MIJ Minister blames prison riots on media and hidden financiers

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, May 01, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Interior & Justice (MIJ) Minister General (ret.) Lucas Rincon Romero says he thinks somebody or some organization is behind the recent spate of prison riots throughout Venezuela ... "somebody is paying out a lot of money to do this to generate violence in the prisons." 

The General brushes aside criticism saying he is trying to humanize the prison system and will introduce a rotation guard system to avoid abuses and corruption. 

Calling the simultaneous stop-in of relatives in three distinct prisons (Coro, Tocuyito and Rodeo 1) on Sunday, Rincon Romero accused the media of hype and other interested sectors of organizing the riots. "We will get the bandits who are behind this ... they are not concerned about the human beings in the prisons." 

Family members of prisoners, who have been inside since Sunday, have now abandoned the prison precinct after the government agreed to set up flying tribunals to deal with the backlog of cases awaiting a sentence.