Who bombed the Hilton? (11 page)
Read Who bombed the Hilton? Online
Authors: Rachel Landers
It all goes quiet
Weirdly, almost by magic, the moment the top secret task force report is being compiled in late November 1977, all the violence stops. Stops not just in Australia, but everywhere else in the world. Up to that point, since late July 1977, when Sarkar's first appeal was unsuccessful, to late November, there have been acts of violence or threats of violence either by Margiis or in their name in a dozen countries every two or three days â sometimes every day.
Then abruptly, between 28 November 1977
1
and 7 February 1978, when an even greater wave of violence is unleashed, there is no recorded act of violence or threat of violence towards an Indian national anywhere in the world. The only thing to change in this 10-week window is that Sarkar's second appeal is denied on 2 February 1978.
So what were the authorities doing during those
two months? Doing what spies and secret police do best: spying.
December 1977 and January 1978 see the two agencies charged with leading the surveillance on the sect â ASIO and New South Wales Special Branch â in covert operations heaven. There are wire-taps on Ananda Marga headquarters in every state. There are listening devices planted in their meeting places as well as in meditation and yoga centres. Cars are stationed outside gatherings, camps and training grounds and careful notes taken of each member's comings and goings. While there is information collected from Ananda Marga in Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth, Sydney is the epicentre. ASIO regards it as âthe focal point of Ananda Marga activity in Australia and also the location of most Margiis suspected of being capable of being involved in politically motivated violence'.
2
Norm Sheather and the Hilton task force pore over the surveillance material ASIO and Special Branch gathered in the months leading up to the bombing. It's hyper-detailed, consisting of members' names, bank accounts, property holdings, photographs and transcripts of wire-taps. There are elaborate lists of dates and times, of members' movements at a variety of Margii activities throughout January. All this material seems to indicate that something is going on. Just what that something may be is more difficult to ascertain.
While they are carefully monitoring the imminent camp to be held at the Seventh Day Adventists' Crosslands Youth and Convention Centre at Galston from 23 to 29 January, Special Branch gets a tip-off about another camp to be held earlier in January.
Ananda Marga Inquiry â information received from reliable source concerning Paul Maurice O'Callaghan and an unknown female attending a VSS training camp at Anandapalli.
This camp, to be held on the sect's property in Queensland, is to run from 9 to 16 January. The report goes on to confidently assert that:
⦠the initials VSS represent Volunteer Social Service, however information received from another reliable source on an earlier date (running sheets submitted) reveal that this is in fact a Para-Military Wing.
3
While this seems deeply intriguing â and possibly unsubstantiated â nothing comes of the tip-off.
The material relating to the surveillance of the late January conference is much more thorough and far less speculative. It is also difficult to analyse. As Norm and the team wade through the reams of surveillance notes, it's hard to decipher whether the
evidence indicates signs of a terrorist training camp or the dull machinations of a group of rigid if somewhat paranoid religious devotees. Among the many items is a meticulously typed series of rosters for the weekly kitchen duties (breakfast, lunch and dinner) for the duration of the camp.
4
Next is a âProut Publications Price List'. While this list includes potentially suspicious titles, such as â
Prout's Revolutionary Strategy
$1' and â
Universalism â A Revolutionary Force
75c', they sit next to the benign â
The Way of Peace
$2'.
5
Of more interest are the notes relating to the security procedures the Ananda Marga deploy during the Crosslands camp. Crosslands is the perfect site for the security conscious. It sits in a corner of the Berowra Valley at Galston, just north of Sydney. Two of its three sides are bordered by water. The third side â the hypotenuse â is covered in dense bush with one main entrance. There is a bush track that allows access to the bush chapel (Bottom Gate). It is also protected by God. Owned by the Seventh Day Adventists, it is exclusively offered for rent to groups who wish to use it as a spiritual retreat.
The first document, No. 9 in the dossier, is a list of those Ananda Marga members allocated to guard duty at the two gates to the camp. There is a guard for each of the gates, rotated each hour on a 24-hour cycle. For example:
A.M Bottom Gate
12-1 MARILEV
1-2 VIVEK
2-3 BHARAT
3-4 JAMAD
4-5 MOHAN
And so on.
6
Thus on any day, guard duty involves 24 different sect members. The accompanying document, âa copy of a typed article issued by VSS Chief secretary, concerning POINTS FOR SENTRY', runs over three pages and lays out detailed instructions for ensuring the security of the camp.
When a car comes, walk out 9 in[ches] in front of it and see who they are. If Margiis allow them to enter. If state police doing their regular run (looking for stolen cars), let them through but the sentry at the top notify the one at the bottom gate ⦠if they are commonwealth police, don't let them in unless they have a warrant. If they are tourists etc, politely tell them it is a closed retreat and tell them to turn back. â If any police â state or Commonwealth â come with a warrant, ask to see it and don't let them enter until you have a) taken the names and addresses of the policemen and b) what the warrant is for. You then let them in and if you are at the
top gate, notify the bottom sentry ⦠if you have been told that they have a warrant also get Narada or Dada ⦠if the top sentry calls down to say that unwanted persons forced their way through and are on the way down then the bottom sentry must lock the gate and taking the key out, notify Narada or Dada ⦠always speak politely to howeveer [sic] you come in contact with on sentry, but be strong and firm in your stand if demanding a warrant or not letting them through. Don't be bluffed! + Remember vigilance is the price of liberty, always remain alert and serious about your work, don't take it lightly and space out.
7
Is this evidence that the Margiis have something to hide? Like a plot to blow up the Hilton as the Indian Prime Minister arrives on the eve of CHOGRM? Or does it mean absolutely nothing â just a bunch of young believers fed up with police harassment and asserting their civil rights?
What about document No. 17? âA receipt from Wormald International Electronics, dated 11.1.78 payable to DAMBIEC, of 14 Binning Street Erskineville 2043, in the amount of $80.00 payable by cheque No. 13956'.
8
Parts for a timer for a bomb? Or a sophisticated baby monitor?
Like so many bits of the information they collect,
most of it is irritatingly ambiguous, like a Necker cube â one second a solid object, the next it flips and presents itself just as convincingly in reverse. Norm notes the names on the bottom of the dossier of documents collated over the duration of the Crosslands camp â Special Branch detectives Krawczyk and Henderson. He remembers their names from their work in tracking the wave of violence directed at Indian nationals for the task force. One can sense how deeply committed to the case they are, how vigilant, and how they must long for that hard clear unequivocal piece of evidence to provide a reason to storm the gates and catch the Margiis in the act. The incredulous denials from the Margii spokespersons around the globe must have them fed up to the back teeth. Norm has to remind himself that all this intense focus, all the resources expended over the last few months, predates the bombing at the Hilton. Yet as he looks through these pages of notes he finds nothing.
The problem with all this material acquired through technical coverage is that it lacks a âhuman source', as ASIO puts it, to interpret it.
9
ASIO starts to gather informants in late November, around the time the 1977 wave of violence is peaking. They are deliberately vague on the details they give to Norm and the Hilton task force. Yes, they have agents inside the Ananda Marga. No, the police can't know their names.
These agents are off limits to Norm. They have only been active for a few months and their coverage has been limited. None of them had any forewarning about the Hilton bombing. It's critical at this stage that they don't do anything to jeopardise their cover that might yield rich intelligence in the future.
The existence of these shadowy agents, sex unknown, some of whom, Norm realises, may already have been interviewed by his task force in the roundup of suspects after the bombing, must unnerve even the most unflappable of policemen. Even ASIO admits in its training manual that it âfaces obvious difficulties in using human sources to monitor violent organisations'. Obvious difficulties â such as where an undercover agent draws the line when acts of physical violence are being planned.
On the one hand, an ASIO source operating within a violent organisation has to maintain cover, and this will involve at least some commitment by word or deed to the objectives of the target organisation. Also, there is the possibility that, if the agent refuses to become involved in planning or executing acts of violence, others will be approached, and ASIO will lose both vital intelligence and the opportunity to exert some influence over events. On the other hand ASIO must not allow its agents to become
agents provocateurs.
10
Of course it's only a difficult line if it is certain that the source is infiltrating a violent organisation, but the hard evidence for this is currently beyond ASIO's grasp. As yet these newly minted covert Margiis have only orbited on the margins of the sect. Those at the core of power â Kumar certainly, Kapil maybe, Anderson who knows? â have been members for years. Who exactly is a member of Ananda Marga or Prout or both is complicated. The religion is complicated and there is much to get one's head around.
The other problem, and this surely gives Norm disquiet, is that the day after the Hilton bombing Tim Anderson clearly and publicly states that the sect knows it has been infiltrated by ASIO agents. This hardly provides much confidence in the intelligence these ASIO operatives would be able to gather at this stage. The danger too is that often the information agents collect is hearsay, and police know how useless this is in attempting to obtain a conviction. This is where the volume of technical surveillance provided by Special Branch could prove invaluable should it uncover concrete evidence to be used by some future prosecutor.
In theory the human sources and technical sources should complement each other in any clandestine operation. So too should the work of the police and the secret service â the flow of information should be harmonious, organic and productive.
And so it seemed it was â right up until the moment the bomb ripped Alec Carter and William Favell apart on 13 February 1978.
As Norm is taken through the months of surveillance work, what is clear is that they all failed. Despite the task force, the top secret Cabinet reports, the covert agents, the extra protection, the vast security protocols surrounding the CHOGRM â the sheer manpower focused on preventing a terrorist act at the conference had been for nought.
Someone missed something. Someone put a bomb in the bin. While in the days directly after the bombing the shock keeps the blame-game to a minimum, the shame all the agencies feel must be palpable. Were they looking at the wrong targets? The wrong group? What do our friends Detectives Krawczyk, Helson and Henderson of New South Wales Special Branch feel that morning in the aftermath of the carnage, knowing that there was a warning call to their office minutes before the blast? True it came too late for anyone to have been saved, but the fact that the diligent Suzanne Jones put the caller through to Special Branch between 12.35 and 12.40 am and the phone rang and rang in that empty office must cut pretty close to the bone.
It's easy to make cartoon baddies or Inspector Plods of these men. But, like Norm, I have read their reports and seen the months and months they put in building an incredibly detailed portrait of the sect's
operations in Australia. It's hard to view these Special Branch officers as anything but earnest, diligent and committed to the job. Possibly over-focused on detail, but the job of grasping the overview, the global perspective, is the role of those higher up the food chain â ASIO, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Commonwealth Police. Does Special Branch blame them? Norm Sheather may or may not detect this whiff of bile early in his investigation, but it will seep out in days to come and like acid eat away at any semblance of agency cooperation, eventually destroying any chance to try the case. But this is still to come.