Uribe Spies With His Many Little Eyes And Doesn't Like What He Sees

[Judi Lynn]

Uribe Spies With His Many Little Eyes And Doesn't Like What He Sees
March 01, 2009
By Supriyo Chatterjee

Colombian intelligence honchos, once all the rage for supposedly saving their country from Left-wing guerrillas, are gasping for breath in the harsh glare of the media expose of their vast wiretapping operations against judges, politicians, journalists and human rights activists, anyone deemed a threat to President Alvaro Uribe. In Colombia, officials are not punished for wrongdoing; they merely resign only to emerge later as diplomats or be rewarded with other such sinecure.

The dreaded Colombian security apparatus, DAS in its Spanish acronym, then passed on the information to sundry criminals, paramilitary bosses and even guerrillas for good money. A similar abuse came to light some time ago in Peru where too wiretapping information ended up in the open market and in both cases blame has been conveniently shifted on to the customary "bad apples" and rogue elements "out of control".

Evidence points to the contrary. The Colombian spooks were not out of control; they were operating in a febrile atmosphere where the President kept saying that the judges were fabricating evidence against him, that human rights groups were guerrillas disguised as civilians and Opposition politicians were in the payroll of the insurgents. "How can we not control (Senator Gustavo) Petro, who is a former guerrilla and a member of the opposition? Or Piedad Córdoba (Liberal Party Senator), because of her links to Chávez and the guerrilla?" a DAS functionary told a Colombian newspaper.

A Supreme Court judge, Iván Velásquez, investigating links between politicians and paramilitary bosses, had more than 1,900 of his phone calls intercepted. Tabs were kept on journalists to "inform the government of what is being done in the media, in order to give the government some time to react when critical situations arise".

The Colombian journalist, Claudia López, argues that DAS passed into paramilitary hands when Uribe appointed Jorge Noguera as the intelligence chief (the latter is now in prison). The agency was primarily staffed with men loyal to paramilitary sectors who supported Uribe in his 2002 elections, that of ‘Jorge 40' and other mafia groups along the Atlantic coast. At a level below were those linked to the paramilitary bosses, the Castaño brothers and Salvatore Mancuso.

More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20725