Baduel & Salazar, 2015

In 2015 I took a Magnum workshop in Caracas with Larry Towell. For one assignment I photographed the relatives of political prisoners.

One was Cruz María Baduel. Her husband, Raúl Isaías, had been Chávez’s defense minister. He had saved Chávez during the coup of 2002. Later he criticized him for wanting unlimited power. The government turned on him and put him in prison.

In revenge, they took her three sons and a son-in-law too. Raúl Baduel died in state custody. He had surgery in secret, then was returned to a cell in La Tumba, in freezing cold, with no running water and no toilet. One of her sons is still held in Rodeo I prison, where he is frequently tortured.

The other was the mother and young son of Captain Laided Salazar. In 2014 Salazar was falsely accused of joining a plot to overthrow the government. They kept her in isolation. No visits. No letters. No photographs. They tortured her. At one point she weighed only 35 kilos. They had taken her from her boy. He was ten years old then. He had not seen her in a very long time. In 2018, under house arrest, she escaped the country.

Who can explain to a child why people do this? The boy’s eyes have stayed with me. I saw that same look in every relative of a political prisoner I met.