Guacamaya ‘hacktivists’: the group that leaks ‘secrets’ of the Latin American security forces

The group of ‘hacktivists’ Guacamaya obtained and leaked millions of classified documents from the Armed and Security Forces of Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia and Peru, which has already caused a series of scandals due to the lack of cybersecurity of these States, as well as the persecution of journalists, environmentalists, feminists, human rights defenders and all kinds of social organizations.

The group Guacamaya (Macaw), which is the name of one of the native birds of Latin America, was made known last March, when it spread data on the persecution of environmentalists in Guatemala, but in recent weeks it rose to fame by revealing files from the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces of Chile and the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) of Mexico.

In Chile, the scandal led to the resignation of the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Guillermo Paiva, while in Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has downplayed the first information that was leaked and that referred to his state of health and he has also denied the purchase of the Pegasus program, which according to a journalistic investigation served to spy on two journalists and a human rights defender, explains journalist Cecilia González for RT.

To date, two websites are known to share leaks from this group: Distributed Denial of Secrets and Enlace Hacktivist. In the latter, they (Guacamaya) anticipate that they also infiltrated the National Police and the Armed Forces of El Salvador; the General Command of the Colombian Military Forces; and the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and in the Peruvian Army, so it is expected that in the coming days they will give access to that information.

“We are not defenders of life, we are life!”, they headline in a statement, in which they explain their fight against colonialism, capitalism that has degraded nature and the creation of repressive armies in Latin America.

“Under the pretext of guaranteeing internal order, freedom and well-being (…) entities such as the police with their derivatives in the civil, military, local, national, transit, and other spheres. begin to exercise control and monopoly of the violence at the intra-state level”, points out Guacamaya.Guacamaya on the warpath

The result – according to hackers – is a paradox, because the independence of States, democracy, rights, social justice and peace have been overshadowed by the creation of armed military entities and apparatus.

“Presumably, they are necessary because the country is at constant risk of invasion, because the population is going to organize itself into crime and there are going to be groups that attack the State. It is seen that, as beneficial as the Global North model can be, States assume that people will naturally organize to create unrest and violence. Something absurd“, denounce the Guacamaya group.

Governments – they add – are not interested in the population or «healthy respect for Mother Earth», since they are functional to the interests of capitalism based on extractivism.

“For this reason, they need a shock force. They need armed forces that guarantee the appeasement of any vestige of discontent. The creation of armies as institutional entities, as an organized and professional armed force, is the guarantee of the States to keep their inhabitants imprisoned», explains the Guacamaya.

In this context – they affirm – the Police minimize the risk that the people exercise their worthy right to protest and «to destroy the system that oppresses them», while the Army disdains social tensions and war, whether within the State or between Nation-States, and sees it only as an escape valve.

«The army is a factory of murderers, rapists and paranoid people. No person who has passed through their ranks is ever again a healthy person on a mental level», it accuses as it challenges compulsory military service, corruption in the security forces and US interventionism, which has promoted coups d’état in the region and supported dictatorships.

«To make it clear, the military armies and the police forces of the States of Abya Yala (the oldest name of a territory in America) are the guarantee of the dominance of North American imperialism, they are the guarantee of the extractivist presence of the Global North. They are violent repressive forces, criminals against the peoples themselves and their internal pyramidal organization charts of power are also reprehensible”, said Guacamaya.

All of these reasons is why Guacamaya is leaking millions of documents – they assured – because they hope it will help «stir up dignified rage, so that those who have not seen it, can see it», as well as to think about and rethink methods of resistance and «release of the peoples and of Mother Earth».

«Guacamaya invites the peoples of Abya Yala to hack and filter these systems of repression, domination and enslavement that dominate us, and that it be the peoples who decide to find a way to free us from the terrorism of the States».Poetic fight

In their presentation, the ‘hacktivists’ include a poem entitled ‘Resistance’, in which they recall the 529 years of the ongoing invasion of the American peoples and which explains the adoption of the name of a bird.

The rest of the verses recall the horrors of war, invasions, violence, looting and subjugation, to clarify that, despite everything, the peoples are resisting and flourishing again to fight for freedom and stop the destruction of nature, and that their victory will be life.
Guacamaya Leaks

On September 19, the Government of Gabriel Boric in Chile faced a crisis, after Guacamaya revealed more than 400,000 confidential emails from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that cover the period from 2012 to 2022.

The leak revealed the exorbitant expenses of the military and confirmed their monitoring of social organizations.

However, it also includes classified, secret or top secret information that could put the country’s security at risk, such as the satellite communications monitoring system at the borders, programs to store intelligence databases, confidential reports and data of the defense attachés around the world.

The hacking crisis forced Defense Minister Maya Fernández to return to the country urgently from New York, where she was on tour. Later, the chief of the General Staff, Guillermo Paiva, resigned, but the scandal has not ended, since Congress debates the scope of the leak while the press continues to publish information found in the millions of emails.

In Mexico, the diffusion has just begun, but it already has consequences.

In addition to confirming the diseases that López Obrador suffers from, and of which the Government had not reported, the leaked documents revealed a series of sexual abuses committed in the Army that allegedly have not been investigated or punished, for which the female soldiers who have been victims of these abuses remain helpless.

They also state that the Mexican Army bought the Pegasus software, which is used to intercept communications and that, during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, it was used to illegally spy on all kinds of opponents.

A collective investigation by different media reported that the Army used this system to spy on two journalists and a human rights defender who were investigating alleged violations committed by the Armed Forces.

López Obrador denied on Tuesday that these illegal interventions have been carried out and warned that, in any case, the Ministry of National Defense carries out «intelligence» not «espionage».

The victims have already filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office but, as is happening in Chile, the scandals are just beginning because the leak involves millions of emails that are being reviewed.

And there are people waiting for Guacamaya to make available the documents from El Salvador, Peru and Colombia.