El Frontón Explained

El Frontón Island
Pushpin Map:	Peru
Pushpin Label Position:	left
Coordinates:	-12.1167°N -77.1817°W
Location:	Pacific Ocean
Country Admin Divisions Title:	Region
Country Admin Divisions:	Callao
Area Km2:	1
Timezone1:	PET
Utc Offset1:	-5

El Frontón is a deserted island and former penal colony off the coast of Callao, Peru.

Geography

Dry, deserted and without vegetation, it is located 7 km from the coast, to the west of La Punta District and to the southeast of San Lorenzo Island. It has an approximate area of 1 km² and is frequented by marine animals such as sea lions and the Humboldt penguin.

History

From its viceregal era up until the early 19th century, the island was inhabited only by pirates and privateers, and was also known by the nickname of Dead Man's Island (Spanish; Castilian: La Isla del Muerto).^{[1] [2] [3]}

Prison

The island became a penal colony in the early 19th century, starting in 1917, under president José Pardo's second administration.^{[4] [5]} Initially a maximum security prison, the island eventually housed political prisoners, such as future president Fernando Belaúnde Terry,^[4] who, his imprisonment, made an unsuccessful attempt to swim to freedom.^[6] Hugo Blanco was also imprisoned on the island.^[7] The prison was renamed to San Juan Bautista Prison in 1981.

During the insurgency of the Shining Path, the island was used as a prison for Maoist militants.^[8] On June 18, 1986, the Shining Path led an uprising in El Frontón's Blue Pavilion (Spanish; Castilian: Pabellón Azul),^[4] as well as two other prisons. The government of Alan García treated the prisons as war zones, and the Peruvian Navy was sent to the island. Many of the prisoners involved in the rebellion were killed, and Human Rights Watch claimed that evidence suggested that "no fewer than ninety" of the prisoners killed were victims of extrajudicial executions.^{[9] [10]} The behavior of the Peruvian Government during the uprising in the prison led to censure by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.^[11]

Notable prisoners

• Fernando Belaúnde Terry, two times president of Peru.^{[4] [6]}
• Hugo Blanco, trotskyist politician.^[7]
• Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, founder of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance^[5]
• Guillermo Portugal Delgado, a criminal who escaped by dressing up as a woman, then killing a sea lion and swimming to shore.^{[4] [12]}

In popular culture

The island is the main setting for Alberto Durant's 1991 film Alias 'La Gringa', based on Portugal's story.^{[12] [13]}

Notes and References

1. Book: La expedición libertadora: Entre el Océano Pacífico y los Andes . Arrambide . Víctor . Instituto de Estudios Peruanos . 2021 . 9786123260699 . Lima . 440 . Spanish . Mc Evoy . Carmrn . Velásquez . Marcel.
2. Book: Mayer, Dora . El Callao en la época de su Centenario . . 1938 . Lima . 125 . Spanish .
3. Book: ACTUALIZACION DE LA MICROZONIFICACION ECOLOGICA ECONOMICA DE LA PROVINCIA CONSTITUCIONAL DEL CALLAO - 2011 . Municipality of Callao . 2011 . Callao . 298 . Spanish . V.
4. News: El Frontón, los fantasmas de una isla chalaca . Neyra . Marquiño . 2017-02-15 . La República.
5. La Isla San Lorenzo durante la Colonia y el primer siglo republicano: economía, auge industrial y salud pública . Hudtwalcker Morán . José Antonio . Arqueología y Sociedad . . 2021 . Lima . 10.15381/arqueolsoc.2021n33.e14125 . 238806247 . Spanish . 0254-8062. free .
6. Pennington . Richard . January–February 1995 . Nation Builder: The epic life of Peru's Fernando Belaúnde Terry, BAR '35 . The Alcalde . University of Texas at Austin Alumni Magazine . 20 . Emmis Communications . 1061-561X.
7. Book: Mora, Carlos . Latinos in the West: the student movement and academic labor in Los Angeles . 2007 . Rowman & Littlefield . 978-0-7425-4784-1 . 83.
8. Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Las ejecuciones extrajudiciales en el penal de El Frontón y Lurigancho (1986).
9. Web site: World Prison Massacres . . https://web.archive.org/web/20080206022018/http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/prisons/killings.htm . February 6, 2008 .
10. Book: Weschler, Joanna . The Human Rights Watch global report on prisons . 1993 . Human Rights Watch . 1-56432-101-0 . 93 .
11. Web site: Caso Neira Alegría y otros Vs. Perú. . . https://web.archive.org/web/20090105225938/http://www.corteidh.or.cr/expediente_caso.cfm?id_caso=39 . 2009-01-05 . dead.
12. News: 'Alias La Gringa' y El Búho . 2019-08-31 . Trome.
13. James Higgins -Lima: A Cultural and Literary History - Page 193 1902669983 2005 El Fronton is the main setting for Alberto Durant's Alias "La Gringa" (1991), a film evoking the contradictions of Peruvian society by showing common criminals and Shining Path militants sharing the same space. Though founded in 1537, Callao is a relatively modern town, as in 1746 it was destroyed by a massive earthquake and a huge tidal wave which wiped out most of its population. So great was the wave that it is said to have reached as far as the eighteenth-century church of ..