Gustavo Petro during a press conference in San José (Costa Rica), on August 28. Jeffrey Arguedas (EFE)
The government of Gustavo Petro has received another blow from a former ally. The former Vice Minister of Strategy and Planning in the Defense portfolio, Ricardo Díaz, expressed over the weekend his disappointment with the administration of which he was part until May and denounced several cases of corruption. He did so in an interview with the director of Semana magazine, Vicky Dávila, who is one of Petro's staunchest rivals. "Corruption continues, economic interests continue. They are destabilizing the Defense Ministry, which is the guarantee of democracy in the country," said Diaz, a retired army general. This Monday, the Attorney General's Office has reported that it has opened an investigation and that it will call the former official to testify to provide evidence.
#ATENCIÓN | Official communiqué of the General #Fiscalía of the Nation. pic.twitter.com/iYt46FhsCy
— Prosecutor's Office Colombia (@FiscaliaCol) September 11, 2023
The main case concerns alleged attempts to bribe Diaz to acquire three Qatari helicopters. The former vice minister has accused a colonel, Eduardo Mejia, of offering him 700 million pesos (about $1.7 million) to arrange the hiring. "He told me that the first lady [Verónica Alcócer] had a special interest in having those helicopters acquired by the Ministry of Defense," Díaz said. He also pointed out that the economic adviser to the Presidency, Juan Fernández, reiterated to him a few days later the "interest" of the president's wife. The former official says he refused on both occasions and that those involved took a distant attitude towards him.
Díaz informed the minister, Iván Velásquez, when he learned that he was the victim of alleged maneuvers against him. "I told him that I had been approached and offered money for the purchase of helicopters. Since that had not happened, then they had said that my name had to be discredited, stating that they had given me 4,000 million pesos [about 10 million dollars] for the purchase of the Barak anti-aircraft battery," reads the transcript of the interview with Dávila. According to the former official, Velásquez took note of the names of those involved, told him he was going to take care of it and distanced himself.
"From that moment on, the minister changes his attitude towards me. There is no more communication," says Díaz. Allegedly, the head of the portfolio ordered his personal secretary to channel all communications and to have access to the computers of the deputy ministers to monitor the appointments they granted. The former official says that at that time "information that was not true" began to circulate. He points in particular to a story that El Espectador published in March about Díaz's wife's alleged visits to the Ministry to speak with contracting offices.
Velásquez asked his subordinate to resign in May. The former deputy minister has shown some WhatsApp conversations he had then with his former boss, who tells him that his departure "has nothing to do with corruption issues." In the messages, Díaz complains about a publication in which Semana accuses him of cost overruns in the hiring of Canadian vehicles and the minister responds that they are malicious "gossip."
The weekend interview has several details that show a high degree of animosity of the former vice minister with the administration of which he was part. Not only does he denounce the permanence of generals questioned in the Army and an attitude of permissiveness against "generalized corruption." It also criticizes government policies, such as total peace. He says that the Executive has "tied and scared" the Military Forces, in reference to the various ceasefires that have been agreed with armed groups in the last year. In addition, he refers to Petro's former militancy in the April 19 Movement (M-19) and affirms that "the Government is in self-destruction mode."
"We have a defense minister who knows little about the sector," he says in the interview. "The minister exists for his friends, but not for the country," he adds when Dávila asks him about Velásquez's performance.
Friendly fire
In recent months it has become customary for the Petro government to take its biggest blows through people who were once close. Also that these usually resort to Semana and that the Prosecutor's Office acts in unison. The former ambassador to Venezuela Armando Benedetti, for example, was the protagonist of some audios that were leaked to the magazine in May and that showed how he threatened the former chief of staff and right hand of the president, Laura Sarabia, with revealing the alleged illegal financing of the 2022 presidential campaign. Months later, in May, Semana secured an interview with Nicolás Petro, the president's eldest son and the epicenter of another scandal involving allegations of irregular financing. There, Petro Jr. tells several details about the cold relationship with his father.
Nor is it the first time that a deputy minister has publicly revealed his differences with his portfolio chief. In January, then-Deputy Energy Minister Belizza Ruiz came out publicly to question a report used by Minister Irene Vélez to support the government's stance against new hydrocarbon exploration contracts. The animosity between the two was evident, as Velez herself acknowledged. "If she did not react in time [during the preparation of the document] and instead decided to react in the media, then it is something that I cannot control pitifully," said the minister. On this occasion, the Defense Ministry has preferred not to pronounce on the matter.
Former Vice Minister Diaz was director of Army Intelligence and Defense Attaché in Chile and the United States. In 2008, he was the mastermind behind Operation Check, which freed 15 people who had kidnapped the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He endorsed Petro's candidacy a few days before the second round, in a video in which he assured that Colombia had already chosen "change." "The support of retired Major General Ricardo Diaz Torres, a man of honor, excites me," the president responded on social networks. In the Semana interview, the retired general says that his family and friends criticized him for his decision to back Petro and that he now regrets it.
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