after World War II.-Early life, family:...
of the British SIS
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
and representatives of the then freshly founded CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
. The explicit objectives of this collaboration were outlined in a top-secret letter from Menzies to Spaak:
The amount of influence at this early stage, accredited to the CIA varies from source to source. CIA did not yet have full authority over the Office of Policy Coordination
Office of Policy Coordination
The Office of Policy Coordination was a United States covert psychological operations and paramilitary action organization. Created as an independent office in 1948, it was merged with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951....
, which directed U.S. covert action until 1952. During the initial negotiations Menzies proposed to keep the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
out of the organization, but Spaak objected a further developments not being in a tripartite (Belgium–Great-Britain–United States) or multilateral setting. In the final report of the parliamentary inquiry there is little mention of CIA involvement, but investigative journalist Walter de Bock points, based on Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
documents, at the CIA's significant early organizational role and de facto control until 1968. Similarly, Colonel Margot complains in an internal note, dated April 8, 1959, about the influence of the US intelligence services on the Belgian branch of the Gladio-network.
These initial negotiations led to closer collaboration between the three countries' secret services under the name Tripartite Meeting Belgium. Following this meeting, the Belgian stay-behind network became operational, but it was not until January 4, 1952 that the first formal instructions for stay-behind operations were issued to Ludovicus Caeymaex (Staatsveiligheid) and General Etienne Baele.
Growing polarization between East and West and awareness of the need for continental collaboration led to the foundation in 1949 of the Comité Clandestin de l'Union Occidentale (C.C.U.O.), which contained Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Great-Britain. The C.C.U.O. laid the base for the formation of the NATO and coordinated the various stay-behind networks in the five member countries. Its functions were transferred to the Clandestine Planning Committee (C.P.C.), another NATO-organization in 1951, which was renamed in to Coordination and Planning Committee in 1959. The C.P.C. elaborated a plan for installing two taskgroups, one for communications and one for secret networks, a structure reflected in the Allied Coordination Committee (A.C.C.) founded in 1958 to relieve the C.P.C. of some of its tasks.
The A.C.C. consisted of the members of the C.C.U.O. plus the US and coordinated the stay-behind activities, as was stipulated on its first meeting in April 1959 under French supervision:
The A.C.C. is a six-power regional committee for providing mutual consultation and developing policy guidance on matters of common interest regarding stay behind matters in the Western European countries concerned. [added emphasis]|30px|30px|Declaration of principles, April 29–30, 1959
These interlocking coordination organizations, like the C.P.C. and A.C.C, were initially headquartered in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, but moved along with SHAPE
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe is the central command of NATO military forces. It is located at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons...
, NATO's central headquarters, to Mons
Mons
Mons is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut, of which it is the capital. The Mons municipality includes the old communes of Cuesmes, Flénu, Ghlin, Hyon, Nimy, Obourg, Baudour , Jemappes, Ciply, Harmignies, Harveng, Havré, Maisières, Mesvin, Nouvelles,...
in Belgium after the French withdrawal from NATO's unified command structure in 1966. After the initial six counties, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
became members of the A.C.C.. Though all of the counties were members of NATO, an official link between the A.C.C and NATO was denied. The parliamentary committee noted "... one can not do away with the impression that in practice closer and closer relations did come to exist".
The following decades the stay-behind activities were mainly coordinated through A.C.C.-meetings. These activities consisted officially of (multinational) training activities like infiltration, parachute jumping and long range communications, of which numerous were held at least between 1972 and 1989. Due to the secretive nature of the network, the milieu of various operatives involved and the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
setting, allegations were raised that the stay-behind network was during this time also at least indirect involved with clandestine actions on Belgian soil. The last documented meeting of the A.C.C took place on the 23 and 24 October 1990 under supervision of General Van Calster, where the participants discussed a.o. a scaling-back of the stay-behind network in light of changing international relations.
This was the meeting Andreotti was referring to following the October 24, 1990 revelation of the existence of Gladio in Italy
Gladio in Italy
While "stay-behind" anti-communist networks existed in all NATO countries, the Italian branch of Operation Gladio was the first one to be discovered. It was set up under Minister of Defense Paolo Taviani's supervision...
, a revelations several others governments' spokespersons reacted to by claiming that any stay-behind in their own country was history. This only exasperated Andreotti, who declared to the press that the last stay-behind meeting had taken place in Belgium a few days ago. After the exposure of the Italian branch and inquiries by Italian officials to their Belgian counterparts, Defense minister Guy Coëme
Guy Coëme
Guy Coëme is a Francophone Belgian politician for the Socialist Party .Coëme served as minister of defence in the government Martens VIII and IX. In the first cabinet Dehaene, he was promoted to deputy prime minister and served as minister of transport...
and Prime Minister Wilfried Martens
Wilfried Martens
Wilfried Martens is a Belgian politician. He was born in Sleidinge . Martens was the 44th Prime Minister of Belgium from 3 April 1979 to 6 April 1981 and 17 December 1981 to 7 March 1992....
made the existence of the Belgian section of the Gladio-network public in a press meeting on November 7, 1990.
The government decided on November 23, 1990, a few days after the proposition for a parliamentary investigation to officially disband the network.
Organization, activities and resources
The Belgian Gladio-branch consisted of two separate sections:- S.D.R.A VIII , residing under the military intelligence service, the Belgian General Information and Security ServiceBelgian General Information and Security ServiceThe General Intelligence and Security Service , known in Dutch as Algemene Dienst Inlichting en Veiligheid , and in French as Service Général du Renseignement et de la Sécurité is the Belgian military intelligence service under responsibility of the Minister of National Defense...
(S.G.R) and thus the minister of Defense. - S.T.C/Mob. , residing under the Staatsveiligheid and thus the minister of Justice.
S.D.R.A VIII was one of the sections of S.D.R.A (military security service), which in its turn is part of the S.G.R. (general military intelligence and security service). The S.G.R's functions are formally described in a decree
Decree
A decree is a rule of law issued by a head of state , according to certain procedures . It has the force of law...
from 1989 and are twofold: intelligence gathering and ensuring the security of military personnel and installations, issuing clearances etc. The S.D.R.A is mandated with the second task, and is dived into functional sections: for instance, S.D.R.A III is contra-infiltration (for S.D.R.A XI, see further).
The members of S.D.R.A VIII were military personnel, trained in unorthodox warfare, combat and sabotage, parachute jumping and maritime operations. The operatives were trained to accompany the government aboard in case of a Soviet invasion, and then establish liaisons with the Belgian resistance movement and engage in warfare.
Oversight
In the course of the parliamentary investigation the committee stumbled by chance on the existence of the secretariat of the Coordination and Planning Committee, which formed S.D.R.A XI, but was funded though secret NATO-payments. When Paul Detrembleur, former head of the S.D.R.A and last administrator of S.D.R.A XI/C.P.C.-secretariat, was called to testify before the parliamentary inquiry about the activities of this section in relation to the Gladio-activities, he refused to divulge any information.The final parliamentary report stressed the resulting incomplete insight into the functioning of the C.P.C. and its relation to S.D.R.A. VIII, which formally organized the military section of the Gladio-network. The report noted that the C.P.C. was responsible for the relations between the Belgian secret services and the NATO high command
High command
The phrase High command may refer to:* Command * Chain of command* Commander-in-Chief* Defence minister* Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the WWII command structure popularly known as "German High Command"Compare:* Staff...
(especially SHAPE
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe is the central command of NATO military forces. It is located at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons...
), and that the witnesses denied being involved with stay-behind activities. The reason was, the latter claimed, that that NATO was "forward defending"-oriented and thus not interested in stay-behind activities in countries like Belgium, which did not bordered Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
-nations. The commission then further noted the discrepancy between these claims and given reason, and the fact that the C.P.C. co-coordinated the S.D.R.A. VIII and participated in the A.C.C.-meetings.
S.T.C/Mob. function and oversight
The civilian branch of the Belgian stay-behind had the mission to collect intelligence under conditions of enemy occupation which could be useful to the government and to organize secure communication routes to evacuate the members of the government and other people with official functions.Military trainers/operatives and civilian operatives
- Recruitment (how, criteria)
- Training activities (joint international training/war games, sabotage, intelligence ....)
- Funding (equipment)
- Weapons, weapons-depots.
Both military intelligence and Staatsveiligheid maintained dossiers on Gladio training activities, of which incomplete versions were made available to the parliamentary committee. Events from the list of operations by the military branch was provided by Coëme and is denoted by A, while events from the list from the archives of the Staatsveiligheid (titled "Overzicht oefeningen in het kader ACC – periode 1980-1990") is denoted by B:
- (A) 1972: Training on clandestine techniques.
- (A) 1976: Training on radio-communications, intelligence, maritime operations, aerial operations and escape routes.
- (A) 1977: Training on optimizing techniques to locate downed pilots and the use of escape routes.
- (A) 1978: In-door training on clandestine missions.
- (A) 1980: Training on parachute-jumping, long distance radio communication and clandestine techniques.
- (B) June 1980: OREGAN II
- (A) 1981: Lessons and training on clandestine activities.
- (A) 1983: Training on escape routes, intelligence, aerial operations and radio communications.
- (A) 1985: Six trainings (at least two outside Belgium, one in Belgium): infiltration a parachute-jumping, extracting material through escape routes.
- (A) 1986, 1987 & 1988: : Trainings outside Belgium on intelligence operations and radio communications.
Minister Melchior Wathelet
Melchior Wathelet
Melchior H.M.J.F.C. Wathelet is a Belgian politician and member of the Humanist Democratic Centre. He has degrees in law and in economics and is a Master of Laws . He's also a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and the Université de Liège...
testified before the parliamentary inquiry that secret weapon depots were created in the fifties, of which a first one was discovered in 1957 due to a landslide, and a second one in 1959 by playing children. He further stated that after these discoveries it was decided to abandon the depots and transfer the weapons to a military depot. An inventory report, dated 1991, for the military section of Gladio mentions inflatable boats, video-equipment and around 300 weapons, including M1 carbine
M1 Carbine
The M1 carbine is a lightweight, easy to use semi-automatic carbine that became a standard firearm for the U.S. military during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and was produced in several variants. It was widely used by U.S...
s, MP40 submachine guns
MP40
The MP 38 and MP 40 , often called Schmeisser, were submachine guns developed in Nazi Germany and used extensively by paratroopers, tank crews, platoon and squad leaders, and other troops during World War II.-Development:The MP 40 descended from its predecessor, the MP 38, which was in turn based...
and "armes en cocon", weapons packaged for longterm storage.
Overview
After the existence of the Belgian branch of the Gladio-network became public, speculations and allegations about involvement of the Gladio-operatives in various high-profile and often unsolved crimes and terroristic acts during the eighties began to appear in the media. To investigate these allegations and clarify the operation of the Belgian branch, a senatorial investigative commission was established on 20 December 1990. It was tasked with clarifying the structure, aims etc. of the network and the amount of oversight; which connections existed with domestic and foreign intelligence and police services; and whether there was a link with events previously examined in parliamentary inquiries or certain serious crimes and terroristic acts committed the previous decade.Chairman senator Roger Lallemand
Roger Lallemand
Roger Lallemand is a Walloon-Belgian lawyer and socialist politician.-Education:He graduated as a licentiate in Romance philology and obtained a doctorate in law at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles.-Career:...
The commission convened from 16 January 1991 until 5 July 1991, during which fifty seven meetings were held and thirty seven witnesses were heard. Amongst those who testified before the commission were ministers Guy Coëme, Melchior Wathelet and Louis Tobback
Louis Tobback
Louis Marie Joseph Tobback is a Belgian politician. Tobback is a Flemish social democrat and member of the political party SP.A. He is currently the mayor of Leuven. He graduated in Romance philology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel....
; former administrator-director-general of the Staatsveiligheid (77-90) and head of STC-MOB Albert Raes
Albert Raes
Albert Raes was a Belgian magistrate and head of the Belgian Security Services.-Biography:Raes is the son of Firmin Raes, executive at 'La Brugeoise' and chief of The Chamber of Rhetoric 'De Drie Santinnen'...
, Ludo Caeymaex (administrator-general Staatsveiligheid 58-77); then current administrator-general of the Staatsveiligheid Stéphane Schewebach, Jacques Devlieghere (Staatsveiligheid 78-89, nr. 2); S.D.R.A.-operative André Moyen; Gladio-instructors Guibert Nieweling (code name
Code name
A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage...
"Addie"), Michel Huys ("Alain"), Etienne Annarts ("Stéphane")
Problems
The two major obstacles facing the commission of inquiry were firstly the secret nature of the case and the related unwillingness of witnesses in disclosing information and secondly time constraints.Firstly, due to the nature of the case, and the various legal, professional and military requirements of confidentiality, the commission went to great lengths in limiting public access to discussed material. For instance, the parliament did forgo an earlier proposition for a parliamentary in favor for the proposition by Lallemand which included the requirement that the commission operated behind closed doors (in contravention to the regular parliamentary inquiry procedures). Lallemand placed also additional restriction on the ability to communicate with the press, handling of documents, etc. These restrictions were criticized both for being undemocratic, unnecessary or counter-productive and for not being strict enough.
The committee initially envisaged a solution whereby the names of the operatives were handed to three selected magistrates, familiar with the relevant unsolved criminal investigations. The relevant agencies and witnesses refused to do so, with the refusal varying from polite claims of forgetfulness or references to oaths of secrecy to outright hostility. This issue was compounded by the fact that records on former operatives were systematically purged and the magistrates were not up to date with more recent investigations. Gijsels noted that order... ?Names with the CIA/London? The final report then concluded that the cooperation from both the military and the Staatsveiligheid was generally satisfactory, but deplored the stubborn withholding of the names of civilian operatives. Parlementaire Commissie (1991), p. ?
Secondly, the commission faced time-related problems. The time allotted to the commission was initially five months, a period which the final report deplored as "very little" and short in comparison to other inquiries. The Senate granted on July 12, 1991 a request for extra time, which enabled the committee to work for another three months. Unfortunately most of the allotted time fell during the parliamentary recess, which further frustrated the effort to fully pursue the intended lines of inquery. For instance, the commission had planned to interview several investigative journalists, people like Richard Brenneke and had requested several "dossiers chauds" ("hot cases") like
Handled material and major findings
Handled material: Westmooreland, John Wood/Rudy Daems, ...Conclusions and impact
Reactions & indirect effect inquiry: Comité-I. In 1995, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives organized a parliamentary inquiry into the effectiveness of the Belgian police and judiciary with regards to the Nijvel gangNijvel gang
The Nijvel gang or the Brabant killers is a group or groups thought to be responsible for the "Brabant massacres", a series of violent attacks that occurred mostly in the province of Brabant in Belgium...
investigation. The conclusions of this inquiry, as well as the earlier Senate inquiry on SDRA8 and the Chamber inquiry on banditism, resulted in the preparation of new legislation governing the mission and methods of the Belgian State Security Service
Belgian State Security Service
The Belgian State Security Service, known in Dutch as Veiligheid van de Staat, or Staatsveiligheid , and in French as Sûreté de l'État , is a Belgian intelligence agency...
and Belgian General Information and Security Service
Belgian General Information and Security Service
The General Intelligence and Security Service , known in Dutch as Algemene Dienst Inlichting en Veiligheid , and in French as Service Général du Renseignement et de la Sécurité is the Belgian military intelligence service under responsibility of the Minister of National Defense...
, which was passed in 1998.
Assassination of Julien Lahaut
In 1950, the assassination of Julien LahautJulien Lahaut
Julien Lahaut Julien Lahaut Julien Lahaut (6 September 1884, Seraing, near Liège, Belgium - 18 August 1950, (Seraing) was a Belgian politician, who died by assassination.-Political background:...
, chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Belgium was a political party in Belgium. The youth wing of KPB/PCB was known as the Communist Youth of Belgium. The party published Le Drapeau Rouge in French and De Roode Vaan in Dutch.- History :It was formed at a congress in Anderlecht on September 3-4 1921...
(PCB) had doubtless both a national and international signification, in which Gladio's influence has been suspected. Repeated requests have been made in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives for an investigation into Lahaut's death. Only recently it has become known that François Goossens, a Leopoldist
Leopold III of Belgium
Leopold III reigned as King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of the Heir Apparent,...
, was his killer.
Attempted coup d'état
A September 10, 1973 note from the Belgian Brigade de Surveillance et de Renseignement intelligence agency described the organization of a coup d'état by certain "financial networks and far-right organizations", naming among others Emile Lecerf, boss of the Nouvelle Europe magazine (NEM) and political godfather of Francis Dossogne (future leader of far-right Front de la Jeunesse
Front de la Jeunesse
There are several movements called Front de la Jeunesse:* Front de la Jeunesse, a disbanded militant movement in Belgium.* Front de la Jeunesse, the youth organization of the French Front National....
- FJ) and Paul Latinus, founder of the Westland New Post
Westland New Post
Westland New Post was a Belgian extreme right-wing organization founded in March 1981 by Paul Latinus and members of the Front de la Jeunesse...
extremist group, in which Gladio's influence has been suspected, although ultimately never proved in justice. Paul Latinus would escape to Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
's Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
for a few months in 1981, before "committing suicide" in 1984. On the other hand, Emile Lecerf was also a member of the Jeune Europe
Jeune Europe
Jeune Europe was an Europeanist movement formed by Jean Thiriart in Belgium. Emile Lecerf, a later editor of the Nouvel Europe Magazine, was one of Thiriart's associates....
far-right group.
Nijvel gang violence, 1980s
The violence of the Nijvel gangNijvel gang
The Nijvel gang or the Brabant killers is a group or groups thought to be responsible for the "Brabant massacres", a series of violent attacks that occurred mostly in the province of Brabant in Belgium...
was linked in 1985 by the press to a conspiracy among the Belgian stay-behind SDRA8, the Belgian Gendarmerie
Belgian Gendarmerie
The Gendarmerie was the former paramilitary police force of Belgium. The Gendarmerie became a civilian police organisation in 1992, a status retained until January 1, 2001, when it was, together with the other existing police forces in Belgium, abolished and replaced by the Local Police and...
SDRA6, the Belgian neo-Nazi group Westland New Post
Westland New Post
Westland New Post was a Belgian extreme right-wing organization founded in March 1981 by Paul Latinus and members of the Front de la Jeunesse...
, and the Pentagon secret service Defense Intelligence Agency
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency is a member of the Intelligence Community of the United States, and is the central producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 U.S. military and civilian employees worldwide...
(DIA). However, after a parliamentary inquiry, no hard proof substaining these claims was found, and investigations into the Nijvel gang continue to this day. However, the mystery of how those cold-blooded massacres were committed did convince the Belgian Parliament to create a Permanent Committee of Surveillance of Intelligence Agencies' activities.
Jean Thiriart's far-right Parti Communautaire Européen
According to Amnistia.net, Luc JouretLuc Jouret
Luc Jouret , born in Kikwit, Belgian Congo, was a Belgian religious group leader in Switzerland. He co-founded the Parti Communautaire Européen with Jean Thiriart, a leading member of the neo-Nazi Jeune Europe Belgian group...
, founder of the Order of the Solar Temple
Order of the Solar Temple
The Order of the Solar Temple also known as Ordre du Temple Solaire in French, and the International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition or simply as The Solar Temple was a secret society based upon the modern myth of the continuing existence of the Knights Templar...
with Joseph di Mambro, had helped far-right activist Jean Thiriart organize a split in the Communist Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Belgium was a political party in Belgium. The youth wing of KPB/PCB was known as the Communist Youth of Belgium. The party published Le Drapeau Rouge in French and De Roode Vaan in Dutch.- History :It was formed at a congress in Anderlecht on September 3-4 1921...
(PCB) in the 1970s, creating the "Parti Communautaire Européen
Parti Communautaire Européen
The Parti Communautaire Européen was a pan-European nationalist political party based in Belgium that had a platform similar to National Bolshevism....
, a "Nazi-Maoist" party which succeeded to the Jeune Europe
Jeune Europe
Jeune Europe was an Europeanist movement formed by Jean Thiriart in Belgium. Emile Lecerf, a later editor of the Nouvel Europe Magazine, was one of Thiriart's associates....
far-right group. According to Bruno Fouchereau, author of La mafia des sectes and collaborator of Le Monde Diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique is a monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first created mainly for a diplomatic audience as its name implies...
, quoted by Amnistia, this Belgium "Nazi-Maoist group" was in fact controlled by the SDRA-8, Belgium's branch of Gladio. SDRA-8 other's creation was the Westland New Post
Westland New Post
Westland New Post was a Belgian extreme right-wing organization founded in March 1981 by Paul Latinus and members of the Front de la Jeunesse...
group.
1995: Le Soir controversy
In 1996, Le SoirLe Soir
Le Soir is a Berliner Format Belgian newspaper. Le Soir was founded in 1887 by Emile Rossel. It is the most popular Francophone newspaper in Belgium, and considered a newspaper of record.-Editorial stance:...
newspaper caused a public uproar by revealing the existence of a classified document, dated August 1995, and titled "Plan de base de la défense militaire du territoire" ("Base plan of the military defense of the territory"). The newspaper quoted some passages of what it called a "racist plan": "Many communities of immigrants have settled themselves in large agglomerations. If these population groups should reach a position of strong disagreement with Belgian politics, they could launch actions destined to counteract these policies or to make their concerns known [...] We consider that there exists no open threat in Belgium [...] But there is a clandestine threat with a permanent character" ( - sic).
The dissolved SDRA-8 had been replaced by the "Commandement territorial interforces" (CTI), a military intelligence agency organized by provinces and essentially composed of about a thousand reserve officers. Its goal was to infiltrate civil society and find informants, with the mission to be especially concerned by the "immigrant communities which represented a permanent clandestine threat". According to Le Soir, if the CTI is not closely linked to the military agency Service Général du Renseignement et de la Sécurité
Belgian General Information and Security Service
The General Intelligence and Security Service , known in Dutch as Algemene Dienst Inlichting en Veiligheid , and in French as Service Général du Renseignement et de la Sécurité is the Belgian military intelligence service under responsibility of the Minister of National Defense...
(SGRS), then it is "nothing else than a new structure of military intelligence... particularly suspicious of anything that is foreign to it".
Defense minister Poncelet replied in the Belgian Senate
Belgian Senate
The Belgian Senate is one of the two chambers of the bicameral Federal Parliament of Belgium, the other being the Chamber of Representatives. It is considered to be the "upper house" of the Federal Parliament.-History and future:...
that the plan was only an internal draft proposal, which was never approved by the military command or the defense minister himself.
Finally, the activities of the Belgian military intelligence agencies prompted the Parliamentary Committee of Surveillance (Comité R) to investigate various abusive wiretappings. "The central documentation of the SGR is composed of 450 000 files", stated Le Soir.
BBET, 2006
The police arrest of members of far-right group Bloed, Bodem, Eer en TrouwBloed, Bodem, Eer en Trouw
Bloed, Bodem, Eer en Trouw is a Flemish neo-Nazi group, created in 2004 from a splinter of the Flemish branch of the international Nazi skinhead organization Blood & Honour.- Activities :...
in September 2006 made the Belgian press recall the "Bloody Eighties", during which the Brabant massacres were carried out (28 deaths), and the Marxist organization Communist Combatant Cells
Communist Combatant Cells
Cellules Communistes Combattantes was a Belgian terrorist organization committed to a Communist ideology....
carried out terrorist attacks (2 deaths). According to Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx
Laurette Onkelinx
Laurette A.J. Onkelinx is a Belgian politician from the Francophone Socialist Party. She is the Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health in the Belgian federal government, i.e., the Van Rompuy I Government, which took office on 30 December 2008.-Biography:Born to Gaston Onkelinx and Germaine...
and Interior Minister Patrick Dewael
Patrick Dewael
Patrick Yvonne Hugo Dewael, in Lier, Belgium is a liberal Belgian politician. He is a member of the Flemish Liberals and Democrats, or Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten . He is the nephew of the late liberal minister Herman Vanderpoorten and the cousin of Marleen Vanderpoorten, who also served as...
, the suspects (11 of whom were members of the military) were preparing terrorist attacks in order to "destabilize" Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
See also
- Bloed, Bodem, Eer en TrouwBloed, Bodem, Eer en TrouwBloed, Bodem, Eer en Trouw is a Flemish neo-Nazi group, created in 2004 from a splinter of the Flemish branch of the international Nazi skinhead organization Blood & Honour.- Activities :...
- Brabant massacres
- Gladio
- Jeune EuropeJeune EuropeJeune Europe was an Europeanist movement formed by Jean Thiriart in Belgium. Emile Lecerf, a later editor of the Nouvel Europe Magazine, was one of Thiriart's associates....
- Westland New PostWestland New PostWestland New Post was a Belgian extreme right-wing organization founded in March 1981 by Paul Latinus and members of the Front de la Jeunesse...