Telephone Bugs Ignite Mexico Scandal : Politics: Spying devices found in Human Rights Commission offices draw local and international criticism.

The discovery of telephone bugging devices at the National Human Rights Commission here has set off a flurry of criticism reaching from the Mexican Congress to the offices of Americas Watch in Washington.

Two microphones and a transmitter were discovered at commission offices last month. The commission announced the discovery Tuesday, while Chairman Jorge Carpizo was in Washington meeting with U.S. officials, and he presented the devices Thursday to the attorney general, along with a formal complaint. No explanation was given for the delay.

The commission was formed last year by the government to investigate allegations of human rights abuses and to make recommendations to correct them. It has since received over 2,000 complaints.

In a statement, the commission noted that for several days, it had experienced telephone problems, not uncommon in Mexico. Unnamed experts told commission representatives that listening devices could prevent telephones from working properly.

The attorney general’s office canceled a press conference Thursday and later issued a statement promising to begin investigating immediately. The statement also said that on preliminary examination, it appeared that the bugs were not working because they did not have batteries.

“It is worrisome that some aspects of sensitive investigations could come to light before recommendations (are made) or that they could be blocked before they are completed,” the commission statement said.

Americas Watch, a human rights monitoring organization, called the electronic eavesdropping “a serious setback in the observance of human rights in Mexico.”

“The (commission) runs the risk of becoming ineffective if its security is breached and Mexicans no longer feel they may safely go to (it) to denounce human rights violation,” Americas Watch said.

The Chamber of Deputies will decide Monday whether to call the Communications and Interior ministers to Congress for explanations of the incident. The Mexican Senate, dominated by the president’s party, sent to committee an opposition party proposal to issue subpoenas for both the attorney general and the commission chairman.

The incident, embarrassing for an administration intent on showing concern for human rights, is the first formal accusation of bugging made since the government sold control of the Mexican telephone company in December. In the past, opposition parties and other dissidents routinely accused the telephone company of cutting off their lines or bugging phones.

The head of the telephone workers’ union has denied that telephone workers were involved in bugging the commission offices.