On the 24th of November 2021, at 6 p.m., a conversation with the economist and researcher of the archives of the State Security Administration of Yugoslavia (best known under the acronym UDBA), Dr Rado Pezdir, took place in the Cultural Centre Bistrica ob Sotli, as part of the Demokracija Magazin Tour (Democracy Magazine Tour) and the All-Slovenian Tour of the Nova Obzorja Publishing House. The topic of conversation was Pezdir’s book entitled “The Parallel Mechanism of the Deep State” (“Vzporedni mehanizem globoke države” in Slovenian). The conversation was moderated by journalist, editor and TV presenter Metod Berlec. “The parallel mechanism was built by the communist party, and then the State Security Administration of Yugoslavia implemented it in the field,” the author of the book said, describing how they set up businesses, as well as smuggled narcotics and cigarettes, in order to get money to buy a helicopter and eavesdropping equipment. He also explained “why after gaining our independence, we became the losers, and the red network is the winner. It’s not that they are actually any better, but rather the system made this possible for them. That is why such an implosion happened during the first serious shock of 2008 to 2012.”
As part of the Demokracija Magazin Tour (Democracy Magazine Tour) and the All-Slovenian Tour of its publishing house, the organisers are hosting talks in various Slovenian towns, with the authors of books that have recently been published by the Nova Obzorja Publishing House.
“In the years 2008 to 2012, when there was a big crisis in Slovenia, and we threw five billion euros into the rehabilitation of banks, it made me think about why we have the worst results among all transition countries. I began to study the networks within the ownership structure and business connections between key Slovenian companies owned by the state and began to move back to the nineties, where I found that foreign companies are also involved here – however, they are not actually foreign, because they do business exclusively with Slovenian companies… I had been putting it all together for the last few years, and now, here is the story of how money was exported from the country and then re-imported while the country was captured and stolen. The people who used to be anti-capitalists woke up in 1991 as capitalists with a lot of money,” said the author of the extensive book entitled “The Parallel Mechanism of the Deep State,” Rado Pezdir.
He found enough material in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia to be able to make a clear reconstruction. “What ‘Slivnik’s bunch’ wrote in the nineties is now documented, and it is clear that it was not a conspiracy theory, but that when it comes to Danilo Slivnik and his co-workers, the only problem was that they could not get the proper documentation, which I later acquired,” Pezdir added.
Logar’s commission was key – the Iranian billion
The key push in all of this came because of the bank called Ljubljanska Banka, which later changed its name to Nova Ljubljanska Banka – NLB (New Ljubljana Bank), when we were looking for the reasons for yet another bank rehabilitation in the Slovenian banking system, in the amount of five billion euros, as part of Anže Logar’s Commission of Inquiry to determine the abuses in the Slovenian banking system and to determine the causes and responsibilities for the second rehabilitation of the banking system in independent Slovenia. And the crown of this entire parallel mechanism was certainly the Iranian billion, for which the police and the prosecution continue to pretend it does not actually exist.
Destruction of UDBA evidence
Pezdir also talked about how, in a fit of hysteria, members of the Party destroyed all documentation of the State Security Service – UDBA, but they still left the economic books intact, which he himself heavily relied on when writing his book. “The question is, was this all just a coincidence, or the result of quarrels between Janez Zemljarič and Niko Kavčič – since the documentation that remained is primarily related to them,” Pezdir wondered.
The parallel mechanism was built by the Communist Party, but the State Security Administration then implemented it in the field. In response to the question posed by the moderator Metod Berlec, the researcher described the entire scheme of operations of this parallel mechanism and listed a number of examples. He described how they set up businesses, smuggled narcotics and cigarettes in order to get money to buy a helicopter and wiretapping equipment. Niko Kavčič even found out about this. “The fact that he was able to carry out state smuggling means that he had to get permission from the head of the Party, and then the head of the executive council, i.e. the government of Stane Kavčič. When they ran out of money from the budget, they said: take the cigarettes from Emona and smuggle them to Italy, where the mafia will buy them, legalise the money through Emona’s branch in Munich, return it to Slovenia and use it to continue buying. This was such a perverted state,” Pezdir said in disgust.
“Tito’s Territorial Defence and Ljubljanska Banka were born in sin”
It all started when Tito’s territorial defence and Ljubljanska Banka (Ljubljana Bank) were established, “both were born in great financial sin.” The parallel mechanism was hidden, complex, and effective. According to Pezdir, the affair of the laundered Iranian billion in Nova Ljubljanska Banka, the successor of Ljubljanska Banka, showed that this was not really about the Slovenian institutions (police, the prosecutor’s office, ministries, supervising bodies) doing a poor job operating, but that it was actually way more heavily connected with the parallel mechanism. “There is something that allows certain people to work while bypassing official institutions. Decision-making is happening somewhere else, not on the regulator,” said Pezdir. “Nowhere else in well-organised countries will you ever encounter a situation in which a bank branch operates as an unregulated form of diplomatic representation. And practically nowhere else anyone could imagine that the state would transfer diplomatic functions to a banking branch. Ljubljanska Banka and its successor Nova Ljubljanska Banka have never been just banks, but a key lever for establishing political influence and rents in the Slovenian economy.”
At the presentation of the book, there was also talk of many other famous names: Niko Kavčič, France Popit, Stane Kavčič, Ivan Maček Matija, Janez Zemljarič, Ivan Pušnik, Janez Škrabec, Miloš Kovačič, Darko Horvat …
Rado Pezdir’s book reveals how the system worked before the fall of the Berlin Wall and shows “why after gaining our independence, we became the losers, and the red network is the winner. It’s not that they are actually any better, but rather the system made this possible for them. That is why such an implosion happened during the first serious shock of 2008 to 2012.”
Sara Kovač
