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CounterPunch
November
24, 2002
Life as a Political Prisoner in Colombia
by VINCENZO GONZALEZ
If you are a political prisoner in one of Colombia's
prisons you have to fight for your life every single day of your
detention. A substantial section of the prison guard, working
with the police and the army openly supply paramilitary prisoners
with the weapons and logistical support to intimidate and attack
guerrilla prisoners of war or other political prisoners.
On 31 March 2000, an agreement on "cooperation
regarding prisons" was signed by the US ambassador to Colombia
and the then Colombian Minister for Justice which was called
"Programme for the Improvement of the Colombian Prison System".
Using the pretext that it was to control
the illegal activities inside prisons of people who were allegedly
involved in drugs trafficking the government of the United States
would provide financial and technical aid for a new style of
penitentiary establishment.
The new model imposed on Colombia's prisons
by the Federal Prisons Bureau (FPB), supreme examples being the
high-security units at Valledupar, Acacias and Girardot, in which
more than 4.5 million dollars have been invested, has been designed
to increase the repression and intimidation of those who are
fighting for the rights of the people. With the new agreement,
Colombian prisons have been turned into "theatres of military
operation", where civil authority is subordinate to military
and police authority and where universal and constitutional human
rights are persistently violated.
Early in 2001, the former government
of Andres Pastrana and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) struck a deal to reignite the peace process in which both
parties would release an agreed number of their prisoners of
war. The FARC kept their side of the bargain of releasing an
initial 50 prisoners and then, by their own decision, went beyond
that as a gesture of goodwill towards the peace process, since
unilaterally terminated by Andres Pastrana under pressure from
the United States, and released a total of around 250 prisoners.
The government on the other hand only
released 14 of the approximately 50 sick prisoners initially
agreed. Many of those not released were immediately sent to the
new US-designed high-security prisons. They had their heads shaved
and their feet shackled and they were put in almost permanent
solitary confinement with greatly restricted visiting. Many suffer
serious health problems and receive no medical care. One such
political prisoner who had been on the release list has lost
the sight in one eye through glaucoma and is close to losing
his sight in the other if he does not get an operation quickly.
It appears that political prisoners are
invariably sent to those prisons with the highest concentrations
of paramilitary inmates. Here, the National Police, military
Rapid Response Forces and the US-trained Inpec Prison Guard frequently
parade through the corridors and cells where political prisoners
are being held, making intimidating references to their murderous
paramilitary house guests.
There is complacency and at times open
complicity by the prison authorities with the paramilitary groups
inside prisons who not only get preferential treatment, but are
openly supplied with money and weapons which they then use to
provoke, attack and kill political prisoners.
At Palmira prison in Valle; the Modelo
in Bucaramanga; Bellavista prison in Medellin; and, just last
year, in the National Modelo prison in Bogota, heavily armed
paramilitary units inside the prisons in collusion with the prison
guard and the national police orchestrated vicious attacks on
the political prisoners being held there.
The open interference of the United States
in matters of justice and the manipulation of Colombia's prison
system by the Federal Prisons Bureau has led to new levels of
intimidation, humiliation and the constant violation of human
rights.
According to the Political Prisoners
Collective "Adan Izquierdo", founded by FARC-EP prisoners
in Valledupar high security prison, their members are severely
tortured and grossly mistreated by the Inpec prison guard. Every
time the FARC takes any action against paramilitaries on the
outside, the prison guard punishes the prisoners inside with
beatings and other forms of torture. It is their way of demonstrating
their allegiance to the state paramilitary strategy.
The prisoners are denied the right to
stay in touch with events outside the prison walls and are forbidden
to receive newspapers or magazines. They are not allowed radio
or television. Getting medical treatment requires extreme measures
such as cutting the veins in their own wrists to attract attention.
This is what one prisoner Enrique Horta Valle was forced to do
when he desperately needed to see a doctor. They are frequently
kept in their cells for 24 hours a day.
Visiting family and friends are warned
by the paramilitaries patrolling the prisons that they will be
killed if they ever come back. The Inpec guard goes to great
lengths to point out which visitors are coming to see political
prisoners.
Life inside is a constant battle for
survival both physically and mentally. When Inpec gave the order
for FARC political prisoner Yesid Arteta to be transferred to
Valledupar prison, which operates under such high security measures
that it violates the constitutional rights of the inmates, his
head was completely shaved, he was made to wear a prisoner's
uniform and he was kept chained up in his cell almost all the
time.
He is not able to go outside for even
the short amount of time allowed by the penitentiary regime because
the paramilitaries being detained in the same prison have orders
to assassinate him and no one in authority is likely to stop
them. Contact with his lawyer, Jose Absalon Achury, is difficult,
if not impossible, because he has received death threats and
for security reasons cannot travel to Valledupar.
Jorge Augusto Bernal is another FARC
political prisoner with a price on his head. Paramilitaries are
offering money to whoever kills him first.
The Collective has written to the current
government of Alvaro Uribe Velez about the conditions for political
prisoners. It may come of no surprise that their pleas have gone
unheeded by a regime set on (para)militarizing prisons still
further.
"We are certain that the prisoners
being held by our organization in the mountains of Colombia are
in better conditions than us," they maintain. And add, "Our
revolutionary fighting spirit will never be beaten out of us,
but our health and life deteriorate a little more every day."
Few people are aware of the conditions
in which political prisoners are kept, especially since the new
high-security prison culture was foist upon Colombia by the Federal
Prisons Bureau (FPB) of the United States. Chained hands and
feet, shaven heads, uniforms and solitary confinement, moving
prisoners to locations far, far away from their families, friends
and legal support, all techniques designed to break the spirit,
have become standard practice. The prisons are run to the dictates
of the FPB and are staffed by paramilitaries disguised as Inpec
guards.
Perhaps of most concern in Valledupar
is the safety of those political prisoners kept in the cells
of Tower One, 5th Floor, and Tower Five, Isolation and Special
Treatment Wing. Humanitarian organizations never get to inspect
these areas of the prison. The prison management and Inpec will
not permit it.
Vincenzo Gonzalez is a member of the Colombia Peace Association.
This story was published originally by ANNCOL.
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