Prisons in Venezuela...
° Abolitionist text about the facts of three Venezuelan prisons: Uribana, Guanare and Sabaneta. Traslated from El Libertario (# 49, 2007), the voice of the Comision de Relaciones Anarquistas www.nodo50.org/ellibertario.
Prisons in Venezuela: Extreme Violence, Extreme Indifference
[“I know that my son is a living dead but I feel fine because he isn´t at the cut into pieces list”… Amanda Rojas, mother of José Rojas, imprisoned at Uribana, processed by the theft of four dairy young goats at the locality of Los Pilones, Lara State.]
2007 began as a wonderful year for the power elite. The overwhelming victory upon their electoral competitors fills with air the saturated space that belongs to the “revolution” and their supporters. However, the penitentiary space does not “share” the same spirit of victory and oxygenation that does the chavista bureaucracy and, on the contrary, the year 2007 began with a sort of aberrant riots that serve as a prelude of the coming violent times.
* Extreme Violence
The past January 2 of 2007, it was started the new year in penitentiary matter with a quarrel at the Uribana prison of the Lara State due to a internal power struggle leaving an outcome of 16 dead prisoners and more than 13 injured ones, according to the official version offered at the midday by the Chief of the staff of the CORE-4, colonel José Enrique Maldonado Lupuy. According to the unofficial information obtained, all the leaders of minimum, middle and maximum were killed and even mutilated in some cases, with spiked sticks, fire arms and others. The happening that began in the midnight of Monday gave the mentioned outcome and only in the morning hours were reestablished the control of the prison.
In a first moment it was told about a fragmentary grenade that were flied and caused the deaths, however, that was refused by the military chief and he said that it was a riot for the control of the prison. As usually happens in those cases, the relatives were located at various meters of the prison due to the area was taken over by the military and just after 1.5 hour it was known officially the names of the dead imprisoned. In the morgue of the Hospital Central, the scenes of pain and desperation were growing while the unofficial information was passing from person to person between friends, relatives and even curious ones.
As it would be expected, the major “milico” of the CORE-4 filled his mouth telling that “the situation is under control”, applying for it the reorganization of the prison, the transference of the imprisoned implied on the crimes, counting on 200 men of the Guardia Nacional for stepping up vigilance in the external areas of the prison while the officials of the Ministerio de Interior y Justicia tried to control the internal areas. After the slaughters of that Monday, the January Wednesday 3, six of the imprisoned transferred from Uribana to Guanare resulted dead in a collective riot. It was told that it was an act of vengeance due to the happenings of the Uribana prison.
* Extreme Indifference
The Venezuelan population has become accustomed to live with the disasters generated inside prisons as it would be something natural. However, maybe the worst of it all is to look into the indifference and slovenliness that the red bureaucrats observed the situation. Beginning with the new Minister of Interior and Justice (MIJ), Pedro Carreño, that abstain himself from confirming the information about the riots, although he said that the Directora de Custodía y Rehabilitación, Fanny Márquez had moved to Guanare to know about the situation and informed that she will impulse the restructuring of the 25 prisons of the country as the messianic coming of the above-mentioned official could stop the violence between imprisoned and the absurd fact that restructuring an obsolete and out-of-date institution could get better the prison situation…
One person that does declare oneself against the situation was the Defensor del Pueblo (Ombdusman), Germán Mundaraín that regretted for the violence happenings in those penitentiary centers and for the general situation of the Venezuelan prisons because they “are against the well-known advances that – upon Human Rights – had been produced in other areas of society”. The aberrant cheek which is characteristic of the employees of the Venezuelan state seemed to be a “sine qua non” condition for occupying their positions. Another person in showing his cheek on that matter was the director of Sabaneta, Elí Ramón Salgado when he said that “everything is ok. The happenings of yesterday were a product of a confrontation among maximum security imprisoned and those of the so-called “prison”. The firsts tried to trespass to the seconds´s area and those killed them with fire arms.” As the imprisoned were animals, the officials shown a clear contempt for human life. Also, The Inter-american Court of Human Rights declared its preoccupation for the prison situation in Venezuela, but, as usual, this was not more than a text reproduced without any reflection about it in this Caribbean enclave.
* The mortal cycle
The extreme indifference which is shown by the authorities and the general society caused extreme violence as a mortal cycle. The lack of assistance, the slovenliness, the classical justification of a state where any arbitrariness has a justification – if you´ll forgive the repetition – are in a certain way the causes of those vandalism actions that only benefit the penitentiary authorities that are the first to introduce arms in the prisons. “Divide and Rule” tells a popular saying and this is the policy that is applied in prisons. For avoiding escapes and riots, the “authorities” are into favouring the riots between rival bands and they dispute for “territories” and in this manner maintaining a tense calm within prisons.
Uribana, Guanare and Sabaneta are premonitory cases of what could keep occurring. 8 years of Bolivarian “revolution” had been equivalent to 8 years of penitentiary carelessness. The social debt with the most forgotten sector of society is very big. No restructuring and no funds for get better the precincts: we, as anarchists demand the freedom of all the imprisoned and the substitution of the prisons for more human measures that do not carry the charge of freedom deprivation. Keeping them apart from society and imprisoning do not pay for the committed damage and do not rehabilitate to the individual. I don´t know if “socialism” is conquered by fighting but I do know that freedom does. Also, it is conquered demanding the just. We make a calling not only to the antiauthoritarian local movement but to the whole human race to put to a end to the prison system. To organize right now a big network reporting the arbitrariness’s that happens in prisons and to break the cynical informative blockage, to organize into groups of similar interests according to its own means and strategic possibilities, in the margins of any party or establishment that pretends to monopolize the anti-prison struggle, to study in depth about the abolitionist principle and far from the irrational violence that it is the way of the state. With nothing more to say but that we wait hopefully the fall of the Walls of Jerico and that the word prison would be a synonym of demolition. ¡¡¡ Down to the walls of prisons!!!
RODOLFO (
cna_venezuela@hotmail.com)
Website of “La Cruz Negra Anarquista” - Venezuela : www.cna.contrapoder.org.ve
News Blogger:
http://cnainforma.blogspot.com/
CRA - El Libertario: ellibertario@nodo50.org - www.nodo50.org/ellibertario
[“I know that my son is a living dead but I feel fine because he isn´t at the cut into pieces list”… Amanda Rojas, mother of José Rojas, imprisoned at Uribana, processed by the theft of four dairy young goats at the locality of Los Pilones, Lara State.]
2007 began as a wonderful year for the power elite. The overwhelming victory upon their electoral competitors fills with air the saturated space that belongs to the “revolution” and their supporters. However, the penitentiary space does not “share” the same spirit of victory and oxygenation that does the chavista bureaucracy and, on the contrary, the year 2007 began with a sort of aberrant riots that serve as a prelude of the coming violent times.
* Extreme Violence
The past January 2 of 2007, it was started the new year in penitentiary matter with a quarrel at the Uribana prison of the Lara State due to a internal power struggle leaving an outcome of 16 dead prisoners and more than 13 injured ones, according to the official version offered at the midday by the Chief of the staff of the CORE-4, colonel José Enrique Maldonado Lupuy. According to the unofficial information obtained, all the leaders of minimum, middle and maximum were killed and even mutilated in some cases, with spiked sticks, fire arms and others. The happening that began in the midnight of Monday gave the mentioned outcome and only in the morning hours were reestablished the control of the prison.
In a first moment it was told about a fragmentary grenade that were flied and caused the deaths, however, that was refused by the military chief and he said that it was a riot for the control of the prison. As usually happens in those cases, the relatives were located at various meters of the prison due to the area was taken over by the military and just after 1.5 hour it was known officially the names of the dead imprisoned. In the morgue of the Hospital Central, the scenes of pain and desperation were growing while the unofficial information was passing from person to person between friends, relatives and even curious ones.
As it would be expected, the major “milico” of the CORE-4 filled his mouth telling that “the situation is under control”, applying for it the reorganization of the prison, the transference of the imprisoned implied on the crimes, counting on 200 men of the Guardia Nacional for stepping up vigilance in the external areas of the prison while the officials of the Ministerio de Interior y Justicia tried to control the internal areas. After the slaughters of that Monday, the January Wednesday 3, six of the imprisoned transferred from Uribana to Guanare resulted dead in a collective riot. It was told that it was an act of vengeance due to the happenings of the Uribana prison.
* Extreme Indifference
The Venezuelan population has become accustomed to live with the disasters generated inside prisons as it would be something natural. However, maybe the worst of it all is to look into the indifference and slovenliness that the red bureaucrats observed the situation. Beginning with the new Minister of Interior and Justice (MIJ), Pedro Carreño, that abstain himself from confirming the information about the riots, although he said that the Directora de Custodía y Rehabilitación, Fanny Márquez had moved to Guanare to know about the situation and informed that she will impulse the restructuring of the 25 prisons of the country as the messianic coming of the above-mentioned official could stop the violence between imprisoned and the absurd fact that restructuring an obsolete and out-of-date institution could get better the prison situation…
One person that does declare oneself against the situation was the Defensor del Pueblo (Ombdusman), Germán Mundaraín that regretted for the violence happenings in those penitentiary centers and for the general situation of the Venezuelan prisons because they “are against the well-known advances that – upon Human Rights – had been produced in other areas of society”. The aberrant cheek which is characteristic of the employees of the Venezuelan state seemed to be a “sine qua non” condition for occupying their positions. Another person in showing his cheek on that matter was the director of Sabaneta, Elí Ramón Salgado when he said that “everything is ok. The happenings of yesterday were a product of a confrontation among maximum security imprisoned and those of the so-called “prison”. The firsts tried to trespass to the seconds´s area and those killed them with fire arms.” As the imprisoned were animals, the officials shown a clear contempt for human life. Also, The Inter-american Court of Human Rights declared its preoccupation for the prison situation in Venezuela, but, as usual, this was not more than a text reproduced without any reflection about it in this Caribbean enclave.
* The mortal cycle
The extreme indifference which is shown by the authorities and the general society caused extreme violence as a mortal cycle. The lack of assistance, the slovenliness, the classical justification of a state where any arbitrariness has a justification – if you´ll forgive the repetition – are in a certain way the causes of those vandalism actions that only benefit the penitentiary authorities that are the first to introduce arms in the prisons. “Divide and Rule” tells a popular saying and this is the policy that is applied in prisons. For avoiding escapes and riots, the “authorities” are into favouring the riots between rival bands and they dispute for “territories” and in this manner maintaining a tense calm within prisons.
Uribana, Guanare and Sabaneta are premonitory cases of what could keep occurring. 8 years of Bolivarian “revolution” had been equivalent to 8 years of penitentiary carelessness. The social debt with the most forgotten sector of society is very big. No restructuring and no funds for get better the precincts: we, as anarchists demand the freedom of all the imprisoned and the substitution of the prisons for more human measures that do not carry the charge of freedom deprivation. Keeping them apart from society and imprisoning do not pay for the committed damage and do not rehabilitate to the individual. I don´t know if “socialism” is conquered by fighting but I do know that freedom does. Also, it is conquered demanding the just. We make a calling not only to the antiauthoritarian local movement but to the whole human race to put to a end to the prison system. To organize right now a big network reporting the arbitrariness’s that happens in prisons and to break the cynical informative blockage, to organize into groups of similar interests according to its own means and strategic possibilities, in the margins of any party or establishment that pretends to monopolize the anti-prison struggle, to study in depth about the abolitionist principle and far from the irrational violence that it is the way of the state. With nothing more to say but that we wait hopefully the fall of the Walls of Jerico and that the word prison would be a synonym of demolition. ¡¡¡ Down to the walls of prisons!!!
RODOLFO (
cna_venezuela@hotmail.com) Website of “La Cruz Negra Anarquista” - Venezuela : www.cna.contrapoder.org.ve
News Blogger:
http://cnainforma.blogspot.com/ CRA - El Libertario:
ellibertario@nodo50.org - www.nodo50.org/ellibertario
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Ergänzungen
Verfassung der Bolivarianischen Republik
Der Staat gewährleistet ein System des Strafvollzugs, das die Resozialisierung der Häftlinge und die Respektierung ihrer Menschenrechte sicherstellt. Zu diesem Zweck verfügen die Justizvollzugsanstalten über Räumlichkeiten zum Arbeiten, zum Lernen, für Sport und Erholung. Sie stehen unter der Leitung von eigens ausgebildeten Strafvollzugsbediensteten mit akademischer Bildung und unterstehen einer dezentralisierten Verwaltung durch die Regierungen der Bundesstaaten und der Grenzgemeinden. Sie können zum Gegenstand von Privatisierungsmaßnahmen werden. Im Allgemeinen wird in den Justizvollzugsanstalten dem offenen Strafvollzug mit landwirtschaftlicher Arbeit Vorrang eingeräumt. In jedem Fall wird den Formen der Strafverbüßung ohne Freiheitsentzug Vorzug gegenüber dem Strafvollzug durch Inhaftierung gegeben. Der Staat schaft die für eine Betreuung nach der Haftentlassung unverzichtbaren Einrichtungen, um die gesellschaftliche Eingliederung der Haftentlassenen zu ermöglichen, und begünstigt die Schaffung eines selbstverwalteten Strafvollzugs, in dem ausschließlich Fachpersonal tätig ist.
Verfassung der Bolivarianischen Republik Venezuela vom 24. März 2000
Essen 2005, Neue Impulse Verlag, S.188f
"El Libertário" stoppen!
Lassen wir es nicht zu, dass sich im Schatten der demokratischen Faschisten von George Bush wieder eine Art von Antikommunismus heranbildet, der mit der systematischen Verbreitung von Lügen die neuen sozialistischen Staaten diskreditiert!
Das Venezuela von Hugo Chávez kann selbstverständlich kritisiert werden - wenn die Kritik in einem Verhältnis zu einer Kritik an anderen Staaten und Regimes, zum Beispiel am kapitalistischen und pro-amerikanischen Nachbarstaat Kolumbien, steht.
El Libertários einzige Aktivität ist aber die Schlechtmacherei des Sozialismus. Ihre Zielgruppe sind jugendliche Linke aus wohlhabenden Familien, die sich für soziale Gerechtigkeit engagieren möchten, die aber Armut und Misere nicht aus eigener Erfahrung kennen. Leute, die in den Slums von Caracas aufgewachsen sind, lassen sich von solchen Propagandabehauptungen des Klassenfeindes nicht so leicht umstimmen!
an "antiimperialista anarquista"
Gegründet wurde die CRA und "El Libertario" von zwei spanischen Anarchisten, die nach Francos Machtübernahme nach Venezuela geflohen sind, einer davon ist noch immer aktiv. Das "AZ", in dem die CRA einen Infoladen + Bibliothek unterhält, Voküs veranstaltet und Kinder-/Hausaufgabenbetreuung für die Nachbarn anbietet, befindet sich in einem barrio.
Zudem unterstützt die CRA sowohl indigene Kämpfe als auch den Kampf der Kleinbauern und Umweltaktivisten gegen Kohlebergbau und Umweltzerstörung.
Wenn Du "El libertario" schon mal gelesen hättest, wüßtest Du, dass es sich um ein offenes Polit-"Fanzine" handelt, ziemlich informativ und mit autorInnen/Beiträgen aus ganz Südamerika.
Kritik kann mensch sowohl an der CRA, als auch an "Chavez' Venezuela" üben. Die CRA anzugreifen ist eine der absurdesten Forderungen, die ich hier je gelesen habe. Gefährdet sie denn eure super "Revolution" so arg? Oder gibt es Sachen, die ein dummer deutscher Chavez - Fan einfach nicht hören und lesen will: Nämlich die Schattenseiten genau dieser "Revolution"? Glaubst Du, die Realität im Knast schaut aus wie in Artikel x der Bolivarischen Verfassung beschrieben oder wie im obigen Artikel geschildert??
Und wer von "Hugo Chavez' Venezuela" spricht sollte sich lieber nicht als Anarchist bezeichnen, auch nicht auf Spanisch.
Beiträge die keine inhaltliche Ergänzung darstellen
Wasss — wenn ich das gewusst haett
Andererseits... — Gefängniswärter
Glaubt mal nicht alles — Name
Tatsächlich — hugo