[Marxism] El Salvador: Suchitoto political prisoners face deplorable jail conditions as terrorism charges move forward

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

Prisoners Face Deplorable Jail Conditions After Judge Allows  
Terrorism Charges to Move Forward


Tuesday, 17 July 2007


On July 7, Judge Ana Lucila Fuentes de Paz of the Special Tribunal of  
San Salvador granted the government prosecutor’s request and decided  
to send 13 of the 14 people charged with terrorism to 90 days of  
“preventative imprisonment.”  The prisoners were arrested on July 2  
in a brutal police and military attack on a peaceful protest against  
the privatization of water in Suchitoto.   At this time, the  
prisoners have not been indicted under any specific section of the  
anti-terrorism law, but are being held under charges of terrorism in  
general.   One of the prisoners, Facundo Dolores Garcia was released  
on July 13 as the judge declared that there is no evidence that links  
him to acts of terrorism.

One of the greatest concerns of family, friends, and the broader  
movement right now is the conditions in which the prisoners are being  
held captive, particularly the six female prisoners who are being  
held in deplorable prison conditions, sleeping on the floor of the  
prison without so much as a sheet, and failing to receive needed  
medical attention. According to a group of FMLN deputies who was able  
to visit the prisoners they are suffering from infections, rashes,  
lice, and other afflictions due to the unhygienic and unsanitary  
conditions in the prison. Although most prisoners are allowed to  
receive visits from family members, the women political prisoners  
have been denied this right as well as the food and other items their  
families have tried to give them. The women have also received  
threats from prison employees.
The FMLN delegation to the prison was able to gain a few concessions  
for the women, such as the ability to relocate to a slightly more  
comfortable part of the jail during the day. This visit highlights  
the coordinated and unified response of the FMLN and the social  
movement in El Salvador to this situation. There has been extensive  
collaboration to monitor the status of the case, the conditions of  
the prisoners, and exert pressure on the government to release the  
prisoners.

Families of the prisoners have organized demonstrations and  
mobilizations in solidarity with their relatives, to denounce the  
prison conditions and to demand their immediate release. The Families  
of the Political Prisoners Committee held a demonstration on Saturday  
outside the women’s prison to denounce governmental repression.   
Edgar Mejia, whose wife Beatriz Nuila is one of the prisoners, stated  
this situation is “evidence that once more in this country we are  
traveling down a dangerous road of repression and human rights  
violations.” This committee is preparing a hunger strike outside the  
prison to accompany the political prisoner and create further  
pressure for their release.

Governmental response

Last week the new Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudsman Oscar Luna called  
for revisions to the anti-terrorism law stating that “the application  
of the anti-terrorism law at this time does not seem to me to be the  
most adequate given the actions.”  In response to his statements and  
to international pressure, President Saca announced his supposed  
openness to a revision of the anti-terrorism law, saying, “I think  
that…the law can be improved to more clearly define terrorism.”  
However, this lack of clarity is exactly what the government is  
utilizing to hold the prisoners as “terrorists” without charging them  
with any specific violation of the law.

Saca has hurriedly asked ARENA deputies in the National Assembly to  
pass two reforms to the penal code, which would drastically increment  
jail time for “public disorder”.  Currently, the jail time for such  
offenses is 6 months to 2 years, while Saca wants the assembly to  
increase it to 8-15 years.  Cynically, ARENA officials are now  
stating there must be a separation between terrorist acts and acts of  
vandalism, likely because of mounting national and international  
pressure for having 13 people unjustly jailed for being  
“terrorists”.  In response to this most recent proposal of increased  
jail time, FMLN deputy Walter Duran said that “from a technical  
perspective it is inadmissible to try to establish such severe  
sentences.  The President is showing that we are entering a time of  
civil dictatorship, announcing that his government will continue to  
respond to the increasing protest with more repression.”  The Cambio  
Democratico Party has also criticized Saca’s desperate measures to  
silence social discontent, expressing the reforms Saca wants to make  
to the penal code is simply his inability to admit that the anti- 
terrorism charges are a major error on the part of the government.

Solidarity Response

On Wednesday, July 11 CISPES and U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities  
coordinated a meeting with the U.S. Ambassador in El Salvador,  
Charles Glazer, to pressure the embassy to make a public statement  
about the violation of civil and human rights around the terrorism  
charges.  Ambassador Glazer himself attended the meeting with two  
other embassy staff – a public affairs official and a political  
affairs official in charge of the elaboration of the embassy’s human  
rights reports.  Despite CISPES members demonstrating media  
documentation of U.S. Embassy intervention in sovereign matters –  
such as former Ambassador Barclay urging assembly approval of a wire  
tapping law and applauding the passage of the anti-terrorism law –  
Glazer refused to make a public statement about the political  
prisoners and the dangers of conflating protest with terrorism.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. CISPES is working with other solidarity  
organizations – Sister Cities, the SHARE Foundation, and Voices on  
the Border, among others – to encourage U.S. Congressional  
Representatives to write a “Dear Colleague” letter expressing deep  
concern for the political prisoners and the violations of the freedom  
of speech and right to protest in El Salvador.  There will also be a  
protest action at the Salvadoran Consulate in Boston on July 30.  For  
more information on how to support the campaign to release the  
political prisoners, see www.cispes.org.





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