Pro-Government Militias
Documentation for Gladio
Jan. 30, 1992 Guardian
...the Belgian government has admitted that it conducted a joint operation with Britain two years ago as one of several annual exercises with other European countries.
The operation, codenamed Margarita, was organised by General Van Claster, head of the Belgian military security service (SGR), who also acted as chairman of the allied co-ordination committee which has run the network, known as Gladio, since the late 1950s.
The British network after the war consisted of arming guerrillas chosen from the civilian population. British sources claim that its role, involving both MI6 and the SAS, has in recent years been confined to training personnel from the continental networks.
The evidence from Belgium was given to a parliamentary commission chaired by Senator Roger Lallemand. The commission spent last year investigating the network after Belgians learned that even the defence minister, Guy Coeme, had been kept in the dark about its activities.
Mr Coeme's own inquiries revealed that the British link went back to 1949, when the organisation was set up by the Belgian prime minister, Paul-Henri Spaak, on advice from Sir Stewart Menzies, head of MI6.
The Belgian defence ministry provided the commission with a list of joint operations. The list included two international operations, codenamed Oregon, and six bilateral exercises between 1985 and 1990 - two each with Holland and the US and one each with Italy and Britain.
The commission was also told that the co-ordinating committee last met in October 1990, a month before the continuing existence of the network was revealed by the Italian prime minister, Guilio Andreotti.
At that meeting, the Belgian security service suggested that its role should be expanded to deal with "crisis" situations. Later, however, successive countries - Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway - have investigated and disbanded their national organisations.