General Gonzalo García Luna: one of the “bomb” men of espionage in Colombia?

After silently requesting his discharge, as he acted throughout his military career, General Gonzalo Ernesto García Luna – until last week the Army’s Chief of Intelligence and Counterintelligence – was called to classify services by the commander-in-chief of the Military Forces , Luis Fernando Navarro. Although his name did not appear among those uniformed dismissed by the latest episode of espionage and persecution by the military institution, Navarro determined that there were “failures, non-compliance with protocols and procedures” for which the high officer was withdrawn.

As reported The viewer On May 2, little is known about García Luna, promoted to Brigadier General in December 2016. Specialized in military intelligence, with courses in analyst, interviewer and strategic intelligence, among many others, his hidden resume, however, his time at the Administrative Department of Intelligence (DAS), where he was director of Intelligence between January and November 2003, when the Special Intelligence Group 3 (G-3) was created within that body and a massive operation was carried out against more than 300 people, including journalists, trade unionists, human rights defenders and opposition politicians. .

(It may interest you: The “secret folders” of military intelligence: who were they for and what for?)

García Luna was transferred to DAS through a service commission of the Army general command, at that time led by General Carlos Ospina Ovalle. According to his testimony, rendered in July 2012 in one of the trials against DAS members for the so-called “shocks”, his appointment in the Presidency’s civil intelligence body – definitively liquidated in 2014 – occurred in the “most critical” moment of the Álvaro Uribe government, because “barely a year ago he had left Caguán” and there was a threat to retake the guerrillas from some areas of the country. “

In his words, his arrival at the DAS completed the transition between the Pastrana and Uribe administrations, a period during which “there was integration of the DAS with other forces.” Those collaborations between the military and the DAS were evident in documents seized by the Prosecutor’s Office in 2009, as well as the arrival or promotion in the DAS of officials sent to courses at the Ricardo Charry Solano Intelligence School – where García Luna had been a teacher and after his leaving the DAS as deputy director— or who were also linked to the Military Forces, such as José Miguel Narváez and Juan Carlos Sastoque, who were convicted or are awaiting sentencing for illegal interceptions, conspiracy to commit a crime, psychological torture and abuse of authority, among other crimes.

(Also read: The military that left the Army amid the new scandal of “bullshit”)

Although the name of García Luna appears tangentially in the DAS files, the former secretary general of that body, Giancarlo Auque de Silvestri (fugitive since 2015), who replaced the military in the Intelligence Directorate, has indicated that the departure also Stealthy from the general in November 2003, it was due to mismanagement of the budget and risk of corruption in a process of contracting equipment for the entity. García Luna had a direct relationship with the majority of DAS officials today condemned for the so-called “shocks.” He was in the entity’s command line in 2003, only below Jorge Noguera (already convicted) and Emiro Rojas Granados (on trial).

It was that year when José Miguel Narváez appeared in the DAS under the facade of “human source” and a lecturer paid from reserved expenses — managed, by decision of García Luna, by Rodolfo Medina Alemán, his trusted man. In March of that year, as documented in administrative supports that prove the delivery of stationery and materials to that group, the G-3 Group was created at the request of Narváez, in charge of carrying out intelligence and counterintelligence actions against DAS targets, all civilians with the common characteristic of being opponents of the Uribe government. These tasks were recorded in “resumes” similar to what are known today as “profiles” of the Army.

(It may interest you: General who asked to be removed due to the “secret folders” scandal went through the DAS)

The G-3 was coordinated by two men: Juan Carlos Sastoque —a fugitive from Colombian justice and asylee in the United States since 2006—, who was sent in September 2003 to the Charry Solano School to carry out the International Course of Analysts and Interrogators and in May 2004, in charge of the “identification of the actors in the national and international political war that is being waged against Colombia”; and Jaime Fernando Ovalle Olaz (died in January 2010), an intelligence expert and the only DAS official who recognized the existence of Group 3 since the beginning of the investigations, and described by García Luna as “a normal official located in an area not relevant”.

In August 2003, García Luna appointed Enrique Alberto Ariza, who in late 2004 became director of Intelligence, as coordinator of the Interior Intelligence group, whose members were, coincidentally, detectives of the G-3 group, created without any support. in official documents. Ex-detective Rodolfo Medina Alemán, sentenced for “bullshit” and a fugitive from justice since 2009, went from being an intelligence officer in charge of document archiving to an active member of the G-3 in 2003 and head of DAS Counterintelligence in 2004.

(You may be interested: “National security would have been put at risk”: Carlos Holmes Trujillo)

In the trial against him, Medina Alemán’s defense included the testimony of García Luna and two other figures who have also come to light for their participation in espionage scandals: Nicacio de Jesús Martínez, former Army commander, and Laude José Fernández Arroyo , also a former DAS intelligence director in the 1990s, legal representative of the Berkeley Research Group, on trial for illegal interceptions of Avianca unionists.

García Luna’s testimony

On July 16, 2012, the discreet Gonzalo Ernesto García Luna declared in the 6th Specialized Criminal Court, during the trial followed by several of his former subordinates. For almost three hours, the general, then deputy director of Army Recruitment, denied having known illegal actions within the DAS, was emphatic in affirming that the interception of emails and telephone lines, as well as the monitoring and taking of photographs of civilians without his consent “are not intelligence activities”, and he devoted his exposition to explaining concepts that take on special importance in light of events.

(You may be interested: Prosecutor’s Office quotes the commander of the FF.MM for an “secret folders” scandal)

When investigated by the concept of an intelligence target, García Luna defined it as “having concentrated a site or person marked with circles that attracts attention”, but clarified that “it is not normal to carry out intelligence on people who campaign against the State ” In one of the sections of his testimony, without the presence of the victims’ lawyers, he admitted the possibility that journalists could be reviewed by the military institution, given the open nature of the news they transmit, although not because of their character as reporters. , whom he considered impossible to “frame” in the intelligence work.

“Newspapers, the media, television, are the first ingredient when searching for information among other things (sic) and it can be said that it is a document, that, any incident that occurs in the newspaper or any news or condition that it occurs, it is analyzed and, finally, they are immersed in that great mmm (sic) where one can observe that there are topics of interest ”. On May 3 the magazine Week He assured that there is a group of “twelve soldiers, between officers and NCOs, who have been involved in the biggest scandals that have ended up shaking the National Army” during the last ten years. Is García Luna one of them?

(You may be interested: Due to the “secret folders” scandal, Nicacio Martínez will no longer be a military attache in Belgium)

Military intelligence is to carry out operations: Nicacio Martínez

Less evasive was the now former Army commander, General Nicacio de Jesús Martínez Espinel, who testified on August 10, 2012, at a time when he was serving as commander of the IV Brigade based in Medellín, where he arrived after having held the position of Director of Military Intelligence. Martínez not only admitted the participation of the DAS in the joint intelligence boards, but the exchange of some information with the defunct intelligence agency “that could be conducive to developing operations.”

“First I want to suddenly make a caveat. Right now our main objective is the FARC; These FARC are a political-military organization that, in my very personal concept, 70% is political and 30% is armed or military. This has been an irregular war strategy, where all means are applied to reach a final objective, which is the seizure of power. It is up to us as military personnel, I, as an Army officer, to wage war at the military point, and surely the intelligence we obtain is to carry out military operations. So I am sure that this is a stratagem that the political FARC has (sic), where they have a lot of infiltration or penetration capacity in some organizations. ”

(It may interest you: “I will not tolerate those who dishonor the uniform”: Duke on a new scandal in the Army)

According to the former Army commander, “operations [militares] they are born based on some information, on some facts, on some documents where an event is foreseen or is known to occur (…) with this information, a process takes place within the intelligence cycle, with which in the end we confirm or we distort to act accordingly (…) our objectives are the agents that generate violence such as the FARC, the bacrim and organized crime ”.

And he added: “Intelligence is not a judicial support, they could simply serve us later for the development of military operations. That intelligence may or may not be true, confirmed or not (…) those [informaciones] that have to do with the fulfillment of the mission that we are going to fulfill and the previous evaluation that is made of that information. As in some archives, there may have been some events that may suddenly help us clarify some intelligence. ”

Martinez’s words eight years ago resonate today for the 130 victims of military espionage, not only because of the importance of intelligence in military decision-making (operations, attacks, troop mobilization), but also because of a question it contains. Were the “profiles” considered a military target?

(In context: New scandal in Military Intelligence: 11 officers and a general left the Army)