Part One in a Series on US Designed Repression in Colombia’s Prison System
By James Jordan
Special to The Narco News Bulletin - August 17, 2010

The name commonly used to refer to the Medium and High Security penitentiary of Valledupar is “La Tramacúa.” What that name means exactly, no one is certain. But it is a name that is infamous throughout Colombia and has become synonymous with reports of torture, beatings and hellish conditions. It conjures up images similar to what we in the United States imagine when we hear the words “Abu Ghraib” or “Guantanamo.” Unlike those prisons, La Tramacua is not directly staffed by the United States government. It was, however, the first of a series of prisons in Colombia to be designed and overseen by the USBureau of Prisons. The US government provided at least $4.5 million toward the development of La Tramacúa.

By James Jordan
Alliance for Global Justice volunteer, Raquel Mogollón, was in attendance at the trial of political prisoner Liliany Obando Aug. 4 in Bogotá, Colombia. Based on her eyewitness report, the hearing revealed manipulation of evidence behind the charges being brought against Obando.

Obando is a sociologist, independent film maker and unionist who was arrested the very week she released a report on the assassination of more than 1500 members of FENSUAGRO, the largest organization of farmers and farm workers in Colombia. She was arrested on the basis of evidence the government claims was found in computers belonging to Commander Raúl Reyes, of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP).

Peace Not War

We oppose U.S. intervention and war in Colombia.  We oppose the seven new U.S. bases being built to wage war on the Colombian people and threaten their neighbors.  We say “NO to U.S. bases in Colombia!” 

We want peace and friendship with our neighbors, not war. 

U.S. Dirty War—7 U.S. Bases

The U.S. is waging a dirty war in Colombia. Plan Colombia brings poverty, misery, and death to the Colombia people.  It is a counter-insurgency war aimed at the poor peasants and workers.  Plan Colombia is a war plan to fight the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a growing and expanding rebel insurgency that defends the movements of workers and peasants.

Helda Martínez - BOGOTÁ, Jul 30 (IPS)

"There are alarming links between increased reports of extrajudicial executions of civilians by the Colombian army and units that receive U.S. military financing," John Lindsay-Poland, lead author of a two-year study on the question, told IPS.

Lindsay-Poland is Research and Advocacy Director for the U.S.-based Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), which presented a new report, "Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications", in Bogotá Thursday.

The report, produced in conjunction with the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC), studies the application in Colombia of the so-called Leahy Law, passed in 1996, which bans military assistance to a foreign security force unit if the U.S. State Department has credible evidence that the unit has committed gross human rights violations.

The Leahy Law is one of the main U.S. laws designed to protect against the use of U.S. foreign aid to commit human rights abuses.

The Alliance for Global Justice has, for some time, been following the situation at the maximum security prison in Valledupar, Department of Cesar, Colombia. The conditions there are deplorable. For instance, inmates are allowed access to water only 10 minutes a day, being forced to collect water in buckets coming out of pipes at a trickle. The water they collect must suffice for all of their daily needs, including drinking, bathing and clothes washing. Toilet facilities are filthy and often unusable. Political prisoners are concentrated with paramilitary prisoners, who are often supplied with weapons by the guards. Political prisoners are repeatedly subjected to torture and beatings. One would think that this prison was an old structure, judging by the medieval conditions. But, in fact, it was built with US Bureau of Prisons funding and oversight: just one more example of how the US government sponsors war and repression in Colombia.