National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services: Difference between revisions
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'''DISIP''' (General Sectoral Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services) was an [[Intelligence agency|intelligence]] and [[counter-intelligence]] agency inside and outside of [[Venezuela]] between 1969 and 2009 |
'''DISIP''' (General Sectoral Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services) was an [[Intelligence agency|intelligence]] and [[counter-intelligence]] agency inside and outside of [[Venezuela]] between 1969 and 2009. DISIP was established in March 1969 by then-president [[Rafael Caldera]], replacing the [[Dirección General de Policía|Directorate General of Police]] (DIGEPOL). Leadership of the agency was funded and organized by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] during various periods ranging from the agency's founding date and into the 1980s. The agency's successor, the [[SEBIN|Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN)]], was created by President [[Hugo Chávez]] in 2009. |
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==History== |
==History== |
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===Origin=== |
===Origin=== |
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With the overthrow of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in January 1958, Venezuela was plunged into an acute institutional crisis in the police and security area, following the dismantling of the National Security, also called "political police"; the absence of a similar, moderately effective organization gives rise to impromptu Technical Services Criminology, an organization in the popular police jargon was known as Criminology, was a time of much confusion as it was beginning to take shape guerrilla activity and for that reason the political activism of opposition was severely punished. |
With the overthrow of dictator [[Marcos Pérez Jiménez]] in January 1958, Venezuela was plunged into an acute institutional crisis in the police and security area, following the dismantling of the National Security, also called "political police"; the absence of a similar, moderately effective organization gives rise to impromptu Technical Services Criminology, an organization in the popular police jargon was known as Criminology, was a time of much confusion as it was beginning to take shape guerrilla activity and for that reason the political activism of opposition was severely punished. |
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On April 29, 1959, according to Executive Order No. 51, taking into account the need to define the roles and responsibilities of the various police forces, the general direction of police "DIGEPOL", DISIP's predecessor organization, which creates would have the task "to exercise and coordinate the entire national territory policing aimed at the preservation of order and public tranquility", according to its powers under the Ministry of Interior, in Article No. 18 of the Constitution of Ministries, without prejudice to the legal powers of the Judicial Technical Police and state police. With this decision, the powers of the criminal police, faculty and power of intelligence and state security were separated. |
On April 29, 1959, according to Executive Order No. 51, taking into account the need to define the roles and responsibilities of the various police forces, the general direction of police "DIGEPOL", DISIP's predecessor organization, which creates would have the task "to exercise and coordinate the entire national territory policing aimed at the preservation of order and public tranquility", according to its powers under the Ministry of Interior, in Article No. 18 of the Constitution of Ministries, without prejudice to the legal powers of the Judicial Technical Police and state police. With this decision, the powers of the criminal police, faculty and power of intelligence and state security were separated. |
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====Creation of DISIP==== |
====Creation of DISIP==== |
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When [[Rafael Caldera]] assumed his first presidency in the Venezuela, he ordered the dissolution of the DIGEPOL and signed Decree No. 15, dated March 19, 1969 giving birth to the |
When [[Rafael Caldera]] assumed his first presidency in the Venezuela, he ordered the dissolution of the DIGEPOL and signed Decree No. 15, dated March 19, 1969 giving birth to the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP.) The DISIP was used by the two main political parties of the [[Puntofijo Pact]], [[Democratic Action (Venezuela)|Democratic Action (AD)]] and the [[COPEI|Social Christian Party (COPEI)]], to detect and neutralize political adversaries similar to Pérez Jiménez's own [[Dirección de Seguridad Nacional]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Myers |first=David J. |date=2003-01-01 |title=The Institutions of Intelligence in Venezuela: Lessons from 45 Years of Democracy |url=https://www.iberoamericana.se/article/10.16993/ibero.164/ |journal=Iberoamericana – Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies |publisher=[[Stockholm University Press]] |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=85 |doi=10.16993/ibero.164 |issn=2002-4509}}</ref> DISIP, along with other intelligence agencies, were designed to be fragmented and under the direction of the president in order to prevent the organizations from wielding too much influence.<ref name=":0" /> |
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The first head of DISIP was [[Luis Posada Carriles]], a [[Cuban dissident movement|Cuban dissident]] trained by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)]].<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=Bardach |first=Ann Louise |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780375504891 |title=Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana |publisher=Random House |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-375-50489-1 |pages=184-186 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Posada was a paid CIA agent throughout his leadership of DISIP, receiving funds from 1968 to 1976.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Jr |first=James C. McKinley |date=2011-01-10 |title=Terror Accusations, but Perjury Charges |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/10posada.html |access-date=2024-02-22 |work=[[The New York Times]] |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> During his leadership, Posada was involved with the torture of left-wing activists in Venezuela.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Carrillo |first=Karen Juanita |date=10 May 2007 |title=Protests set to decry release of Posada Carriles |work=[[New York Amsterdam News]] |page=18}}</ref> |
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====Political influence==== |
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The story of the early years of the DISIP parallels the political group "[[Partido Bandera Roja|Bandera Roja]]", whose leaders [[Carlos Efraín Betancourt|Carlos Betancourt]] (under the pseudonym "Gerónimo"), Eduardo Candiales Barrios and Gabriel Puerta Aponte, Lieutenant Betancourt was confronted by the police organization from the beginning of the group. The DISIP conducted the first dismantling of this group between 1972 and 1973. They also acted against the Party of the Venezuelan Revolution (PRV-FALN) and other smaller groups, achieving frustrate many plans uprising of leftist groups of the time. |
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===1970s=== |
===1970s=== |
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By the 1970s, the CIA was funding many upper-level officials of DISIP.<ref name="Fonzi">{{Cite newspaper |last=Fonzi |first=Gaeton |date=November 1994 |title=The Troublemaker |url=http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0308/PG1194_feature1.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220429211654/http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0308/PG1194_feature1.pdf |archive-date=2022-04-29 |access-date=2023-11-01 |newspaper=[[The Pennsylvania Gazette]] |pages=18–25 |authorlink=Gaeton Fonzi}}</ref> President [[Carlos Andrés Pérez]] placed Cuban dissidents at the head of DISIP during his first tenure, from 1974 to 1979.<ref name=":0" /> After being invited by Posada, Cuban dissident [[Orlando Bosch]] joined DISIP in 1974.<ref name=":1" /> |
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In the mid-1970s to the need to raise the technical level of the security agency was created Brigade speeches or Command groups led by the Commissioner General [[Henry Rafael López Sisco]], who led major operations against leftist guerrillas in the field, these operations being considered DISIP as violations of human rights. In its early DISIP had nearly 4,000 employees on the payroll between the areas of administration, police and intelligence. |
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In the mid-1970s to the need to raise the technical level of the security agency was created Brigade speeches or Command groups led by the Commissioner General [[Henry Rafael López Sisco]], who led major operations against leftist guerrillas in the field, these operations being considered DISIP as violations of human rights. In 1976, the leader of [[Revolutionary Left Movement (Venezuela)|Revolutionary Left Movement]] and founder of the [[Socialist League (Venezuela)|Socialist League]], [[Jorge Antonio Rodríguez]], was detained by DISIP agents, who tortured him to death.<ref name=":04">{{cite web |title=Rodríguez, Jorge Antonio |url=http://bibliofep.fundacionempresaspolar.org/dhv/entradas/r/rodriguez-jorge-antonio/ |website=Fundación Empresas Polar |publisher=Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> |
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===1980s=== |
===1980s=== |
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The DISIP was involved in the [[Cantaura massacre]], occurred between 4 and 8 October 1982 where some dozens of DISIP agents with more than 400 soldiers from the Armed Forces killed 23 Front guerrilla fighters "Americo Silva", belonging to rural guerrilla group [[Red Flag Party|Red Flag]]. |
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During the administration of [[Ronald Reagan]] and under the direction of [[William J. Casey]], [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency]], the DISIP was infiltrated further by Cuban dissident members of the CIA who supported the [[Contras]] during the [[Nicaraguan Revolution]].<ref name="Fonzi" /> The role of Cuban dissidents in DISIP reached its peak during the second presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez, from 1989 to 1993.<ref name=":0" /> During the [[Caracazo]], DISIP officers were reported to have beat detained protesters with baseball bats and pipes.<ref name=":22">{{cite journal |last1=López Maya |first1=Margarita |date=February 2003 |title=The Venezuelan "Caracazo" of 1989: Popular Protest and Institutional Weakness |journal=[[Journal of Latin American Studies]] |language=en |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=117–137 |doi=10.1017/S0022216X02006673 |s2cid=145292996 |quote=In this regard, the Caracazo was not such a spontaneous outburst as is commonly believed. We have found that anti-neoliberal student protest had been building in the previous days in Merida as well as other cities.}}</ref> |
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===1990s=== |
===1990s=== |
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In the 1990s, the DISIP forward intelligence operations against the rebel soldiers led by [[Hugo |
In the 1990s, the DISIP forward intelligence operations against the rebel soldiers led by [[Hugo Chavez]] and [[Francisco Arias Cárdenas]] giving [[1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempts|two attempted coup against President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992]], the national government of the time authorized actions to not investigate suspects of participants in the coup. In the particular case of November 27, 1992, officers of the Brigade of Interventions, Vehicular Patrol, the General Intelligence and Investigation Division faced by National Guard military rebels, the latter being defeated. DISIP facilities in ''El Helicoide'' in Caracas were bombed by the rebel air force. |
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====Vargas shootings==== |
====Vargas shootings==== |
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{{See also|Vargas tragedy}} |
{{See also|Vargas tragedy}} |
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During the |
During the presidency of Hugo Chávez, a crackdown against suspected looters in the state of [[Vargas, Venezuela|Vargas]] following the [[Vargas tragedy|1999 mudslides]] became, according to [[Human Rights Watch]], "the first major human rights test of the [[Hugo Chávez|Chávez]] government. At first, Chávez dismissed the reports as 'suspicious' and 'superficial,' but the evidence soon obliged the president and other top government officials to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation."<ref name=autogenerated1>[https://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/americas/venezuela.html Human Rights Watch World Report 2001: Venezuela: Human Rights Developments<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Human Rights Watch expressed their deep concern over DISIP (and National Guard) abuse in Venezuela in a 2004 personal letter to President Hugo Chávez.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/12/venezu8423_txt.htm |title=Letter to President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (Human Rights Watch, April 12, 2004)<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=June 12, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080821151847/http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/12/venezu8423_txt.htm |archive-date=August 21, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Amnesty International]] also expressed concern over excessive use of force by the DISIP, and the increasing polarization and [[political violence]] in Venezuela since Chávez was elected in December 1998.<ref>[http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR530032004?open&of=ENG-VEN Venezuela: Fear for safety/use of excessive force | Amnesty International<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040322012454/http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR530032004?open&of=ENG-VEN |date=2004-03-22 }}</ref> |
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=== 2000s === |
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The Chávez administration distanced its intelligence services from the United States into the 2000s, instead partnering with [[Cuba]], [[Lebanon]] and [[Libya]] for its DISIP operations, providing advisory offices for each nation in ''El Helicoide.''<ref name=":0" /> DISIP was also used to fund [[Bolivarian Circles]] to provide intelligence from poor areas.<ref name=":0" /> |
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==International== |
==International== |
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Revision as of 05:06, 22 February 2024
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2022) |
| Dirección Nacional de los Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevención DISIP | |
 Seal of the National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services | |
 El Helicoide building in Caracas - former headquarters of DISIP | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | March 19, 1969 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Dissolved | December 4, 2009 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Headquarters | Caracas, Venezuela |
DISIP (General Sectoral Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services) was an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency inside and outside of Venezuela between 1969 and 2009. DISIP was established in March 1969 by then-president Rafael Caldera, replacing the Directorate General of Police (DIGEPOL). Leadership of the agency was funded and organized by the Central Intelligence Agency during various periods ranging from the agency's founding date and into the 1980s. The agency's successor, the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN), was created by President Hugo Chávez in 2009.
History
Origin
With the overthrow of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in January 1958, Venezuela was plunged into an acute institutional crisis in the police and security area, following the dismantling of the National Security, also called "political police"; the absence of a similar, moderately effective organization gives rise to impromptu Technical Services Criminology, an organization in the popular police jargon was known as Criminology, was a time of much confusion as it was beginning to take shape guerrilla activity and for that reason the political activism of opposition was severely punished.
On April 29, 1959, according to Executive Order No. 51, taking into account the need to define the roles and responsibilities of the various police forces, the general direction of police "DIGEPOL", DISIP's predecessor organization, which creates would have the task "to exercise and coordinate the entire national territory policing aimed at the preservation of order and public tranquility", according to its powers under the Ministry of Interior, in Article No. 18 of the Constitution of Ministries, without prejudice to the legal powers of the Judicial Technical Police and state police. With this decision, the powers of the criminal police, faculty and power of intelligence and state security were separated.
1960s
Creation of DISIP
When Rafael Caldera assumed his first presidency in the Venezuela, he ordered the dissolution of the DIGEPOL and signed Decree No. 15, dated March 19, 1969 giving birth to the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP.) The DISIP was used by the two main political parties of the Puntofijo Pact, Democratic Action (AD) and the Social Christian Party (COPEI), to detect and neutralize political adversaries similar to Pérez Jiménez's own Dirección de Seguridad Nacional.[1] DISIP, along with other intelligence agencies, were designed to be fragmented and under the direction of the president in order to prevent the organizations from wielding too much influence.[1]
The first head of DISIP was Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban dissident trained by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[2] Posada was a paid CIA agent throughout his leadership of DISIP, receiving funds from 1968 to 1976.[3] During his leadership, Posada was involved with the torture of left-wing activists in Venezuela.[4]
1970s
By the 1970s, the CIA was funding many upper-level officials of DISIP.[5] President Carlos Andrés Pérez placed Cuban dissidents at the head of DISIP during his first tenure, from 1974 to 1979.[1] After being invited by Posada, Cuban dissident Orlando Bosch joined DISIP in 1974.[2]
In the mid-1970s to the need to raise the technical level of the security agency was created Brigade speeches or Command groups led by the Commissioner General Henry Rafael López Sisco, who led major operations against leftist guerrillas in the field, these operations being considered DISIP as violations of human rights. In 1976, the leader of Revolutionary Left Movement and founder of the Socialist League, Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, was detained by DISIP agents, who tortured him to death.[6]
1980s
The DISIP was involved in the Cantaura massacre, occurred between 4 and 8 October 1982 where some dozens of DISIP agents with more than 400 soldiers from the Armed Forces killed 23 Front guerrilla fighters "Americo Silva", belonging to rural guerrilla group Red Flag.
During the administration of Ronald Reagan and under the direction of William J. Casey, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the DISIP was infiltrated further by Cuban dissident members of the CIA who supported the Contras during the Nicaraguan Revolution.[5] The role of Cuban dissidents in DISIP reached its peak during the second presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez, from 1989 to 1993.[1] During the Caracazo, DISIP officers were reported to have beat detained protesters with baseball bats and pipes.[7]
1990s
In the 1990s, the DISIP forward intelligence operations against the rebel soldiers led by Hugo Chavez and Francisco Arias Cárdenas giving two attempted coup against President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, the national government of the time authorized actions to not investigate suspects of participants in the coup. In the particular case of November 27, 1992, officers of the Brigade of Interventions, Vehicular Patrol, the General Intelligence and Investigation Division faced by National Guard military rebels, the latter being defeated. DISIP facilities in El Helicoide in Caracas were bombed by the rebel air force.
Vargas shootings
During the presidency of Hugo Chávez, a crackdown against suspected looters in the state of Vargas following the 1999 mudslides became, according to Human Rights Watch, "the first major human rights test of the Chávez government. At first, Chávez dismissed the reports as 'suspicious' and 'superficial,' but the evidence soon obliged the president and other top government officials to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation."[8] Human Rights Watch expressed their deep concern over DISIP (and National Guard) abuse in Venezuela in a 2004 personal letter to President Hugo Chávez.[9] Amnesty International also expressed concern over excessive use of force by the DISIP, and the increasing polarization and political violence in Venezuela since Chávez was elected in December 1998.[10]
2000s
The Chávez administration distanced its intelligence services from the United States into the 2000s, instead partnering with Cuba, Lebanon and Libya for its DISIP operations, providing advisory offices for each nation in El Helicoide.[1] DISIP was also used to fund Bolivarian Circles to provide intelligence from poor areas.[1]
International
It is in the area of intelligence where it is thought that the body work to infiltrate the social, economic and political sectors. It is believed that conducted major operations in Central America and even Europe. One of the alleged lesser-known operations was made by the deceased Commissioner General Rafael Rivas-Vasquez who allegedly managed to locate and spy on Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a Venezuelan militant of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while living in France. In the eighties, DISIP possibly maintained close ties to other foreign intelligence services to exchange information on Arab revolutionary groups, especially the group of former members of the Red Army Faction or Baader Meinhof group.
Operations
"Simon Bolivar" satellite
The communications satellite "Simón Bolivar" released in 2008 was intended to achieve "absolute and secure handling of information" in the areas of telephony, data transmission and access to Internet which would have access to the DISIP. This would be followed by the purchase of a second satellite for "territorial observation and monitoring."[citation needed]
Monitoring the Amazon
It also participates in the monitoring system of the Amazon of Brazil "(Sivam) – providing information to the DISIP and other national security services to monitor the border to detect and neutralize incursions of guerrillas, drug traffickers, arms smugglers, paramilitary and illegal miners.
References
- ^ a b c d e f Myers, David J. (2003-01-01). "The Institutions of Intelligence in Venezuela: Lessons from 45 Years of Democracy". Iberoamericana – Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. 33 (1). Stockholm University Press: 85. doi:10.16993/ibero.164. ISSN 2002-4509.
- ^ a b Bardach, Ann Louise (2002). Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana. Random House. pp. 184–186. ISBN 978-0-375-50489-1.
- ^ Jr, James C. McKinley (2011-01-10). "Terror Accusations, but Perjury Charges". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-02-22.
- ^ Carrillo, Karen Juanita (10 May 2007). "Protests set to decry release of Posada Carriles". New York Amsterdam News. p. 18.
- ^ a b Fonzi, Gaeton (November 1994). "The Troublemaker" (PDF). The Pennsylvania Gazette. pp. 18–25. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-04-29. Retrieved 2023-11-01.
- ^ "Rodríguez, Jorge Antonio". Fundación Empresas Polar. Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela.
- ^ López Maya, Margarita (February 2003). "The Venezuelan "Caracazo" of 1989: Popular Protest and Institutional Weakness". Journal of Latin American Studies. 35 (1). Cambridge University Press: 117–137. doi:10.1017/S0022216X02006673. S2CID 145292996.
In this regard, the Caracazo was not such a spontaneous outburst as is commonly believed. We have found that anti-neoliberal student protest had been building in the previous days in Merida as well as other cities.
- ^ Human Rights Watch World Report 2001: Venezuela: Human Rights Developments
- ^ "Letter to President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (Human Rights Watch, April 12, 2004)". Archived from the original on August 21, 2008. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
- ^ Venezuela: Fear for safety/use of excessive force | Amnesty International Archived 2004-03-22 at the Wayback Machine