by René Lavanchy
PRESIDENT Alvaro Uribe of Colombia has been accused of ordering his intelligence agency to engage in illegal wiretapping of opposition politicians, members of the government, judges and journalists in a scandal that has rocked Colombia’s law enforcement apparatus.
Jorge Alberto, deputy director of counterintelligence at the DAS, the Administrative Department of Security, was forced to resign on Sunday after the weekly magazine Semana published an investigation alleging that the agency has been monitoring the subjects for several months right up to the present day. The DAS director ordered an immediate inquiry.
But congressman Gustavo Petro, a member of the opposition Democratic Pole party and one of those named as having his phone tapped, said that Mr Uribe is using the DAS as a political tool. The scandal, dubbed “DASgate” by the Colombian media, comes only four months after the agency lost its previous director following an earlier revelation that it was illegally spying on public figures.
Mr Petro told the newspaper El Espectador: “It is beyond doubt that the order comes from the president, who does not have democratic values and moreover counts on a lot of public support, which he uses to destroy what little democracy is left.
“We are in the presence of a police government that has destroyed democratic spaces, does not respect the values and principles of democracy and of our constitution. It has used the police to destroy the opposition and not to destroy crime.”
The alleged victims include Iván Velásquez, an examining magistrate who has been investigating the “para-politics” scandal, which has already caused several of President Uribe’s allies to quit the congress over alleged links to right-wing paramilitary groups. According to Semana, the DAS collected records of over 2,000 phone conversations and a number of meetings Mr Velásquez held between November 2008 and February 2009.
Mr Uribe’s office has not yet responded to the claims, but defence minister Juan Manuel Santos has denied any government involvement, while DAS director Felipe Muñoz told Colombian radio: “What we have here is a mafia network that is a coup attempt against national security”.
