Dokument #1226784
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Autor)
According to an expert on military
intelligence at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, it is very
common that ex-members of the Polish intelligence service are
harassed and even threatened with death after they defect. This
source adds, however, that in the case of Poland, this type of
action has become less frequent. [ Information received by
telephone from a member of the Political Science Department, U.S.
Naval Academy, Annapolis, 24 October 1989.] Operations of this
nature are much more common in West Germany than in Canada due to
geographic proximity. [ Ibid.]
A recent article in The New York Times
Magazine focuses on the CIA's program for aiding defecting
Soviet intelligence officers. Such aid is administered under an
"ailing defector program" of the CIA's Resettlement Office. It
involves annual payments to defectors and sometimes the provision
of new identities. According to this article, a number of these
defectors are critical of the CIA's support system. They allege
that the aid offered is often negligible. [ David Wise, "It's Cold
Coming Out," The New York Times Magazine, 17 September
1989.]
The Jamestown Foundation, a private
organization in Washington that lobbies for better aid to
defectors, states that a number of Poles have been helped under the
CIA's program. One former member of the Polish intelligence service
has been given a new identity in the U.S. In the early 1980s, this
same man was allegedly sentenced to death in Poland. There is no
evidence that this sentence has been revoked under the new
government and the Jamestown Foundation, for one, feels that it
would be premature to assume a revocation since both the Defence
and Interior Ministries remain under Communist control.
[Information received by telephone from the Jamestown Foundation,
Washington, 25 October 1989.]
The Foundation states that all countries,
except Romania and possibly Cuba, try to refrain from assassinating
emigrés and defectors in the U.S. Nevertheless, defectors
are monitored by the various intelligence agencies. Monitoring is
thought to be more active in West Germany and could involve more
direct harassment, beating, or possibly assassination. [
Ibid.] According to the Foundation, a defector whose case
has been made public would be much more at risk than one who is
immediately put under official protection. [ Ibid.]
In a recent article, Victor Gundarev, a
full colonel in the KGB, who recently defected to the U.S., states
that he knows of no assassination of a defecting agent in the last
15 years, but adds that "the risk is there." [ Ibid.]
Heavily-armed KGB officials were arrested outside of the U.S.
embassy in Athens hours after he was flown from Athens to
Washington. [ Ibid.]
Regarding the above-mentioned oral sources,
the IRBDC is, at this time, unable to provide further corroborating
information.