Belgian Parliamentary Commission Enquiry into Gladio
01 January 1991
Belgian Parliamentary Commission Enquiry into Gladio
artdoc February=1992
The Belgian parliamentary commission has ended its investigation
into the `Stay Behind', or Gladio, network. Its conclusions show
that the Belgian network was jointly organised by the STC/MOB (a
branch of the civilian security service) and the SDRA 8 (of the
military security service). In addition to functioning as a
resistance network in the event of a Soviet attack on western
Europe, the organisation also had contingency plans for
evacuation of VIPs, the removal of security service secret
documents and maintaining contact with government ministers.
The first `Stay Behind' network, codenamed "Sussex ll", was set
up in December 1944 with the approval of Premier Spaak, when Sir
Stewart Menzies (Chief of MI6) visited Brussels. In 1948 the
Brussels Pact created the Clandestine Committee of the Western
Union (CCWU) which by 1951 had become the Clandestine Planning
Committee (CPC), based in Paris. A letter, written by Belgian
Premier Van Houtte in March 1953, discusses coordination and
technical arrangements between the CPC and SHAPE (Supreme
Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), clearly linking the CPC with
NATO. During 1957 the CPC created two sub-committees, one of
which went on to become the Allied Coordination Committee (ACC)
and was responsible for coordinating the `Stay Behind' networks
in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland,
Norway, United Kingdom and the United States. Its peacetime
duties included elaborating the directives for the network,
developing its clandestine capability and organising bases in
Britain and the United States. In wartime it was to plan stay
behind operations in conjunction with SHAPE; organisers were to
activate clandestine bases and organise operations from there.
Organisers would receive diplomatic immunity for their actions.
Between 1980 and 1986 the ACC arranged three-yearly
international exercises to test its radiocommunications network
and the collation of information. These exercises were codenamed
`Oregon'. In addition there were annual exercises to test the
professionalism and performance of the network: 1985 WODAN
(Belgium/Holland); 1985 THUNDERBOLT (Belgium/US); 1987 SEABIRD
1 (Belgium/US); 1988 SEABIRD 11 (Belgium/Holland); 1989 SEABIRD
111 (Belgium/Italy); 1990 MARGARITA (Belgium/Britain).
The last ACC meeting took place on the 23-24 October 1990, and
members discussed the re-orientation of the ACC. The Belgian
security service suggested a policy that would allow the network
to operate more broadly in `crisis' situations. Apparently the
`stay behind' network had been activated during the Zaire crisis
in 1980, but failed to intervene because of operational problems.
Contact between the ACC and SHAPE (NATO) was carried out by the
Clandestine Planning Committee. When, in 1968, the Chair of the
CPC moved to Brussels it became a part of the Belgian military
security service (SGR) known as section SDRA 11 and served as the
international secretariat of the CPC.
During the Belgian parliamentary commission enquiry the head
of the SGR, General Van Calster gave evidence that was
misleading. When questioned about the structure of the SGR he
omitted to mention SDRA 11. Colonel Detrembleur, head of SDRA 11,
refused to answer the commissions enquiries on his department,
asserting that he was bound by NATO confidentiality. He claimed
that the commission would need to obtain SHAPE authority for him
to answer any questions, and he doubted if this would be
forthcoming as it had been refused to other countries in the
past. The commission dropped their investigations into the NATO
connection.
Although the security service witnesses confirmed the existence
of a functioning NATO security system against subversion, a NATO
Security Committee and its National Security Authorities, much
of this information had been published by Stef Janssens