3 16. The State says that on November 10, 2003, during a visit to the Vista Hermosa Prison by officials of the Ministry of Interior and the General Directorate for Custody and Rehabilitation of Inmates, there was a fight among the inmates and some of them fired guns. The Director of that detention center therefore expressly requested the intervention of the National Guard to quell the situation. 17. The legal basis for this action of the Director of the Vista Hermosa Prison was Article 8 of the Penitentiary System Act, which says: “External security of the establishments may be entrusted to military agencies, which shall refrain from any intervention in the internal security system, except in cases where expressly requested by the director of the facility or the person acting in that capacity.” 18. A Security Board was then formed, consisting of the First and Second Judges of the Ciudad Bolívar district; the Regional Public Defender Coordinator; the Public Defender of Ciudad Bolívar; the Ombudsman; the Chief Prosecutor of the State of Bolívar; the Director of the Vista Hermosa Prison; the intervening Director; and the Commander of the Second Company of Detachment 81 of the National Guard. The Board decided to take disciplinary measures to restore order in the facility, ordering the transfer of 54 inmates to the Judicial Detention Center of Monagas, and 32 to the Judicial Detention Center of Anzoátegui. They also to applied a contingency plan by the National Guard, and made a general search, which led to the confiscation of a large number of illegal objects. 19. The State said that on November 10, 2003, the Public Prosecutor’s Office had opened the investigation into the deaths of Messrs. Orlando Edgardo Olivares, Joel Rinaldi Navas, Orangel José Figueroa, Héctor José Muñoz Valero, Pedro Antonio López Chauran, José Gregorio Bolívar Corro, and Richard Alexis Núñez Palma, and of those inmates and officials who had been wounded. It added that the case was in the “preparatory phase,” and that in the course of the time elapsed the Public Prosecutor’s Office had taken some depositions from witnesses, and in October 2006 took evidence at the site of the facts with the support of the Crime Reconstruction Division of the Bureau of Scientific, Criminal, and Forensic Investigations. 20. With respect to compliance with the requirements for admissibility of the petition, the State expressly alleged the lack of exhaustion of domestic remedies, because criminal investigations into the deaths of the seven alleged victims were ongoing and the petitioners had not filed a motion for constitutional protection (amparo). 21. In response to the petitioners’ comments on the general state of prisons in Venezuela, the State submitted general information about the measures, plans, and programs that it would be implementing to improve conditions in the country’s prisons. IV. ANALYSIS OF COMPETENCE AND ADMISSIBILITY A. Competence 22. The petitioners are entitled, in principle, to lodge petitions with the Commission pursuant to Article 44 of the American Convention. The petition indicates that the alleged victims are individual persons with respect to whom the State of Venezuela has undertaken to respect and guarantee the rights established in the American Convention. With respect to the State, the Commission notes that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has been a State Party to the American Convention since September 8, 1977, the date on which it deposited its instrument of ratification. Hence, the IACHR has ratione personae competence for this case. The Commission has ratione loci competence to consider the petition, because it alleges violations of rights protected in the American Convention that are said to have occurred in the territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a State Party to that treaty.