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Switzerland's Secret Armies
Despite its neutrality, a 1990 parliamentary investigation revealed a secret stay-behind army, code-named Special Service, then P26, operating within the Swiss military secret service Untergruppe Nachrichtendienst und Abwehr (UNA), during most of the Cold War.
Yet Switzerland experienced no terrorist attacks or coup threats throughout the period, so why the need for extremism. Parliamentary commission Senator Carlo Schmid said he "was shocked that something like this" went on, calling it "conspiratorial....like a black shadow."
A judicial investigation, headed by Judge Pierre Cornu, was charged to learn if Swiss neutrality was violated. Evidence confirmed that P26 cooperated closely with Britain's MI6 and other UK intelligence, concluding, however, that no Swiss laws were broken, whether or not true.
Belgium's Secret Armies
On November 7, 1990, socialist defense minister Guy Coeme told a national TV audience that a NATO-linked secret army operated covertly throughout the Cold War, adding:
"I want to know whether there exists a link between the activities of this secret network, and the wave of crime and terror which our country suffered from during the past years."
A parliamentary investigation followed, Belgium's Senate confirming that its secret army consisted of two branches, called SDRA8 and STC/Mob, the former a military unit within Belgium's military secret Service General du Renseignement (SGR) under the Defense Ministry. Its members were trained in unorthodox warfare, combat, sabotage, parachute jumping, and maritime operations.
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