Just as Tantalus betrayed the gods by revealing Olympic secrets and paid for it -for that and other things that are not relevant now- with an unbearable and eternal torment, so the Spanish Intelligence services fear that the unanimous condemnation of the rest of the espionage agencies will fall upon them, following the declassification of the secret documents of the Ceuta crisis.
The espionage agencies, jealous of their mysteries like the Greek gods and vindictive towards those who betray their codes of silence, also take advantage of the weakness of those left unprotected. And the National Intelligence Center (CNI) knows this. And they expect it, after the La Moncloa dossier revealed how they operate, to whom they send their warnings, their degree of penetration in Morocco, how much information they accumulate and, above all, how the internal processes of early – and forceful – reaction to alerts fail.
The testimonies of three Intelligence sources, gathered since the declassification a week ago, agree that this move by the Government, which was intended to endorse Pedro Sánchez‘s thesis – that the avalanche could not be foreseen – has not only turned against the president. But also against the CNI itself, which is weakened in the global Intelligence scenario. And with Morocco emboldened by the Spanish Government’s public caresses.
This is how an active agent with years of service in Ceuta recounts it, whose testimony EL MUNDO reproduces – obviously – anonymously: “They say the declassification is an exercise in transparency, but it is outrageous. It has exposed us to other services. We have no credibility ever again, at any level. Neither at the military level, nor at the level of State Intelligence services… at no level! They have sunk us!”
The unprecedented decision to reveal the warnings and secret documents received by the Government, combined with La Moncloa’s undisguised clash against the CNI – which cannot defend itself – has put the Spanish espionage agents on alert. Especially those who know Ceuta best, who denounce that this may have demolished some of the main bridges of trust: “They are going to burn everything down” if this confrontation continues, they lament.
The Government knows there is unrest in the secret services, in military Intelligence, and in the Police and Civil Guard. But they maintain that the CNI did not warn in any case about the “magnitude” of the avalanche that was to occur. However, the Government overlooks a key report: on July 29, the CNI informed in writing the external and internal secret services of Morocco about the imminence of an “assault” on the border the next day. And the neighboring country did nothing minimally sufficient to reinforce the border. Had they done so, not a single immigrant would have passed, like on August 15, when the Moroccan authorities did mobilize to prevent another wave.
The dialectical trap of the “magnitude” dismantles itself. Why? Because truly protecting the border is precisely what would have prevented the extent that the territorial tragedy of July 30 finally had. Knowing that 5,000 would try to sneak in – for example – and acting proportionally, 70,000 immigrants would not have entered Ceuta.
That is why the account of one of the intelligence agents interviewed by this newspaper is so harsh qualitatively: “It is all an exaggeration. Blatantly, they are trying to create a permanent refugee camp.” “Ceuta is a place that works because it has a very, very, very unstable balance, but it is sufficient. They are destroying that balance,” he warns. “No one will believe in us” if we do not manage to restore normal coexistence “to 80,000 fellow citizens,” he concludes.
The clash between the Executive power and the secret services is real, and their unrest is not hidden as usual. Another of the testimonies gathered in private points out that the moment of greatest weakening of the CNI in this crisis was when “sources” from the Center were sent to the press from Moncloa endorsing the Government’s lax interpretation of the documents.
“That did not come from here,” they lament, thus pointing to the hierarchy of Spanish Intelligence. That is, it was a political move, not a transparency of the Center’s operational strategy. The statement in sources consisted of two points. The first assures that the CNI “did not anticipate the magnitude and nature of what ended up happening on the 30th, as it was an unusual phenomenon that does not correspond to the migration crises known to date.” In the second, the CNI clarifies that “no official assessment or comment” has been made from the Center about the declassification, “since the duty of secrecy has been maintained.” In that sense, it is worth emphasizing, just in case, that the attributions of this article are not official either, but fall within the realm of individual commentary.
While knives fly from Ferraz to Moncloa and from Moncloa to the CNI, and while the scapegoat is again the best friend of the Spanish politician, it is worth remembering that someone has to do the undercover – and sometimes dirty – work of the State. Of course, but always with the condition of the omertà. A secret service does not serve if it does not serve in secret.
For that reason, a certain panic has spread among some Spanish agents. They fear, invoking Greek mythology again, that the Olympus of foreign agencies will turn against them after the revelation of secrets. To Tantalus, Odysseus finds him pained and thirsty in the world of the dead, inside a lake whose waters disappear absorbed beneath his feet as soon as he bends down to try to drink from them. And when he stretches to reach fruits from the trees, the wind carries them away to the clouds. Tantalus symbolizes perpetual frustration. Helplessness. That’s it.
