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Show The Great Escape • 2 This is also what makes the Tupamaros' prison break much cooler and more legitimate than the 197^9 escape from Gasre Prison in Tehran, Iran, by 11,000 prisoners who were accidentally freed from the outside by a commando unit sent in by Ross Perot to stir up a riot outside, attack the prison, and rescue two of his Electronic Data Systems employees. The rest of the escapees "took advantage of this and the Islamic revolution" to hightail it out of there, according to the Guinness Book, which lists this escape alongside the Tupamaros'. I can certainly respect the planning and effort made by the commandos, and Ross Perot's dedication to his workers, but for me, it's not about numbers, it's about intentionality and ingenuity. Any opportunist can run through an open door in the middle of the Islamic revolution after the guards are subdued by an external mob. But to" escape from the inside, through a tunnel, with all the dirt hidden under your beds for over half a month, after connecting together some fifty cells on three floors; to come out through somebody's living room floor, grab a pouch of money and a gun from your compaheros, then burst through the backyard, then through the abutting house's backyard, and then the other house, and into waiting trucks to be whisked away in the early morning hours while other companeros make a diversion burning cars across town-to execute the escape including one-hundred-eleven men all in a few hours-that is, in the literal, etymologically correct sense of the word, awesome. The escape has captivated me since I first heard about it, mostly because of the mystique and adventure of it, because of its metaphorical possibilities, because, as my father says, "There's a part of everyone that wants to escape from prison," and because I had never heard about it before then. In Uruguay, everybody knows what you mean if you mention "The Escape from Punta Carretas," most people know what you mean if you call it simply "The Escape," and many people know what you mean if you call it, cryptically, "The Abuse," the Tupamaros' code name for it. But nobody brags about it, except for the guy I met one day when I went with Arturo Dubra looking for the |
