APRIL NEWS!!
“4 Years Anniversary”
By Steve Willcox
Firstly!, to all you readers of the News letters!
I wish to apologize for the long silence from within these walls. In actual fact Bert did write the April News Letter and it was sent out from within these walls, but that was the last one Bert wrote!
Either it was lost within
Closer eyes were definitely on us after the mention of a guard in last months News Letter. Who just happens to be Head Honcho of the foreign prisoners section here at Bangkwang Prison, which coincidently includes foreigners mail Censorship.
Basically readers! We pissed him off Big Time!!
Some people just can’t handle the truth or fair criticism!! Again Readers! My apologies for the sudden drop in quality in the writing of these letters. My skills or lack of them in this field, no where near come close to Bert (the previous writer).
You are forgiven if you read no further!
Mine was a miss spent youth and many might say miss spent life so far! Where education took 2nd, 3rd and 4th place, but I did enjoy it!
Maybe a change of writing style, note I didn’t say kill, will do you good?
I am pretty sure you’ve all had enough of reading of the atrocious conditions etc. etc. here.
So I am going to “Try” and write on a more personal level, as indeed some of you who have written me, suggest I do!
To start with, it’s now almost the end of August and Bert has written no more, so I have to reluctantly pick up the pen. I’ve already let far too much time pass before doing this, sure I should have got on it sooner and it’s my fault for letting it go so long.
To be honest, I guess I felt in-adequate trying to follow in Bert’s foot steps. But in my defence, (every criminal has a defence) Bert didn’t tell me he was finished with the News Letters until
Now I have a massive void to fill of previous month’s events dating back to April. No easy task with my poor memory and everyday here being so monotonous, anyway here it goes!
Like it or not! You’re stuck with me. Enough excuses made! I suppose the biggest thing that sticks in my mind for the moth of April is
No! There wasn’t any anniversary celebrations, no cake! No candles to blow out!
But 4 years here was a major stepping stone, as 4 years is the minimum term on my 33 year 6 month sentence that I must remain here, before being eligible to be considered for transfer to an English prison to serve out my 33 year 6 moth sentence, under the terms of the Thailand-England transfer treaty.
In fact my transfer papers were sent to the Home Office (H.O.) London in March in anticipation of the snails pace these Bureaucrats work at, hopefully to approve my transfer to England for this month April, and avoid being in this shit hole any longer than possible. Well April came and went with no news from the British Embassy here in
Actually that’s bollocks! There was news from the Embassy staff and it wasn’t good1 they told me they had sent transfer papers off to the Home Office London, for 2 other Brits wanting a transfer home, way back in September 2006, and now 7 months later! The British Embassy Bangkok is still waiting on their paperwork to be returned from the Home Office.
Sod this! I thought, because even once the paperwork is back, it’s still a lengthy process here in Thailand, having to go before a Thai Government Official Committee for their approval and then yet again back to the Home Office London for their approval and arrangements to be made for the transfer.
I quickly got letters off to family and friends to contact people with some clout, to start chasing and putting some pressure on the Home Office. These people included one family member, a 2nd cousin who above everybody else has been tireless in her efforts to help me and see justice done. (A very remarkable young lady, with a heart of gold!)
Others included Leicestershire Local MP’s and a remarkable man I now consider a true friend Mr. Eric McGraw author and managing editor of Inside Time (www.insidetime.org) Thank you! For all your efforts in supporting me and to get me home as soon as possible.
So the wheels are in motion! Lets see if these snail pace bureaucrats at the Home Office can get their arses in gear, with a few influential people pushing from my corner.
Since my first few weeks of imprisonment I had been led to believe and convinced myself, that it was indeed possible to be transferred out of here on my 4 years anniversary, or very close to it.
That very belief has “Almost” kept me sane in my darkest times here.
Now that time is here!, yet I now know it’s possible!
But at least that Dream/Belief served me well over those years. Shit!, where would we all be with no Dreams/Beliefs/Goals? It’s been the longest 4 years of my life and also my family’s lives sure. There were many times especially in the first 6 months of my imprisonment, that this point in time, this stepping stone seemed like an illusion, an oasis on the Horizon which was an impossibility to ever reach.
Sure! I am disappointed, but I carry on with new dreams, new beliefs and another goal. A new battle within my war for freedom!!
My new goal, to be home for Christmas, well not really home! Shit! Am I institutionalised already!! I mean back in a English Prison by Christmas.
Well readers? Reader? On that terrible scrawl! I will scrawl off!! Look out for another holocaust of writing from me Steve Willcox appearing in a few days!!
NOTE
I was wrong about April news letter, being so heavily censored by the guard that it no longer existed, as it finally showed up over 2 months after posting it.
So you now have 2 April News Letters, and you can read Bert’s original after this one!
Sorry about the mix up readers!
Steve Willcox
By Bert Bratoo
April arrives and we are once again reminded why the Thais call this part of the year ‘Na Rorn’ or the hot season. Temperatures soar and humidity levels peak at 99%. We feel as though we have been imprisoned in a giant oven as air temperatures creep way up into the forty degree plus region everyday, the heat compounded in our living area by the low peaked roof. The sun beats for hours on the fibre roof tiles which act as a natural radiator and superheat the air trapped beneath which in turn is forced down onto those of us below by large, suspended, electrically driven fans in a kind of blast furnace effect.
Even on windy days we are starved of a cooling breeze because the high walls surrounding us on all four sides stand taller than our roofed area and thus act as a windbreak. These weather beaten walls, the cracked and flaking whitewash on them stained by green and black mould after decades of being exposed to the tropics, reflect the sunlight and heat back in on us causing us to squint in the bright light as rivulets of sweat run down our temples and backs.
The air is cloying and fetid, heavy with the rancid stench of sewage and rotting detrius from the open waste drainage channels that criss-cross our living space, connecting with the main channel that circles the entire building just inside the perimeter walls. The sewer has its own unique tidal system, high and low ‘tides’ dictated by the time of day, the level of the nearby river or the weather conditions. ‘High tides’ are usually during the first hour or so after the unlocking of our cells in the mornings, the peak period for showering from the huge troughs in the prison yard filled with river water.
The river itself is tidal up as far as Nonthaburi and a high river level can mean a ‘high tide’ in Bangkwangs network of sewer channels which ordinarily discharge their waste untreated into the river. When the river is high there is nowhere for the waste to go and the one and a half foot deep channels can be less than a quarter of an inch from overflowing and flooding our living area, but this often happens anyway when a sudden downpour of rain momentarily raises river levels and completely overwhelms the poorly planned system forcing us to wade around in the muck.
When the ‘tide’ is out the channels are left partially filled with stinking sludge, the walls of the channel thick with green slime and crawling with nasty looking creatures. The heat soon dries the slime and it cracks and peels from the concrete in large flakes and bubbles, just like the ancient coat of whitewash on the perimeter walls. Flies are everywhere. The sludge begins to bubble too in the heat and gives off obnoxious belches of gas, rather like the steaming woks of curry simmering away on charcoal stoves nearby. Lunch is almost ready.
Stomach and intestinal worms are the bane of our lives here, picked up easily through the dirty water and poor quality meat so we take regular courses of worming tablets, sent in by friends, in order to combat them. Every now and again however, a tape worm or some other species of these parasitical beasties (I’m no expert) will show up swimming around in the cell latrine, having been excreted and left behind by one of us. When this happens we dose ourselves up with yet more worming tablets and look for signs of extermination in the obvious way.
One day I was taking my usual shower from my own chemical drum plotted up next to the sewer and wall separating us from building 5. The sewer channel was in a state of ‘mid-tide’ and loads of scummy water was flowing past where lots of other inmates were also showering from their own drums. I was just spitting a mouthful of foamy toothpaste into the mire when I caught site of something truly disgusting, for swimming amongst the lumps of turd that had overflowed from the holding tank of the yard latrines further upstream, was a huge tapeworm about 7 or 8 inches long and the thickness of my index finger, its body a sickly albino white colour where it had grown undetected in the blind darkness of somebody’s gut. I almost puked when I realised what it was but still called a mate over to look in case the apparition was a product of my own imagination.
Peter leaned over me to get a closer look, his hands gripping my shoulders to prevent him from slipping and falling in.
“What the fuck is that?!” He gasped disbelievingly.
“I don’t know but I think it’s out of someone’s arse” I replied as we both leaned in a little closer to watch the worm writhing blindly in the river of shit, it’s dozens of little legs fanning desperately trying to gain some inertia against the flow.
“Aarrgh! Tell me you’re joking right?” He said but a glance at my face, mouth aghast and toothpaste dripping from my chin, told him that I was serious. This was identical to the tapeworms I’d seen swimming in our cell latrine, only one hell of a lot bigger! Pity the poor bastard who had been hosting that monster, but how many more of us I wondered?
The hot season is traditionally the time of year that the building authorities start placing restrictions on our freshwater and power supplies, and this year has been no exception. The steel gate into the small area where the mains water standpipes are located is kept locked by blueshirt prisoners under orders to restrict the amount of water used by other inmates. The compound is opened twice daily for an hour each time to allow people to collect fresh water but individuals are strictly rationed as to how much they can take. A person returning to the standpipe for a second or third time will have his name taken by a presiding blueshirt and threatened to be ‘Ghosted’ out to another building, unless of course he can come up with a suitable bribe for the officer in charge, in which case he can then take as much as he wants.
This ‘rationing’ of fresh water is strictly in contention with international law which says that prisoners must have access to drinking water 24 hours a day but that’s the least worry on the directors mind as the consumption of more water during the hot season eats into the funds he has skimmed from the Governments budget. This rationing will continue until we are well into the rainy season, some months away.
The restriction of electrical power to prisoner living areas is also a favourite method to shave money from the budget and thus leave more up for grabs for corrupt prison officials. Last year we suffered a month or more of all day power cuts to our daily living area which left us without power for the fans or water pumps which pump river water with which to flush the latrines by hand. We sweated and the place stank to high heaven while the factory sweatshops and guards offices enjoyed continuous supply of power. A lot of resentment built up amongst the prisoner population who where forced to suffer while air conditioning units, TV’s and fans were left running all day cooling and supplying entertainment to empty offices. The authorities had no compunction about burning Government funds for their own comfort but went to an extreme, removing fuses and opening breakers, to make certain that we prisoners did not benefit.
So far this hot season, we have been lucky and the power has only been cut occasionally, but its early days yet!
EARLY RELEASE
What happens when a man dies in Thai prison? I’m not talking about those that have met their end through sickness or violence, even though there have been plenty of those. I’m talking about the sort of death that is sudden or unexpected, and that in no way has been prepared for. What happens if you just suddenly ‘Pop your Clogs’? Not the sort of question we like to ask ourselves on the whole but the answer was brought home to us a few nights ago when a Thai inmate a few cells up from ours decided he’d had enough and was ‘checking out’ for good.
It was shortly after ‘lockdown’ around 4pm that we first knew that something unusual was going on as one of the building two ex-doctor inmates who sleeps in the hallway between the cells, was shouting instructions to prisoners through the bars of a cell further up the row. We wasn’t sure what the commotion was about but the bell that summons the guard to unlock and enter the cell block was being sounded and it soon became obvious that someone was ill.
It turns out that one of the Thai inmates, a chap of 45, had suffered a severe heart attack. The orders being shouted in Thai had been the inmate/doctors orders to other prisoners in the cell. Basic instructions on how to perform C.P.R. on a man who had by this time stopped breathing. The ‘doc.’ Could not enter the cell himself until it had been unlocked by guards who would have to fetch the keys from main control outside the building.
The makeshift C.P.R. continued under the docs instructions for the next 20 minutes or so, but witnesses say that the other Thai inmates in the cell had never been trained and didn’t really have a clue what they were doing so it was a pathetic attempt at best.
Eventually we heard the block door being unchained and the bolts slid, and a group of 6-7 guards came up to the first floor to open the cell door for the doctor inmate. An on-call member of the prison night medical staff also arrived but neither he nor the guards were interested in entering the cell themselves and now it became the turn of the doctor inmate to perform C.P.R. under the watchful eye of the ‘spotty’ medical student in the filthy white house coat, shirt hanging out, with a ‘just woke up’ hair explosion, exuding the professionalism that we’ve learnt to expect from any member of Bangkwangs medical staff.
It soon became apparent that the fellah was not going to respond to the efforts to bring him back anymore than he would have, had no one bothered in the first place. He was dead and hell, he was staying dead.
Thai law is uncharacteristically very clear when it come to the death of an inmate in custody. It is strictly against the law to move the corpse in any way until a police investigation team has entered the prison, photographed and fingerprinted the body, recorded the evidence surrounding the death including witness statements, and actually pronounced the person dead through their own forensic doctor.
On that day the incident had occurred after lockdown and by the time the commotion had died down and everybody was satisfied that there was no more to be done, it was far too late and an unnecessary security risk to bring in an outside police investigation team at that time, so it was decided to leave the dead where he was until the next day. The cell was locked. The guards left and locked the building and 20 odd cellmates in the dead guys cell settled down to a much troubled sleep than the ‘Star of the Show’, being in the same cell as the stiff is one thing but imagine what was going through the minds of his Thai mates who slept either side of him. (“Did he owe me money?” or “at last, more room!”)
The following morning we were unlocked as usual and the living poured into the yard. Meanwhile the dead layed blissfully unaware that his shoes had been stolen and his breakfast shared equally amongst his ‘housemates’ and he took his first lay-in for years.
Electrical power to the cellblock is isolated every morning and so without fans the air in the block heats up rapidly in no time at all. By the time the outside police investigation team and photographers were ushered into the building, surrounded by guards and blueshirts, at around 11:30am, ‘Rip van winkle’ must have started to become a little ‘ripe’ the police team must certainly have thought sp as every one of them entered the block wearing surgical masks, but maybe it was only because our living quarters smell like the dead anyway.
30 minutes or so later, as the rest of us looked on, the team exited the block and made their way out of the building looking satisfied.
But hang on a minute! Hadn’t they forgotten something? Where was the stiff? Surely they hadn’t left him in there?
They had. There is no national ambulance service in Thailand and bodies from accidents, suicides, murders, or that just ‘crop up’ now and again as they are prone to do, are dealt with by a Chinese charity group called ‘Doh Tek Teung’ or the ‘Bodysnatchers’. The group are well funded by wealthy Thai-Chinese benefactors and have a fleet of ambulances and full-time volunteers at their disposal. Their vehicles are equipped with radio’s that are tuned into police wave bands and when there is a body or two to be dealt with they are often at the scene before the police.
On this occasion however it seemed the ‘Bodysnatchers’ had not been informed and so it was decided to let the body stay put until they had arrived. As the afternoon wore on though it was starting to look as though the stiff was going to be spending another night with his horrified cellmates.
Sure enough,
Just as we were sitting down in our cells ‘Poh Tek Teung’ volunteers finally arrived to take the body away. They had a wheeled stretcher with them but it was useless trying to juggle it around the ‘switchback’ on the stairs and so they decided on another way. The body itself was quite heavy and a dead weight so rather than lift him they dragged his body down the stairs feet first, his head banging on each step on the way down just to keep up the hysterics a little longer - then he was gone.
Just a little too late someone in our cell came up with the idea of exchanging places with the stiff in an attempt to escape but we not very politely pointed out that he would have been dead before he had reached the bottom step, ‘brain’ dead anyway.
It turns out that there’s one more thing that a body must go through before it leaves Bangkwang for good, just to make certain that the prisoner is indeed dead, the corpses wrists are sliced open and the Achilles tendons are severed on each ankle. They wouldn’t want a body up and legging it now would they. Dead or alive!
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