BOGOTA, Colombia – For weeks after the news broke, Colombians knew only that the secret police had spied on Supreme Court judges, opposition politicians, activists and journalists. Suspicions swirled that the orders for the wiretapping, as well as general surveillance, had come from the presidential palace.
Then on Friday, the inspector general’s office announced an investigation against three of President Alvaro Uribe’s closest advisers and three former officials of the department of administrative security, or DAS, the intelligence service that answers to the president. Insp Gen Alejandro Ordonez investigates malfeasance in government agencies, and his findings can be used in criminal prosecutions.
The latest revelations have come on top of an influence-peddling scandal involving the president’s two sons, Tomas and Geronimo, and a widening inquiry into the links between Mr Uribe’s allies in Congress and right-wing paramilitary death squads. Although Mr Uribe remains popular for having brought security and economic prosperity to a once-chaotic country, the scandals are hitting hard just as he considers a run for a third term.
Latin America policy-makers in Washington are also watching the controversy closely. The US has funnelled nearly $6 billion (€4.45 billion) in mostly military and anti-drug aid to the Uribe administration for its fight against Marxist rebels and drug cartels. Myles Frechette, a former US ambassador in Bogota who closely tracks Colombia policy, said one possible ramification of the scandal is that the Obama administration could curtail aid.
“I think that Washington is increasingly nervous about this,” Frechette said. “I just don’t think that people in Congress, even the Republicans, are going to feel very comfortable with this kind of thing coming out about Uribe.”
The allegations have dominated news coverage, with even media outlets that are openly supportive of Mr Uribe revealing details embarrassing to the presidency. Government officials appear clearly uncomfortable. “You cannot deny that this is serious, but justice is acting, the institutions are acting,” Vice-president Francisco Santos insisted at a recent news conference. “What more do you want?”
The Colombian government has characterised the surveillance as the work of rogue DAS agents. Jose Obdulio Gaviria, a former presidential aide spearheading Mr Uribe’s re-election effort, told the Bogota daily El Tiempo on Friday that criminal elements had infiltrated the department to hurt the government’s image. “We are in a political war,” he explained.
But the news media reported this past week that Jorge Alberto Lagos, former DAS director of counter-intelligence, told prosecutors how information about judges was turned over to two top Uribe aides, Bernardo Moreno and Gaviria. The attorney general’s office, meanwhile, is offering to make deals with other DAS employees, 33 of whom have been fired since the scandal broke in February. – (LA Times-Washington Post service)