PANAMA CITY, Panama, Dec. 5,
1996 -- In Spanish, Carcel Modelo means "model
jail,'' but a Roman Catholic bishop here recently described
the prison as "a cemetery for the living.'' Now,
after decades of institutionalized abuse, the Panamanian
government has been shamed into closing its most notorious
prison.
Built more than 70 years ago to lodge common criminals,
in the 1980s the three-story structure became a dreaded
dumping ground for political prisoners and even an
American operative of the Central Intelligence Agency.
In an indication of how much the jail is loathed here,
it is scheduled to be razed on Dec. 10 after a ceremony
to which human-rights groups have been invited.
"Let them build a school on the site, a church,
a park, a plaza, public housing, anything,'' said
Giovanni Niedda, a former political prisoner at the
jail who is now executive director of the Prison Fellowship
of Panama, a human rights group. "That is secondary
to its demolition, and I plan to be the one to strike
the first blow to its walls'' at the ceremony.
The announcement of the closing came as a result
of a riot this summer in which two prisoners were
killed and a dozen inmates and guards were injured.
As television cameras filmed surreptitiously from
a nearby building after the uprising was quelled,
guards beat naked prisoners with nightsticks and baseball
bats.
In the public uproar that followed the broadcast
of the film, President Ernesto Perez Balladares was
forced to order an investigation of the abuses and
suspended the prison's director and 11 other officials.
Widely publicized interviews in which prisoners said
such beatings were routine added to the demands that
the "model jail'' be shut.
Sandra Osorio, director of the national penal system,
did not respond to telephone messages inquiring whether
the suspended officials would also face criminal charges.
But in her directive ordering the closing of the prison,
she acknowledged that it "has been a virtual
focal point for the permanent violation of human rights.''
Prisons throughout Latin America are notorious for
their overcrowding, squalid living conditions and
violence, as shown by recent prison uprisings in Brazil
and Venezuela. But conditions at Modelo are regarded
as particularly horrific.
"I've never seen anything like it,'' said William
Hughes, the U.S. ambassador to Panama, who as a member
of Congress served on the House committee that supervised
American prisons. "They have people just stacked
up three tiers, with every square foot of cellblock
occupied by bedrolls. It is just incredible.''
Built to house about 250 detainees, the jail lodged
nearly 3,000 earlier this year. Rather than being
locked individually in cells, prisoners in recent
years lived communally and chaotically in corridors,
where they themselves decide who is assigned to what
space and first-time offenders are forced to mingle
with career criminals.
"You can fall behind on your alimony payments
and get tossed in there with the murderers,'' said
Venna Vergara, a former magistrate who is now a volunteer
researcher for the Center for the Investigation of
Human Rights and Judicial Aid. An estimated three-quarters
of the prisoners are either awaiting trial or have
not been sentenced.
Human rights groups maintain that the systematic
degradation of prisoners became official policy during
the years Gen.
Manuel Antonio Noriega, currently serving a 40-year
sentence in much more comfortable surroundings in
Miami, was in power. To intimidate middle-class civilian
opponents of his military dictatorship, Noriega routinely
had demonstrators arrested and dumped in the jail,
most notoriously in a 1987 roundup known as "Black
Friday.''
"The common prisoners told us that they had
been given carte blanche to do with us what they pleased,''
recalled Niedda, who was one of those arrested. "All
of us were robbed, some were raped, and many were
beaten, all in plain sight of the guards.''
As a result of that reputation for abuse, the jail
came to figure in the American invasion in December
1989, which resulted in Noreiga's overthrow. In his
memoirs, Gen. Colin Powell, then the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalls how the Pentagon was
eager to free Kurt Muse, whom he describes as "a
CIA source who had been placed in solitary confinement
in Modelo Prison by Noriega for spying.''
Muse's imprisonment was particularly galling to the
American military because it took place literally
under their noses: the headquarters of the U.S. Southern
Command is on a hill overlooking the jail. So when
the invasion was launched, one of its first objectives
was the rescue of Muse.
The mission, Powell wrote, "took six minutes
that lasted an eternity.'' Quoting the military bulletins
forwarded to him from the Southern Command headquarters,
Powell captured the tension of the mission in his
book:
"Delta Force landing on the roof of Modelo Prison.
... Delta has killed the guards. ... Delta Force in.
... Kurt Muse out of his cell. ... Delta Force leaving
in helicopters from the roof. It's OK. No! The helo
is taking fire. It's hit. It's coming down! No, it's
going down the street. ... It's hit. ... It's down.
... They're O.K.''
Now, government plans call for prisoners still being
held at the jail to be transferred to a pair of newly
built prisons. But Rolando Villalaz, a lawyer who
is president of the Center for the Investigation of
Human Rights, argues that the corruption and brutality
of a penal system still run by holdovers from the
Noriega era remain a major concern.
"Destroying Modelo Jail doesn't do away with
the grave abuses of human rights that is the real
problem,'' he said. "Nothing guarantees that
the prisons proposed as replacements will not end
up in exactly the same situation in just a few years.''
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