In Bogota's prison inferno
Overpopulation, murder for hire, prostitution, drug running —
everything goes:
Colombia's penal institutions are bursting at the seams. If they
succeed, inmates say they'll "head north."
by W. E. GUTMAN
"When you arrive at La Modelo, your only luggage is fear. You
can feel it in your throat, in the pit of your stomach and, suddenly,
as if an icy hand had you in its grip — in your balls. You don't
know if you're about to vomit or shit in your pants. You just
stand there, hoping it's only a bad dream, a sinister joke. For
the first time in your life you think of suicide and you wonder
whether a fear of death will surrender you to the life of horror
that awaits you inside."
Carlos (an alias) spent six months in this Bogota dungeon before
he was cleared of all charges. During his incarceration in one
of Colombia's worse lockups, Carlos was beaten for looking a "cacique" in the eye. He was stabbed by another inmate for refusing to
part with his cigarettes. He very narrowly escaped gang rape by
two of his cellmates. And, in late October, he was nearly crushed
to death when a spontaneous revolt erupted during which prisoners
took 3,000 visitors hostage, including women and children.
Carlos will never forget.
First stop, the jaula, a pit of evil and perversion where inmates
are sorted and assigned a cell block. It is the inmates — while
guards look on with manifest amusement — who perform the triage.
Shock gives way to nausea: Two to three people per square meter
of urine- and feces-slick stone floor.
In 1998, using their right of tutela, an appeals and conflict
resolution mechanism granted them by the constitution, inmates
called for an investigation. Appalled by the inhuman conditions
they witnessed, officers of the Constitutional Court gave authorities
four years to "fix" the problem. Two years have passed and the worse has worsened.
The banality of death
Behind bars, everything has a price. The "cacique", an inmate who governs a row of cells, ushers Carlos into his
private world.
There's a giant TV set, a shower, a double bed. Garish rugs depicting
Biblical scenes cover one of the walls. "Dripping in gold jewelry, this ugly ape [the cacique was murdered
in December by his successor] points to the bed and says, 'If
you want to sleep here it'll cost you one million six hundred
thousand pesos.' I tell him I'd rather sleep in the hallway. 'In
this case,' he retorts, 'the rent is 50,000 pesos (about $40)
— a week. In advance!'"
Drugs, weapons, booze, whores — even the right to kill — are all
the cacique's exclusive dominion. Official figures put at about
200 the number of inmates who died a violent death in Colombia's
168 prisons during the first six months of 2000, a figure "stupefying in its implausibility" according to a lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Murders are a daily occurrence," the lawyer said. "As the rate of incarceration increases, so does the number of
homicides. There is compelling evidence that over one thousand
people died in Colombian prisons this year alone."
Petty crimes consign victims of Colombia's crumbling economy to
long prison terms. Those who can afford to buy their freedom rarely
see the inside of a jail. In Medellin, more than 6,500 prisoners,
many of them incarcerated for misdemeanors, are jammed in a facility
designed to house not more than 1,800. Some pine away for years,
35 abreast in a space barely large enough for six. In five years
of repressive policies engineered to dam a growing
tide of violence, the number of inmates has doubled and exceeded
the 50,000 mark.
Guards or hostages?
La Defensoria del Pueblo, an organization that mediates disputes
between prisoners and authorities, and lobbies for the rights
of inmates, learned that the 6,500 guards in the nation's penal
system were being kept ignorant of their rights. Alone among hundreds
of armed convicts, they are at the mercy of their wards. Many
have been taken hostage and used as bargaining tools.
"I too managed to obtain a weapon for protection," Carlos admits. "An acquaintance in the Ejercito Popular de Liberacion told me
he was planning to smuggle munitions and 10 kilos of dynamite.
He urged me to take advantage of the 'transfer.' Everything went without a hitch." According to Carlos, the guards conducted their routine perfunctory
search and the contraband moved right through.
"The paramilitary walk around with mini-Uzis outfitted with silencers
bigger than my arm," Carlos adds with disdain.
The 36-year war that is slowly bleeding Colombia dry has opened
a second front at La Modelo. Massacre after massacre, the paramilitary,
in cahoots with drug runners and prison guards, have since taken
over six of the prison's buildings. The strategy is simple: guards
sap the strength and resolve of guerrilla sympathizers among the
prison population by conducting surprise searches, exerting psychological
pressure and resorting to torture when all else fails.
The most recent battle, last April, left 26 dead and 18 injured.
A cannonade of explosions and assault rifles filled the air for
11 hours.
"Victims were removed one blood-soaked body part at a time," said an American recently released after serving 17 months for
possession of two joints of marijuana.
Violence and decrepitude
Every once in a while, exhausted, their ranks decimated, the adversaries
suspend their fire and pledge a return to some state of normalcy.
But pledges in La Modelo are fleeting and spurious, the tools
of Machiavellian power struggles waged on the lowest rungs of
human society. Predictably, violence, corruption, overpopulation
and decrepitude re-emerge as both brutal and inescapable realities
of prison life.
"What can we do," says a Colombian jurist. "We're plagued with so many priorities that people refuse to waste
money on criminals. Besides, prisoners don't vote. So the political
imperative is to abstain from politics and look the other way."
Carlos, who studied law, was eventually able to argue his way
out of La Modelo. He is now in hiding. The human chaff, the down-and-out
and the hardened gangsters with whom he lived in bestial intimacy
for six months are not so fortunate. Trapped in a system that
often snares the innocent and spits out thugs, they will do their
time and return, stripped of their dignity, to a world made worse
in their absence and against which they are sure to unleash the
fullness of their wrath and resentment. Most plan to leave the
country. Where? "North," they all intone.
"I have a brother in law in San Antonio," Pedro smiles, baring a row of gold teeth. Pedro, 18, is serving
a 20-year sentence for armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon
and attempted murder. He expects to bail out "anytime now. Money, man, money! That's all it takes," he brags in perfect English.
Reporter: military coup imminent
Notwithstanding US charges of deepening leftist guerrilla involvement
in the drug trade, Colombia's neighbors fear and distrust President
Pastrana's "Plan Colombia," a $1.3 billion anti-drug strategy funded by the US — helicopters,
"advisors" and all. They cite geopolitical repercussions, including a "spill-over effect," mass immigration and the spread of narcotrafficking.
The ability of right-wing militias (widely suspected of running
drugs for profit) to exert political pressure in the Colombian
conflict continues to help raise tensions. It is perhaps for having
ignored the threats of a group of amateur "justicieros" — and exposing them in his investigative report — that radio
journalist Gustavo Ruiz Cantillo, 39, was recently assassinated
by two hired killers in Pivijay, north of Bogota.
Asking that his name be withheld, a Colombian reporter alleges
that the same right-wing forces are agitating inside his nation's
prisons. "Massive, simultaneous riots and breakouts are being masterminded
as we speak," he said. "The object is to create chaos, a diversion the paramilitary plan
to exploit to hand power back to the generals and the colonels."
UN official: Colombia in deep trouble
Speaking at a news conference in Bogota, Mary Robinson, the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that Colombia's human
rights situation is deteriorating. She urged stronger government
actions to stop right-wing paramilitary violence. She also noted
with concern signs of growing public support for the United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia, or AUC, a paramilitary group responsible for
widespread massacres of people who sympathize with leftist guerrillas.
In one of the single deadliest massacres in the 36-year conflict,
paramilitary gunmen killed 37 fishermen in a northern village
two weeks ago.
As many as 170 unarmed people were killed in 26 massacres in January
alone, UN human rights monitors said recently, calling the pace
an "alarming degradation'' in Colombia's 36-year conflict.
Defense Minister Luis Ramirez insisted the government was taking determined action against the militias, who are
given wide berth — if not aid and succor — by Colombia's regular
armed forces.
"I urge the government to address the issues of violence by all
sides, but particularly, I think, the paramilitary violence at
the moment,'' Robinson pleaded.
Robinson recognized that guerrilla kidnappings and attacks had
made many Colombians feel defenseless, but she urged people not
to fall into the "trap'' of supporting vigilante violence.
"The paramilitary are not your friends,'' she said.
