Emerging spy scandal suggests Panama center of anti-Chavez plotting

Uribe (left) and Martinelli, plotting.

Martinelli's predisposition with the murky world of espionage and international intrigue was further exposed today by two revelations in the Spanish language press. After having been exposed by WikiLeaks as a bullying blackmailer who taps the phones of his political opponents, Costa Rican newspaper La Nación revealed today how Martinelli at his inauguration suggested to Alvaro Uribe (then president of Colombia) and Oscar Arias (then president of Costa Rica) to form a regional block against "the Chavistas". The paper didn't publish any more details, nor did it publish the full text of the diplomatic cable that was sent from the US embassy in San José.

Alvaro Uribe is no longer president, but continues to be obsessed with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Martinelli, in his turn, showed a similar dose of paranoia in his wiretapping demands to the Panama US embassy as well as during protests in Changuinola last year and San Felix this year, which he claimed were caused by "outside agitators" and "dark interests" as well as any and all group to the left of his own political preference, just stopping short of naming Chavez or any of his allies.

His bungled wiretapping scheme and the fact that his two partners in the anti-Chavez league have left office does not appear to have discouraged Martinelli. Colombian El Espectador reports how former Venezuelan vice-president José Vicente Rangel denounced the activities of María del Pilar Hurtado in Panama. She is the former head of the Colombian security service DAS, and was granted political asylum in Panama by Martinelli so that she could escape prosecution in Colombia for leading a massive illegal wiretapping and politically motivated harassment scheme of opposition figures, human rights activists and journalists.

According to José Vicente Rangel in El Espectador, the former head of the DAS operates a company that offers port security and "international investigations". At that office, she has received Venezuelan fugitives of justice to plan anti-Chavez activities. Meetings were also held at the home of a Venezuelan expat near Colón, the former vice-president alleged.

The conditions of political asylum stipulate that Mrs. del Pilar Hurtado refrain from political activities in Panama. She is still wanted in Colombia.

Already in 2009, José Vicente Rangel denounced the existence of an International Center of Operations, Information and Intelligence in Panama's Cerro Azul which, financed by bankers and insurance moguls, coordinates activities against Venezuela and other progressive governments, he claimed.