Víctor Rolando Arroyo, UPECI
PINAR DEL RIO, August – The Cuban government’s drive to earn hard currency extends to the prison system, where prisoners are put to work in various enterprises to contribute to the effort, often with little regard for their safety or well-being.
Prisoners are obligated to work in order to have access to rights which are stipulated in the Cuban Penal Code as accruing to all prisoners, such as for example, conditional freedom after serving half to two-thirds of a sentence.
At prison Kilo [for Kilometer] Five-and-a-half, outside the city of Pinar del Río, prisoners work in an aluminum refining plant within the prison. The Ministry of the Interior derives revenue from exporting the aluminum produced in this facility by the prisoners.
The aluminum refining plant in the prison is a primitive operation without modern equipment or protection for the workers. The oven where the metal is melted uses fuel oil and spews black, acrid smoke; it frequently collapses due to the poor condition of the refractary brick that make up its
walls.
The molten metal is poured on the molds from buckets hand-carried by teams of two prisoners. [The melting point of aluminum is 1220 degrees F (660 degrees C).] Any spills or spatters usually end up burning somebody. Should that happen, the injured have to wait for transportation; there are no
medical facilities in the prison and its one ambulance broke down more than five years ago and has never been repaired.
The prisoners receive no protective clothing, shoes or gloves or, indeed, no clothing of any kind; they wear their own. Prison authorities say they just don’t have the resources to provide them.
According to the most conservative estimates, each "pour" of the smelter yields revenue to the plant of between 500 and 1,250 dollars. Sometimes the plant manages two "pours" in a day, and averages twenty in a month.
Inmates receive a salary that can be as high as 130 pesos (about 6 dollars) a month. From that, prison authorities discount 45 percent for food, clothing, and articles of personal hygiene, which the prisoners seldom actually receive. The remainder doesn’t always make it to the families of
the inmates; there’s widespread corruption in the administration of the penal system and there have been several high profile cases exposed in recent years.
[Independent journalist Arroyo was recently released after serving a six-month sentence in "Kilo Five-and-a-Half" prison.]
Versión original en español
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