Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (70 page)

Seeing that the ANC wasn’t interested, we then approached the Democratic Alliance, the official opposition party, which was headed by Tony Leon. After months of talks, Mr Leon consulted with his colleague, Hendrick Schmidt, also a member of parliament. This resulted in the Transfer of Convicted Prisoners Draft Bill being submitted to parliament as a private members’ legislative proposal by a member of the DA. The Draft Bill was discussed by the committee of Private Members’ Bills and Legislative Proposals, during which meeting officials from both the departments of Justice and Correctional Services also made submissions. It was stated that various sections pertaining to the transfer of convicted prisoners were included in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute had been signed and accepted by South Africa. The need for the acceptance of the Draft Bill, according to the Department of Justice, was therefore questionable. The matter was due to be taken forward and discussed at the next meeting in order to persuade the members of the committee to refer the matter to the Correctional Services Portfolio Committee for their deliberation, and possible acceptance, within the parameters of the latest Correctional Services Amendment Bill, which was currently under discussion. Sadly, parliament rejected the bill.

We tried not to be discouraged. There was still the possibility of a royal pardon for me.

On 7 April 2001 yet another article about South African prisoners appeared in a South African newspaper. This time it was
The Citizen
, and I made the front page. The headline read ‘500 South African Nationals in Foreign Prisons’. Our plight was being extensively publicised once more. A week earlier, in Botswana, Mariette Bosch, a South African, had become the first white woman to be hanged in a southern African state. The Human Rights Commission requested President Thabo Mbeki to ask Botswana’s president Festus Mogae for clemency, but no such plea was forthcoming. (Capital punishment had been abolished in South African in 1995.) If our government was not prepared to intervene on behalf of Mariette Bosch, I thought, what chance did the rest of us have?

On 21 April my sister and niece Keri appeared on a TV talk show,
The Felicia Show
, along with Robert McBride, who had himself been on death row in South Africa. The Mariette Bosch case was a hot topic and the discussion was about bringing back the death penalty. Violent crime had reached an all-time high in South Africa, and this didn’t help our cause. The government’s argument was: why bring home more criminals when our jails are at capacity with our own? It was becoming more and more apparent that we were fighting a losing battle. We were going to be left to rot in jail far away from home and the support of our families.

In April 2001 Thaksin Shinawatra became Thailand’s new prime minister. Among a range of new policies, he also launched a drug suppression campaign. This campaign was popular with his supporters, but the practical result was a dramatic influx of drug offenders into the prisons. The prison population grew and the prisons became crammed. Almost every day saw a new prisoner arriving in shackles. Death row was so overcrowded that we heard they were considering turning part of Building 2 into another death row section. Only a few months after the prime minister’s inauguration, four death row inmates were executed. To me, it was terrible to think that one man could change the destiny of another based on his political agenda. To protest the overcrowding, I drafted a petition to the diplomatic representative of the European Union in Thailand. I sent copies to every embassy in Bangkok:

April 2001

To: The Diplomatic Representative of the European Union in Thailand.

Subject: The problem of overcrowding in Bangkwang Prison and other violations of human rights.

CC: Ambassadors of various Foreign Embassies in Thailand.

Dear Sir,

Citizens of European Union countries as well as various other nationalities who are imprisoned in Bangkwang Central Prison outside Bangkok implore the help of the European Union in demonstration with the Thai authorities, with regard to alleviating the chronic conditions of over-crowding to which we Europeans and foreigners are being subjected.

Bangkwang is an old prison originally constructed for no more than one thousand prisoners during The Kingdom of Thailand’s wartime alliance with the Empire of Japan. Now due to successive Thai governments’ penal policies against small-time narcotics users and handlers, there is possibly an excess of as many as seven to eight thousand prisoners incarcerated here with sentences ranging from over thirty years to one hundred years. From all over Thailand buses are constantly bringing more prisoners and dumping them here without any concern for the fact that there is no space for them.

We Europeans and other nationals are expected to endure the consequently inhuman conditions with equanimity. Unless all European Union countries and other respective Embassies jointly plead with the Thai authorities to observe minimal standards of human decency, human rights abuses will continually prevail unnoticed in Thai prisons.

Due to the influx and the congestion of prisoners, the authorities have imposed electrical restrictions and have also proposed to confiscate privately owned televisions. Even our daily food rations, which consist of a small plastic bag of rice and an inedible stew, have been reduced, which is inadequate even for the consumption of a ten-year-old child. To date we are still forced to take our daily shower in dirty river water. Due to constant negotiations with prison staff we have been able to preserve at least temporarily enough space in our cells for a prisoner to lie down on his back. We sleep shoulder to shoulder packed like sardines. Yet the prison authorities are constantly stacking more people into the already over-crowded sleeping cells. The lack of space and the consequent tension and risk to health (especially from tuberculosis and numerous skin infections) makes our sleeping environment in which we spend 15 hours out of 24, absolutely hellish, a situation synonymous with the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet gulags.

If only the European Union countries and other foreign Embassies would jointly request that the Thai authorities alleviate the congestion in Bangkwang and be allowed to sleep no more than fifteen people per cell instead of twenty-six. We have no means to measure our cells exactly but we estimate them to be 4½ metres by 9 metres.

As you may be aware, Thailand can be considered a rogue state with regard to its record on otherwise internationally accepted standards of human rights. Cynically the present Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has increased the tempo of executions in order to make space at Bangkwang for the prisoners backed-up in the provinces. Even this elevated culling, however, is inadequate to meet the country’s detention requirements.

The problem with raising the issue of United Nations minimum rules as a basis for negotiation with the Thai Government is that Thailand is not a signatory to any major treaty which would affect the practices of their prisons. The Thai Department of Corrections is therefore under no legal obligation to alter its administration of prisons. We the foreign inmates of Bangkwang Prison invite International Human Rights delegations to investigate the precarious living conditions we are subjected to. Such an endeavour should be conducted in the evening when inmates are crammed into the cells as any daytime inspection would be a waste of time.

Our petition was forwarded to the Department of Corrections for consideration. Because Thais generally procrastinated, I didn’t expect that any immediate change would be implemented, but I hoped that in the long term something would be done. Even if this happened after I had gone home, at least those who were arrested after me might enjoy better conditions.

It was time for yet another indoor football tournament. Each team consisted of four players and two reserves. I no longer needed to ask my family to send uniforms. Instead we could buy them right there. Football was huge in Thailand. A person could purchase imitation uniforms of all the popular Premier League teams. The prices were good and the quality was not bad either. Using my money, Jai went to buy the uniforms and then she posted them to me. We would have our kit in three days or less. I loved the competitiveness of the games. I had my own team, made up mainly of Thais. I coached, trained and played; I was not getting any younger, though, and sometimes I struggled to keep up with some of the younger chaps.

Anna-Marie, one of the South African women who came to Thailand to buy clothing, was travelling to Bangkok quite regularly now, and on her visits I would give her examples of my art to take back home. My paintings were my only possessions. Whenever she took them home for me, I would be so nervous, forever emphasising, that, if she took them out of the folder, to please make sure that her hands were clean and that she didn’t put the paintings on a wet surface, and, most importantly, to make sure they were kept in a safe place. At times I would give her up to 50 pieces, almost a whole year’s work. My mind would only be at ease when I got news from home that my art was safely in the hands of my family.

One day, four religious guys came to visit us Jewish prisoners. One of them, who was about 20 years old, recognised my South African accent. He was the son of a rabbi from the Orange Grove
shul
in Johannesburg, which was the same area where my family lived. Seeing these young men embarking on their spiritual journey so early in their lives got me thinking. How would my life have been if I had never succumbed to the allure that drugs hold for so many of us? But there were too many ‘what ifs’, and anyway I already knew the answers. It wasn’t too late, though. I had to believe that everything that transpires in our lives happens for the greater good. Accepting my situation was the beginning to opening the way to change. I kept returning to this point: I had to take responsibility for my actions. I was being given a second chance. Life was too beautiful to waste and I couldn’t allow myself to be consumed by regret, nor should I feel sorrow. My life was no longer my own. My ship was sailing and the promise of a more meaningful life was waiting just beyond the horizon. I could either swim or drown. The choice was mine.

Prison was a world in itself. Thousands of men who had broken the law and committed a crime lived there more or less together. Each had his own story and each had a different life in prison. Some stagnated, others went insane, a few changed their ways, and some men died.

A Ghanaian national who was on death row in Building 1 had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment in the third court. During his time in Building 1, he had acquired quite a few sets of weights, as well as two exercise benches. When he was moved to Building 2, by request of the prison authorities, his weights were brought across. After negotiating with the chief for an area where prisoners could exercise, for US$2 000 they built an office for the second chief with an adjoining room, which would later be given to the General. The area was roughly 4m in width and about 7m in length. A makeshift roof was erected. Two poles with a bar were sunk into the concrete so that we could do chin-ups. Some of us foreigners donated money towards the costs. In comparison to where we had exercised before, it was great. The Ghanaian used more money to buy weights from other buildings, and he soon had quite an effective gym running. Whoever wanted to exercise paid 100 Thai baht a month, while those who had donated money got six months’ free.

I was working really hard to develop my artistic skills, expand my mind and reconnect with my roots. It was a long and difficult process and I often found myself getting stuck. Sometimes depression would grab me by the throat, threatening to choke me to death. Those were dark periods. When I thought about how far I had come, I also realised what a long way I still had to go.

Nevertheless, I was making considerable advances with my carbon powder portraits. Chai Long was doing mostly A4-size pictures, but I wanted to paint bigger portraits – on A3 paper. He suggested that this was not practical and that, to maintain the photographic effect, I should keep my portraits small. Being a stubborn fool, I wanted to exploit the full potential of this unique medium. Chai Long had taught me the basics and by now I had extensive experience working with Bic ballpoint pens. My sketching was accurate and I had a good eye for a balanced composition in a drawing. I needed to explore the ideas that came to my mind. How could one place limitations on one’s imagination? I was ready to fly. If I had my way, the butterfly would soon soar like an eagle.