Charged with "rebellion"

We did our prison visit today. Later I´ll add another entry just on that visit. I´m trying to write and edit it on paper so I won´t spend time and valuable pesos on internet time. The basics are we split into two groups one went to the men´s prison and the other went to the women´s.

I went to the men´s high security prison with a Colombian human rights lawyer and Bob, one of the delegation escorts. The three men we visited are charge with ¨rebellion" which seems to mean whatever the government wants it to mean. Although Uribe claims there are no political prisoners, everyone refers to them as political prisoners including the prison officials and the lawyers.

These delegation trips turn into endurance tests after a while with all the traveling and meeting after meeting after mee....... I skipped out on one this afternoon to rest. My fellow delegates feeling obligated to go to every single meeting, met with these oil trade workers and fell asleep during his talk. Both of them. That´s what you get for scheduling meetings after lunch.

We flew back from Medellin last night and I´m still exhausted even after a little nap. So if my writing is at times less than coherent please forgive me. I´m trying to push the idea that sometimes less is more but apparently every union in Colombia wants to meet the American delegation. That does make sense considering how much involvement our country has in Colombia - I think I´ve gone through before: the millions of dollars from Plan Colombia and the upcoming AFTA vote.

So I´m going to try to write up the prisoner´s story and post it tonite, tommorow at the lastest.