VENEZUELA: Hunger Striking Inmates Keep Prison Scandal Smoldering

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Marquez

CARACAS, Oct 29 1996 (IPS) - The scandal over the dismal conditions in Venezuela’s prisons was kept smoldering on Tuesday, when the number of inmates on a hunger strike rose to over 1,000.

The hunger strikers are demanding punishment for the National Guardsmen responsible for the burning to death of 25 prisoners in La Planta prison in Caracas a week ago, the images of which shocked the world.

On Tuesday, prisoners in two Caracas penitentiaries, Catia and La Planta, joined the hunger strike — “which could become a blood strike if our demands are not addressed,” according to one prisoner — that was first declared on Monday by some 800 inmates of El Rodeo penitentiary, 30 kms east of the capital. El Rodeo has stood at the margin of the wave of disturbances, riots and massacres that has swept local prisons over the past four years.

Of the 800 El Rodeo hunger strikers, 720 have yet to be sentenced, explaining the protesters’ second demand: swifter processing of cases.

In Venezuela, 25,000 prisoners are packed into 33 jails with a combined capacity for 14,000. The majority, 18,000, are still awaiting trial and sentencing. Some have been waiting for up to five years.

The hunger strikers are also demanding the withdrawal of the National Guard — a military force with police functions — which since a series of disturbances in 1994 has guarded not only the exteriors but also inside half of the country’s prisons.

National guardsmen — two officers and nine subordinates — are facing charges in connection with last week’s tragedy in La Planta, where 56 inmates were locked into a 16-square-metre cell, into which tear gas canisters were thrown.

In the confusion the cell burst into flames, and 25 young men were killed. The resultant protest in the prison only calmed down when the press and cameras were allowed in to record the grim scene and the testimony of witnesses.

The Quito-based Latin American Human Rights Association (ALDHU) said Tuesday in Ecuador that last week’s fire highlighted the serious crisis in Venezuela’s penitentiary system.

“Over the past few decades, continuous human rights violations have been registered in Venezuela, and violent actions have led to hundreds of deaths in its penitentiary centres,” said Juan de Dios Parra, the general secretary of ALDHU.

The regional organisation has demanded that the Venezuelan government adopt urgent measures “to humanise the prisons,” said Parra, who will travel to Caracas to meet with Caldera and high- ranking officials in the area of social rehabilitation.

The El Rodeo hunger strikers are also demanding an infirmary, because many suffer from fractures or contagious diseases. They are protesting the unhealthy conditions caused in a majority of the cells by the clogging of the prison’s sewage system. Other complaints are that both prisoners and visiting family members are mistreated, and that inmates must pay to get guards to take them to court when their cases come up.

Elio Gomez, the country’s foremost criminologist, says such problems are common to all of Venezuela’s prisons, where everything is subject to bargaining and trafficking, including “arms, drugs, food, visits, transfers, cells, sleeping spaces, the right to keep one’s life or not be raped — even air and daylight.

“After drug trafficking and car theft, the prisoners’ industry is the third biggest illegal business in Venezuela,” remarks Gomez, “and the mafias who live off that business both inside and outside prison walls keep any change from happening.”

Gomez, director of a State institute that trains people in prison administration, complained that those who graduate from the school are overlooked by the Justice Ministry when it comes to hiring prison personnel.

Over the past four years, Venezuela’s prisons have been characterised by outbreaks of violence, escapes, riots and massacres, the first of which was the extrajudicial execution of dozens of inmates who rioted in Catia on Nov. 27, 1992.

The very same day, Venezuela was shaken by a second coup attempt — by the air force, after a sector of the army rebelled in February — and the Catia massacre got put on the backburner.

In January 1994, a clash between rival gangs in the Sabaneta prison in Maracaibo — western Venezuela’s largest city — left at least 120 dead, after one of the gangs set fire to the area where it had isolated the other group.

Guards kept fire fighters out and the prisoners in. The inmates died of smoke inhalation or burns — from the fire or from a tank of water in which some sought refuge.

Between those incidents and the recent one in La Planta, riots and gang-fighting have led to deaths in jails throughout the country, as have escapes in which other prisoners — sometimes large groups — have successfully found freedom.

Justice Minister Henrique Meier called last week’s tragedy “a crime against Venezuela and against humanity,” and urged parliament to approve additional funding for building prisons and improving conditions.

President Rafael Caldera said he could find no words to describe his pain, and demanded mayors and governors to stop blocking plans to build penitentiaries in their jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, the legal system is debating mechanisms with which to modernise the sector, for which the World Bank will provide 60 million dollars.

The more radical the proposals for change, the more opposition they run into. Two examples: a proposal for declaring the legal system in a state of emergency, pushed by a former socialist governor, and a bill to move from the slow written processing of cases to an oral system, proposed by a broad-based group of legislators.

According to former presidential candidate Eduardo Fernandez (1988), “in Venezuela, justice serves only those who can pay.” Around 80 percent of the population of Venezuela lives below the poverty line, according to officially recognised figures.