Latin American rulers embrace harsh prisons

Human rights

Mossoró Prison, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, is one of the five highest security prisons in that country. Credit: Mjsp

CARACAS, September 4, 2024 (IPS) – Unleashing the war on terrorism and sending those accused of the crime to new high-security prisons are increasingly part of the toolkit of Latin American leaders seeking to crack down on criminals and opponents with an iron fist.

Renata Segura, head of the regional program at the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group, wrote on her X-media account that “the fascination of Latin American presidents with maximum-security prisons is spreading like wildfire.”

This attraction exists among presidents with opposing political beliefs, although most of them are united by neo-populism in their policies and actions.

The most recent example is Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro, whose re-election in the July 28 elections sparked an outbreak of street protests, ordered the conversion of two prisons into maximum-security jails for some 2,000 arrested protesters accused of terrorism.

“Latin American presidents’ fascination with maximum-security prisons is spreading like wildfire”: Renata Segura.

Argentine President Javier Milei accused opponents who recently demonstrated against him in Buenos Aires of the same offense, while Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa ordered the construction of a maximum-security prison and a penal ship for criminals accused of terrorism.

The main regional reference is President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, who has detained 80,000 people under a state of emergency that has lasted more than two years, most of whom are accused of terrorism as members of major criminal gangs or maras.

Bukele’s government has built a mega-prison, the Terrorism Containment Center (Cecot), with a capacity of 40,000 prisoners. According to international humanitarian organizations monitoring the process, they are being subjected to conditions that violate human rights.

Segura told IPS from New York that “the recent announcements of the construction of maximum security prisons are most likely inspired by the measures taken by President Bukele, who has been quite successful in reducing insecurity.”

She acknowledged that the Salvadoran leader “enjoys a high level of popularity, despite the enormous human rights violations in that country.”

“He has indeed led to two percent of El Salvador’s adult population being put behind bars, largely without due process and with serious human rights violations,” said Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, president of the nongovernmental Washington Office on Latin America (Wola).

Under this state of emergency, “at least 261 people have already been killed, and we must remember that every person in state custody is the responsibility of the state,” Sandoval told IPS from Washington.

Construction is underway on the dilapidated Tocuyito prison in north-central Venezuela, which is being rapidly converted into a maximum-security prison for hundreds of inmates protesting the announced re-election of President Nicolás Maduro. Credit: RrSs

New craze, old recipe

On June 21, Noboa began construction of a maximum-security prison on a 16-hectare site in Santa Elena Province, on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, a country of 18 million people and 36 prisons. It is expected to cost $52 million and house up to 800 inmates.

“Today we celebrate one of the most important milestones in our fight against terrorism and the mafia that has hijacked our country’s momentum for decades,” said the president, who is running for re-election next year.

In Venezuela, hundreds of young protesters against Maduro’s proclamation as the winner were jailed in late July, but the president ordered the conversion of two prisons in the center of the country, Tocorón and Tocuyito, into “maximum security prisons” to hold the new inmates.

Not to be outdone, Milei announced that he would sell prisons on valuable land in urban centers in Argentina and use the money to build maximum-security prisons far from the cities. In June, he sent his Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, to learn more about the Salvadoran experience.

“This is the way. Take tough action against criminals,” the minister said after the visit.

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa (in black) looks at a model of the new maximum-security prison being built on his country’s Pacific coast. He presents it as part of the fight against criminal gangs he calls terrorists. Credit: Presidencia de Ecuador

There have always been maximum-security prisons in the region, such as Mexico’s El Altiplano Federal Rehabilitation Center in central Mexico, which holds a group of former drug cartel leaders and serial killers.

Colombia has maximum security prisons in Combita (center) and Valledupar (north), as well as maximum security sections in La Picota prison in Bogota, where guerrilla fighters, convicted or accused terrorists and drug cartel leaders have been held for years.

Brazil, with 8.5 million square kilometers and 205 million people, has five maximum-security prisons, in four of its 26 states and the Federal District. Two inmates escaped from Mossoro prison in the northeast in February, the first escape since 2006.

Tragically, the prisons of Lurigancho in Lima and the Pacific island of El Fronton, near the capital, are famous for the killing of hundreds of prisoners of the leftist guerrilla movement Shining Path, following a riot in June 1986, as part of the anti-terrorist struggle in Peru.

Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich visited the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, which she considers an example. Credit: Presidencia de El Salvador

These high-security prisons were closed after the massacre, but Peru still has Challapalca Prison, in a deserted spot in the south of the country at 4,600 meters above sea level. It is the highest prison in the world. It holds dozens of prisoners who are considered extremely dangerous.

Commenting on the case of El Salvador, Jiménez Sandoval noted: “Does it have lower murder rates? That’s true. Do people feel safer? That’s true.”

“It is also true that these punitive models, based on mass arrests and human rights violations, tend to have immediate effects, but it is very difficult to keep them useful in the medium and long term,” she said.

“You can’t put everyone behind bars,” but also “because many of the factors that influence and cause young people’s involvement in violence persist, such as poverty, exclusion, lack of educational and employment opportunities and life plan,” Jiménez said.

“We are not terrorists,” reads a sign held by a protester in Caracas against the announced re-election of President Nicolás Maduro. Nearly 2,000 people have been arrested during the protests and the Public Prosecutor’s Office has charged hundreds of them with terrorism. Credit: Provea

Creating fear

Today, the option of high-security prisons goes beyond the fight against terrorism and includes political activism, threatening opponents or protesters who could be accused of this crime. It is also a sign of strength and determination to stay in power.

“When rulers in countries that also face high levels of insecurity due to organized crime, gangs or other phenomena announce these measures, they are undoubtedly making gestures that indicate that they too are pursuing a tough strategy against crime,” Segura said.

In Venezuela, “where repression of the opposition has increased after the elections, I think there is another objective: to send a message to those who are considering joining the protests that they will be arrested and imprisoned as if they were high-risk criminals,” she added.

The Venezuelan government “is making a very intensive effort to make it clear that anyone who protests or disagrees with the officially announced election results is a terrorist,” lawyer Gonzalo Himiob, vice-president of Foro Penal, an organization that has been advocating for human rights, and in particular for prisoners, for 15 years, told IPS.

“There is a deliberate trivialization of terrorism by those in power, and a technical inaccuracy because arrested protesters do not fit internationally accepted definitions of terrorist agents, ties or acts,” Himiob said.

Many of those arrested were bystanders who were not even protesting. At least 114 teenagers were among the 1,500 people arrested in the weeks following the July 28 election. That makes the terrorism charges no longer legitimate, he added.

There were “doubly serious events”, such as the announcement by the Public Prosecutor’s Office that those arrested would be categorised as terrorists, “a prefabricated catalogue that reverses the law, which states that first the facts are individualised and then the people, and not the other way around”, Himiob continued.

In short, “they act according to the enemy’s criminal law, and use it not to do justice, but to profit from their power,” he said.

And thus to rule with the impulse of the sources of fear.