By Estrella Gutiérrez
CARACAS, Oct 23 1996 (IPS)

The Venezuelan prison that became a chamber of horrors Tuesday returned to a semblance of normality Wednesday. Visiting day was not suspended, and family members packed the place to confirm that their inmate was not one of the burnt corpses whose images shocked TV-viewers around the world.

Not far from the La Planta penitentiary, where 25 inmates were burnt to death according to the latest figures from the Caracas morgue, President Rafael Caldera said he could not find words to describe what had occurred.

The dead men, young inmates who were pending sentencing, were trapped in a small cell that burst into flames when National Guardsmen tossed in three tear gas canisters after locking the door.

The captain and two other members of the National Guard are in custody and will be tried by a military court, said Defence Minister, General Pedro Valencia.

That decision has given rise to mistrust among human rights organisations, family members and inmates, who fear that the “culture of repression” (in the words of the justice minister) seen in all its colours on Tuesday will be followed by another of the Venezuelan legal system’s chronic ailments: the culture of impunity.

While standing in line to visit the prison, family members of both the dead and the survivors decided to create a Committee of Victims of La Planta, with the support of non-governmental organisations and attorneys.

“I won’t give up, these deaths have to be of some use. My son didn’t deserve this death, no one does. And those who killed him must be locked up for life,” said Yulay Izquierdo.

“The fact that those allegedly responsible will be judged by military courts creates a lot of uncertainty and doubts,” said a spokesman for Provea, Venezuela’s chief human rights organisation.

“I have a profound pain. This is an issue that concerns all of us,” said Caldera, who called for a “greater and real commitment to studying how the prisons can become humane places.”

La Planta, a prison ironically located in a neighbourhood called ‘El Paraiso’, has a capacity for 700, but currently holds 1,700 inmates, according to figures released Wednesday.

Provea and other humanitarian organisations were also harshly critical of the attitude of the government, and the Justice Ministry in particular, which – they charged – is covering up its responsibility for what happened by putting all the blame on the military guards.

Justice Minister Henrique Meier said Tuesday that what took place in La Planta was “an unjustifiable crime against humanity.” He denied that a riot had occurred prior to the repression.

But as human rights activists, criminologists and prisoners underlined the day after the tragedy, Meier was responsible for the National Guard’s participation in guarding Venezuela’s 33 prisons, which house 25,000 inmates, two-thirds of whom have yet to be sentenced.

Although Meier admitted that the National Guard responds to “a culture of repression” and does not follow orders from his ministry, neither he nor the director of Prisons, Antonio Marval, proposed eliminating the military presence in the penitentiaries, which has been heavily criticised.

The chain of excuses and blame multiplied on Wednesday. Caldera also participated, criticising governors and mayors for refusing to allow prisons to be built in their dominions.

In Congress, legislators tore out their hair while demanding government measures to end Venezuela’s international ill-fame for its notoriously inhumane prison conditions. But the government responded by pointing out that when Congress is asked to approve funding to that end, lawmakers say no.

Legal authorities called for radical changes in the prison system and decent treatment for inmates. But legislators and government officials argued that the overcrowding is a result of the slow processing of alleged criminals and widespread corruption in the legal system.

Criminologist and university professor Carlos Villalba said “we are all to blame for the tragic Tuesday morning,” including Venezuelan society in general, which suffers “a profound hypocrisy with respect to the prison question.”

Villalba concurred with other independent experts that social apathy has led to a kind of “penitentiary Malthusianism,” in which an average of one inmate a day is killed, in a country where the death penalty was abolished in 1863.

There will be repeats of the La Planta massacre, he predicted, because “the death of alleged criminals doesn’t hurt or bother society,” although it causes a superficial reaction when hard- hitting images like Tuesday’s are broadcast.

Poverty and crime have mushroomed in Venezuela over the past decade, due to a brutal economic crisis and social and ethical deterioration. Violence claims dozens of lives every week in Caracas.

The 25 young victims of Tuesday’s tragedy have swelled the list of those killed in prison massacres here. In 1994, 104 inmates were killed in Sabaneta prison in western Venezuela, and 200 in another Caracas penitentiary in 1992. This year, 13 prisoners were killed in a riot.

But the survivors of La Planta achieved something new on Tuesday: the scene of the tragedy was filmed, and they were able to tell their version of the incident in interviews broadcast live, a demand accepted by authorities after long hours of tension.

The tragedy began when the three National Guard officers decided to lock the prisoners back in their cells, rather than allowing them to circulate freely as normal, in reprisal for their having filed out too slowly for inspection.

Angry, one of the inmates of a small cell connected to a similar one picked a tear gas canister off a guard through the bars, which led the National Guardsmen to toss two more into the cell.

Amid the desperation caused by the tear gas fumes, a votive candle on an altar to the Virgin of Las Mercedes was apparently tipped over, setting old curtains and mattresses aflame.

The guards did not try to unlock the doors. The survivors were able to escape the fire by crawling through a hole they had made in a wall connecting to another cell.

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