Brazil & Southern Cone - January 2014 (ISSN 1741-4431)

A short strike by Paraguay’s main prison guards union, Sindicato de Trabajadores de Seguridad Penitenciaria del Paraguay (Sintrasepp), exposed some of the serious problems affecting the national penitentiary system. During the 18-hour long stoppage, there were riotous scenes in some of the country’s biggest prisons, resulting in the deaths of two inmates.

Sintrasepp members went on strike on 10 January, after the private companies contracted to provide prison security failed to show up to the tripartite salary negotiations scheduled for that day. The government representatives did show. Juan Velázquez, Sintrasepp’s secretary general, said the union had hoped to use the meeting to voice grievances including the non-payment of last year’s 13^th salary (aguinaldo) , payment of which is obligatory by employers, and a 50% reduction in the G$1m (US$211.17) additional bonus paid to prison workers by way of ‘danger money’. In November 2013, the justice & labour ministry, which sets the amount of the ‘dangerous profession bonus’ (but which is also the financial responsibility of employers), took a decision to halve it.

After being stood up by the prison service companies, Velásquez said the union would immediately go on indefinite national strike. The walkout was observed by all 800 members of Sintrasepp, taking the authorities by surprise. Disturbances soon were reported in the country’s largest prison, Tacumbú, which houses 46% of Paraguay’s prison population, some 4,000 inmates. Hundreds of prisoners attempted to break out of their zones (or pavilions) and into others, looking to steal other inmates’ belongings. Marcos Rojas, a Tacumbú inmate who works for Remar, a local religious NGO, told the press via telephone: “Since the early hours of the morning there have been no guards, and inmates have been looting… twenty of them tried to break into the Remar pavilion but we fought back. There is no law in Tacumbú. The situation is difficult. They are trying break down the metal fencing to make weapons… the inmates have been left to their fate”.

Soon afterwards, a labour & justice ministry spokesman reported disturbances in four of the country’s 16 prisons. In Tacumbú, there were reports of two deaths, with eight prisoners seriously injured. The Tacumbú prison director, Artemio Vera, said that there had been a generalised riot but that with the help of police, the (non-striking) prison staff had managed to restore order. Vera confirmed that one inmate had been electrocuted to death after he got onto the roof and tried to scale the electric fencing, while another died in the infirmary, where he was due to receive hepatitis treatment.

In response, Labour & Justice Minister Sheila Abed organised an emergency tripartite meeting with the unions and the prison security companies. Afterwards, she announced that the ministry had agreed to pay the pending aguinaldos, in return for which Sintrasepp had agreed to lift the strike. Pressed as to the chaos in Tacumbú, Abed insisted that the authorities had managed to keep the situation under control. She rejected accusations that the two Tacumbú fatalities were the result of the police attempts to regain control of the prison. Insisting that the deaths were “accidental”, Abed tried to argue that they were not even linked to the strike.

Despite Abed’s efforts, the incident has spotlighted the problem of overpopulation in the country’s prisons. Local press unearthed a 2012 report by the labour & justice ministry’s own national torture prevention commission calling for reform. The report noted that the “historic” deficiencies in the system often translate into “cruel, inhumane and degrading” treatment of inmates. It also emphasised the need to build more prisons, noting that Tacumbú was originally intended to house 1,500 inmates. Equally notably, the report also expressed concern that the 40 prison guards assigned to the Tacumbú were vastly outnumbered by inmates.

• PJC penitentiary intervened

On 7 January, just days before the prison guards went on strike, Labour & Justice Minister Abed ordered the intervention of a penitentiary near the town of Pedro Juan Caballero (PJC), on the border with Brazil, following the murder of a detained Brazilian national. Emilio Rojas was killed on 4 January, when two armed men entered his cell and shot him. Rojas was arrested in 2010, suspected of taking part in an assassination attempt on Paraguay’s Senator Robert Acevedo. Abed said that in order to carry out an exhaustive investigation she had removed the prison director, Romualdo Rojas Amarilla, replacing him with an interim director who will take charge of the investigation.