Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990 TAG: 9006170053
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: BERLIN LENGTH: Medium
Moreover, contacts between the West German Red Army Faction terrorist organization, the East German State Security police and Middle East organizations indicate that East Germany may have been active in international terrorism, analysts say.
East German Interior Ministry and former security officials say that terrorists wanting to get out of terrorism were given a haven in the communist state. In response to an emerging likelihood that the security police also were active in terrorism, however, Interior Minister Peter-Michael Diestel has authorized a full-scale inquiry.
"The Stasi most probably provided a base for terrorists. Some were just resettled and lived there peacefully, but others may have returned to West Germany with false papers," said Karl Wilhelm Fricke, a West German expert on the East German State Security police, or Stasi.
Because the security police had a special center devoted to assimilating the West German terrorists, Fricke said, it is probable that more terrorists are living in East Germany. One suspected terrorist was arrested Saturday, four were seized Thursday and two others the week before. East German police announced that three additional suspects were arrested Friday, but later said it had been a case of mistaken identity.
Red Army Faction members are held responsible for a series of bombings and killings that shook West Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. For the most part, the movement has died out, but the suspected terrorists' disappearance puzzled West German police and kept special anti-terrorist squads busy for years.
One reason for the lack of police success over the years probably was active Stasi involvement. East German authorities confirmed that the Stasi misled West German police by "parading" Red Army member Susanne Albrecht around the Syrian capital, Damascus, in the 1980s. While police hunted for Albrecht there, she was actually living in East Berlin.
This new information contradicts an earlier claim made by Markus Wolf, who headed the Stasi's foreign intelligence department. Wolf said the Stasi only gave a new life to terrorists wanting to start over and had never taken an active role.
But because of the strong Red Army Faction link to Middle Eastern terrorist organizations, the Stasi may have been active there as well, said Christian Lochte of West Germany's Office for Constitutional Protection.
Lochte, whose office observes groups that it thinks threaten West Germany, said the Stasi made contact with many Red Army Faction members in the Middle East in a bid to "become popular" with Palestinian organizations. The Stasi also trained counterintelligence forces in pro-Palestinian countries, such as South Yemen, Lochte said.
"The intention of the Stasi was clear: to do everything possible to destabilize this country and others as well," Lochte said.
If the ongoing investigation into the Stasi's involvement in West German and international terrorism does confirm such a link, Diestel said, top politicians in East Germany's former Communist government would face trial for their role.
How much West German politicians knew about the Stasi's role is also being discussed. Hans Gottfried Bernrath, the Social Democratic chairman of the West German parliament's subcommittee for the interior, said a 1986 West German intelligence report shows the Christian Democratic government must have known about the Stasi's activities.
by CNB