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This is the same prison Leonard Peltier was just transferred to.<br><br>
Several months ago, ProLibertad reported on Oscar Lopez Rivera's
transfer;<br>
this article was written by Jan Susler for the National Boricua
Human<br>
Rights Network about Oscar current conditions<br><br>
<br>
Posted Tuesday, June 28, 2005<br><br>
April of this year marked the 25th anniversary of the arrest of
eleven<br>
Puerto Rican political prisoners. April also marked the opening of an
art<br>
exhibit featuring paintings and ceramics created by two remaining
Puerto<br>
Rican political prisoners, Oscar López Rivera and Carlos Alberto
Torres...<br>
an exhibit scheduled to travel throughout the United States and
Latin<br>
America. Not coincidentally, after having served 24 years of a 70
year<br>
sentence, April also marked Oscar's unsolicited transfer from one
maximum<br>
security prison to another... a prison where he not only has more
difficulty<br>
maintaining his health and his family and community ties, but where
painting<br>
is virtually impossible.<br><br>
While prison officials would undoubtedly deny that Oscar's transfer
was<br>
punitive, its consequences are undeniably punitive. The new prison is
not<br>
simply a disruption of his routine, not a mere matter of the
inconvenience<br>
of the new requirements to be always fully dressed in khaki uniform
and<br>
boots (U.S. military castoffs, all), or weathering the
elements-without<br>
benefit of rain gear-as he makes his way from the cellblock to chow,
or<br>
sleeping on the small plastic mattress that makes noise with every move.
The<br>
new prison even further restricts his already restricted contact with
the<br>
outside world. Visits from friends and family, never encouraged, are<br>
actively discouraged at the new prison. In June, his family was made to
wait<br>
close to three hours before granted entry, while a sole officer
ploddingly<br>
processed other visitors through drug testing and paper pushing,
leaving<br>
only a few hours for the visit. And they were lucky, as some families
were<br>
turned away completely, either for mistaken drug test results- which
has<br>
previously happened with Oscar's family---or because the officer took
so<br>
frightfully long processing other families, the visiting day ended before
he<br>
reached many of those waiting.<br><br>
News media, which have interviewed Oscar in virtually every prison in
which<br>
he has been held, is turned away. For example, Univision's May request
to<br>
interview him was spurned, allegedly due to "security,"
although media was<br>
granted access to him in the more maximum security prisons in years<br>
previous. Such a ban only increases the risk to Oscar and others held
there,<br>
as it lulls prison authorities to act with impunity and prevents
public<br>
access to a public institution. Witness recent disclosures of the
military's<br>
refusal to allow media or United Nations access to staff or detainees
at<br>
Guantánamo, not only hiding from public light their ongoing torture,
but<br>
ensuring that it may continue with impunity. Ever since the United
States<br>
began to use Guantánamo as a "terrorist" detention camp, United
Nations<br>
human rights investigators have sought to visit Guantánamo and obtain
full<br>
access to the facilities and prison population, but the U.S. has
never<br>
allowed such access. The military refused to give the New York Times<br>
permission to interview physicians at Guantánamo about their having
aided<br>
interrogators in conducting and refining coercive interrogations of<br>
detainees, including providing advice on how to increase stress levels
and<br>
exploit fears, with a purpose of helping interrogators break the
detainees.<br><br>
Painting, one of the few outlets of creative expression available to him
at<br>
the previous penitentiary, was simply not available when he arrived.<br>
Officials "lost" the majority of his painting supplies in the
move to the<br>
new prison, but those can be replaced, albeit at great expense. The
problem<br>
lies in the supposed lack of space. The problem is that, in the huge
new<br>
prison, fashioned of large buildings, officials have refused to
designate<br>
adequate space for this positive activity, creating in its place<br>
frustration. Having seen the tiny space available, he writes, "The
area<br>
designated for us to paint is about the size of a cell, without any<br>
ventilation, sink or proper lighting. There are four easels standing
and<br>
there's no more room. There are about ten prisoners who paint. So right
now<br>
I don't know if I'm going to be able to continue painting."<br><br>
Exercise, another of the few outlets available in the previous
penitentiary,<br>
has likewise been limited. At age 62, Oscar has managed to remain
healthy,<br>
energetic, and productive in spite of, not because of, his surroundings.
At<br>
the new prison, however, his ability to maintain his health is threatened
by<br>
new limitations, such as no equipment to exercise the upper body (no<br>
weights, pull-up bars, dip bars), and a hard surface track that is bound
to<br>
injure the joints with repeated use. His skin, extremely sensitive since
his<br>
exposure to Agent Orange in Viet Nam, requires special soap which he is
not<br>
sure will be available through the commissary of the new prison. He
already<br>
knows that dental floss, so necessary for the prevention of tooth decay
and<br>
gum disease, is considered a security risk and is therefore not
available.<br><br>
These conditions must be put in the overall perspective of the new<br>
penitentiary. The team responsible for designing and building it
proudly<br>
describes their project: "Twenty-first century correctional facility
design<br>
emphasizes security, function and workability, new technologies,
staff<br>
efficiency and livability." A construction magazine glorifies the
structure<br>
as follows: "An inwardly focused series of more than a dozen
buildings<br>
offers inmates little opportunity to look out of the site and dream
of<br>
escape." "A secured corridor of enclosed space surrounds the
compound. The<br>
corridor's interior wall is the back sides of the housing pods, and
the<br>
exterior wall is composed of precast concrete wall panels, described
the<br>
construction company's vice president. Beyond that is "no man's
land" and<br>
three circuits of taut-wire fencing. Six guard towers with sight lines
into<br>
the compound are just outside the fencing, and a seventh guard tower is
back<br>
in the middle of the compound." "Closed-circuit TV cameras
monitor the<br>
prison's critical areas, and a control room outside the secured
perimeter<br>
can open and close key access points into structures that include
the<br>
housing pods, the secured corridor and the main entrance.<br><br>
The 960 cells measure approximately 7 feet wide by 14 feet long,
fabricated<br>
of precast concrete. The cells are formed as five-sided boxes - four
walls<br>
and a roof. Two cells, one atop another, make up a unit. A balcony
fronts<br>
the upper cell.<br><br>
And, yes, the new prison includes a "special housing unit"
where the federal<br>
death penalty will be carried out.<br><br>
Oscar is ever clear in the reason why he is where he is, sure of who he
is,<br>
and of his commitment to the independence of his nation, and even though
he<br>
patiently and optimistically adjusts to the new surroundings, all the
while<br>
resisting the encroaching limitations, living the salutation all his
letters<br>
bear: "en resistencia y lucha" [in resistance and struggle].
However, since<br>
911, prison conditions have worsened across the board, especially<br>
jeopardizing the health, safety and lives of our political prisoners.
A<br>
reporter with extensive experience covering U.S. prisons and jails,<br>
remarking on the revelations of torture in Abu Ghraib, said, "the
images<br>
from Iraq looked all too American to me," noting similar patterns
of<br>
physical and psychological abuse in the atmosphere of increasing<br>
militarization of imprisonment in the U.S. We must therefore be vigilant
of<br>
his human rights while we make every effort to achieve his and
Carlos<br>
Alberto's release.<br><br>
The new address:<br><br>
Oscar López Rivera<br>
#87651-024<br>
USP Terre Haute<br>
P.O. Box 12015<br>
Terre Haute, IN 47801<br><br>
Financial contributions in the form of postal money orders to help
him<br>
purchase art supplies and pay for telephone calls must be sent
to:<br><br>
Federal Bureau of Prisons<br>
Oscar López Rivera #87651-024<br>
P.O. Box 474701<br>
Des Moines, IA 50947-0001<br>
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