Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (59 page)

We are furthermore totally isolated from our families and friends. The only form of communication we enjoy is through the written medium, mainly being letters. Here again, we are constantly intimidated by the authorities who withhold or delay delivery of our mail from our families. We live with the constant fear of not knowing if we will ever see them again, they have also been devastated by our predicament. Why do they have to suffer??? Why do our children have to grow up without hearing their own fathers’ voices??? Not only are our lives being destroyed, but you are destroying the lives of our families as well. We are demanding the immediate installation of telephones, as ninety per cent of our suffering and anxiety is over our concern for our families and loved ones. These public telephones should be readily available for the use of both Thai and foreign inmates, under the present economic climate the Telephone Organisation of Thailand would no doubt welcome business that would be generated from the prisons. According to our knowledge the costs of the installation of public telephones is on the onus of the manufacturing company, and the Correction Department would not incur any expenses.

Mr Interior Minister, are you aware of the fact that prisons are institutions where people who have committed crimes are confined for a specific period, with the sole objective of reforming or rehabilitating them, to be eventually released after the expired period of sentence, so that they can resume their role as productive citizens in society? Thai prisons on the other hand are concentration camps where prisoners are treated like animals and are used as slaves for cheap labour, or forgotten and left to die! The instatement of telephones would play a vital role in keeping prisoners reformed and in maintaining their sanity. It would no doubt also reduce the rampant homosexuality which is mainly dominant among Thai inmates.

We are also demanding that the prison upgrades the sanitary conditions, which at present are as primitive as that of the Stone Ages. Prisoners are forced to shower out of horse troughs, which are filled with filthy water pumped from the local river. We demand the installation of hot and cold clean running water. We also call for a proper sewerage system to be constructed. The excretion of prisoners is stored in concrete vaults, which on an annual basis is removed and buried in the prison yard. The general stench of the prison is nauseating. The present open sewerage system emits toxic fumes, which has resulted in many prisoners showing asthmatic symptoms, severe headaches and loss of memory. We are also insisting that the authorities provide toiletries to all prisoners, Asians, Western foreigners and Thai inmates on a fortnightly basis. This should include soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush, shaving foam, razor blades, washing powder and toilet paper. At present the standard of personal hygiene is shockingly low. These supplies would definitely reduce the already endemic spread of skin diseases.

The Prime Minister, Mr Chuan Leekpai, who earlier in the year appeared briefly on CNN, in an eloquent speech pleaded for foreign investment to help save the already crippling Thai economy. How ironic that foreigners were being treated like animals in his very own prisons. We are calling on the International Community to impose sanctions against Thailand and to initiate an anti-investment campaign along with an anti-tourist campaign. Tourists in Thailand have become the targets of muggers, rapists and murderers. Your lives as tourists are at great risk if you come to Thailand. Thailand supposedly being a democratic country is in the process of amending their constitution, and has claimed it to be a just and fair system. Serving five years in a Thai prison under these conditions would be equivalent to serving fifteen years in any humane Western country’s prison. As a first-time offender by any Western judicial standards, having committed the same crime, one would more than likely only receive a suspended sentence or a probationary period and or be expected to perform community work. And for that matter if one has to receive a prison sentence, as a first-time offender it wouldn’t be more than three to five years before one was either released or became eligible for parole! While not trying to justify our crime, we believe that a four to five year sentence would be adequate for both Thais and foreigners. We call upon the Thai government to implement a law whereby 1st-time offenders are released or repatriated, irrespective of whether that prisoner’s country has a treaty or not. We ask for equal justice for Thais and foreigners alike. It was become a common practice for Thailand to procrastinate in their negotiations to sign treaties, using this as a tool to strengthen diplomatic and economic ties. The only other resource would be for Thailand to hasten their negotiations and to sign treaties of a 4-year transfer period with all foreign countries who have citizens serving ridiculous sentences in one of the most appalling prisons in the world. The majority of drug offenders are foreigners. Whenever an amnesty is decreed the authorities propose to exclude drug offenders, once again, this is a blatant discrimination against foreigners, while 99% of convicted drug offenders are first-time offenders, we ask for leniency and we would like to see drug offenders included in all future amnesties. According to the Correction Department, an amnesty has been decreed for the 5th December 1999 to celebrate the Honourable King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 72nd Birthday. We would like to see the first-time offenders, both Thai and foreigners who have served four to five years or more of their sentence, be released; this would no doubt alleviate the serious over-crowding problem. Your Honourable Majesty, we humbly beg you to please view all submitted King’s Pardons with an open heart and to consider our situation with mercy and kindness. We would like to see a fair play of justice for all, irrespective of nationality, religion or colour. As human beings surely we deserve a second chance in life. May we take this opportunity of wishing your Highness and the Royal Family health and happiness in the years to come? Long live the King of Thailand! It has not been an easy decision but if our demands are not met, as from the 5th December 1998 we would have no alternative but to embark on a ‘Mass Hunger Strike’. We ask the international and local news media to please monitor developments as we the foreigners of Bangkwang Prison fight with our lives for our basic human rights. May God have mercy on us! We thank you for your co-operation and we anticipate swift action in redressing the injustices that inmates are forced to endure in your prisons!

Yours sincerely

Foreign Inmates Building 2

See list of attached signatures.

I managed to get this petition smuggled out of the prison and sent to a friend in the UK, where it was typed up and distributed to various human rights organisations around the world. I didn’t want it to be sent from South Africa, as it would have implicated my family. The way Joan and Malcolm had been treated during their last visit lingered in my mind. From time to time, they had even been threatened and warned not to come to Thailand.

Professor Harry Reicher, chairman of Agudath Yisrael World Organization, one of the human rights organisations to which the petition was sent, presented this letter to the Thai ambassador at the United Nations, leading to a UN investigation into Thai prison conditions. The involvement of the UN was considered a loss of face by the authorities, and their biggest concern was how a letter of such importance had managed to make its way out of the prison in the first place.

They were aware that I had drafted it, and so, from this point on, the guards became more wary of me. My mail was always thoroughly checked, and sometimes delayed and even withheld. In fact, my every move was monitored.

I became known as the ‘King of the Pen’. Whenever prisoners had a grievance they would approach me to ‘complain’. That was the word they used. I never complained, though, nor was I just another disgruntled prisoner; I was fighting for our basic human rights. That was a crucial difference for me.

The pain in my lower back was getting worse. I had to cut my drawing time in the cell by half and take a stretch break every hour. It got so bad that I even had to stop playing football. Joan had sent me the kidney belt, but it provided only temporary relief. One morning when I woke up I could hardly get up off my bed. My Thai friend Somchai had recommended a masseur, and now he urged me to see him. This man happened to be the descendant of three generations of traditional Thai masseurs. Despite my initial resistance, I was in such pain I thought I would have to give him a try. I was subjected to an hour of complete torture, during which I experienced such pain that I couldn’t understand why people had massages. I was only too relieved when he was finished. But then … I couldn’t believe it! The pain was completely gone. It was a miracle! I could move around freely. To be on the safe side, however, I stopped drawing in the cell. Instead, I used the time to study Judaism or write letters, and, rather than sitting hunched over, I would lie in a horizontal position with my pillow resting under my chest. Occasionally I would watch TV. From then on I restricted my drawing to downstairs in the dining room.

My art took me out of myself completely. My moods were of no consequence, and I found I could switch off from my immediate surroundings when I was creating. Art was my natural outlet for expression, and I could see the transformation in my work and how much I was growing. When I was drawing it was like being teleported into another dimension, where the possibilities were infinite.

Letters from home remained my lifeline, but at times they would also bring heartbreaking news. A good friend of mine, Syd, who had been in the army with me, tragically lost his daughter in a car accident. I cannot claim to relate to his pain and loss – the senseless loss of a child must be one of life’s worst tragedies – but my heart went out to him. I wished I could convey my condolences to him, if not in person then at least on the telephone. In Thai prisons, there was no access to telephones. It was as ridiculous as it was frustrating, and it became another of my missions to have public telephones installed for prisoners’ use.

The consular officer from the South African embassy continued to assist us prisoners wherever she could. When you see somebody on a regular basis, they tend to become familiar, and by now I had begun to think of her as a friend. During one of her visits, she complained about her husband never being at home and how he was off taking deep-sea diving lessons in Phuket (personally, I was sure he was chasing some Thai pussy on the beach). Her confiding this type of information struck me as a bit odd. I can be tactless sometimes, and during this conversation I asked her if she had a healthy sex life. We were in the embassy visit room at the time, with two sets of bars dividing us, one made of thick steel mesh. Well, I thought she was going to fall off her chair, so I hurriedly added something vague about how eating hamburgers every day could get boring after a while … I could see she was not impressed, though, and she changed the subject.

A couple of days later I got the following letter from her:

CONSULAR VISIT 29 July 1997

During the visit on 29th July 1997, I forgot to inform you that I have received the prescription for your glasses. As requested by Mrs. Sacks, the prescription will be forwarded to her for further attention. Please inform me if you wish for the matter to be dealt with in another manner. Following my visit on 25 June 1997.

1. You are kindly reminded that consular visits to detainees are done on a strictly professional basis.

2. Please refrain from asking personal questions or making comments which might offend visitors.

Your assistance in this regard is appreciated.

I replied in a letter of my own:

In response to paragraph three of your letter in which you have requested me to refrain from asking personal questions or making comments which might offend visitors, if I might have unintentionally said anything that struck you as offensive, please accept my sincere apologies. In future I will be more conscientious of subject matters during my conversations with you.

When the consular officer visited the following month, she arrived with her husband! I chuckled to myself – so the man wasn’t chasing any pussy around that day. The guy was huge, obviously an ex-rugby player. I guessed he’d come along to check me out, and maybe he thought I would be intimidated by his size. He didn’t know who he was taking on. I would have shoved a Bic ballpoint pen through his eye if necessary. In my defence, it had been his wife who had brought up the subject to start with. I was dying to ask him how his diving lessons were coming on, but I refrained, and actually he turned out to be quite a friendly guy. Taking the piss might have given me a moment’s satisfaction, but it would have been a bad move on my part. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of your embassy!