[Ppnews] Colombian Prison Strikes Continue-Inhumane Conditions “Made in the USA”

[Political Prisoner News]

    Colombian Prison Strikes Continue-Inhumane Conditions “Made in the USA”

by James Jordan
http://afgj.org/colombian-prison-strikes-continue-inhumane-conditions-%E2%80%9Cmade-in-the-usa%E2%80%9D

Strikes involving thousands of prisoners at 21 institutions continue in 
Colombia against the humanitarian crisis in the jails. Overcrowding is 
rampant and in many prisons the availability of potable water and clean, 
unspoiled food is severely restricted. There is little adequate health 
care, especially for the seriously ill. For instance, José Lamprea is a 
prisoner whose four year sentence is in danger of turning into a death 
penalty. Confined to a wheel chair by what may be bone cancer, he has 
still not received medical treatement that was court ordered in 
November, 2011.

Torture is so commonplace in the jails that a 2008 study by Colombia’s 
Committee in Solidarity with the Political Prisoners showed that when 
asked if the inmates had been tortured at least once during their jail 
time, 54% answered they had and 46% did not answer the question at all. 
Eighty-six percent said that they had experienced psychological torture, 
including threats to relatives and simulated executions.

Conditions in Colombian prisons should be of special concern for 
residents and citizens of the United States. In 2000, the US Ambassador 
signed an agreement with the Colombian Minister of the Interior named 
the Program for the Improvement of the Colombian Prison System (PICPS). 
Under the PICPS, the US would help build a series of new prisons to 
create a “New Penitentiary Culture” 
<http://www.peopleofcolororganize.com/analysis/new-penitentiary-culture-designs-colombian-jails/>. 
This effort has been funded and advised via USAID (United States Agency 
for International Development) and the US Bureau of Prisons.

One reason given for this program was to alleviate overcrowding. 
However, rates of arrests went up far more quickly than new jails and 
the number of political arrests that were later thrown out of court for 
lack of evidence rose by 300% (with most of the accused spending two to 
three years in jail before release). This does not include political 
prisoners who have been convicted for their activities. The estimated 
number of political prisoners has grown from 7,200 to over 10,000 since 
2008.

New jail construction has been less about relieving overcrowding than 
preparing for a much larger prison population as a result of social and 
economic disruption and punishing political dissent. With passage of the 
US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement many observers fear that poverty rates 
will worsen and crimes of desperation and prison populations will 
increase. Unfortunately, US and Colombian authorities see the “New 
Penitentiary Culture” as a model and are seeking to replicate it in 
Central America (where in Honduras the US has announced a new “Model 
Penitentiary” program) and Mexico (where the US is funding construction 
of 16 new federal prisons). 
<http://afgj.org/usa%E2%80%99s-prison-industrial-complex-moves-south-of-the-border>

According to Tulio Murillo Avila, who is a national spokesperson for the 
Movimiento Nacional Carcelario (National Movement in the Jail),

Jail over-population…is not a new thing, being found today at a national 
level of 47%, due to the policies of punishment…in the new centers of 
incarcerations constructed under the influence of the US Bureau of 
Prisons. In some jails the overcrowding has reached 400%.

In a video-recorded interview 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAA9c591rms&feature=g-hist> with the 
Colombian media outlet RPASUR (Western Colombia Alternative Press 
Network- www.rpasur.com <http://rpasur.com/> ), one prisoner 
representative reported that, “The gravest are the problems with hygiene 
in the jails and overcrowding. Colombia has a capacity for 78,000 
prisoners. We find in Colombia more than 130,000 prisoners.”* *Almost 
one-third of the incarcerated are unconvicted persons awaiting trial who 
are mixed in with the general population and are often subjected to 
processes that take years before a verdict is rendered.

The first prison constructed with US funding and advice was La Tramacúa 
<http://afgj.org/a-visit-inside-colombias-most-notorious-prison-la-tramacua>, 
located in the city of Valledupar. Although a “modern” facility built on 
the basis of US designs, it has become infamous for its terrible 
conditions. La Tramacúa has been found on at least three occasions (by 
agencies from the United Nations and the Department of César, as well as 
by an internatinoal NGO) to be serving food tainted with fecal matter. 
Sanitary facilities are rarely working and inmates are forced to relieve 
themselves in buckets and plastic bags which are “disposed of” by being 
thrown over prison walls.

In 2010, Raquel Mogollón, a member of the Alliance for Global Justice 
“Colombia Watch” working group, had the chance to visit La Tramacúa with 
a delegation of Colombian legislators and international human rights 
defenders. According to Mogollón,

…Inmates say they’re getting access to water about ten minutes a day. 
However, in the cells there is water…disgusting, dirty water on the 
floors. [Editor's Note: Past visitors at La Tramacúa have reported that 
sewage lines often overflow and open sewage runs by kitchen facilities.]

The prison was absolutely, suffocatingly hot with just a few water 
pipes. What was really bad–I got a look at the water bottles. They were 
all full of mold. They aren’t able to clean their water jugs. There’s 
just not enough water available. At one point, you could hear the water 
coming through the pipes. All the men started running….

The whole place smelled. They said it was cleaned up for us. Mostly, it 
smelled like urine. They said the bags of feces had been gotten rid of….

The kitchen area was totally dark. They said they’d cleaned that up, 
too, but it wasn’t that clean. There were three fans and ten giant 
cauldrons where they were cooking some soup or stew. In the other room 
where they prepared the food, it was full of flies. There was grease all 
over the floor. It didn’t smell very good. I saw vegetables and fruit 
that were spoiled in the preparation area, with flies all around them.

Since the beginning of the PICPS, there has been a series of prisoner 
strikes against such conditions. More often than not they have been 
violently repressed. Beginning on August 2, 2012, nonviolent resistance 
began that has included as many as 11,000 prisoners in 21 institutions 
and is still continuing. Prisoners have used a number of different 
tactics including hunger strikes, the refusal to participate in prison 
counts or work programs or to wear prison uniforms, and self-suspension 
from prison balconies and railings in make-shift hammocks and harnesses. 
The number one demand of the prisoners is that the Colombian government 
establish a National Board of Consultation that includes prisoner 
spokespersons in order to resolve the crisis in the jails.

The prisoners have formulated an additional five basic demands:

   1. Declare a Social and Humanitarian Emergency in Colombian jails;
   2. Regionalize prisoners in institutions near their families;
   3. Reduce all sentences by 20% and increase the use of alternative
      sentences such as home detention;
   4. Resolve problems of health, sanitation and overcrowding;
   5. End the extradition of prisoners to foreign countries (which is
      interfering with Colombia’s internal peace process and in ongoing
      investigations of links between paramilitary death squads and
      Colombian politicians).

The response of the Colombian Bureau of Prisons (INPEC) has so far been 
yet more repression and neglect. On August 10^th , according to the 
legal collective and political prisoner solidarity organization Lazos de 
Dignidad (Links of Dignity), which, along with Traspasa los Muros 
(Beyond the Walls) <http://www.traspasalosmuros.net/>, which they 
co-founded, has been one of the primary outside organizations supporting 
the strikers,

…prisoners of the La Modelo jail in Arauca informed us that, in the 
morning hours, INPEC guards physically attacked four prisoners in Patio 
One…in reprisal for their participation in the National Days of 
Protest…..The attacked prisoners were placed in solitary confinement 
instead of being…attended by medical personnel….

The 12^th of August of 2012, in the afternoon hours, spokespersons for 
the 34 hunger strikers at the Penitentiary Complex of Picaleña (Ibagué, 
Tolima), informed us that the state of the strikers has deteriorated, 
[and they are] suffering severe dizziness, nausea, stomach sickness, 
cramps, fainting and decreased mobility, without INPEC offering adequate 
medical attention….

Of particular concern at La Picaleña has been the condition of prisoner 
spokesperson Alba Libia Esquivel whose health has been especially 
affected. Esquivel has been on a hunger strike since August 8^th .

Lazos also reported that on August 23,

…in the afternoon hours, the Immediate Reaction Group (GRI) of INPEC 
entered the High Security Penitentiary in Combita, Boyacá, in a violent 
manner, proceding to launch tear gas and to beat the strikers, leaving 
various wounds….Those wounded have been taken in stretchers from their 
units, their whereabouts unknown.”

On August 27, according to a report from Lazos,

…in the jail of Valledupar, “La Tramacúa”…inmates of Tower Four climbed 
the structure as a form of protest of the present crisis in the jails. 
In the morning hours…Sgt. Lucio entered with a group of guards launching 
tear gas and repressing the protest and attacking the inmates with 
clubs. The prisoner Wilson Jiménez Mora, who was found suspended from 
the structure, was thrown from the third floor resulting in a fractured leg.

Isolation from families is the single most oft-cited prisoner complaint. 
Most prisoners come from impoverished backgrounds and families cannot 
afford trips to visit faraway prisons. Also, given Colombia’s difficult 
terrain, and the lack of infrastructure development, a trip of 200 miles 
can routinely take 12-15 hours in the mountainous regions.

Mogollón tells of a particularly poignant encounter she had while 
visiting inside La Tramacúa:

The worst thing, the worst kind of torture, wasn’t any kind of violence 
or anything like that. It seems little, but so many people came up to me 
and told me about not being able to see their families, being completely 
shut off. When we walked between the Towers, the prisoners were all 
bunched up around the gates. People would be calling to me, ‘Doctora! 
Doctora! Madre! Madre!’ They would want me to write their names down.

One man said, ‘I’ve been here eight years! I can’t see my daughter!’

Another said, ‘I’ve been here twelve years and I haven’t seen my mother 
the whole time!’

It was one plea after another like that, people who hadn’t seen their 
families for years. When I asked why, one man responded, ‘We’re poor. 
Our families can’t afford to make the long trips. And when we think of 
them coming in here, how it smells like feces, it’s so humiliating, so 
disgusting. It is so hard to think of them seeing us like this.

Mogollón again talked about the pleas she would hear as she walked 
through the institution’s halls.

We would have to walk through these passageways that crisscrossed among 
the different units. All the prisoners would be crammed up at the gates 
and windows, calling to me, “Doctora! Doctora!’ or ‘Madre! Madre!’. I 
would put my hand up just to acknowledge them. They would give me papers 
with their names on them. One inmate called to me, ‘Please, please, 
Madre! I’ve been here six years and I have two hernias. I can’t get 
treatment, I can’t get medicine!’

Another told me, ‘Look, you’ve got to listen! There is no 
re-socialization here! There’s no such thing!’

Finally, at one point I stopped in one of the passageways and spoke back 
to them. I said, ‘Look, I wish I could help each one of you, but I 
can’t! I can’t because this place is modeled on a US system. This model 
is based on punishment and the people who designed this system don’t 
care about re-socialization. They don’t care what happens to you! All I 
can do is to go back and do what I can to change this whole system and 
draw attention to what you are suffering.

All of a sudden, they started clapping, yelling, ‘Go on!’ and ‘You speak 
the truth!’

And that is what we must do here in the US: we must go and speak the 
truth about this situation our government has helped create. We must 
intervene on behalf of Colombia’s prisoners—not only the more than 
10,000 political prisoners, but on behalf of all those whose lives have 
been broken by the US/Corporate Empire and the neoliberal economic and 
political system it tries to impose throughout the world.

Here are some things that you can do.

               1. Cut and paste the follwing sample in Spanish or write
                  your own message and email it to the following
                  Colombian, United Nations and US State Department
                  Officials, and to AfGJ, at:

embassyofcolombia at colombiaemb.org 
<mailto:embassyofcolombia at colombiaemb.org>, emwas at colombiaemb.org 
<mailto:emwas at colombiaemb.org>, ccuevas at colombiaemb.org 
<mailto:ccuevas at colombiaemb.org>, fsantos at presidencia.gov.co 
<mailto:fsantos at presidencia.gov.co>, ministro at minjusticia.gov.co 
<mailto:ministro at minjusticia.gov.co>, reclamos at mij.gov.co 
<mailto:reclamos at mij.gov.co>, direccion at inpec.gov.co 
<mailto:direccion at inpec.gov.co>, reclamos at inpec.gov.co 
<mailto:reclamos at inpec.gov.co>, cidhoea at oas.org 
<mailto:cidhoea at oas.org>, cidhdenuncias at oas.org 
<mailto:cidhdenuncias at oas.org>, apizarro at oas.org 
<mailto:apizarro at oas.org>, oacnudh at hchr.co <mailto:oacnudh at hchr.co>, 
secretaria_privada at hotmail.com <mailto:secretaria_privada at hotmail.com>, 
agenda at agenda.gov.co <mailto:agenda at agenda.gov.co>, 
RothenbergLL at state.gov <mailto:RothenbergLL at state.gov>, james at afgj.org 
<mailto:james at afgj.org>

Todo el mundo esta observando lo que pasa en los penitenciarios en 
Colombia. Sabemos del hacinamiento; que las cárceles no están proviendo 
a sus internos las necesidades básicas como comida y agua limpia y 
servicio desalud; que violencia en contra de las presas y los presos es 
epidémico; que los servicios de resocialización son limitados y en vez 
se favorecen las políticas de castigo y negligencia. Yo apoyo a los y 
las huelgistas de las cárceles colombianas que exigen condiciones 
mejores y especialmente apoyo la declaración de Estado de Emergencia 
Carcelaria y el establecimiento de una Mesa Nacional de Concertación que 
incluye portavoces para las presas y los presos con la meta de resolver 
esta situación.

In ENGLISH:

The whole world is watching what is taking place in Colombian prisons. 
We know that Colombian prisons are overcrowded; that many prisons are 
not providing their inmates with basic necessities such as clean food 
and water and basic health care; that violence against prisoners is 
epidemic; that rehabilitation services are severely limited in favor of 
policies of punishment and neglect. I support Colombia’s striking 
prisoners in demanding better conditions and, especially, the 
declaration of a State of Emergency in the Colombian penal system and 
the establishment of a National Board of Consultation, including 
spokespersons for the prisoners, to remedy this situation.

   2. Call or fax the Colombian Embassy in Washington, DC, using the
      above sample or your own words. They can be reached at
      202-387-8388 or you can send them a fax at 202-232-8643.
   3. There’s a very good chance that your Representative and Senators
      in the US Congress do not even know about the US-sponsored PICPS
      and the “New Penitentiary Culture”. We encourage you to set up a
      visit with your elected representatives to educate them about this
      issue and to demand that they use their influence to call on the
      Colombian government to take immediate action to improve
      conditions in the prisons and to call for a Congressional
      investigation of the PICPS and the conditions it has lead to in
      prisons such as La Tramacúa. We must also ask them to intervene to
      stop this model from being further imported into Central America
      and Mexico. If you would be willing to organize such a visit,
      please send an email to James at afgj.org <mailto:James at afgj.org> to
      receive background material for your visit.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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