Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (99 page)

When they heard me shouting, four of the other guys in solitary came to his room and hurriedly lifted him. I took his right arm and shoulder and together we ran out of the cell, carrying Jib between us. By the time we reached the front gate and put him in a wheelchair, I could see in his face that his life was slipping away. I tried to find a pulse but felt nothing. I hoped for the best, but in my heart I knew he was gone.

Even though Jib always seemed remorseful for all the murders he had committed, he told me he had never killed anybody who didn’t deserve it. It seems that no man is above retribution. The distance from our building to the hospital was about 1.5km. In the days that followed, I learnt that the guard who had supposedly rushed him to hospital had stopped for some time at the White House, the control centre of the prison. It was almost as if they had deliberately killed him.

In prison, friends come and friends go and it isn’t wise ever to get too close to anybody. I mourned my friend for exactly 22 hours.

Amnesty!

Amnesty countdown. 15 October, my birthday, believe it or not, was a wonderful day. It was only 52 days to the amnesty and I was 52 years old. On this day, I thought of all the people who had a special place in my heart – mainly my family, of course, whom I continued to miss with a deep longing.

On the morning of 19 October, four of the original five of our group were moved into the general prison population, leaving me still in solitary confinement. By now, after almost six full months, I was fed up with the place, fed up with the stench and filth in the corridors, the ash and cigarette butts (almost everyone smoked), and the almost suffocating smell of cat urine and cat shit. It reached the point where I couldn’t bear it any longer, and I went to the guards and asked them to supply me with cleaning materials. I also requested that some of the guys be let out of their cells to help me clean. They didn’t seem to have a problem with this and we were supplied with scrubbing brushes, buckets and hard straw brooms. There were ten of us who set to work. We scrubbed the entire section, including the walls on both sides of the corridor.

While we were hard at it, the military arrived for Porcupine, who, as usual, was forced to endure yet another bout of humiliation. Besides helping us sweep with the filthy water, he had to do push-ups and roll around in the soapy water. Along with another inmate, I was busy sweeping the waste water into one of the empty cells, where one of the other guys was using a tin can to scoop the water into the sunken toilet. Porcupine came across to me. ‘Alex, give me the broom,’ he said. Porcupine was expected to work himself, to the point of dropping. I refused to give it to him and told him he should rest. All this time the military guys – there were about five of them – were looking on and one was filming us with a video camera. Porcupine wanted the broom so that he could do the work instead of me, but I told him no way. During our brief exchange of words, I heard one of the soldiers say in Thai, ‘Get this shot with the foreigner,’ so there I was being filmed with Porcupine scooping water into an empty cell. I wondered if the Crown Prince of Thailand, or at least his subordinates, were conscientiously watching these daily videos and what they made of this piece.

Once we had finished cleaning, I very politely asked everybody to please keep the corridor clean and to use ashtrays instead of throwing their cigarette butts all over the place. The following morning, when we were let out into the corridor, I was quite impressed that they seemed to have listened to me. It was a small victory, but a victory nevertheless for the one non-smoker among them.

Prisoners generally tend to be very selfish. They think only of themselves, and some of the guys I was obliged to live with were really very dirty. I think I washed my hands about 100 times a day. I don’t know if I suffer from OCD, but the filth in Klong Prem really got to me. I would even wash my hands after shaking somebody else’s.

After our major clean-up, there were hardly any cat shit deposits along the corridor walls, but every few days I took to sprinkling washing powder along there just to make sure. The responsibility for cleaning the corridor was the key-boy’s, and he was also in charge of opening and closing the cells every day. First he would sweep the area, and then he would take an old blanket, roll it up and put water on it. Then he would push it along the floor with a T-shaped, wedged broom. This blanket was so dirty and smelly I’m quite sure it was never washed. Eventually, I took it upon myself to start cleaning the corridors in the afternoons.

Every morning, my cell and one of the Big Legs’ cells would be opened first, and there was always cat shit somewhere along the corridor. I would pick it up with a piece of cardboard and some tissue (as the Thais call toilet paper) and afterwards, clean the area with a rag and some washing powder. Then I would sprinkle water all over the corridor and, using the blanket and broom method, would start mopping. I would work from the outside, along the edge of the square, working my way to the middle. When the key-boy cleaned the cat shit, the problem was that he always left some residue behind. The urine he never wiped up at all, so he would simply mop it and spread it around the corridor. Then, once he was finished, he would just fold the wet blanket up and hang it in one of the empty cells, which I called the spare room. The blanket smelt disgusting, and its damp stench turned into an intolerable odour. I don’t think there is anything worse that a mixture of stale urine and cat shit, but the key-boy seemed completely immune. He would perform the same mopping ritual every morning without even the twitch of a nostril. I couldn’t understand it.

In the afternoon, after I had done my laundry, as quickly and as inconspicuously as possible, I would give the blanket a thorough scrub, wash and rinse. Then I would open it out and hang it up on one of the shower curtain rails in the spare cell.

Pauporesor
was a term used by the drug police. It was the name given to those inmates who were suspected of doing drug business outside the prison. Some of these guys had been in solitary confinement for up to two years already. One Friday morning towards the end of October, all the
pauporesor
guys were told that, in a month, they would be let out of solitary. One of them asked the prison authorities, ‘What about
tarnchad
?’ (foreigner). The guards called me and said that if I wanted to come out of solitary, they would let me. At that point, it was so overcrowded outside that I told them I would rather stay where I was for the time being. We still had the extra 200 from Building 5 and, added to that, the authorities had closed off one large area at the rear of the building as well as the indoor football field, which was in a big warehouse. For once, I agreed with the guard. More importantly, for once, it was my choice: solitary was best for me, and it would keep me out of trouble.

One day after our exercise session between 10 and 11am, I was sitting and chatting with my Italian friend and one of the Nigerians who had temporarily been moved from Building 5. His name was John, and he told me about an incident that had taken place the previous year in Bombat prison. Over the past couple of years, there had been an influx of Iranian prisoners, all of whom had been caught smuggling ‘ice’ (methamphetamine), or ‘
numkem
’. The problem started in one of the predominantly Muslim cells. Out of about 58 in the cell, 40 were Iranians. One of the Thai Muslims, a Malay, was praying when two of the Iranians were engaged in conversation. The Thai Muslim asked them to keep quiet, but the Iranians ignored him. An argument ensued, which very quickly erupted into a fight. During the night things remained calm, but the following morning the Malay was seen sharpening a piece of bamboo. One of the Iranians got to hear about this, and he was also warned not to go near the shower area. As the day progressed, absentmindedly he walked past or through the area where the Malay was hanging out. Apparently, the Malay crept up beside of him, and thrust the bamboo spear through the front of his forehead. It exited at the back of his head. (While this might sound like a slight exaggeration, I did remember hearing the same story while I was in Bangkwang.)

A couple of Iranians then pounced on the Malay and beat the shit out of him. The next thing, the entire building of about 500 inmates turned on what were no more than 80 Iranians. With the odds of five to one, it turned into a real bloodbath.

It was time for me to get back to the punishment section, so I said goodbye to John the Nigerian and my Italian friend. On my way in, I saw that the food was arriving. The food system in Klong Prem worked differently from Bangkwang. There was a menu of maybe 50 or 60 dishes to choose from, most of which were Thai – very oily and spicy – and prepared by the wives of the guards. The food was put into plastic bags. The average price of one bag was 25 Thai baht. There were all sorts of dishes – macaroni and chicken, ginger with black mushrooms and chicken, and my favourite,
som tum thai
. This was made from raw papaya and dried shrimps, tomatoes, green beans and a chilli sauce. It was prepared in a mortar and eaten raw – very tasty. A lot of Thai food is delicious, and everything contains chillies. You could also get a salad, which most of the foreigners used to order.

No sooner was I back in my cell than I heard that both my Italian friend and John were being transferred to Bangkwang. We said our goodbyes and I tried not to feel bitter. It was I who had suggested and encouraged the Italian to change prisons because life in Bangkwang was much easier than in Klong Prem. Now all I could do was wait for my turn.

The main news story on TV was still all about the floods. The heavy monsoon rains that had been drenching the country since mid-July had wreaked havoc all over South-East Asia, and parts of Thailand were experiencing the worst floods in 50 years. Villages, historic temples, farms and factories were inundated. It was estimated that at least 300 people had died so far, and rescue workers and emergency services worked night and day to prevent a humanitarian disaster. About 8.2 million people were affected and the loss to the economy was enormous. What amazed me was the fighting spirit of the Thai people. Many of them had lost everything, and yet they seemed always to be smiling. Flooding of course wasn’t unusual in Thailand, and it was the low-lying villages that always got hit the worst, but I’d never seen anything like this in my entire life.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, who were having daily meetings with the Department of Corrections to ensure the welfare of prisoners, Bangkwang was still dry. The prison had managed to keep the waters from entering, while the surrounding area was inundated. At least I knew my things were safe, and dry – if only for the moment.

On Wednesday 26 October our cells weren’t opened at the usual time. Instead, a handheld bell was rung an hour earlier. After about 30 minutes there was a flurry of activity, but it was hard to guess what was happening. Using my mirror and pointing it outside the bars, I could see some of the guards busy ushering prisoners along the corridor. Inmates being transferred was not an unusual occurrence, but in fact an evacuation was in progress. About 140 guys from our building were moved, and they were allowed to take with them only the clothes on their backs. It seemed that all the life-sentence and death row prisoners were being transferred to other prisons, and later that morning I learnt that almost all the women had been evacuated from the women’s prison as well. And apparently all death row inmates from Bangkwang had also been moved, to Khao Bin.