The property is in charge of the SNAI, but it will pass into the hands of Inmobiliar. Pre-released prisoners will be able to work in the space.
The expenal Garcia Moreno is a symbol of history of Quito and of the country.
It was built in 1874 and that made it the first prison in Ecuador. It was in that place, located on El Placer and La Libertad streets, in the San Roque neighborhood, where former President Eloy Alfaro was imprisoned, as well as figures with macabre crimes such as Pedro Alonso López called ‘el Monster of the Andes’ or Daniel Camargo, known as ‘The beast of the mangroves’.
Now the place looks neglectedthere are rubbish around youbroken glass and stray dogs that manage to get in and out through the thin bars on your front door.
a heritage asset
The Metropolitan Heritage Institute (IMP) details that the expenal is one of the 5,000 heritage properties what does he have Historical Center Quito. However, she is in charge of the National Comprehensive Care Service for Persons Deprived of Liberty and Young Offenders (SNAI).
In a conversation with LA HORA, Lorena Merizalde, director of the Legal Department of the SNAI, comments on the plan for this place that closed its doors in 2014, when his 3,255 prisoners were transferred to the Cotopaxi prison.
memory museum
The offer of the SNAI is that until the end of March 2022 the project will be structured in which both governmental and municipal institutions will participate.
The report must detail how the rehabilitation of infrastructure will be and the use that will be given to it. For now, details like the budget necessary and the weather that it will take have no answer, but all this – confirms Merizalde – will be ready The end of this month.
What is known is that the expenal will be transformed into a museum called ‘of memory’.
This is due to the provision that, in 2002, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) made to Ecuador, as reparation to the victims of crimes against humanity committed in the country.
It’s not the first time
But the expenal already has experience in opening its doors to citizens. In 2019, together with the ‘Quito Post Mortem’ theater group that represented prison guides and those deprived of liberty. The goal was for visitors to have an experiential experience of what it was like to be in prison.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, tours have stopped taking place since 2020. “This museum that existed before was like an experience,” says Merizalde, highlighting the new theme it will have.
“The museum (of memory) is something totally different because it will have photographic exhibitions. It is a museum that will follow the guidelines of the IACHR, in which more than an experience tour, it is a historical tour,” says the official.
It passes ‘into the hands’ of another institution
Merizalde comments that there was no clarity on what was going to happen with the expenal, but that there is already a roadmap. In the first place, the property will be managed by the Technical Secretariat of Real Estate Management of the Public Sector (Real Estate). “From there it will be the focal point for the organization of this ambitious project.”
But the recovery work will also be done with the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Tourism and the Municipality of Quito.
In an official letter with information requested from the SNAI by this means it was detailed that another of the reasons for the inter-institutional work and the transfer of real estate is that “currently there is no budget for him maintenance this infrastructureOh, taking into account that this center is not inhabited by people deprived of their liberty.”
People in pre-release will be able to work in the expenal
Within the project it is contemplated that people with pre-release (who are still part of the prison system) can work in the warehouse.
“It is expected, being a tourist attractionhave a Cafeteria, bakery where we will be working the pre-released people and people in the reintegration process through the skills they acquire in the deprivation of liberty centers: bakery, carpentry”, says Lorena Merizalde, director of legal advice at the SNAI.
It is also not ruled out that people who have served their sentence may even be the guides in this museum of memory.
According to SNAI, one of the first actions to regain control of the infrastructure is the hiring of security guards.
“Until the end of March (2022) we hope to come out with the project (García Moreno expenal rehabilitation) ready”, Lorena Merizalde, director of the SNAI Legal Department.
“This project seeks to promote our rehabilitation axes and incorporate a population that we have been forgetting that they are our pre-released”, Lorena Merizalde, director of the SNAI Legal Department.
