Page 58 - Marlie Burton Roche : Landscape and Bread

Now COPPES has a school inside
POLITICAL PRISON [the prison]. We are teaching the

farmers how to read and write. This
is really important because people
are learning about their reality. We

My name is Vladimir Centeno. I have been here [in prison] for two are teaching adults. It is hard, but
years and I am going to talk to you about COPPES which was started people really want to learn because
seven years ago with a hunger strike. Seven years ago, the government we help them become conscious

did not recognize political prisoners. They said we were criminals. At the about their rights and help them
time, some compañeros, some teachers, workers, and farmers were in understand what is happening. So
jail because they wanted to change the system. They wanted to express illiterate farmers and workers learn
their ideas. They had been organized in unions and cooperatives. The how to read in six months because

Salvadoran government said that any member of a cooperative, teacher’s they want to do it. We also have
association, or a student’s association, was a communist or a subversive. classes in teaching people how to
All these compañeros went on a hunger strike for 15 days. The army went make furniture. COPPES has two

into the jail and beat and tortured the prisoners, but a lot of people from offices, one for coordinating our
Unions started to push the government to accept the existence of political activities and one for providing
prisoners and COPPES was born. COPPES has been working for general legal assistance inside the prison.
amnesty for the political prisoners and better conditions in the jail: food, Now they are trying to destroy this

water, space, beds, clothes. You can see how we live now. We have some organization - COPPES. They are
freedom inside. This freedom has only come because we have to fight for sending political prisoners to other
it through hunger strikes. Many Compañeros have been disappeared and jails in the countryside and they

beaten because of our struggle. During these several years, people from are disappearing a lot of people.
the Mother’s of the Disappeared Committee, some Unions, people like Everyday people come to this jail
you, have been fighting to help the political prisoners and giving us your asking for someone in their family.
support. So the government is afraid of what you will say if they kill the These are people “disappeared”,

political prisoners. who don’t ever show up in Mariona
[the name of the prison].
In 1984, the war and the economic problems increased so the workers,

the farmers, the students struggled to put an end to these conditions. They We also have an infirmary. Health
organized again and put pressure on the government. The government is a big problem in the prison. The
responded by capturing people again: unionists, teachers, students, co- government doesn’t give us enough
operativists. The jails population started to grow. People inside the jails food and we don’t have enough

continued their struggle for a better place, to stop the torture, and to water. We are crowded into a small
denounce the human rights violations. COPPES struggled against the space. A lot of people have been
government to show that we are not criminals. Duarte has been saying sick a long time and they are not

that every student, teacher, worker who is organized, is a Communist - a taken care of. Political prisoners do
subversive. We want freedom. We want democracy. We want to express not have the right to go to a hospital
ourselves. We want justice. even if they are very sick. Another
problem is that 99% of the political
prisoners have been tortured. To

54 MARLIE BURTON-ROCHE LANDSCAPE & BREAD