Colombian intel head resigns

The chief of Colombia’s intelligence services (DAS) quit on Thursday after her bureau was caught spying on an opposition senator.

“It would not be fair for the work of hundreds of agents to be stained by the actions of a few," Maria del Pilar Hurtado said in a release after center-left politico Gustavo Petro accused the DAS of secretly monitoring his actions. Hurtado also claimed that neither she nor President Alvaro Uribe ordered the surveillance of Petro or other members of the Polo Democratico party.

The DAS’ illicit surveillance paints an ugly picture of the Uribe administrations intolerance of contrarian political factions. Regardless of the ideologies behind Uribe and the Polo, such actions are undemocratic and stifling of dissent.

As the Center for International Policy’s Adam Isacson observed on his blog:

These documents are frightening because of what they say about the Colombian government’s tolerance of dissent, its ability to distinguish between legitimate political participation and left-wing terrorism, and the amount of political space in which the political opposition can operate.

They should trigger a scandal, and an investigation into possible illegal infringement of Colombians’ right to organize and participate in political movements. They should also inspire the U.S. government to loosen its embrace of a government that is clearly going too far in an undemocratic direction.

In 2005, former DAS chief Jose Noguera quit over alleged paramilitary ties. A former intel official also accused Noguera of “plotting to destabilize” the Venezuelan government.

Image- El Espectador (Maria del Pilar Hurtado stands behinds a seated Alvaro Uribe)
Sources- The Latin Americanist, AP, BBC News, Reuters UK, Plan Colombia and Beyond