San Pedro prison in La Paz is a prison like no other - cocaine is manufactured inside the walls, wives and children of prisoners live there, and inmates pay rent for their cells and until recently tourists could roam its corridors with camcorders
IT IS LISTED in the Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia for its illegal prison tours, and is the subject of a film to be made by Brad Pitt later this year.
If Tipperary man Michael Dwyer had survived the raid by Bolivian police on the hotel he was staying in in Santa Cruz last month, he may well have been detained there along with two members of his group. Welcome to the notorious San Pedro prison in La Paz, an institution which once housed the infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie.
Recently I was able to walk freely through this prison and it is a place that I will never forget. This is a jail like no other. Cocaine is manufactured inside its walls, prison guards don't go beyond the gates, and inmates effectively rule themselves down to the point of renting and selling cells.
San Pedro was put on the map through the book Marching Powder, published in 2003. Its author, an Australian backpacker called Rusty Young, got inside as a tourist and wrote the story of British drug trafficker, Thomas McFadden, who paid for his keep in San Pedro by doing prison tours.
The book revealed the dark side of the jail, from drug dealing to murder. The authorities were enraged and embarrassed by the revelations, but the illegal tours continued and actually grew in popularity.
Up until last year San Pedro's prison population of about 1,500 was largely made up of drug dealers and traffickers, thieves and murderers. Amazingly, only 25 per cent of those locked up in San Pedro have actually stood trial. The rest are either awaiting trial without bail, or are detainees without any realistic chance of ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.
Since Evo Morales assumed the presidency of Bolivia in 2006 San Perdro has received many of his political opponents. The most famous of these is Leopoldo Fernandez, governor of the province of Pando and outspoken critic of Morales. The governor was implicated in a riot which led to the death of 15 supporters of Morales in September last year.
Other political and union leaders have also been detained at San Pedro, and almost all of them are awaiting trial.
A few months after the imprisonment of Fernandez, a Bolivian journalist gained access to the prison and interviewed him. This was met with outrage and considerable political disquiet and an effort to restrict access to San Pedro was made.
I managed to get in via a contact who organised for me to be received by a prisoner as his visitor. In the taxi to San Pedro there was a debate on the radio about the prison and drama that unfolding outside its walls. Apparently tourists had got into the prison with a video camera and had posted the film on YouTube. That morning more tourists had managed to get inside at 6am and all hell had broken loose. The government had dispatched high-ranking officials and army generals to the jail.
When I arrived the prison was full of policemen, the military and television crews. We went to the side door of the jail where my contact gave the guards the name of the prisoner I was visiting. There was no elaborate security system. Iron bars secured with a simple padlock separated the San Pedro inmates from the outside world. The prisoners clutched the bars from the inside and stared out. Some were waiting for family, others were touting for business as prison guides.
EVERY FEW MINUTES a guard opened the padlock to let women and children in and out. Wives and children who can't afford to live on the outside are allowed inside with their husbands. The women leave every morning to work to earn enough money to pay for the prison cells and to buy food for their families; the Bolivian prison authorities only provide about 40 cent a day per prisoner towards food.
My contact talked to the guards and it became clear we were not going to get in. There was a halt to all visits because of the media attention. We were just about to leave when one prison guard suddenly directed us to a different part of the jail.
San Pedro is broken into different sections with varying degrees of comfort. Prisoners rent or buy their cells for the duration of their sentence. Those with money, usually drug traffickers, live in apartment-type cells with a private bathroom, a kitchen and even cable television. Next come more basic one-bed cells, while the poorer prisoners have to sleep in cramped single cells, which often accommodate five or six people. Those with no money have to sleep in alleyways.
We were brought down a narrow corridor which led to a locked iron door. The guard opened it and we walked into a courtyard surrounded by about 10 single cells. It is called the chonchorito and, along with la Posta, houses San Pedro's VIPs and political prisoners.
One of the prisoners here is Reynaldo Bayard. He was the chairman of the civic committee of Tarija, a political organisation, before he was accused of a terrorist attack on a gas pipeline near Yacuiba and thrown into San Pedro. He has not had a trial and has been given no indication if and when one will take place. He has been in San Pedro for almost five months. His supporters have raised money for him to pay for his cell and food, costing about €4 a day. He brought me into his tiny cell where there is barely enough room for the bed. He lives here with his wife and they cook their food outside on a gas ring.
When I returned the next day, Father's Day, the place was buzzing. Families were queuing outside. Women carried flowers and children carried little handmade cards with Te amo Papa written in coloured pens. Every bag was searched before the guards let them pass into the prison. My contact negotiated with the guards and after a few minutes they turned the key and let us through. We entered into a large square which looked like a marketplace. There were stalls selling food and soft drinks everywhere. Prisoners sat around with their families on plastic chairs under Coco-Cola umbrellas and played cards. We were being touted for tours and went with a man called Eduardo who promised to show us all the sights. He brought us down an alleyway which had a stall where an old Bolivian woman in a shawl and a bowler hat sold bread and cakes.
We entered another square. There were signs for restaurants all around, even one selling Chinese food. In one there were prisoners preparing food for the lunchtime trade. Eduardo brought us to a craft shop where prisoners were selling toy cars made from recycled cans and elaborate wood carvings. I brought a crude little ornament for 10 bolivianos, about €1.
ABOVE THE SHOPS and restaurants were landings and cells where prisoners hung out. I didn't feel under threat in any way. It didn't seem like a prison and I needed to remind myself that an estimated four murders are committed in San Pedro every month.
In another square prisoners were playing pinball and other sports. Out of the blue a man who looked like a guard hit a prisoner with a baton. But this was not a regular prison warden, as there are none inside. San Pedro has its own internal security, and it is elected prisoners who keep the peace. They even wear a uniform with "internal security" written on their backs.
At a large sink in a corner prisoners washed dishes and clothes. These jobs are reserved for the poorer prisoners who are paid by the richer ones to do their dirty work. Everywhere I went in the prison children were mixing with prisoners and playing games with the inmates. It was a strange sight. Twenty-four of the 150 children who call San Pedro their home go to school inside the jail.
I asked Eduardo could I see the school. Teacher Doris Cruz Fuentes met us at the door with a warm smile and agreed to let us inside. The school consisted of an old fashioned room with desks and a large blackboard. The absence of books was noticeable and the children wrote on scraps of paper. Doris told me there was no money for books and if they were lucky they got the odd one as a donation from another school or charity.
The kids in the prison school looked happy, were outgoing and smiling, but for the San Pedro children who go to school outside it is not so easy. Many make up false addresses to try and hide the truth from their classmates in the city.
I stayed about an hour in San Pedro that day. At the end of my tour I gave Eduardo 100 bolivianos, about €10. He was happy and shook my hand. Just before I turned to leave I asked him what he was inside for. Armed robbery he said in a casual way, as if he had been asked a hundred times. My last memory of San Pedro is my armed robber guide waving goodbye through the iron bars.
San Pedro prison is where Bolivia's criminal classes have traditionally been kept. But this has changed under Morales. Now it is a repository for his political enemies and those who are seen to undermine his regime.
Up to a month ago tourists with camcorders could roam its corridors. But in recent weeks the authorities have restricted access. Days after my visit there was a major clampdown and inmates rioted. Starved of income from visitor tours, and facing surviving on prison rations, they exploded. Five hundred riot police were sent in with tear gas. Women and children passed out and the rebellion was quashed.
It seems San Pedro's days on the backpacker tourist trail may well be over.