Laudelino Iglesias Interview
Interviewed by SalHaketa
Laudelino has spent 25 years in prison since October 1980 to August 2004. Out of those 25 years, he has spent 13 in isolation (maybe segregation). He inagurated the archive for internal prisioners in special observation, FIES, in 1991.
SalHaketa – Today we would like to ask you about the organised movement of resistance that several prisioners have taken part in recent years, denouncing the conditions of imprisioment and evaluating the evolution of this movement and its present state.
Laudelino – Hello, in order to understand the movement of resistance within the prisons we need to go back to when Franco died in 1975. The social conditions implied that people were going from a fascist franquista regime to a monarquic franquista regime and well then it was the political struggle of people outside. When Franco died, there were negogtiations with those prisoners who denominated themselves political, there was also lots of riots on the outside, they managed to get the majority of them released, but not all of them.
S – That was with the amnesties of 1976 and 1977?
L – But they did not release any of the social prisioners. But it is from then on, because prison conditions were really bad, lots of torture, lots of beatings, overcrowding, the food was really bad, etc. Then people started getting organised, mainly because it was expected that if there was a change in the political regime it was supposed to be for everyone. There was suposed to be no difference between political or social prisioners. At the time the struggle was not only for the prision conditions to improve, but also for the amnesty of all prisioners. It was in this atmosphere that COPEL (Coordinator of prisoners in struggle) was born. There were lots of riots inside, the government did not want to grant amnesties, therefore there were riots, basically prisoners destroyed most of the prisons. Of course they were old prisons, not like the modern ones, and basically they destroyed everything within them, but after that of course there was harsh repression. The police came in and beat a lot of people up, there were fatalities. Then they got all of those who they thought they were leaders and took them to Herrera de la Mancha. They punished the COPEL movement very severely; this precipitated a period between 1978 and 1985 where just a few people were active because everybody knew the consequences that being involved with the COPEL movement had. Not only to punish and repress all activist prisoners, but rather all other prisoners so they do not move a finger. COPEL continued within clandestinity but with just a few people. Then with the Penitenciary Organic Law of 1978 the special regime was aplied within the entire 1st grade.
S – What was this regime about?
L – The special regime consisted in that they could isolate you for as long as they wanted. In the meantime they will hold you without any communication, beating you up now and again, because since you were not able to have any communication with the outside world, not even by letter, that is, in writing, not even in any other way, they could do with you whatever they wanted.
S – These persons that were living within the special regime, they were living within special departments within the prisons. Is that correct?
L – Well yes, within the prisons at the time the special departments were the 1st grade modules where the regime special was applied and to go out of the special regime you could stay for one, two, three, five years or never get out. It depended on your attitude inside. The people were very upset, and that is when APRE started. (Association of Prisioners in special regime). They started to struggle because the boys inside started reading the new penal code. Inside the special regime there were norms that were not respected. And therefore the only thing those people were doing was to claim for those rights to be respected. That was the only thing that they were doing. That was the least they could do within the worse. But their own laws were not respected, that is why they started to denounce.
S – What kind of reivindications were they using ? And what kind of collective actions?
L – APRE mainly was approaching legal subjects, that is the legal problems in the sense that the penitenciary legislation was respected. Like for example, all that concerns mainly human rights and living conditions.
S – And the collective actions, what kind of actions were they, hunger strike, patio strikes etc?
L - Hunger strikes were mainly about writing(?), the problem was that at the same time, there were some prisoners that thought that those actions were not going to have any effect. Then we thought that since our denouncements and complaints were going nowhere, and the vigilant guards and judges, were not paying any attention to us, then our only way to call attention was to rebel that is why GAPEL was formed. (Armed Group of prisioners in struggle) that was going on at the same time as the APRE. Then the people from GAPEL, we of course did not like to stay in prison because we were really bad, were mainly trying to escape, freedom was our main priority. Our only aim was freedom. We could not get it? Then we barricaded ourselves in with hostages, and negotiated. One of the main demands was firstly that they would not put their hands on us again, that there were no physical repression and secondly that all subjects about the penitenciary legislation that were not respected to be looked at. They had to respect their laws. Then well, GAPEL started, I was within GAPEL, I was with other comrades kidnaping, starting riots and things like that. Until ... there were so many kidnapings and riots that apparently that got the system very worried and then they applied the FIES regime. This happened in 1991, this was a very hard regime, and in fact they not only did it to punish us physically and psychologically but also and mainly to destroy the GAPEL movement. Because those within APRE mainly focussed on writing, they were not annoying them very much. Those who were annoying them a lot were those who were causing trouble. Mainly because we wanted to escape, and to denounce through violence because we did not have another alternative due to the prision conditions. Then is when the applied the FIES regime and got all prisioners by surprise, we did not have an idea of what that regime was and was very traumatic because of course they suddenly started doing a selection of people.
S – To those of you who were causing more trouble?
L – Yes, they were doing special listings. First they got us all together in Badajoz, then in Seville, and later in El Dueso in Cantabria. And then well, they kept us three months without going out of our cells at all.
S – How many of you? Around 150?
L – Yes, more or less, split between the three prisons we were around 150 prisoners. Well, daily change of cells, but they would not take us to the patio for anything. We were inside the cells all naked, because they forced us to wear overalls, then, because we did not want to wear the suit, then all naked. Then the only thing that they allow us to have in the cell was a foam mattress but without the foam or anything. On the floor because there were no bed or anything, and a toothbrush that they cut the hanger.(? Handle?)
S – Cut in half so you could not use it as a weapon.
L – Well, a weapon..., but well. They cut the toothbrush, one of those toothbrushes that are comon in prison because it was given by the institution and a plastic spoon, a plastic tray. That was the only things we could have in the cell.
S – Pen and paper?
L – Pen and paper? I do not think so, because If I am not remembering wrong, I believe we needed to buy it ourselves with our money from the economato. Otherwise not. In those conditions we remained in isolation because they did not allow us to comunicate either.
S – Not even with the lawyers?
L – No, not even with the lawyers, neither with family, with no-one. For about three months, the things was that also within those conditions we were doing whatever actions we could. Then some of those riots got made public and then of course they had to take what was going in to the light. What the FIES regime was, nobody knew and got us all by surprise and well, bit by bit, we started comunicating with the family only. We would go out to comunicate handcuffed., that is, with lots of guards, always with lots of armed guards and you handcuff behind and they will force you to wear the suit so if you will have to wear it if you wanted to comunicate. Otherwise they would not allow you, you had to wear the suit.
S – Always when you were outside the cell you had to be handcuff inside the prison? For the patio and for the showers?
L – Yes, any movement or transfer outside the cell, those cells have special locks, one of those security doors with bars, you would have to turn around, put your hands behind you, they would handcuff you and then they would open the special lock and got you out. And they would search you.
S – With shoes or flip-flops?
L – We were at that time without anything, bare feet. Then it was when we started to protest, then we got them to return our clothes, we got them to give us our radios and bit by bit we managed to make them to give us our belongings because they had confiscated them all. Even pen and paper, they would not give us even that so we could not denounce. We wanted pen and paper to be able to denounce but they would not give it to us. That is nothing. They had us completely isolated and as they wanted. They did not want anyone from outside to know what was going on, that is why they would not give you any of that. And well, then it was when they got us all together. That is because when they applied the regime they did not have a physical structure for those who were going to go to the FIES regime, not like it is now, simply what they wanted at that moment was to kidnap us, get us all together in mainly three prisons and mantain us there for some time while they were preparing the FIES modulos. Those are small modules, completely automated, automatic doors, control cameras everwhere, microphones everywhere, you could not, you cannot have any physical contact with the guards. Everythings is through bars, everythings is through laterns and security windows.
S – Completely inhuman.
L – Yes, then until those modules were done, they were doing them very quickly, they kept us all together and very bad, that is really bad, because we were not listening to any news, we were not listening to the radio or anything, we got to think that maybe there was a coup d’etat, maybe there has been a coup d’etat and now they want to execute us (fusilar). They kidnapped us, we could not be in contact with anyone. Maybe that is that one by one they are going to shoot us, what do I know.
S – Thinking that Death Penalty was back.
L – That there was a fascist coup d’etat, Tejero’s friends and company and now who knows what they want to do with us. Fuck, they were treating us very bad, the minimum was to be savagely beaten. We were all there completely naked, every day they were searching the cells, changing cells, they would not take us to the patio, that is the few rights that they give you to have a normal life, and they take them all away. Then with the structure of the FIES regime, what happened is that, of course, we were all always trying to escape and the FIES modules were only for no more than 4 people. They had me alone for two months and something else, completely alone and all full of guards.
S – I imagine the nights you spent when there were noises.
L – Yes, and as it always happened when they give you a heavy beating and they kill you, then they will hang you up and they say that you have hanged yourself. They beat you more than what they expected and if you are dead, then well, they make up for the public the story that another prisoner has hanged him/herself. Then the main objective of the FIES modulos and regime was to break the movement of those who were at the moment struggling for freedom, for the revindication of human rights and freedom. And they managed to break the whole movement because at the end with time not only did they managed to divide us, they managed to confront us. Well, the people, if you were one of those who tried to escape and you see that under those conditions you had no possibiilty of escape because you had tried but it could not be. You reach the conclusion that you are never going to be able to get out of there. Not even if they come to look for us.
S – Very distressing.
L – Then there is a point when people say, it is understandable, you have no other option but to swallow it, cooperate, submit, not argue with the guards, lets see if one year goes by, two years, and they get me out of the FIES. At least if they get me out of the FIES I have a possibility to escape, but here there is none.
S – Is that why there were lots of prisoners who tried to go to courtplaces, to go to hospitals so they could try on the way to escape?
L – Of course, but the guards knew about that, then when you go to one of those court, first you would not know at what time they were, not even the lawyers, they will take you on such a condition... there were guards everywhere, they would pick you up from any part of your body, barefeet, the will pick you up from the hair, they will force your head down, you could not move at all. Of course, at that time there were hardly anyone on the streets, until they will get you inside the court, from the van that was doing the transfer to the court cell, well, imagine, for you not to see anything, they will take you in a very violent way, well, with tremendous humilliation. Not only physical violence, but also a tremendous psychological violence, very intense humilliation. Then the people assume responsibility for acts that maybe they had not done, people will write to the judge of a certain place to say that you have done something, and then pum, but the judge until he realises takes the half (the responsibility?) in taking the declaration. But well, I think no-one has managed to escape on those stories. And at the end people realised that there was no way to escape on those transfers.
S – Therefore the only thing that they were doing was accumulating more years of imprisioment.
L – More years of imprisioment, yes, then that way was not good to escape, because they would not let you. That is why a lot of people decided to submit. Not to put any denunciations, if you had to sweep the floor, if you had to do any kind of cleaning because the guard was asking you, then you will have to do it and not contradict the guards at all. You had to treat them with a lot of good manners. If you had that attitude, depending on the person in question, depending on what they will consider, because for one person acting the same, six months was enough, but for another person this means, he will need to stay two years and this other man three years.
S – Could you talk for a bit about the function drugs has taken within the FIES regime?
L – The function of drugs is very clear.
S – There are a lot of people that do not know?
L – They do not know? No, well, the function of drugs within prisons is very clear, mainly legal drugs. Legal drugs that are given by the system itself like methadone, psicofarmacos, tranquillizers and the like. That is that people in 1, 2, 3, because the prison is very hard, find it very difficult to confront that situation. Then people would tend to go to whatever is easier, because if i get drugged and i am stoned I do not realise, according to them they are stealing days from the judge. They do not realise that they are taking away their own lives bit by bit. Aren’t they? But it is that, the drug makes people, and mainly if it is given by the institution, the institution has them tied up; they become instruments of the institution. They will throw them against you. In all senses and ways. In fact today, there are many prisons where the doors and many other things, like opening the doors and closing the doors, that was before done by the guards, now it is prisoners who are doing it.
S – Taking food.
L – Taking food, things, but open and closing up the door of a prisoner, there are many prisons where other prisoners are doing things of this kind. But why? Because they are hooked to methadone, because they let them apart from the drugs that is given by the system, then to those who have a destiny(trustees?), they are given trust, and then they let them do business inside, they let them get drugs inside, they deal so they sort out their life. The guards also always get their cut. The guards also get lots of drugs inside, in fact there has been cases when they got them, for example with bottles of cola-cao(chocolate milk drink), full of heroin, in Alcala-Meco and in many other places. Because guards do not get searched, they get heroin inside and the trusted prisioners that had a destiny go giving the heroin around and the prisoners sell it. And the guard therefore can get gold inside. They get lots of money. The prisoners are also getting a way of living because there is a lot of misery, the guards are also getting a lot of money, they are amongst the ones who profit most. Then, their main concern is that there are no riots or disruption inside in prison, that there is no-one reclaiming or demanding, therefore, the guards, by introducing a lot of drugs and by giving lots of drugs to the prisioners, then they know that the stability of the institution is not going to go, the worse that can happen is that they argue between themselves, people who do not pay, because they got the drugs on credit.
S – At the end that is the strategy, to confront the penitenciary population. Is it? So collectives are not created, to stop collective actions or confrontations.
L – Mainly to cancel those people as people. So they do not have conscience of their rights. So they do not demand them. That it is mainly, secondly so they do not give any problems. If there is to be problems, let it be within the prisoners, the main thing for them, is that they do not give problems to the institution. And secondly if there are to be problems, that those problems are between prisoners so then later the guards go in like the salvation army, like the good ones. They go to separate fights and things like that, then every time that there is a conflict between prisoners, if it has gone outside, then they talk always about mafias, about people fighting between mafias inside prisons and then, the guards, can go and ask for extra money for security, more staff, a raise of their salary. The guards gain advantage from all that, do you understand? That is the function that it has with prisoners, to me it is very clear. It makes people very negative and I am telling you, when I got to 1st grade, because within the 1st grade there is also lots of drugs, people are really hooked on methadone, on psicofarmacos, but on 2nd grade, it is just too much. When I got out to 2nd grade, two years before I got released, I was really shocked with the people. Because if you were to say anything to the prisoner, they will go and tell the guard without any fear or anything. Well, really out of order, I used to think, fuck, to me guards were my enemy because I know they are my enemy but for these people who were prisoners the same as me, but they were also my enemies, that was too much. That is, to me that is clear, not only the function of drugs within the prisons, through drugs they first manage to ensure that prisoners do not make any trouble, second to ensure that any problems would happen between the prisoners themselves, so they also benefit from it and then make it another instrument of the system, because the system gives them drugs. They had them at their feet; they will do with them what they want. If a guard tells a priioner, close that door, the prisoner would go and close it. If the guard says go around repeating this lie, that is any lie normally about another prisioner, the prisioners will go and do it. So guards could tell them what they want. Get this knife and kill this man, then I am going to double your portion of methadone and I will get you on the 3rd grade. In fact to us, to people who were kidnapping people at the moment to escape, they proposed to us to form a prisoners GAL. That is that guards do not stop themselves when it comes to those things.
S – Could you explain a bit what is the prisoners GAL? What is GAL and what is the prisoners GAL?
L – Yes, what I was telling you before, even me, if you start to look closely at the prison, the prison is very hard, well, today most of the people who gets in from the streets, have already had some contact with drugs and if they are inside, because the prison is very hard, then they cannot get over it and therefore they find it easier to get into drugs. On top of that, if the system is giving it to you, fucking better, and well, all prisoners have assumed that, that if they do not give any problems to the system and collaborate with the system, then they will get released sooner, on probation and so on. That it is clear for them, then, the prison is very hard and then those people on the outside, I do not know if they would have an alternative to live or not. I do not think so, and therefore because outside they did not have options, inside less.
S – And the GAL?
L – About the GAL, inside or outside?
S – First explain what it was outside.
L – Outside it was...
S – An Antiterrorist Group of Liberation.
L – Yes, a mafia of policemen, inside the Guardia Civil, inside the National Police, and also inside the army, although the Guardia Civil isn’t an army body, but a policial army body. Well they will focus mainly in physically disposing of people like ... Basque people. Mainly those who belong to the GRAPO, mainly people who where involved in armed bands with political ends. Then well, they will go and kidnap them, they will kill them and put bombs against them, that is, hard and pure violence, total terrorism, that is a terrorism of the state. Then well, they had all the means in their hands, inside and outside, and then inside, because there were some Basque prisoners mainly, and that they will think that they had tirada with regards to others, then they were worried, because maybe due to the reasons why they were in jail...
S – Police and the army were worried about those cases.
L – Well, they even end up telling us that they wanted to get rid of some Basque prisoners, end then they will tell us, well, not to me because I am Basque, but they were asking the guys, they took them to the cell and told them, “listen fellows, you are fighting for freedom? Well, if you are clever, look, you could get freedom in six months, and everything legal, you only have to do what we tell you”. And those comrades that were by no means stupid, asked them, “well, what do we have to do? You are setting us free in six months, so well, what do we have to do?” “Well, it is simple, everybody knows that you are doing kidnapping all the time, well, this time we are going to let you kidnap some of us, you will need to take us to a certain place that we will tell you and then you will elaminate one person that we will tell you. You will tie us up very well, you kill that person and then you hand yourselves over, nobody is going to touch you, because everything is agreed, then in six months” That is what the law says, because otherwise they cannot do it, because that would look a bit dodgy because the law says that minimum is six months of 1st grade, before you can go to second grade, and three months later you are in third grade, you are able to get permits to go out, you are in the streets. And that is what they were proposing, they wanted us to go killing our comrades, that is the Prision GAL that they wanted to build up inside prisons, but we did not do it, but they proposed it to us.
S – And how is the situation of the struggle inside the prisons nowadays? After if you want, we could talk as well about the hungerstrike of prisoners in isolation in the year 2000, as another example of collective experience.
L – I was doing that hunger strike, and I had a really bad time. It was very hard, I was very hungy, and like me, we were all very hungry. And well, at the same time, it is a way of telling the guards who were inside, but well, we got no result, because there was no change to the regime, we got nothing more than reprisals from the ones that were inside. And I think that was the problem, because if outside there was to have been a bigger and more real coordination, the people, well coordinated, a more real support, then the guards, will have stopped themselves when repressing us. But of course because they knew that the support that we had outside was symbolic, apart from the four or five usual people, the rest was more like a small fashion of the time. And guards know all those things, and because they knew that it was not a real support, that is what happened.
S – It did not have an impact on the guards.
L – Not at all, they were not at all concerned, in fact, every time we did a hunger strike, and also this time, the guards were laughing at us, the were laughing at us. But anyhow, we were not eating, we were still refusing el rancho. We were not eating.
S – They would not care; in fact five guards savagely beat you up once when you were on your day 18 of the hunger strike. Is that correct?
L – Yes, between five guards. On the day 18 of the hunger strike, they were transfering me to another cell and they started beating me up from the back, they through me down to the floor, they kick my head up, they handcuffed me, they made several cuts in may head and then they tied me up from hand and feet to a bed, they did the stiches on the cuts of my head without anestesia, really bad. I was complaining and after 18 days without eating you are very weak. But it was a way of beating me up, it was the first time that they did it in such a cowardly way, lying to me, other times I had general searches, do you know the tension?, you know that if they do not remove your pants they are going to beat you up, you get ready, but then, because you are all by yourself, there is nothing you can do, but well, you are prepared, you know they are going to beat you up in that moment. But that time they lied to me, they told me “Cell change!”, a normal cell change, because they change my cell sometimes everyday. They were going after me, “get your things” and like that, and I was taking what I was writing at the time, I took the notebook, the letters and the things that I do not want them to see when they are searching the room, and I was walking along the corridor and just like that they started beating me up in the back. And then I turned around and then it was when they started beating me up really bad, they got me down to the floor, they kicked me in the head, a very strong beating, imagine. And at the time I was having the support of Amaitu.
S – Your village association.
L – Yes, but they did not mind, they did not care at all.
S – And in the hunger strike of the year 2000, they were also not bothered about the fact that you were all still on hunger strike, how many of you were doing the hunger strike?
L – I think that in total it was about 200 people, maybe more, I am not very sure because one will say one thing and others will say another, and also because since we were isolated, we could not talk between us. We had to be calling on the phone to other people that were outside to know how about things in our prison and in other prisons, I think that in total more than 200 people started it, I think it was more or less 50 the ones that finished it.
S – It was only done by the prisoners that were on the 1st grade, because on 2nd grade it was only follow by Gabriel and another comrade. It was not very supported amongst other prisoners, was it?
L – No, on 2nd grade it was only Gabriel and.... and in 1st grade it was also a few prisioners, because on the 1st grade there were lots of prisoners and the hunger strike was followed only by those who were on the FIES and by a few that were on 1st grade. But what I am saying, it was started but about 200 and finished I think by 50 without eating.
S – You just mentioned that there is a lot of people that live on the 1st grade, maybe is important to say that, mainly in Europe, that the people who are under the FIES regime are at the moment 44, because Xose Tarrío, died in January, the FIES regime, that is the strict regime of isolation still exists in Spain, and will still be there even when there is no FIES prisoners.
L – Yes, they are going to stay there, that is the modules. They have spent a lot of money on them. Imagine, they are modules were everything is automated, only automatic doors and cameras, bars over the top, all that has cost a lot of money. They are not going to destroy that from one day to the other, they will always keep it there. In the 1990s it was us, in the 2000s there will be other ones and 2010s there will be new ones. But those are microprisons of maximum security. To me, the walls of the FIES are microprisons of maximum security inside the macroprisions of maximum security. Mainly, the FIES modules are to stop people from escaping. And it is only social prisioners that they keep in them; I still have not seen political prisioners inside the FIES module of direct control. I have seen political prisioners in 1st grade with FIES 3, that is different, but FIES 1 is much harder.
S – Absolute control.
L – Of course, the problem is that in FIES 1, you are allowed to go out to the patio a maximum of one hour per day and with no more than one person, but with the 1st grade in FIES 3 you go to the patio something like 4 to 5 hours per day, and there are seven or eight people in the patio. Notice how it changes, it changes a lot. That is that the FIES is FIES 1 direct control, and that is only applied to social prisoners, people that wanted to escape, or that had rebelled anyhow against the institution, for having participated in a riot/mutiny, or maybe for having punched a guard, while they were beating you up, because many time you cannot, but sometime you can give a punch to a guard if you get an opportunity. For those reasons, either because the people were against the institution and then they get you into the FIES 1 with all their rights, only to social prisoners.
S – Other kind of torture that they apply is the transfers, you were saying before that to change cells is very common, and also to get transfer to other prisons, with the aim of getting you apart from your homes and families, like you just said, inside the FIES 1, it is mainly social prisoners, reivindicativos, supposed leaders of prisoners movements and many come from poor families.
L – Yes of course, that is why we stayed inside prison, we were all poor.
S – And about the transfers? In which conditions are those transfers made? How often? To how many people?
L – Change of cell?
S – Yes and change of prison.
L – Of prison? Well the changes are not only transfers between prisons, it is also changes of cell, they move you around the prison and change your cell, twice a week, or four times a week, or once every fortnight, whatever they want. Then transfers between prisons, the same, I dont know, it can be once every fortnight, once a month, every 20 days, whatever they want.
S – Again you are isolated because your families cannot go to see you, it is not the same if you are here in Vizcaya or if you are in Cadiz.
L – Yes of course, and also the prisons that have the FIES regime are just a few, it is not all prisons, they all have 1st grade but not all of them have the FIES modules. They transfer you, the transfers are also a way to stop you from escaping, because, according to them, if you are in for a lot of time in one place, you can be checking one thing or another, but if they are moving you all the time, you do not have time to plan anything. It is a tool to stop prisoners from escaping that is why they transfer you. Both transfers and changes of cell. Well, also, they use it with people that will not try to escape like Basque prisoners, well, some of them will, but most don’t, they change them to fuck them up, so they cannot have any comunication with their families, etc. But for us, for the ones who wanted to scape, they do it so you do not escape, they do not care about our families, they do not care about us, they only do it so you do not have an opportunity to escape.
S – How many times did you manage to escape? How many times did you manage to escape and got to the streets?
L – Me only once.
S – Once? And from which prison?
L – Well, look, it was from the calabozos municipals , (municipal jails), around here, from a village around here, now I do not remember how it is called.
S – And tried to escape?
L – I tried many times, and two of them kidnapping, but no, kidnapping is very very difficult and even more difficult from the FIES modules, you have to go through a lot of barriers, lots of controls, and at the end you do not manage to go.
S – And when you come back to prison?
L – The problem of trying to escape is that while you are planning it is ok, you are spending your time, but the problem is that if it does not go well, they beat you up savagely. They punish you very much. They do not like it if you try to escape, they do not like it at all, I cannot understand why.
S – Because it is normal to try it, isn’t it?
L – You will try to escape and then you do not manage and they beat you up a lot, they isolate you, they torture you, they handcuff you from your feet and hands to the bed, they insult you, they will tell you anything, and then of course you also get sanctions. They give you lots of sanctions as well, so for the next time that you try it again, maybe it has been a year or more, until you have paid all your sanctions, until you get recovered from the trauma, and they move you to a place where you could see again that the possibilitiesand then you start fantasising a bit, then maybe it has been more than a year, or maybe more, look how things are, then well, it is ok, what are you going to do when you are inside, tell me.
S – It is an instict, isn’t it?
L – In fact I am telling you, if from the beginning, when I got in the 80s for this story, but if I was to have been an ordinary prisoner, and if I was to have accepted what there was inside prisons, and I was not to rebel for anything, then I would have been inside just 9 years or maybe 10, but I stayed for over 25 years. That is because of my attitude inside the prisons and I have been quite, I do not get into serious things, the problem is that... I do not know.
S – What about the things that are going on those last two years, that could make us think, if we were to know again that there are riots/mutinies inside the prisons like the two that had occurred in Cuatre Camins what do you think?
L – The prison of Cuatre Camins is in Cataluña, in Cataluña it is another story. But with regards to the Spanish state? From the social prisoners point of view? I think that there is not much and what remains is old people, that they have always been fighting and will keep on fighting. But to encourage a bit the people who are inside so they start to, I don’t know, to get conscious first, because lots of prisoners they are not aware of what their rights are, that is the problem, they cannot write nor read. Therefore first, to make them aware of what their rights are, and to encourage them to fight for their rights, there needs to be a very good and coordinated movement outside. A movement that not only tells them what their rights are and then how to fight for them avoid the repression of possible reprisals and if prisoners got punished for fighting for their rights, to follow up from the outside and then also with regards to the media, that is, it is not only about making denunciations, demonstrations outside, but also going to the media, even to the big ones, a way of pressuring them so they can denounce what is going on, can’t they? The problem is that if prisoners do not see, and more as things are getting at the moment, they do not see that there is a real and strong support, there is nothing to do. Here in Spain it is all finished. Their only remains ashes and the four that have always been there, they continue there, fucking good, it is a pity.
S – You Laude, have been free for one year and one month, and I would like to ask you two things, what do you think about the prisoner’s support movement that there is outside, now that you can see them, and how are you?
L – Well, to be honest I think that a lot more could be done, that not much is being done, and that there should be much more, lots more could be done. And how am I? Fucking great. I am fucking great outside, I rather be outside than inside.
S – But what consequences did the isolation time in prison have upon you?
L – Ah! I am very fucked up in the head, I am really bad, I have an enormous psychological trauma, and I do not know how, bit by bit, I am going to get over it. The system has not provided psychiatrists or anything, I did not get any kind of attention at the beginning either, I had to do it all myself. No, but it is true that it leaves your mind really bad, a lot of distrust and lots of paranoia, I still dream about prison. Look what a paranoia, I have been outside for a year and I still dream about prison. It is just too much. It is also difficult to relate with the people outside, there are lots of things from the people in the streets that because you are used to do things other ways, other attitudes, for example in the streets people insult each other just like that, inside if you get insulted, you need to fight for your life and things like that. You are in a pub and someone comes and pushes you and, what is going on? Lack of respect that here there are no problem, but inside they are very stong, well that you need to kill yourself with someone for such a stupid thing. Here outside they are stupid things, but inside they are very serious lacks of respect. But well, I am seeing how people function outside because I am not going to be killing myself with everyone that insults me or pushes me. What I am going to do? I will have to be one more of those outside. I mean, I am not going to slap childish people that are going around pushing people at the pub, they can get me in prison again, that can be a problem.
S – That is a fear that you have always in mind, isn’t it?
L – That I get imprisoned for such a stupid thing, and mainly because if I get into prison again, they have all my files there, I will go directly into the FIES, and then the guards are going to really give me a very hard time. They will try to increase my sentence, maybe I go in there just to do six months, but I might never manage to get out. I won’t be able to be out because they will increase my sentence for fighting with someone, if I can defend myself I will defend myself. If you defend yourself, they will consider it as an aggression, then they will increase the sentence to 4 years, 6 years, what do I know.
S – Now you are 44 years old and you got in when you were 17.
L – No, well, I got in when I was 19 and now I am 44, the thing is that before I have been inside more times. I had 4 more entries. Then I was also in a young offenders institution, from here, in the young offenders institution of El Cisco, I managed to escape, the thing is that it was easier to escape before, and well all my life like that, all my life. Well, I was also working as an ilegal, the problem is that they have been exploiting me, I was conscious that I was being exploited, and with what I was getting I could not manage, and then in one way or another I needed to get some money to live on, to have my life, not that I was spending it on drugs. But well, I liked to live well, with as much dignity as possible, even though I was a kid, to have my own money, why could I not have my own money? If I had the guts to go and get it. I think it is like that, who does not do it because they do not have the guts or courage to do it, well, nothing, worse for him, but if you know that you can get it, I get it and that is it.
S – The first step necessary for a movement of rebellion to happen, for a movement of resistance within the prisons, is that for the persons that are inside to become aware of their condition as prisoners, aware of the system that is opressing them and also aware of the reasons why they are in such a condition. When did you experience this change within you and how?
L – Well, me being aware of all that, when I was a kid, of course I was not aware of any of those things. When I was a kid I was in the Basque country, I had thrown lots of stones at the police; I had participated in lots of demos. But for me it was because it was the police, that was my reason, they were bad, they were the ones who used to arrest me, beat me up, torture me, and I did not like them, do you understand me? Also because I was stealing, and then they used to arrest me, they used to torture me, they used to do all kinds of savage things. And then of course, if I was to see that there were demos against the cops, I would go to throw stones at them, to throw them whatever, because they were cops, but I was a kid at the time, but I was not aware then about how the system works. Then when they made me a prisoner again in the 80s, well, it is not that I was very aware, I did not even know how to write a letter, well, I did know how to write, but I did not know how to write a letter, where to put the address or the return address, or any of those things, I had never written a letter. And I did not know what my rights were. And also I got in in the 80s, with all the mutinies/riots from the COPEL, all prisons were basically destroyed. Then I was there, I went to Malaga’s prison and I was tripping, completely shocked, because since prisons were destroyed inside, they would have us sleeping in groups of 60 or 70 blokes in a space for 15 or 20, so we were really overcrowed. And well, there, with time I was getting more and more interested in my rights, I started getting the penal code, first thing I learned was how to make claims to the institution, because when you are inside, every time that you want to ask for something, you need to do a written claim. Therefore I started by doing the written claims and then I was getting to learn which article I needed to mention to do such or such a claim, because when you do not base your claims on the articles, they will get thrown out straight away, they will not reply to you. So bit by bit a started by reading the Penal Code reglamento penitenciario, the penal legislation, the penal code, the constitution, and everything. And I was shocked, Fuck we had all those rights? That could not be, how can it be possible that we had all those rights, because they do not respect any of them. That was the first shock. You start writing, and then I started going around with people that were inside for longer than myself. They tell you about escapes, it is normal, the people who are inside were there for a long time, and in prison the conditions are really bad. And then the people are trying to escape they have a different mentality and then you read, you get publications, and at the end, you start becoming aware of being a prisoner. You become aware that you are a prisoner of the system. I was felt I was being kidnapped by the system, the system had me kidnapped, not for what I was, but for what I had become at that moment, and for what I was doing inside the prison. That is why instead of 9 years, they made me pay nearly 25. And well, now I know what the State is, I know what repression is, I know why they apply repression, I know a lot of things. Now I am aware, and I have read several writers, political texts, mainly anarquists, the ones that I most liked, now I have my own ideas.
S – Maybe with the experience of being a prisoner, mainly in that atmosphere like yourself, one of the few things that are positive is getting to know a few people. Other comrades that have common struggle with you, and mainly we could talk about Gabriel Pombo da Silva, who is on trial at the moment in Aachen.
L – Yes I did got to know him, they have also been very unfair with him and well, aparently he managed in Nanclares de la Oca, with the support that he had from the outside, he managed to get a permit to go out, the man never came back, well, it is normal, how are you going to go back to get tortured, would you? Now from what I have heard they got him in Germany, and that the conditions are really horrible. Apparently it has been an accident, well, I do not know exactly what has hapened with the guy. But what to me is clear is that he did not go back to prison. Why? Because how is anyone going to go back to get tortured, that is why he escaped, in fact he had tried while he was inside several times, he also was always trying to escape. And well, I believe he got to Germany and there was a problem, I do not know what happened, but well, it was an accident within his fight, and well, he has been unlucky because now they got him again and he has it really bad, I heard that the same or worse than in the spanish FIES 1,2 or regime.
S – It is another kind of torture, white torture, more psychological than physical?
L – Then, well yes, I think it is outrageous what they are doing with him. And well, I do not know if it could be possible to get him out, now it is at trial, they still have not reached a conclusion.
S – There is still no sentence, but for example, what do you think would hapen if Gabriel was to go back to Spain, because the country has asked for the extradition.
L – When he gets back to Spain? when he gets back to Spain they are going to keep on torturing him, they are going to keep him isolated to see if he somehow, well dies, whether from a sickness or from a beating. I think they want to assasinate him and they will not stop until they manage it. If they take him back to Spain he does not have a chance, he had it very bad and he is going to keep on having it very bad. And if he managed to go out because of the circunstancional support that he was having at the moment, because I found it incredible that they gave him a permit. You see, when there is a real support, you see. And well, the guy took advantage, he did not go back and well, fucking great, but now, they got him again. He was inside his story, his fight, he had that accident and well.
S – At the end, what the State really hates is people like Gabriel, that is again in a very difficult situation, and even though, he keeps on writing he keeps on denouncing, and he keeps on having his own ideas.
L – That is why they punish you more when you are in prison, for your attitude inside, it is not for what you have done, at the end what have you done, nothing. You start asking yourself, what have I done for all this. I have done nothing for fuck’s sake. At the end of the day there is four inside that they are doing much more and and they are not paying anything. They punish your attitude inside prison, if they think it is, if they see that you go against the system and that you are against them, well look for defending human rights inside prison, which crime is that. For them it is a crime.
S – That is what you were telling me before, that they were going against their own laws.
L – Yes, they are breaking the law all the time, when I became aware of my rights I read article 15 of the spanish constitution: no-one will be tortured or suffer malos tratos.(Ill treatment) I was shocked. Is this the Spanish Constitution! Is this possible? Here they are torturing us everyday, they are beating us, how could that be? How could it be possible that these people could have such a nerve? Como es posible que esta gente pueda tener tanto morro? They are systematically breaking their own laws and in fact, well, when I talk to people, I think that a very important step is to obliged them to respect cumplan their own laws. That would be a very important step. Because a lot of prisioners will benefit from it. That would be an important step, then if we want to go further, then well, that step will then be very important, because a lot of prisoners would benefit, lots of prisoners would get released, the conditions inside would be a bit better, and that they treat you at least as a person is also good. Becuase if not you feel like you are nobody and they can do with you whatever they want. It is a feeling that it leaves you very bad. And on top of that nothing hapens to them. It is a very important step, that they respect their own laws. Mainly the human rights within the prisons. This will be a very important point. and then, all the other rights that are legislated, that are comtemplated by law, for them to respect them the same. A lot of prisoners would get released, but a lot of them, and their lifes would change inside by 100%.
S – Do you want to tell us anything else?
L – Well, I do not know, what I would like to say is that I am really upset, because they have hurted me a lot, but well, I am on the streets, I am getting over it bit by bit. But they have damaged me very much, very hard. I am really upset, it is true, the problem is that I go along with it very well, I think it is very important to denounce what there is inside, for people to get conscious and when I say people, I do not mean one, two, three or four, it is everybodies problem.
September 2005