Inquiry Into Croats Ordered

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30230, 7 September 1963, Page 11

Inquiry Into Croats Ordered

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) MELBOURNE, Sept. 6.

The Australian Minister for Immigration (Mr Downer) has ordered an inquiry into allegations that Croats are training as guerrillas in Australia.

Mr Downer told reporters he would not reveal by whom or where the investigations were being made The Leader of the Federal Opposition. Mr Arthur Calwell. said today that the Federal Government should clamp down on Croat nationalists "if they ■ were training as guerrillas. “There is no room in this country for long-range fighters in European continental wars.” he said. The leader of the Croatian community at Wodonga, northern Victoria, where the guerrillas are alleged to have been trained, today denied his countrymen had been trained in terrorist activities there

“These charges are ridiculous.” said 41-year-old Mr Adolf Jankovic. secretary of the Wodonga branch of the Australian Croatian Association.

Speaking of the arrest tn Jugoslavia of nine Croats from Australia for alleged terrorism, he said: “I feel so

sad for those boys. They will all be shot." Mr Jankovic denied a claim that terrorists had been trained for nine months at a secret camp at Wodonga. “The only camp we ever had here was a three-day picnic on the banks of the Murray river last January,” he said The camp had been organised to keep young Croats off the streets in the holidays and to encourage them to spend more time together in useful pursuits, he said. “About 50 of us spent the week-end there, and we were joined by 20 C.M.F soldiers for about two hours on the Saturday “The soldiers came to the camp because we thought some of our boys might be interested in joining the Australian Army “We have never held another camp before or since, and no secret training is going on in the district,” he ’said.

Mr Jankovic, a builder, estimated that there were about 350 Croatians in Wodonga. The Federal Government so far has had no forma] protest from Jugoslavia, The arrests were made in mid-July, and it is thought unlikely that there will be a protest now . In census statistics Croats are grouped with other Jugoslavs. of whom there are about 50.000 in Australia Of these about 23.000 are now naturalised

Mr Hugo Tavain. a naturalised Australian, of Caulfield said last night that he belonged to a neutralist Croat organisation, which had been

keeping a close watch on the secret camp at Wadonga, The camp had trained 200 for terrorist work in Jugoslavia in the last two years.

The nine men arrested in Jugoslavia had .all trained at the camp for nine months and had completed training in West Germany before entering Jugoslavia, he said. The key figure behind the Wodonga camp was the man who was Minister of Internal Affairs in the Croatian Fascist Government during World War 11. he said This man. he said, was now living in Geelong under an assumed name.

Father Josip Kasic, the Catholic priest to Melbourne’s 6000 Croats, alleged last night that a spy ring was operating out of the Jugoslavian Consulate in Sydney He said the plans of the nine men arrested as terrorists in Jugoslavia "must have been known to the Tito Government before they left Australia.'*

One of Sydney’s most prominent Jugoslavs said that a terrorist organisation could be training in Sydney, but he did not know of it He is Mr F Lovokovic, secretary of the Croatian Liberation Movement of Australia "It wouldn’t be hard to find men for such a job.” he said "As far as the Croatian Liberation Movement is concerned, we have branches throughout Australia and the movement exists whereever there are Croats.

“Our main purpose is to keep alive the idea of the liberation of Croatia from

Communist rule. We do this by sending pamphlets to our people living close to the border,” he said.

Australia has asked the British Embassy at Belgrade to inquire into the position of the Jugoslavs alleged to have taken part in terrorist activities.

In Belgrade last night a Jugoslav Government spokesman could not confirm a .report that nine Jugoslav emigrants who allegedly returned from Australia to wage terrorist activities had confessed, Reuter reported The nine are being held while the authorities prepare criminal charges against them.

The Interior Ministry claimed the emigrants had also admitted they were paid by Croatian organisations in Australia and Europe, the British United Prbss reported. The ministry said they were members of the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood. They had taken oaths to wage acts of terrorism. In Australia the men were said to have been recruited into the brotherhood, the

Australia-Croatian Society and the “Crotian Home.” all claiming to be charitable and humanitarian organisations. The ministry said the brotherhood, in co-operation with the other groups trained recruits in terrorism at 121 Queen street, Woollahra. Sydndy.

The ministry claimed that a Catholic Church office in the building, run by a priest provided the "cover” for the terrorist school.