Media reports in Mexico indicate that the notorious Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin Guzmán Loera AKA "El Chapo" [5]—who evaded authorities for over a decade before being captured earlier this year—has claimed victory in a hunger strike at the top-security Altiplano prison in Almoloya de Juárez, México state. Chapo reportedly started the strike July 16 with fellow imprisoned kingpin Édgar Valdez Villarreal AKA "La Barbie" [6]—who had once been his comrade-in-arms but later became his bitter enemy when Barbie defected to the rival Beltran-Leyva cartel. The hunger strike rapidly spread throughout the prison, with at least 1,000 other inmates joining. Authorities quickly capitulated on some of the key demands. Prisoners will be given new shoes and clothing, and they will be served more food (although it will be the same mediocre quality). Inmates will also be allowed to purchase more items such as toilet paper from the prison store. They will be allowed three attempts to make phone calls to their families; previously, if the call was not connected or the line was busy they had to wait nine days to try again. Although other demands were not met, Chapo and Barbie called off the strike. It should be noted that Altiplano is the most elite prison in Mexico, with state-of-the-art security measures modelled after the "supermax" facilities in the United States. But conditions are far worse at the country's many overcrowded and corrupt state facilities—which have witnessed a series of bloody uprisings [7] in recent years. (Hispanically Speaking [8], July 28;Borderland Beat [9], July 21; Proceso [10], July 19)
Cross-post to High Times [11] and Global Ganja Report [12]
See our last post on the prison crisis in Latin America [7].
