Colombia's intelligence chief resigns over scandal

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia's intelligence chief resigns over scandal
Thu 23 Oct 2008, 16:18 GMT

By Patrick Markey

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's intelligence chief has stepped down after acknowledging her agents secretly spied on left-wing political opponents of President Alvaro Uribe, in the latest surveillance scandal to tarnish his administration.

DAS security agency director Maria del Pilar Hurtado resigned after a leading opposition lawmaker charged this week that officers had illegally kept tabs on members of his Democratic Pole party, the government said on Thursday.

Uribe last year fired his top police chiefs after an illegal wiretapping scandal that fuelled worries about intelligence practices in Colombia, where Washington has spent billions in aid to help fight guerrillas and cocaine barons.

"The country still can and should count on the DAS; it would not be fair for the work of hundreds of agents to be stained by the actions of a few," Hurtado said in a statement.

She will be temporarily replaced by deputy director Joaquin Polo, the government said.

Sen. Gustavo Petro, one of Uribe's most vocal critics, said DAS agents had been monitoring him and other party members on the president's orders. Hurtado said she ordered no such surveillance, but fired an agent involved before resigning.

More:
http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnTRE49M706.html





I want to remind the Democrats here that Uribe's LAST intelligence chief, Jorge Noguera, was found implicated in an assassination plot against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, was found also to have given lists of union workers and other Colombian leftists to paramilitaries (death squads) for execution. He fled the country when the Justice Department went after him, was caught, returned to Colombia. I don't know what has happened to him after that.

http://bp0.blogger.com/_3VGZgnp4slY/ReBofOtSHKI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/NNx52kAvTxs/s320/Portada+Semana+Jorge+Noguera.jpg

[Judi Lynn]

1. Colombia spy chief quits; agency spied on senator

Colombia spy chief quits; agency spied on senator
By CESAR GARCIA, Associated Press Writer
– 20 mins ago

BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombia's director of domestic intelligence resigned Thursday after her agency was caught spying on a prominent political opponent of President Alvaro Uribe.

Maria del Pilar Hurtado called her resignation after 14 months as head of the Administrative Department of Security, or DAS, "an act of dignity" in a statement she read to reporters. She did not take questions.

Hurtado said neither she nor Uribe ordered the surveillance of Sen. Gustavo Petro, a member of the leftist Polo Democratico party and a key figure in efforts to uncover ties between political allies of the president and far-right death squads.

Hurtado's resignation comes two days after Petro said he anonymously received two incriminating memos signed by her intelligence chief that ordered regional DAS offices to investigate the senator and his party. Hurtado fired the intelligence official on Wednesday.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081024/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_colombia_secret_police

[Judi Lynn]

2. I just learned what happened to the LAST Colombian intelligence chief

who was in trouble, Jorge Noguera. This is so predictable, unfortunately:

Posted on Thursday, 10.23.08
Colombia spy chief quits; agency spied on senator
By CESAR GARCIA
Associated Press Writer

~snip~
In 2005, a previous agency director and close Uribe ally, Jorge Noguera, was forced to resign over allegations he colluded with the illegal far-right militias known in Colombia as paramilitaries.

Documents found in a paramilitary lieutenant's computer say Noguera provided the militias with names of union and human rights activists, some of whom were later murdered.

First formed in the 1980s by ranchers and drug traffickers to counter leftist rebels, the militias evolved into mafias that killed thousands and stole millions of acres.

Petro began to publicly denounce ties between Uribe-allied politicians and the militias in 2005, with witnesses approaching him who did not trust the chief prosecutor's office to protect them.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of more than 30 members of Congress for allegedly benefiting politically or financially from ties with the so-called paramilitaries.

Noguera, meanwhile, was arrested in February 2007 and charged with criminal conspiracy but released in June by a court that ruled prosecutors made a procedural error.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/739003.html

So they performed a sham trial, and bungled it so it was easy to set this piece of filth free. That really, REALLY doesn't surprise anyone, I'm sure.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Dark Clouds Loom Over Colombia President Uribe's Administration

Dark Clouds Loom Over Colombia President Uribe's Administration
10-25-080607ET


BOGOTA (AFP)--Labor strikes, indigenous protests, a slowing economy - these are some of the dark clouds looming over the last two years of Alvaro Uribe's second term in office that threaten to eclipse the Colombian president's sky- high approval rating. Uribe, a conservative first elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, has a 78% approval rating according to a Gallup poll in September. He remains the most popular head of state in Latin America - though his popularity appears to be slipping.

The government's woes have been multiple: truckers on strike in August, and a six-week strike of court workers that ended in October. Even sugar cane cutters went on strike in mid-September. And since October 10 thousands of indigenous Colombians - representing about 3.2% of the population - have been holding protest marches demanding the government fulfill a promise to hand over land. They are also angry at what they say are abuses on their community carried out by leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and even army soldiers.

Uribe faces a potentially major headache as political egos begin to sharpen ahead of the 2010 presidential election. One outcome was Congress' refusal to approve an Uribe-supported reform of the judiciary.

Abroad the president also faces the possibility of losing his main benefactor, as US President George W. Bush, a staunch Colombia supporter, is less likely to be replaced in the upcoming election by fellow Republican John McCain - who visited Colombia in July - than by Democrat Barack Obama, who leads in US opinion polls.

Bush and McCain are strong supporters of a US free trade agreement with Colombia, while Obama and the Democrats want the agreement delayed to obtain more human rights protections, especially for Colombian labor leaders.

In December the United Nations Commission on Human Rights is to look closely at human rights in Colombia, including studying a report from non-governmental organizations charging that the Colombian state "tolerates" and even "supports" thousands of crimes carried out by right-wing paramilitary forces.

More:
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/newsStoryPrintVer.aspx?cpath=20081025%5cACQDJON200810250607DOWJONESDJONLINE000315.htm&&mypage=newsheadlines&title=Dark+Clouds+Loom+Over+Colombia+President+Uribe