Chávez overhauls intelligence rule
Critics say law will force citizens to be informants
CARACAS - President Hugo Chávez has used his decree powers to carry out a major overhaul of this country's intelligence agencies, provoking a fierce backlash from human rights groups and legal scholars who say the measures will force citizens to inform on one another to avoid prison terms.
Under the new intelligence law, which took effect last week, Venezuela's two main intelligence services, the DISIP secret police and the DIM military intelligence agency, will be replaced with new agencies, the General Intelligence Office and the General Counterintelligence Office, under the control of Chávez.
The new law requires all Venezuelans and foreigners in the country to comply with requests for information from the agencies, whose secret police and community-monitoring groups are loyal to Chávez. Refusal to do so would result in prison terms of two to four years for most people and four to six years for government employees.
"We are before a set of measures that are a threat to all of us," said Blanca Rosa Marmol de Leon, a justice in Venezuela's highest court, the Supreme Justice Tribunal, in a rare example of public dissent from a member of the court. "I have an obligation to say this, as a citizen and a judge. This is a step toward the creation of a society of informers."
The sweeping changes to the intelligence apparatus reflect an effort by Chávez to assert greater control over public institutions after several political setbacks in the last year, including a stinging defeat in December of a constitutional package that would have expanded his powers.
Chávez, who has insisted the defeat would not dampen his ambitions to transform Venezuela into a socialist state, said the new intelligence law was intended to guarantee "national security" and as a shield against "imperialist attacks."
He lashed out at its critics, describing them as agents of the "empire," meaning the United States.
The law's aim of protecting Venezuela from the United States follows a history of antagonism between the governments in Caracas and Washington, dating at least to the Bush administration's tacit support for a short-lived coup against Chávez in 2002.
Recently, Venezuela has asserted it was subject to military intimidation from the United States, pointing to a recent violation of Venezuelan airspace by a US fighter jet and Washington's recent reactivation of its Fourth Fleet to patrol Latin American and Caribbean waters.
The drafting and passage of the law behind closed doors, without exposing it to public debate it would have had if Chávez had submitted it to Congress, also contributed to the public uproar and suspicion.
