Mexico’s Fox Denounces Phone Tap

An angry President-elect Vicente Fox vowed Wednesday to discover who bugged his phone call with a top campaign aide, calling it a case of political espionage that underlined the need to reform Mexico’s intelligence system.

El Universal, a major daily here, on Wednesday printed the transcript of a conversation between Fox and his spokeswoman, Martha Sahagun, during Mexico’s recent presidential campaign. The newspaper quoted its source as saying the nation’s intelligence agencies had made the tapes and have continued to bug Fox’s lines since his July 2 victory.

The government and the defeated Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, denied any responsibility, insisting that no police or intelligence agency is carrying out any such bugging. Phone intercepts are illegal in Mexico except with a judge’s authorization, and then only during investigations of organized crime.

Fox, the first opposition candidate to break the PRI’s 71-year lock on the presidency, repeated his determination to reform the nation’s Interior Ministry and intelligence service, long suspected of being used to monitor the ruling party’s political foes.

“We are going to make sure that the government conducts no espionage of any type that is outside the law,” Fox said.

The lengthy transcript published by El Universal included some disparaging remarks by Fox about a television host but otherwise was not especially compromising. The newspaper indicated that it had been given other recordings, but it did not disclose any further contents.

In a hastily called news conference, Fox did not challenge the content of the lengthy transcript printed by El Universal. But he chided the newspaper for not disclosing its source.

Fox had charged during the campaign that he was being spied on, and some Mexicans have long suspected that the government security services routinely use telephone taps and other intelligence methods to monitor the activity of political opponents. Critics of the government’s security apparatus contend that the intelligence services have become politicized after so many years of PRI rule.

Asked whether he believes that the government of President Ernesto Zedillo is spying on him, Fox noted that the tape transcript printed by El Universal was made before the election.

“I don’t know whether El Universal has conversations taped recently of the president-elect,” Fox said. “If so, I’m sure El Universal will present them to us, and then I would have evidence that there is current espionage in this office and it would imply that it could be the government.”

Government officials rushed to disclaim any role in the bugging.

Dionisio Perez Jacome, deputy interior minister in charge of security issues, denied that government agencies were responsible. He said the main government intelligence service, CISEN, doesn’t even have the equipment to tap phones.

“I deny categorically that either the Interior Ministry or CISEN” was responsible, he told a television interviewer. “CISEN doesn’t bug phones, it is not an espionage agency, and even less an agency for political espionage.”

Sergio Garcia, the PRI’s secretary-general, said that the party had nothing to do with the recordings and that an investigation should be launched to identify the culprit.

At his news conference Wednesday, Fox said his transition team had access to the Interior Ministry and CISEN “and that’s where I’m going to begin the investigation. But it would help me a lot if El Universal would tell us who is its source.”

The newspaper said a source had delivered a series of recordings of conversations between Fox and his aides, contending the tapes had been made by “government organs of intelligence and national security.” The newspaper indicated that the tapes came solely from the campaign period, but it said the source reported that the bugging continues.

“Everything they say is taped,” the source was quoted as saying.

Fox spent much of the impromptu news conference explaining and defending the salaries being paid to members of his transition team.

Newspapers have been critical of Fox for failing to clarify how much his staff members are being paid from a trust fund created by the government to support the transition.

Fox said he is not accepting any salary and is living off his savings. He said 185 team members are being paid an average of $3,400 a month, with 11 top advisors receiving up to about $9,000 a month. Two aides are donating their salaries to a children’s fund, Fox said.