By: mag. Igor Omerza
The European Commission imposed a €120 million fine on Elon Musk for violations of the Digital Services Act. Musk’s reaction was furious. In an outburst of anger, he insulted the European Commission’s “ministers” by calling them “STASI commissioners.”
And here Musk is absolutely right, at least in one case, unfortunately the Slovenian one. Namely, Marta Kos was a collaborator of the secret political police, popularly known as the Udba, while STASI was the abbreviated name for the East German secret police. Well, Elon Musk uses this globally known and criminal name as a general term for all secret political police forces! Thus, Elon unknowingly hit the nail on the head, at least in Marta’s case, when he railed against the “STASI commissioners,” since she was in fact involved in the secret communist police of Yugoslavia.
This is now indisputably documented in my new book Komisarka. The book can be ordered at dobra-knjiga.si in Slovenian and English. Let’s look at a short overview!
In the chapter “Udba for Beginners” I explain to the domestic and international public the history, organisation, methods, and means of operation of the Yugoslav secret political police, colloquially, popularly, and unofficially called the Udba, and within this framework some specifics of the Slovenian branch of this secret police, especially its regional centre in Slovenj Gradec, where Marta Kos, alias the Udba source Tara, was kept on a secret connection until March 1990. Since that centre was abolished at the time, the last report by Marta Kos, now already the collaborator Blanka, preserved in the Slovenian Archives was received and compiled at the Udba centre for the city of Maribor.
In the next chapter, “Marta Kos for Beginners”, I present in detail the educational, journalistic, political, and business career of Marta Kos, all the way to her appointment as a commissioner in the European Commission. It is interesting to compare what Marta Kos herself said in the media about her employment at Radio DW and what the Udba extensively reported about the rather lengthy process of obtaining that job.
The third chapter, “Struna – the surveillance of Alojz Lampret and RDW”, is the most extensive, because I found the most Udba documentation for it. Here I write about the secret Udba analysis of the radio station Deutsche Welle and about the secret surveillance of Alojz Lampret, who was the head of the Slovenian section of that radio. The code name of this operational procedure was Struna.
In the fourth chapter, “Marta Kos as TaraBlanka”, I visually present and fully quote the contents of all ten secret documents found in the Slovenian archive in which Marta Kos appears as an Udba source under the codename Tara, or later as the Udba collaborator Blanka, or even once under her real name.
In the final chapter, “Marta Kos before Slovenian and European parliamentarians”, I describe in detail, through the lens of newly published secret documents, the lies that Marta Kos allegedly told during her commissioner hearings in the Slovenian and European parliaments. For example, when denying cooperation with Udba – she was asked about this by Bulgarian MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk – Marta said: “This concerns my integrity, and I am glad you asked this question, because it gives me the opportunity to clarify this once and for all in front of all of you.” Well, with the book Komisarka, this supposed “eternal” integrity of hers has crumbled into dust and ashes.
In this light, it is truly ironic to read Marta’s statement in Delo from 9 August 2003: “Because I tell everyone the truth, I do not lie to them, I also expect them to tell me the truth… If I were Harry Potter, I would use a magic wand and give a lollipop to everyone who tells the truth, and glue shut the mouths of everyone who lies, so they could never speak again. Not just lies.”
Now Marta Kos has the opportunity to repent and reveal everything about her cooperation with Udba, including what has been destroyed. She should say, for example, when exactly she was “recruited,” who “recruited” her, and why she decided to take such a step as a young woman. Furthermore, whom she reported on and what those reports contained. She should reveal the postal dead drop where the Udba officer Stojan Celin went to pick up her reports. Who is the collaborator Lovro, with whom she jointly persuaded, and convinced, Alojz Lampret so that she obtained the job in Cologne. Will she do it.