Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (58 page)

You arrive in paradise with a pocketful of money and a headful of dreams. Ten minutes later a dirty prison cell and a forty year nightmare are all you have left. Can’t happen to you? It can. Currently there are one hundred and ninety-two South Africans serving prison sentences in various parts of the world.

Our plight as prisoners in Thailand was extensively and regularly publicised, as was the case for other South African citizens in foreign prisons around the world. It was this that kept my hopes high. To be honest, I was not expecting to be granted a royal pardon; in fact, I had a feeling my application would be rejected. But one never knew in prison, where everything was a gamble – nothing ventured, nothing gained.

And the treaty wasn’t off the table yet.

In May 1997 another article appeared in the
Saturday Star
, this one about the proposed South Africa-Thailand treaty and the possibility of South African prisoners convicted in Thailand on drug offences being able to return home to complete their sentences. For once, it looked like real progress towards this treaty was finally being made and that it might soon be in place. If what they were claiming was true, I would first have to serve eight years in Thailand before I could be transferred back home. As I had already done three, this meant that I would have five years left before I was eligible – not bad after originally being sentenced to 100 years!

Something that I never told anybody was that, at the bottom of one of my lockers, inside a plastic bag, I kept a full set of new clothing, carefully folded – sneakers, socks, a nice pair of shorts and a T-shirt – in the event that, by some miracle, I would be called to go home. When that day came, I would be ready.

I had started to experience severe headaches, and one of my mates suggested I might need glasses. I was reluctant at first to have my eyes checked out at the hospital, which was a place I avoided at all costs. I recall writing to my sister, ‘
Mense word dood daar
’ (People die there). Although I doubted anything fatal could happen during an eye test, the bottom line was that I needed a script and so I had no choice but to go. I duly got a script and posted it to Joan so that she could organise a pair of glasses for me. I hated the thought of wearing glasses because, as far as I was concerned, this reinforced the ageing process, something that I was having difficulty coming to terms with. To cheer myself up, I ordered ‘John Lennon’ frames, which I thought would be quite cool. Now, when the time came for me to go home, not only would I have new clothes, but I would also be able to see where I was going – headache-free!

By July 1997 my application for a royal pardon was ready, with all the supporting documents attached – all, that is, except for an official letter from the South African government. Our government’s stance hadn’t changed. All it was willing to do for South African prisoners was to give us a diplomatic letter stating that they would guarantee our travel documents in the event of a pardon being granted. It was disappointing, but not unexpected, and we sent the application to the embassy all the same so they could forward it through the correct channels.

Our government’s lack of interest bothered me less because I had realised that there was so much I had to be grateful for: firstly, I was alive and drug-free; secondly, life had become far more meaningful to me; and thirdly, I was undergoing a spiritual awakening. It was becoming clearer to me why I had had to be imprisoned. I had forgiven G-d for having me arrested; G-d was saving me from myself. I said to my sister, ‘Joan, I have the support of somebody more powerful than the embassy or the ANC, and that is G-d. My life is in His hands. If it’s His will that I am meant to be free, then free I will be.’

The treaty still appeared to be on track, however, and Joan had hired an advocate to draw up a draft document for me so that we would be ready to take advantage as soon as it was signed. Robert McBride, who was in charge of the Directorate for South East Asia at the Department of Foreign Affairs, was also working with my sister towards this end. For the moment, I decided to leave things in their hands.

On the days when it was just too hot to draw, because the sweat would smudge my ink, I would spend the time writing to my pen pals. One of my correspondents was a lady by the name of Christine Read. I’d read an article about her in a nature conservation magazine and, impressed by her passion for the protection and preservation of our wildlife and their habitats, wrote her a letter. I didn’t know that her family owned one of the most famous art galleries in Johannesburg. My association with her inspired me to start drawing birds, mainly eagles and owls. Birds of prey had always held a special fascination for me.

It’s amazing how people’s paths cross in life, often for reasons we can’t fully comprehend. We are called upon to play roles in the lives of others, whether we realise or understand it at the time or not. Many people from different parts of the world were lining up to be part of mine. Some would come and go, and others would become lifelong friends. Either way, I remained grateful and felt blessed to have made such wonderful friends on the outside. People of substance don’t just land in your lap. Life was teaching me so many lessons.

In December 1997 Joan and Malcolm came to visit me. My mother had decided not to come. It was fantastic to see them. I was showered with gifts, and they brought many messages from friends back home. For that brief period of time, it was almost possible to forget where I was. In prison, though, you come to realise that everything in life is transient and can be taken away from you in a moment – just like the freedom I had taken for granted and which had been so abruptly snatched away from me.

My family’s visit was somewhat spoilt for all of us, though, because they were not treated with much respect on their visits to Bangkwang, and the humiliation they experienced meant that they hated every minute they spent in Thailand. Without explanation, the length of normal everyday visits was cut from 90 to 20 minutes. Joan and Malcolm pleaded with the guards for a few extra minutes with me, explaining that they had travelled all the way from Africa to visit me. The guards weren’t having any of it. They were downright rude, refusing to allow them even five minutes more, muttering under their breath and gesturing with their hands for my family to leave immediately. We were shocked by their disrespect and disgusting behaviour. It was nothing more than sheer spitefulness and lack of compassion towards foreigners. Even my two contact visits were cut short by half an hour.

With all the gifts and money so many people back home had sent me, I had clothes that would last me for the next ten years and all of my favourite food. I also managed to give my sister about 500 letters, which I had received from friends, to take home with her and keep for me. The difficult part, always, was saying goodbye and it was no easier this time. I found farewells so traumatic I think I would actually have preferred them not to have come, but of course it was wonderful to see them.

On New Year’s Eve I was unable to sleep. I greeted 1998 in silent contemplation, thinking about the reality of my situation and wondering what challenges the new year would bring. I thought about how I had spent my entire life running, whether it was chasing a high or fleeing from my past. Now I had stopped running. Instead, I was standing my ground and facing my fears. I was beginning to see myself in a different light as well. I was seeing the real me, a man who was intelligent, sensitive and talented; someone with a renewed will to live and the determination to prove that he was worthy of a second chance.

A few days into the new year, around midnight, Lee Evans, a DJ on a popular late-night radio show on a channel that played foreign songs, dedicated the song ‘Free Me’ by Roger Daltrey ‘to all the foreign prisoners in Room 16 in Bangkwang’. My sister had arranged this just before she and Malcolm had left. It was such a cool gesture and a lot of the guys heard it. A small thing maybe, but such gestures did wonders for our spirits. They reminded us that we weren’t forgotten.

A few months later, in April, I heard another dedication while I was sitting drawing and listening to the channel. The DJ announced a song ‘dedicated to Shani from Bangkwang from his sister Joan, who says they all love you and are thinking of you’. I got goose bumps all over.

One morning, I woke up and felt a swelling in my nose, like a boil with no head. Over the next two days it got quite big. I tried to squeeze it, but nothing happened, so I took a needle, burnt the tip to sterilise it, and attempted to lance the boil. I squeezed it from inside and out but nothing came out. Then I made another few holes in it, sticking the needle pretty deep into the swollen area. I squeezed as hard as I could, but still nothing more than a drop of discoloured liquid came out onto the toilet paper I was using. About an hour later I got the shivers and shakes and experienced the most severe pain imaginable. The lump in my nose swelled up to the size of a golf ball, disfiguring my face completely. I got permission to go and rest in my cell, where I broke out in such a fever I didn’t know how I would make it through to the next day. I was put on antibiotics, and after a few days the thing burst. The pus that oozed out in teaspoon-loads was a bright lime green; I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It took two days to drain completely, and left a slight ridge jutting out in the inside of my nose and causing one nostril to be slightly skew.

Sitting on hard surfaces and on my makeshift bed, hunched over my fold-up table and drawing into the early hours of the morning, began to put severe strain on my lower back. It was hurting badly. Among the Thais there were quite a few professional masseurs, and some of the foreigners took advantage of their services. They swore these guys were like miracle healers and would be able to help me, but, even though my back was killing me, I couldn’t be persuaded. For some reason I was just not comfortable with a male touching my body. Instead I wrote to my sister, asking her to send me a kidney belt similar to the ones I’d seen delivery scooter drivers use sometimes.

Another morning I took a pair of scissors into the toilet with me, where I proceeded to cut off all my hair. Then I took a razor and shaving foam and shaved myself bald. Being a skinhead was not an image I would have entertained on the outside, but, here in prison, what did it matter? It felt strange and reminded me of being in the army. The next morning hardly anybody recognised me. At first glance, the guys thought I was a new prisoner. Some guys said I looked like a serial killer or somebody straight out of a horror movie. Some of the guards who had always been on at me about trimming my blond curls approved of my new look, and for a long time I kept my clean-shaven style and got used to it.

While my sister was fighting the battle from the outside, I continued doing what I could from the inside. As the first months of 1998 went by, we kept up the pressure and dedicated whatever resources we could to making sure that the world would not forget our plight and that as many people and organisations as possible knew about the appalling conditions under which prisoners had to survive. My logic was that the more noise we made about exposing the conditions in Bankwang and other Thai prisons, the sooner the Thai government would want to get rid of us. In July I drafted a petition and spent two days walking around the building convincing fellow prisoners of the importance of doing this and collecting their signatures. The guards, who had had advance notice of my intentions from their spies, were not happy about it, but I didn’t let that deter me.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

30 July 1998

Dear Sirs

In response to the demands by foreign inmates incarcerated in Bangkwang Prison, the deputy director, Mr Samboon Pasobret, replied in a letter dated 2/7/98 Ref no MT0905/24 that the Correction Department was currently considering our demands. It has become apparent by the lack of interest on behalf of the authorities that they could not care less and have no intentions of solving the crisis faced by Western foreigners, Asian foreigners and their Thai counterparts. This is obviously an extension of the continued relentless discrimination displayed against foreigners in general.

It has become known that the United Nations and several other countries contribute towards the well-being of incarcerated foreigners in the form of a dietary allotment, as the Thai diet lacks the basic nutrients and is totally alien to what foreigners are accustomed to. We are calling on the United Nations and the other countries to immediately withhold this subsidy, as only a small fraction, if any, is used for the well-being of prisoners. We are requesting that the United Nations sends a delegation to investigate the unbearable conditions that foreigners and Thais alike are forced to endure in Thailand’s prisons. We are demanding three square meals a day for all prisoners. This should include Asian and Western foreigners. At present the one meal a day provided by the prison for only Western foreigners consists of a small plastic bag of rice along with an inedible stew that is not fit to sustain an animal.