“For the last time,” Colombian President Alvaro Uribe denies ever having made a mistake in his political career following ongoing accusations of human right violations, policy failures and whatnot.
“No, we did not spy on foreign officials,” Uribe told reporters on Thursday after being asked about allegations that Colombia’s intelligence agency DAS had spied on Ecuadorean and European government officials.
According to Uribe, the latest accusations of illegal spying by the presidential intelligence agency are a plot to discredit his administration’s “democratic security” policy.
“I did not order any wiretaps, I did not allow grants to be awarded to financial sponsors of my re-election, I did not know about the military killing civilians and I have never benefited from paramilitary intimidation of the electorate. In fact, I don’t remember ever having done anything wrong or making a mistake,” Uribe stressed.
The controversial Colombian head of state is set to leave office on August 7, and is praised for having pushed leftist rebels out from economically important areas in the country, reducing murder rates, and increasing foreign investment.
However, he has also been criticized for high levels of corruption within his government, ties between his political allies and right-wing paramilitary death squads, the illegal wiretapping of political opponents, the illegal killing of civilians by the military, trying to diminish the independence of the country’s judicial branch, the bribing of congressmen to secure his 2006 re-election, increasing poverty and unemployment rates, denying appropriate help to three million Colombian refugees, and endangering of lives of opposition politicians by accusing them of being FARC supporters, among other things.