Coliseos (coliseums), as inmates call these organized knife fights, have become a mainstay of prison life in Uribana.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Two men with knives face off in a pit. Hundreds gathered around are egging them on, while on the walkway above others are picking their winner and placing bets. The men in the pit have been given no real choice: refusing to fight is generally punished by death.
Within minutes, one fighter will be too bloodied to carry on. He will be declared the loser. Usually, but not always, he will survive. After this bout, another two men will step up to the ring.
This isn’t a scene out of some dystopic Hollywood action film. It happened over three days earlier this week at the jail in Uribana, in the western Venezuelan state of Lara. And it left
128 inmates injured and two dead.
“
Coliseos” (coliseums), as inmates call these organized knife fights, have become a mainstay of prison life in Uribana, and they are spreading to other Venezuelan jails. The gamblers include other prisoners as well as prison guards. In 2011, more than 100 inmates were injured and at least five were killed in coliseos throughout the country.
By some estimates, over 43,000 prisoners now sit in Venezuelan prisons built with a capacity for fewer than 17,000. Guards really only control the perimeter of the jails, to make sure no one escapes. State authorities have limited control over what happens inside. They do little or nothing to safeguard prisoners, or even feed them. This has created an extraordinarily violent gang system inside prisons. Money, mobile phones, drugs and guns circulate easily.
In time, the meanest of the mean rise to the top of each prison’s gang hierarchy. These leaders, known as “prans” (slang for prison-gang chief), organize the coliseos partly to test the mettle of new arrivals, partly to entertain the inmates, partly to settle disputes. They decide when the fights are over. And they, of course, keep the lion’s share of the gambling profits.
In one sense, the coliseos help de-escalate violence: petty disputes that might otherwise be settled with a gun — and a corpse — are settled with knives instead. In Uribana, the fights even follow rules of engagement. Prisoners are allowed to slash each other anywhere between the neck and the waist; stabbing is forbidden.
But prans maintain the right to decide when the rules have been broken, and any infraction is punishable by death. Once in prison, normal inmates become something like hostages to the prans — tools and bargaining chips.
These practices have been going on for years. In rulings dating back to 2007,the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has repeatedly ordered the Chávez administration to prevent the fights. These judgments are technically binding on the Venezuelan state, but little has been done to implement them. So month after month, coliseos keep happening, leaving a trail of blood behind.
**Francisco Toro blogs about the Chávez era at CaracasChronicles.com.
