Palmasola

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Palmasola is a prison city in Bolivia . It is a closed hut settlement , which was built in the late 1980s, about ten kilometers south of the city center of Santa Cruz in the district of Palmasola . The prison settlement is sealed off all around with a double wall and barbed wire and is guarded from the outside. It is inhabited by about 6,000 convicted criminals and remand prisoners , men and women, left to their own devices within the walls. Some of the prisoners live in the city with other family members who are allowed to move freely out of the prison, including many children.

On March 14, 2018, the Bolivian police entered the detention center with two thousand men and a contingent of anti-terrorist units. The aim was to overthrow the prison government around its president Victor Hugo Escobar alias "El Oti". There were civil war-like clashes between the detainees and the police units, with many dead and injured. "El Oti" was transferred to the Chonchocorro prison in La Paz, where he died a few days later as a result of a knife stabbing.

Since the military police operation on March 14, 2018, women and children are no longer allowed to live together with women and children in PC4, the prison village for male inmates. Children up to the age of twelve continue to live in PC 2, the women's wing.

Life in the prison city

The existing infrastructure ( restaurants where better food can be bought, a fitness studio , a hairdresser and a soccer field ) is operated by the inmates. The prisoners are supplied with food and consist of boiled slaughterhouse and food waste . The inmates do not receive any fruit, which is why deficiency symptoms often occur. Conditions in Palmasola are bad. In the summer of 2001 there were widespread prisoner protests, hunger strikes and riots , which were bloodily suppressed by the Bolivian police. Many prisoners have been waiting in vain for a trial for years.

A regiment of gang bosses rules within Palmasola. Order is maintained by a "Disciplina" group of violent criminals headed by a so-called "President". Then there are contract killers. Smugglers smuggle everything into town that the inmates want and can pay for. Drugs are common in Palmasola.

Theater and film productions about Palmasola

In 2019, the director Christoph Frick and a mixed Bolivian-European team developed the documentary theater production "Palmasola - a research production about the prison of the same name in Santa Cruz de la Sierra". The previews took place at the FITCRUZ - Festival Internacional de Teatro Santa Cruz. This was followed by a European premiere at the Basel barracks and a tour in Switzerland and Germany.

The theater production was discussed intensively in the Bolivian press, but also the German-language specialist magazines Theater der Zeit and Theater Heute traveled to Santa Cruz de la Sierra to report on the theater production.

Web links

• Jochen-Martin Gutsch: In the labyrinth of disorder. In: Der Spiegel . December 5, 2005, accessed March 23, 2012 . 
• Sebastian Erb: In the school of crime; Childhood in Bolivia. In: the daily newspaper . March 22, 2012, accessed on March 23, 2012 (report on a ten year old who has lived in Palmasola since he was three years old). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ El 'megaoperativo' policial en Palmasola deja al menos siete muertos y más de 20 heridos. March 14, 2018, accessed February 27, 2020 (Spanish). 
2. ↑ Video muestra que en el operativo aún había niños en Palmasola
3. ↑ Chonchocoro se convirtió en la tumba de cuatro 'pesados' de Palmasola | EL DEBER. Retrieved February 27, 2020 (Spanish). 
4. ↑ 15 reos atacaron a Oti en Chonchocoro y lo mataron en 1 minuto, dice la Policía
5. ↑ PALMASOLA. Retrieved on February 27, 2020 (German). 
6. ↑ Palmasola - Christoph Frick / Theater KLARA (CH / BO). Retrieved February 27, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Palmasola la experiencia desde dentro a través del teatro documental | EL DEBER. Retrieved February 27, 2020 (Spanish). 
8. ↑ AQUI ESTOY. Retrieved February 27, 2020 . 
9. ↑ ATB digital
10. ↑ Sad tropics in neoliberal enforcement - Theater der Zeit publishing house. Retrieved February 27, 2020 . 
11. ↑ Michael Merschmeier, Der Theaterverlag: Theater heute - Archive. Retrieved February 27, 2020 . 

Coordinates: 17 ° 52 ′ 26 "  S , 63 ° 10 ′ 56.6"  W