Victims of March 21st: a massacre of prisoners for protesting in the Modelo prison in Bogotá

By: Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

(25/03/2020)

An escape plan in question

On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state forcibly erupted into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83 in response to the protests and demands of the prisoners regarding the appalling sanitary conditions that reign in the prisons and are objectively a matter of concern regarding a future outbreak of Covid-19.  The director of the INPEC (Colombian Prison Service) and the Minister for Justice, Margarita Cabello tried to justify the massacre alleging that they hadn't sought to put down the protests but rather to prevent a mass escape plan they had uncovered some days previously.

This lie was unquestioningly repeated by the entire media.  Caracol (TV and Radio channel) even published recordings of prisoners speaking by phone.  But anyone, with any knowledge of the dynamics in prison who listens to the fragmented conversations filtered to the press would notice that one couldn't reach the conclusion from them that there was an escape plan being hatched.  But even if it were true, more questions arise than answers given.

In response to the Guardian's article on 23rd March (see link below) Dr Andy Higginbottom, Secretary Colombia Solidarity Campaign wrote this letter:

Dear Guardian Letters

The sad thing about the constant assassination of social leaders and human rights defenders is that it has been normalised and no longer seen as newsworthy, so your report  “Colombian death squads exploiting coronavirus lockdown to kill activists” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/colombian-groups-exploiting-coronavirus-lockdown-to-kill-activists is welcome for returning the spotlight on this ongoing nightmare. Three such killings occur every week, and have been since the signing of the peace agreement between the FARC guerrillas and the government on 26 November 2016.

The principal responsibility lies with right-wing paramilitaries targeting presumed leftists; according to allegations cited in the UN’s 2018 report, five times more so. https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/40/3/Add.3 Moreover, the latest UN mission records that 173  demobilised FARC combatants  have been assassinated, alongside the ‘303 killings of human rights defenders and social leaders’, up to the end of 2019. https://colombia.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/n1942147.pdf

There is a further Covid-19 twist to the appalling human rights situation in Colombia. In the early hours of Sunday morning, at La Modelo prison in Bogotá, state forces killed at least 23 prisoners and injured another 80 or so. The inmates were protesting “against overcrowding and poor health services during the coronavirus outbreak”.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-51999594

This is not peace, it is a very dirty war.

Yours

Dr. Andy Higginbottom

Secretary Colombia Solidarity Campaign