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Belgium: Gladio enquiries

01 July 1992

Mr Fred Erdman, Social Democrat, the secretary of the Senat (parliamentary) inquiry into the Gladio network in Belgium has called for a further commission to look at links between the security services and private organisations. The Gladio stay- behind network was created in 1948 to act as a resistance network in the event of a Soviet invasion in NATO countries.

The first inquiry report on its activities in Belgium revealed a connection between the military security service, SGR, and the extreme right network the PIO (Public Information Office). The PIO gathered information about possible subversive activities of political opponents including the peace movement. Cecile Harnie, Green MP and active member of the commission of inquiry, called for a further investigation of the secret role of NATO in the networks of secret services discovered. Witnesses, she said, hid behind NATO-secrecy in refusing to answer questions about the links between the international secretariat of the Gladio networks, the Allied Coordination Committee (ACC), the Coordination and Planning Committee (CPC, created in 1948) and Supreme Allied Headquarters Europe (SHAPE).