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*** <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
It \r\nis Monday, December 16, 2013, and I am going to the Ciudad Bolivar prison to \r\nvisit Brizuela, the top prison leader. Outside the prison, nobody knows him as \r\nWilmer, but as Wilmito.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
I \r\nasked the taxi driver to leave me three blocks from the prison, on the corner of \r\navenida San Francisco, in front of a store called Comercial Romar. The bicycles \r\nwith wicker baskets in front of the handlebar form two symmetrical rows at the \r\nentrance. At three in the afternoon, there are no customers in the store. Nobody \r\nwalks on the sidewalk in front and cars pass by with tinted windows and the air \r\nconditioning on. Ciudad Bol\u00edvar is at this time of the afternoon an aluminum \r\nplate on which a gelatinous sun is reflected. Only those who have a need or \r\nobligation walk at that hour on the lonely streets surrounding one of the most \r\ndangerous prisons in the country. Vista Hermosa, the area where it is located, \r\ndoes not live up to its name. In reality, it is a middle-class run-down area, \r\nconsisting of broken streets and 1 to 2-story homes, with silvered roofs, high, \r\npointed gates and chipped walls. It has been a while since many of the houses on \r\nthe side of the street that leads to the prison received a coat of paint. In the \r\n1960s, when the city expanded from the banks of the Orinoco River, this \r\nneighborhood \u2014as the middle class sectors in Venezuela are called, as opposed to \r\nthe popular class slums\u2014 became the site preferred by new families. The rapid \r\ngrowth of the area ended up surrounding the prison, built years before, in 1951, \r\nin that area far from the historic center.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
They \r\nwere, of course, other times. The Government had control over the prisons and it \r\nwas inconceivable that an inmate had an AR-15 rifle, 9 mm pistols or a cut-off \r\nshotgun. Today, as it has rained for several days, the holes on the streets are \r\noverflowing with pestilent waters. Cars slow down so as not to break the front \r\nend. The sidewalks are opened up and the facades of the houses opposite the \r\nprison are full of holes. Those neighbors live in front of a place where shots \r\nare heard every day and every so often prisoners throw into the street men \r\nseized by bullets, as in August 2011, when they left Marlon Guevara's corpse at \r\nthe door, after a clash over the control of the prison. The main gate of the \r\nprison, green, through which I will go through in minutes although today is not \r\na visit day, is also full of holes. But that does not matter. The prisoners \r\ndecide who enters and when they can do it. While we were arranging our first \r\ndate, Wilmito said to me by telephone, \"Arrive at the main gate and call me, and \r\nI will send someone to pick you up.\"<\/p>\n\n\n
I \r\ndid that. I stopped on the sidewalk, next to the guardhouse of the National \r\nGuard (actually, a kiosk with gabled roof <\/B>with tongue and groove and \r\nalmost rusted iron benches) to send a text message. \"I am here\". Ten minutes \r\npassed and Wilmito does not answer me. I decide to call him. \"How are you \r\ndressed?\" He asks almost by way of greeting. I tell him that I am wearing black \r\ncotton pants, a white polo shirt and have a notebook with white and bright blue \r\ngradients cover in the right hand. \"I will send for you,\" he replies. The \r\nNational Guard officers are distracted talking to each other and I do not know \r\nif they noticed that I am talking with one of the inmates. I still cannot \r\nbelieve that I will go inside the prison with my cell phone and that nobody will \r\ncheck me.<\/p>\n\n
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