The Rights of Spring by Kennedy David;

Author:Kennedy, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2023-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

7 The Men of Libertad

Back in the blue Peugeot, we speed to Libertad, prison for male politicos. The car is hot. Food and five minutes to relax with one another would be fine. If it weren’t for the driver and the guide we could use this time to go over our Punta experiences, knitting them into sense. Behind schedule, we sit silently in the backseat, trying to turn our minds to the longer list of male prisoners awaiting us. I close my eyes. Libertad prison is in the countryside on the other side of Montevideo, in another military district. We see the massive rectangular building long before the sign reading “Rehabilitation Center #2.” Just outside the inner grounds, in the military recreation area, healthy young soldiers are playing handball. In a cruel joke on parents who drive this road for brief telephone contact with their children, the last government billboard before the prison depicts a small boy and girl, beside them the words “our hope.” As we approach, I notice more uniforms, more checkpoints, more serious expressions, more guns.

There is no rite of passage into the prison here. Indeed, we never make it to the prison proper. As we step from the car, I can’t make out the outline of the prison itself, obscured by too many watchtowers and outbuildings. Someone hands me a red identification badge as we step from the car, surrounded by guntoting soldiers on a hardscrabble parking area. We trot between two walkie-talkie soldiers across a compound toward a small brick building. We step through the side door into an office labeled “Director.” Inside, an officer in well-worn fatigues confronts us. There are no portraits here. On the walls are blurred black-and-white photographs of mangled bodies, victims of the Tupamaro terrorists.

The officer seems ill at ease with an international delegation. He plays it tough and close. State your business. We offer no elaborate introduction. Still standing, Richard hands him our list of names. We may see the three medical students. As to the other ill prisoners, that will not be possible. His orders from Montevideo include only three names. Our list lies limp on the table.

I assure him that this must be a misunderstanding. I suggest that we will gladly wait in his office while he straightens it out. No, he says, we will see the students now. In the meantime he will check with his commanding officer. This seems unlikely to clear anything up—the communications gap must lie between our political contacts in Montevideo and his superior, the commander for this military district. I think Papillon would have said that he would like to help us, if only . . . A truly malevolent director might have relished the rejection. This guy simply hands his list to someone and opens the door.

Guards take us to the visiting rooms. One wing of this outbuilding is partitioned into small chambers by walls of steel and glass. Inside each chamber are fifteen or twenty visiting posts—each with a telephone.

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