Sex used to recruit UN personnel as spies
Aid workers often have double role
|
|
|
Finnish United Nations employees have been targets of recruitment attempts by foreign powers, particularly in the Middle East and in Kosovo.
Sex and money have been used as bait in such attempts, and when a sexual encounter has taken place, sex has sometimes been used to as a tool of blackmail, especially for men with families.
“At parties of the Finns there were sometimes Israeli women present. They would especially seek out the company of military observers and FS men [FS - Field Service: civilian officials who dealt with matters such as transport, mail, and security]”, says Reijo Raitasaari, recalling his years in the Middle East in the 1970s. He has had a long career in the United Nations and other international organisations behind him.
Raitasaari served in Jerusalem, and in other locations in the Middle East as a UN driver, security man, and criminal investigator. In the following decade, during the war in Lebanon, there were attempts to pressure him into working for Israeli military intelligence. One way of doing this was to enlist Israeli women, whom he had met in Jerusalem at parties hosted by his UN colleague Raimo Majuri.
“It was all of no avail. I told the recruiter that I kissed someone, and perhaps squeezed some breasts, and if the woman says that I did anything more, she is lying. I knew quite well that even just one slip-up would have been irrevocable”, Raitasaari recalls.
Raitasaari himself was the target of three different recruitment attempts in three decades. He had heard about similar attempts from numerous Finnish colleagues, and he knows of cases in which Finns, and others, actually took the bait.
One of the most important spies was Raitasaari’s Swedish UN colleague Stig Bergling. Bergling, who later became known as a big time international spy, lived in Jerusalem in the same house as Raitasaari and was a close acquaintance of his family.
One Finn whom he remembers was Raimo Majuri, the chauffer of Lieutenant General Ensio Siilasvuo, who organised the parties in Jerusalem.
Majuri was later caught for smuggling and other crimes, but he was never extradited by Israel. Later Majuri took on Israeli citizenship and changed his name to Ram Laor.
In international crisis spots UN workers are routinely lured into service by foreign powers, Raitasaari says.
He adds that the same applies to workers of other international organisations.
The assessment is confirmed by Dutch military historian Arthur ten Cate in his book Waarnemers op heilige ground (Observers in the Holy Land). He describes the lives of Dutch military observers in the Middle East in 1956 - 2003. For instance, he says that in the city of Tiberia, all of the Dutch observers in turn had been approached by intelligence recruiters. He says that sex was often used as a means of getting information and using leverage.
In addition to being targets of recruitment, workers of the UN and other organisations would also recruit others.
“The same people would move from one crisis spot to another. They took care of their official duties, but many also have a separate job: to pass on intelligence information and to try to recruit citizens of other countries as gatherers of information or as couriers”, Rantasaari explains.
The Security Police also mention the espionage game that takes place in crisis areas. “UN military observer missions are an operational environment, where the intelligence services of foreign powers operate to promote their own interests.”
For instance, in the Middle East, intelligence services are not always represented by an Israeli or Palestinian soldier, but rather by a civilian employee of a peace group or aid organisation.
Helsingin Sanomat
|
| 19.1.2009 - TODAY |
 Sex used to recruit UN personnel as spies |
|
