Colombian Justice Minister Confirms She Quit

Justice Minister Monica de Greiff, who became a symbol of courageous defiance in Colombia’s drug war, confirmed Friday that she has resigned, saying she did so after President Virgilio Barco Vargas asked her to take a new post.

Barco named Communications Minister Carlos Lemos Simmonds to succeed her, and De Greiff said the change should not alter Colombia’s crackdown on its cocaine cartels.

The 32-year-old De Greiff, who during her 10 weeks in office had been the subject of repeated death threats, told reporters that she decided to submit her resignation Thursday, two days after Barco offered her the post of ambassador to Portugal. She declined that post.

“The president removes and installs ministers as he wants. The president wanted a change now and I am not going to start a scandal over this,” she said.

Asked if Colombia’s image in its drug war would change with her departure, De Greiff said: “I think it should be exactly the same. I am not the only one doing this job and many people are fighting.”

She denied there was any political infighting between her and other Cabinet ministers.

Leading newspapers had speculated there would be a Cabinet reshuffle in the wake of De Greiff’s resignation.

In Washington, a State Department official said the Bush Administration remains confident about Barco’s commitment to fight drug cartels despite De Greiff’s resignation.

De Greiff was the sixth justice minister in Barco’s three-year presidency. Each time one has stepped down, there has been speculation that it was an act of capitulation to death threats.

Most of De Greiff’s predecessors in this decade were threatened with death. One was assassinated in 1984 and another, who resigned to become ambassador to Hungary in 1987, was shot and seriously wounded while walking on a Budapest street.

Observers said that De Greiff’s resignation is certain to be interpreted as a setback for the anti-drugs offensive proclaimed by Barco on Aug. 18, after the assassination of a leading presidential candidate who campaigned against drug traffickers.

De Greiff did not disclose her plans for the future beyond saying that would make a brief private visit to the United States, where her husband and son are, before returning to Colombia.