State Security Administration (Yugoslavia)

The State Security Service (, ; ; ), also known by its original name as the State Security Administration, was the secret police organization of Yugoslavia. It was at all times best known by the acronym UDBA, which is derived from the organization's original name in the Serbo-Croatian language: "Uprava državne bezbednosti" ("State Security Administration"). The acronyms SDB (Serbian) or SDS (Croatian) were used officially after the organization was renamed into "State Security Service". In its latter decades it was composed of eight semi-independent secret police organizations—one for each of the six Yugoslav federal republics and two for the autonomous provinces—coordinated by the central federal headquarters in the capital of Belgrade.
Although it operated with more restraint than secret police agencies in the communist nations of Eastern Europe, the UDBA was nonetheless a feared tool of control. It is alleged that the UDBA was responsible for the "eliminations" of dozens of enemies of the state within Yugoslavia and internationally (estimates about 200 assassinations and kidnappings). Eliminations vary from those of World War II Ustaše Croat leaders Ante Pavelić and Vjekoslav Luburić (in Argentina and Spain), to Croatian emigrant writer Bruno Bušić and Serbian emigrant writer Dragiša Kašiković, although war criminals have to be distinguished from those assassinated only for dissent or political reasons.
With the breakup of Yugoslavia, the breakaway republics went on to form their own secret police agencies, while the State Security Service of the FR Yugoslavia kept its UDBA-era name.
Functions.
UDBA formed a major part of the Yugoslav intelligence services from 1946 to 1991, and was primarily responsible for internal state security. After 1946 the UDBA underwent numerous security and intelligence changes due to topical issues at that time, including: fighting gangs; protection of the economy; Cominform/Informbiro; and bureaucratic aspirations. In 1945 and 1946, for instance, the UDBA was organized into districts. In 1950, when the administrative-territorial units were abolished as authorities, the UDBA was reorganized again. During this period the intelligence and security activities concentrated less on intelligence and more on internal security. There was an emphasis on collectivism, brotherhood, social harmony, loyalty, and tolerance towards those with different views. Deviation from this set of values became an immediate issue for security services.
Later, the use of force was mitigated and when the process of "decentralization of people's power" began, intelligence and security services underwent further reorganization in order to decentralise power and increase effectiveness. At the plenum of the Central Committee in July 1966, the political leadership accused the SDB of hindering reforms towards self-administration. As a result, the SDB was decentralized, its personnel reduced (especially on the federal level) and control commissions established. New regulations were issued, strengthening the independent initiative of the state security services of the six Yugoslav republics and the autonomous provinces. The SDB was deprived of executive functions and entrusted with identifying and preventing hostile activities. The Act on Internal Affairs and the Decree on Organization of State Internal Affairs Secretariat regulated the intelligence security authority as the prerogative of the State Security Directorate within the Ministry of the Interior. The following reorganization addressed issues relating to the competence of the federation (state security, cross-border traffic, foreign citizens, passports, introduction and dissemination of foreign press, and federal citizenship).
Structure.
Intelligence and security activity was organized in the following manner:
Activities.
1946–1986 period.
One of the first successful actions of UDBA was operation Gvardijan, that denied Božidar Kavran chance to infiltrate ex-Ustasha groups in order to raise uprising against Yugoslavia, eventually capturing Kavran himself.
From 1963 to 1974, security intelligence services dealt with a series of domestic and foreign political events. At home, there were political confrontation both before and after the Brioni Plenum (1966), liberal flareups and massive leftist student demonstrations in Belgrade in 1968, "Hrvatsko proljeće" (Croatian Spring) or "MASPOK" (mass movement) in Croatia in 1971, a nationalist incursion of the Bugojno group in the Raduša area (1972), and a revival of nationalism in Yugoslav republics. The most significant event abroad was the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968.
These were the circumstances at the time the first act on internal affairs of the individual republics was adopted in 1967. According to this act, internal affairs were handled directly by the municipal administrative bodies and the secretariats of internal affairs of each republic or by their provincial bodies. This was the first time since 1945 that republics gained control and greater influence over their individual security organs and intelligence security services.
The State Security Service (SDB) was defined by law as a professional service within the Republic Secretariat of Internal Affairs (RSUP). Naturally, most of its competence remained within federal institutions, as prescribed by the Act on Handling Internal Affairs Under Competence of Federal Administrative Bodies (1971), which determined that the federal secretariat of internal affairs coordinate the work of the SDB in the republics and provinces. Further steps were taken with the transformation of state administration, adoption of the Federal Act on State Administration (1978), and the Republic Act (1978). The newly adopted act on internal affairs tasked the Republic Secretariat of Internal Affairs (RSUP) with state security issues, which then became RSUP issues and were no longer given special handling "at the RSUP". This resolution remained in force until the 1991 modifications of the act on internal affairs.
Post–1986 period.
The role of intelligence and security changed after 1986, when a different mentality reigned within the Party and the processes of democratization were initiated. Intelligence security agencies came under attack, and many people started publicly writing about and criticizing the SDB. There were no more taboo subjects. The party organization was abolished in the SDB and the first attempts to introduce parliamentary control began.
The appointment of a commission to monitor the work was one of the most absurd decisions made by the country's intelligence security services during the era of "social democracy", since SDB activity was regulated by federal legislation and regulations published in the secret Official Gazettes. Neither the commission members nor its president had access to these Acts. It was difficult to evaluate information, since the commission had no investigative powers or capability to verify information. The head of the service was tasked simply to deliver requested information, even classified, to the commission. The SDB was also still receiving tasks from the Party, although the supervising commission lacked the powers to control those tasks. The above-mentioned events undermined the unity of the SDB, which formulated its own, unpublished regulations (sub-legal acts, ordinances, etc.). This made any protest about violation of rights impossible, as the regulations were inaccessible to the public.
The first democratic multi party elections in 1990, which enhanced the process of democratization, reverberated within the Federal Secretariat of Internal Affairs (SSUP) and Federal State Security Service (SSDB), which were fighting to maintain control over the individual SDBs in the republics. The latter became increasingly disunited; it was still legally connected to the federal bodies, but was becoming aware of the fact that it operated and worked in their particular republic. Some professional cadres, especially those in the "domestic field" (dealing with the "bourgeois right wing", clericalists, and student movements), began leaving the service. Conflict was increasing, and SDB archives were being systematically destroyed. In its search for new roles, the SDBs also began to limit information they were sending to the SSDB. It ultimately restricted its information to foreign intelligence services.
Along with the weakening of the SSDB position, attempts were made by the Yugoslav People's Army Security Service or KOS to strengthen its own strongholds in the different republics and in the individual SDBs. The attempts failed because they depended upon cadres of other nationalities still employed in the SDBs but who had no access to data bases and had no decision-making power due to their "Yugoslav" orientation.
Recently released files contain information on 1 million citizens of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia and other former Yugoslav republics, whose files the UDBA in Slovenia kept records. In 2003 and 2010, it was to possible to see the names of the UDBA agents in Slovenia, some of whom are still active in the Slovenian Military and the Ministry of Interior, at the website udba.net. The government of Slovenia promptly demanded the removal of pages from the website, so they are currently not accessible.