Dragons & Butterflies

by Shani Krebs

  At the end of the corridor, by the stairway, was a security gate that was locked every night. Downstairs, at the entrance to the building, was another security gate that was padlocked with chains and a heavy metal bar. Escape would be rather difficult, although I contemplated this many times. It would be pretty much impossible to escape without outside help, I reckoned. In the morning a guard would open the two sets of security gates, then a Blue Shirt, known as a key-boy, would open each cell – first, one on the left, then on the right, then on the left again, and so forth. The prisoners always rushed to get downstairs to start their daily activities. Those prisoners who didn’t have any visitors to bring them stuff, or have any financial support, had to work. These were mainly the Thais and the other Asians. They worked as cleaners, dishwashers, laundry boys, ice collectors, water carriers and masseurs. The Thais were also required to work in the factories. They were paid ridiculous wages, which I don’t think exceeded more than R30 a month, which wasn’t even US$4 in 1994. Some of the wealthier Thais could pay the guard in charge of that particular factory to get out of working.

  After being caught in the flow of human traffic to get out of the building, Cliff and I made our way to Mohammed’s house, where we had coffee and he offered us breakfast. First on my agenda was organising a locker to keep my stuff in. Second was clean water for drinking and showering. As it turned out, Mohammed, who had been in Bangkwang for about three years already, and was about ten years my junior, was highly resourceful and he had the respect of the guards and prisoners alike. I got talking to the Nigerian guys, Mohammed’s neighbours, across the waist-high wooden fence that separated the houses. As fellow Africans, the Nigerians were most welcoming towards me. There were about 40 of them living there. By the time I’d finished my coffee, I had struck up friendships with almost all of them. The first thing they wanted to know was whether I played football. I have to say they were a good bunch of guys. One or two whispered in my ear that there was plenty of heroin if I was so inclined, and credit was no problem. It was hard to resist. I had just received a life sentence. To be honest, I would have loved to have got fucked out of my head. An inner voice was guiding me, however, and I simply said, ‘No, thanks, but I wouldn’t mind some hashish.’

  Bangkwang was a maximum security prison. People here were doing hard time. I realised I would have to be selective about the people I chose as friends. Spending time with the same person, one eventually picks up their habits, and I needed to be acutely aware of this, even in prison. Drugs had almost killed me. Drugs were the reason I was serving a life sentence. Prison was not exactly an environment where one could afford or enjoy to be stoned.

  It was vital to me that I do good time. Here was an opportunity for me to choose: I could change my life or fuck it up even more.

  After learning that I had cash on me, Mohammed wasted no time and organised me two lockers on the other side of the building, next to the bakery. This happened to be a prime spot, where few of the other foreigners hung out. Next to the bakery was a small furnace with a huge metal tub. This was where the cotton used for the towels was dyed. In charge of this area was a Thai called Somchai, who spoke English reasonably well. There was another horse trough, smaller and square in size, in which the factory workers took their showers. More importantly, there was also clean running water. For 500 Thai baht a month, one of the Thai prisoners who controlled the clean-running water would fill two standard-size plastic dustbins for you to shower from – one in the morning, one in the afternoon. I couldn’t wait to take a shower in clean water; that fucking polluted river water had left me scratching all over. For 150 Thai baht I arranged for a Thai to also give me six bottles of clean, boiled drinking water. While I was unpacking my things and putting them into my newly acquired locker, he introduced me to a reliable laundry boy. Every foreigner received a small plastic bag of white rice and an inedible stew every day, which you could sell to the Thais for 150 Thai baht a month. The Thais were given red rice, so our white rice was in demand and one could use it as payment.

  By 9am, which was when I was expecting a visit from my sister, I had already unpacked all my things, had a shower and pretty much got myself organised. Mohammed also introduced me to a guy called Lenny, who was from Hong Kong. Lenny spoke English and had done time in an American prison. He cooked Western-style food for some of the other prisoners, and 1 200 Thai baht got you one good meal. Things were looking good. The Hilton was certainly living up to its reputation.

  It wasn’t too long before the names of those prisoners who had visits were called over the loudspeaker. First, a short announcement was made in Thai, which I didn’t understand. Then, after a series of names mispronounced in broken English, I heard mine: ‘Alesanda Krebs – leemyud’ (visit). Because there were quite a few of us, we were required to wait at the entrance of Building 2. I was impatient, desperate to spend as much time with Joan as possible before she had to fly back to South Africa. This was her second-last visit. I complained to the guard about having to wait, and he seemed sympathetic. He allowed me to go ahead, without having to wait for the others.

  The visit room was a long corridor, with two sets of bars, some wire mesh and a space of about 2m separating the prisoners from their visitors. I don’t know why, but I was surprised to see so many foreigners. It was a crazy scene and reminded me of the first day, when I was moved from the police cells to court. Visitors had to shout to the prisoners to be heard, and when the visit room was packed, like it was today, you could hardly hear anything properly.

  Buildings 1, 2 and 3 had visits on Mondays and Wednesdays; buildings 4, 5 and 6 had theirs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Visit days also gave us the opportunity of meeting up with our mates from the other buildings. Magazines and books were exchanged, but, of more interest to us, information was exchanged, too. It was extraordinary how fast news travelled around the prison. It spread like wildfire.

  The visit room was also a place where drugs were distributed. Dealers paid inmates to smuggle drugs from the buildings to the visit room. There was a whole underground postal network in place. Messages were written on small pieces of paper, which were folded and stapled and would be discreetly passed from hand to hand until they eventually reached the intended person. Meetings were even arranged at the hospital.

  Joan was there waiting for me. I kept up a brave front, telling her about my new friend Mohammed and how he had helped me get organised. I told her there was nothing that she needed to worry about, that in fact this prison was far better than the other two prisons I’d been held in. Joan had arranged with the embassy to send an official letter to the Bangkwang prison authorities requesting the removal of my shackles as soon as possible. My sentencing, as well as the hassle of getting to the prison and having to queue to get inside, had really taken its toll on Joan. My poor sister was an emotional wreck. As much as she wanted to be with me for as long as possible, she also needed to head back home to Johannesburg and her family. The last bit of business left for her to do was to organise a lawyer to handle my appeal. The chance of getting a reduction in my sentence, without bribing the public prosecutor, was extremely remote. The ideal situation would be for me to get my sentence reduced to 25 years. If this happened, I could be moved back to Klong Prem, from where the Israelis had promised they could get me out.

  The next day would be Joan’s last visit and this reality weighed heavily on both of us. From tomorrow, I would be on my own. It was always difficult saying goodbye at the end of a visit, especially as Joan would break down in tears. We agreed that tomorrow neither of us would cry, and instead of saying goodbye we would say the words, ‘See you later.’

  My sister’s last visit left me unsettled. To this day I can see the expression of sheer helplessness on her face. It broke my heart.

  Bangkwang was a money-making machine. Bribery and corruption kept the wheels turning. From the lowest-ranking officer to as high up as the Minister of Justice, everybody got a kickback. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say t
he government budget allocated 200 Thai baht per prisoner per day and at that time there were approximately 300 000 prisoners in Thailand’s prisons. The authorities provide food for only 40 per cent of the prisoner population, so if they only use 100 Thai baht a day for a prisoner … you do the math.

  What shocked me more than most things in prison was the number of prisoners who were innocent. In Thailand you can be found guilty by mere association and get the death penalty. Entire families are locked up, parents and their children. For example, you could be in a restaurant while a drug deal is going down at the table next to you. Maybe there’s a suitcase containing heroin on the floor beside the table. The next thing, there’s a police raid. Nine times out of ten they have information, or else they have set up the whole operation themselves. Every single person, your waiter included, as well as anybody in the vicinity, will be arrested. Chances are, if you plead innocent and try to defend your case in first court, you may well get the death penalty and spend anything up to ten years after that fighting your case. After spending hundreds of thousands of rands, you most likely would still get a life sentence or the death penalty.

  I hated the system the more I saw it in operation. Human rights abuses were sickeningly rampant in Thai jails. By now, I hated everything about the country. There was no way I was going to bother learning the language, as this would mean I was accepting my fate, and I wouldn’t ever have any use for it once I was free anyway.

  There was a section opposite the security office where prisoners waited to receive the food their visitors had brought them. These packages passed through three different checkpoints before landing here. It was also the area where registered mail and parcels were handed out. Receiving parcels from your family and friends abroad was one of the most vital support mechanisms for prisoners. I think it went a long way to keeping you sane. The feeling of seeing a parcel with your name on it was indescribable.

  Working in this section was a Thai inmate named Piscet, who was close to 60. He had studied at Oxford University, where he had majored in English. Then, while in Bangkok visiting his family, he had caught a taxi, but unbeknown to him the driver was a drug smuggler. In the boot of the car he had about 2kg of heroin. The police apprehended the driver, but his passenger was also arrested. The poor guy tried to plead his innocence and ended up with a life sentence for his trouble. That’s Thai justice for you!

  Piscet was in charge of foreign mail, and he was also the official prison translator. He was the only prisoner who was permitted to walk around freely from building to building, as he delivered the mail twice a week. A couple of years later, close to his release, he and a fellow prisoner, a guy from Australia, smuggled a computer into their building. They got caught selling heroin on the internet and eventually got extradited to America.

  Whenever a new prisoner arrived in Bangkwang, there was a general curiosity among inmates, especially among Western foreigners. Prison is a lonely place. Friendships are easily forged and just as quickly broken; one day somebody is your best friend and the next he is your sworn enemy. I had to learn this the hard way. Things work differently on the inside. There is no such thing as unconditional friendship. Nothing for nothing. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. I was suspicious of anybody who was too friendly. Now that I was at my third prison, I was more interested in befriending those inmates who worked in key positions and could help make life easier for me.

  If the place was a jungle, I was a tiger among tigers.

  Like an animal staking out its territory, I did my usual walking around and quickly familiarised myself with my new environment. It was not a pretty picture. There was open sewage and dust and dirt everywhere. Bangkwang comprised 14 buildings, with six buildings housing a total of 7 000 prisoners. Building 2 housed mainly the offenders who were in for murder, while Building 6 held the drug offenders. Building 7 was the monastery, Building 8 had a furniture factory that prisoners with low sentences worked in, Building 9 was the kitchen, and Building 10 was the punishment building, also known as solitary confinement. Building 12 was the hospital, and Building 14 was the university, where there was also a full-size football field. I’m not sure whether it was Building 11 or 13, but one of these was the pig farm.

  Each building was completely walled in, and each was situated on about half a hectare. And each operated independently. They were worlds within worlds. At the entrance to each building was a double set of security gates, which during the day were manned by two guards and two Blue Shirts.

  In one of the factories they made picture frames from mother-of-pearl, using sandpaper grinders to smooth the surfaces. The sanding released microscopic particles, and accounted for some of the dust that hung in the air.

  The place was terribly overcrowded. Prisoners would sit around all day doing nothing and generally talking shit. The main topic of conversation usually revolved around the crime they had committed and their sentences. Many of the Thais were in Bangkwang because they had committed multiple murders – and their casualness around this fact, their disregard for human life, was something I couldn’t get my head around. There was an incident in my cell once where a Thai guy who had killed an entire family got upset with me for killing a mosquito – the Thai Buddhists believe in reincarnation, so the mosquito could be a member of their family reincarnated.

  The disparity in the sentences for murder and for drug offences was also something that never failed to astound me. If you are convicted of murder, you will spend anything between seven and fourteen years before you are eligible for parole, while drug offenders remain in prison for anything between 18 and 24 years.

  Through time and the effects of exercise, the drugs had worked their way out of my system. The clearer my mind became, the more real was my reality. Survival became my ongoing priority. In fact, this had been the case from the time I arrived in Bombat prison.

  While walking around the building close to where my new locker was, I noticed that some of the prisoners had erected awnings, which were attached to the wall, to protect themselves from the sweltering heat. This section of the building we called Chinatown, as it was where a lot of the Chinese guys hung out. Some of them also had houses. Walking further down towards the opposite end of the building, closer to where Mohammed stayed, I saw a group of four guys sitting in deckchairs, their pants pulled down to their knees. As I got closer, I saw they had these weird plastic pump gadgets fitted on their penises. At first I didn’t know what they were doing, but then I realised they were busy enlarging their dicks! They were doing this right out in the open, and then they would compare sizes. This was better than the movies!

  Further on were the toilets, where there were smaller groups of guys huddled together. These were the junkies shooting up heroin. They used an empty pen cartridge for this: after sucking the diluted heroin into the cartridge, they would attach a surgical needle to it, which was then inserted into the vein. A fellow prisoner then blew on the opposite end of the cartridge, allowing the heroin to enter the bloodstream. Prisoners shared needles freely, without any form of sterilisation. I was sure most of these guys had AIDS. The place was full of addicts, and seeing and being around people taking drugs on such a large scale really frightened me. Bangkwang, I soon realised, was full of drugs.

  I suppose prisons all around the world tolerate drug trafficking within their walls, but, besides the monetary gains, in Thai prisons the authorities turn a blind eye because they know that drugs subdue prisoners and keep them mellow – a disgruntled prison population can make for a very volatile situation.

  The Chinese and the Nigerians controlled the drugs in Bangkwang, and within their organisation they had at least five different syndicates. Whenever a big stash came into the building, it would be divided equally among the dealers. Each had his own customer base and every syndicate operated on a different day. I had barely been in Bangkwang a week – it was around 10am on a Monday morning – when I became aware of how the system operated. During our regular visit days many of the for
eigners were at the visit, and those who didn’t have regular visits were in the dining hall writing letters. A few Nigerians hung out in the house, while others stood guard at certain posts, keeping a watchful eye. There was always a chance of the building getting raided by outside guards, either from the security section or the Department of Corrections, so whichever syndicate was peddling the heroin that day, one or two guys would be on duty selling. The heroin was put into small papers containing no more than 0.4g.

  On this Monday morning I was relaxing in a deckchair in Mohammed’s house when three Thai junkies arrived at the entrance to the Nigerians’ house. They ordered their papers, and as the Nigerian was about to hand them over, they pulled out knives and robbed him of everything he was holding. It all happened really fast. Apparently it wasn’t the first time and it sure wouldn’t be the last. With Thais outnumbering foreigners seven to one in Bangkwang, retaliation would be committing suicide.

  My second night in the cell, I called for a meeting in which I expressed my disapproval of the room chief waking us up so early. We took a vote and most of the guys supported me; it was decided there and then that the room chief would clean the room only once we had exited. At the same time I changed places with the guy on my right – I wasn’t going to be able to sleep next to the old man who farted all the time. My new neighbour was a Singaporean by the name of Jimmy. The poor guy had AIDS. He was covered in pimple-type sores all over his body, which he never stopped scratching. I felt bad for him, but the scratching was terrible. Eventually, I got hold of a cardboard box which I flattened and stood as a partition between our beds.