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Show The Great Escape • 6 amazmg stuff, while a lot of otiiers had minor roles. One man I talked to, for instance, found out about the escape only the day before, when everything was already m place, and he went along for the ride. Others, those with light sentences who would be released shortly, were left behind on the other side of the jail, and most didn't find out about the escape until the guards did. On the outside, most active Tupamaros knew nothing, though a few were charged with stealing prison plans, which were passed off to inmates m kisses during visits by female Tupamaras. The plans were torn in small pieces and stuffed inside small "pills" made of nylon, to be reconnected on the inside, sometimes after a passage through a prisoner's intestinal tract. On the night of the escape many clandestine Tupamaros participated in a disturbance in La Teja, across town from the prison, to draw police forces away. They had no idea what their purpose might be, though some suspected an escape, given that thirty-nine female Tupamaras had escaped from their prison a little over a month earlier. (Then tunnel was dug from the outside, connecting their dormitory floor with the city sewer system.) But Arturo was directly involved in the planning and execution of the Punta Carretas escape. Because he was skinny and flexible and not claustrophobic, because he had lived in the city's sewers mapping them out, he was down in the tunnel digging every day. Long years of neglect after the escape eventually left Punta Carretas unsuitable for holding prisoners (some might say that it was never suitable, but that's another story). In the 1980s, the shell of the building was salvaged, but its insides were gutted and redesigned into a chic European-style shopping mall. I thought it would be interesting to go back to Punta Carretas with Arturo. I wish I could say I thought of it myself, but I had seen it done in a German documentary that interviewed Fernandez Huidobro and Mujica, the two senators. I decided to try it myself, but without the weight of celebrity lent by the two best known living Tupamaros. I liked the idea of getting the story from a relatively unknown contributor. Karina, my wife, and I met Arturo at his Senate office, then took a taxi to the site of the former prison. Arturo paid the fare. |