I had been working incessantly for the past hour and was ravenous. It was approaching the end of the morning shift when the visitors would be asked to leave. We would then make our rounds to ensure everything was ok and all the prisoners were accounted for. The visitors would return at approximately 1pm for the afternoon shift which would finish about 3pm. Once the visitors were gone I planned to have a good meal before getting ready for the afternoon. Just as I was mulling over what I would like to eat, one of my assistants raced over to me looking tremendously excited over something. In between gasps of hot air he managed to tell me, ‘Sir, something is happening in Wing 6!’
I felt a cold shiver in the pit of my empty stomach and asked him to be more specific.
‘I’m not 100 % sure but it kinda looks like a riot.’
This was bad—really, really bad. In less than an hour hundreds of happy relatives would start walking from the football field towards the entrance. To do this they would have to pass by the front gate of Wing 6 where they would have to stop and wait in order to be frisked before they could leave the prison’s premises. In other words they would make an easy and large target for angry criminals who couldn’t meet with their families because of their low grade. It might sound overly dramatic to say that, as I stood there with my breathless assistant, I quickly envisioned a blood bath of impressive proportions, but you have to remember the context. This wasn’t some boarding school; this was Bang Kwang.
I raced over to the gate at Wing 6 hoping against hope that he was wrong. Maybe it was just the usual run-of-the-mill gang fight. These happened frequently and only involved key players. They could be bloody but relatively short. It was a two minute run to the gate from the tower. I gripped the bars of the gate. There was a security guard stationed here 24 hours a day. You just didn’t want to think of the consequences of the emptying out of the inhabitants of Wing 6 on to the unprepared streets. Beyond the bars, the inner gate is a big solid metal door with a huge lock on it. There is also a slot which can be uncovered to peek inside to check on things, like you would see on the door of a police station’s cell. We would use it when a prisoner was preparing to be brought to court. You would have to check that the right prisoner was standing there waiting, without weapons or accomplices. Of course we also used it regularly during the visiting season, to ensure that the right prisoner was waiting to join the right family.
The officer at the outer gate was obviously hoping for assistance or direction. He beckoned me immediately and whispered:
‘Sir, they have taken Officers Gamol and Prasit as hostages.’
Shit, shit, shit. I asked him what exactly was going on.
‘I don’t know the details Sir but they are mounting a riot for sure’.
I babbled at him, ‘We are going to be in big trouble. There are over 1,000 inmates and family outside who will be shortly heading this way. We have an hour and that’s all!’
I took a deep breath; there was no point in panicking him any more than he was. I had to pull myself together. I told the officer to lock the inner and outer gate of Wing 6 and not to open them, under any circumstances, until he received instructions from our superiors. He locked the gates without a word. We both knew that we were locking some of our colleagues in with the madness but this is what we had been trained to do in these circumstances.
I climbed up the wall to get a view of what was going on in Wing 6. It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie—all that was needed was a Johnny Cash or Elvis soundtrack. The inmates were in groups spread over the wing. Some were wearing bandanas which might have made me smile in a different setting. They all appeared to be armed, some with blocks of wood and some with metal poles with pointed ends that looked to me like medieval lances. They must have taken the poles from the equipment room and sharpened them in the workshop. A few of the men looked high and it was later discovered that they had stolen and consumed paint thinning substance, also from the workshop. I couldn’t see any officers; there are usually ten to every wing—ten for every 1,000 prisoners. You do the maths! On Visiting Day two officers from each wing had to accompany his prisoners to the football field, leaving behind eight men to supervise a fractious village of convicts.
Within minutes, Prathin Glaisung, Chief of the Custody Section, reported the riot to the Superintendent, who immediately ordered the outer and inner gates of the rest of the wings, 1 to 5, to be locked until further notice. Then an announcement was made over the loud speakers informing everyone that a riot was taking place. The visitors were asked to remain calm and make their way to the auditorium to await instructions. The convicts—the ‘visitees’—were asked to line up at the end of the football pitch. Meanwhile the people running the stalls had started to swiftly pack up their belongings. I had a quick look to make sure that Tew was one of them. We would have a terrible row later when she returned with our three children to watch the chaos, along with the rest of Nonthaburi. We lived in a house that was provided by the government, down the road from the prison.
I couldn’t believe it when I spied my family calmly taking in the proceedings. I charged out and told Tew to take the children away to some place safe. And what did she do? She waited until I left and then turned to our eldest and told him to take his younger brother and sister over to his Uncle Oud’s dormitory at Klong Prem so that she could remain to watch the rest of the show. It has become a family joke now but I was still mad at her days later.
With as many staff as we could spare, we led the nervous relatives towards the exit point at the security tower; women and children were first in line, followed by the men. As I had foreseen, the crowd were subject to taunts and insults. We all just gritted our teeth and grimly prepared to ignore it. But we couldn’t ignore the missiles. Bottles, plates and stones were hurled at the crowd, which understandably panicked and started to run towards the main road. Women tried to huddle shocked and screaming children to themselves to protect them. Thankfully no one was hurt. I was also grateful for the fact that the visitees didn’t try to take advantage of the panic and follow their loved ones to the outside world, or didn’t quickly form an army to take on Wing 6 and punish them for the maltreatment of their families. It could easily have gone either way. While I was busy at the front gate, a couple of officers were retrieving weapons from the armoury in the security tower and the administrative officers were ringing around the various police stations for assistance.
When the last family member had been sent safely through the gate we were ordered to lead the waiting prisoners from the football field to where we kept those in solitary confinement. They would have to wait there until we got the situation under control, for their own safety. A few minutes later dozens of police officers arrived from Nonthaburi police station. Sawas Sansern, our Superintendent, had rang the Director General of DOC for assistance. He responded by ordering the police and prison officers to spread out, covering as much of Bang Kwang as possible. Some senior officers attempted to identify and talk to the ring leaders of the riot and open some sort of negotiations. There were dozens of ring leaders, which didn’t help matters. They ordered their comrades-in-arms to gather all the tables and chairs from the canteen and stack them behind the inner gate to support it in case of an attack. They also had hostages—two guards.
Our officers kept asking the men to remain calm, and eventually this led to the hostages, Officers Gamol Sukpan and Prasit Taptimsri, being safely released. I don’t really think that the two men were ever in real danger. They were unpopular as prison guards and were probably held briefly for a laugh more than anything else. However, if we thought this signalled an end to the trouble we were sadly mistaken. Things started to kick off again around mid-day. It turned out that the prisoners whose behaviour prohibited them from having visitors had been very busy otherwise—making booze from fermented fruit. So we had hardened criminals running wild, angry, frustrated, some high and now most of them drunk. They decided that
they should look for some new recruits and started to throw things across the wall into Wing 5, by way of invitation to join their revolution. Fuelled by fruit the inmates at 6 began to roar, clap, stamp their feet and hammer at the bars. They formed a pyramid using the tables, thus making it easier for the men at 5 to join them.
Meanwhile, it was lunch-time. It was decided that we should feed the inmates regardless of the situation. We could have tried to starve them in order to break their hold, but then any 6 prisoners who were not party to the revolt might join their mates out of hunger and anger. I suppose we also hoped that the food might soak up the alcohol. Since we couldn’t enter the wing I had to push the food cart just past the inner gate of 6 and then stop. I slid open the peak hole and was told politely by the prisoner sent to accept the food.
‘Thank you Sir. I’ll handle it from here.’
I nodded stiffly in acquiescence. We both pretended that I had a choice.
The Superintendent was trying to negotiate with them. He kept asking the inmates to choose one representative he could speak with, but they just refused point-blank. They told him that they would only speak with the Minister of Interior, General Sithi Jirarod. Nevertheless, he did discover what the riot was all about. A politician’s promise was causing all this trouble—a promise that could never be kept. Someone had publicly promised all prisoners that he would personally make a proposal to the Minister of Interior to submit a petition for a Royal Pardon on the occasion of the funeral of Her Majesty Rampaipannee. She was the wife of His Majesty Rama VII. His rashness acted like a burning cigarette on oil—it blew the place up. Amnesty was every prisoner’s dream and fantasy, and no politician could casually promise them one. The Royal Family usually granted the Royal Pardon to prisoners on special occasions; special happy occasions, which a funeral was most definitely not. Inevitably, the convicts were bitterly disappointed when no pardon proved forthcoming, and naturally the politician denied promising anything later.
To be honest the inmates were being a bit unrealistic with their expectations. The whole process of granting amnesty takes a long time to complete. The Minister of Interior can only submit a proposal to the Royal Family or their representatives, for a mass amnesty. He certainly cannot rush the Family into making a decision. The prisoners on death row have up to 60 days after receiving their sentence to petition for their own amnesty. But then they could be left waiting for 12 months before they hear anything back.
***
The situation was worsening all the time. One wall separates each wing from the other. Prisoners at 5 who had been enticed to join now issued a similar invite to those in 4. The chaos was contagious, spreading quickly from wing to wing. Inmates broke into the offices and factories and started to systematically destroy all around them. They helped themselves to anything that could be used as, or fashioned into, a weapon. The Superintendent asked for the megaphone and begged the prisoners in 6 to calm down and return to their cells. Oddly, they promised to take it down a notch but were completely against returning to their own quarters. He issued the same request to the prisoners in 4 and 5. They issued the same response as 6.
Over 100 more police officers arrived at the prison. They spread out to prevent any escapes, and try to limit the protest to Wing 6. Shortly after their arrival they were joined by a group of Commandos. Police General Suwan Rattanashuen from the Department of Special Affairs turned up with Sanid Rujinarong, the Director General of DOC and other senior officers from the Ministry of Interior. At 12.30pm a meeting was called. Our Superintendent described the whole situation in detail and they studied an aerial map of Bang Kwang. Their meeting was disrupted 30 minutes later when the convicts resumed throwing things over the wall and chanting, ‘We won’t work, we’ll just fucking eat!’
At 1.10pm the men elected a representative who was demanding to speak to prominent politicians, members of the National Assembly and, last but not least, the media. He wished to issue the prisoners’ demands at 2pm. The prisoners had also furnished themselves with banners which they held proudly aloft for all to see. The messages varied little—‘We would rather die if we don’t get amnesty,’ and, ‘We were promised amnesty.’
At 1.30pm the police and prison officers removed all fuel from the prison wings to prevent anyone from thinking how wonderful it would be to set the prison on fire. The Superintendent told the administrative officers to digs out the files of all the ring leaders and study their profiles. Knowledge is power. One of the officer hostages, Gamol, was brought before the Superintendent to describe in detail what had happened from the very beginning.
‘Prasit and I were on duty in Wing 6. The first sign of trouble was when the prisoner Munggorn (Dragon) approached us. He was carrying a metal bar that had been sharpened to a point at one end, which he shoved at my neck as he told us: “You officers must get out of this wing now because we are about to have a revolution.” We had no choice but to leave. The other leaders are Vipop Phrahanthongchai and Noi Chaimard.’
The two were well known to all the prison guards through their constant complaints. Every month, without fail, they submitted two to three complaints about living conditions in the jail.
Gamol continued: ‘Noi led dozens of inmates to take over the canteen. He climbed up on to a table and gave a speech to rouse the men to action. He was working the men up into a rage against the prison staff. When they appeared excited enough he instructed them to spread themselves throughout Wing 6 but to be careful to always stay in groups. He continued seducing the men with his wrath and it wasn’t long before he was joined in the canteen by over 1,000 inmates, who started to shout, “No amnesty? We would rather die.”’
Noi Chaimard was a hardened criminal at 40 years of age. He was an extremely intelligent and articulate man, which made him more dangerous in our eyes. He had been imprisoned here before after being charged with murder. Now he had returned after being arrested and charged for attempted murder. Dragon was 26, and was in prison for a kidnapping and murder in the Lopburi Province. I don’t think any of the officers were surprised at their instigating this riot; they were born troublemakers through and through and were a constant thorn in our sides.
The staff was made aware that there were worried families waiting outside the jail, wondering if they were going to be let in to resume their visit with their relative. They would have also been anxious about the welfare of their relative if the riot escalated. The prison made an announcement that Visiting Day and normal visitation hours were temporarily cancelled due to the ongoing disorder. They would have to wait until the following day to hear if normal visiting hours would be established. The prison also took the time to reassure the families that the law abiding convicts would be protected at all costs. However we would be reacting strongly to anyone who was taking part in the riot.
Meanwhile the rabble-rousing continued. There was a tough group of prisoners who called themselves ‘Samurai’, but they were nothing like their namesakes. They lacked the grace and dignity of the Samurais and were in reality a bunch of gangsters who liked to pick on the weaker inmates. They were the biggest contributors to the riot. They were the ones who convinced the inmates who wanted to return to their cells that if they did so they would just be beaten up by the prison guards. So it was to their own good to stay rioting with them. Some of the foreign prisoners had also been enticed to join in. We could hear the riot leaders urging their forces to fight until they dropped because it would be worth it if they were able to obtain amnesty. They kept demanding that the alleged promise of amnesty be kept. They started to organise their campaign in a more efficient manner and got themselves lawyers. These lawyers, inmates who had a background in law, from Wings 4 and 5, went to the canteen to submit their support for Wing 6 and offer their expertise. They gave a couple of encouraging speeches and then set about writing up the prisoners’ proposals for negotiations.
At 1.40 in the afternoon the inmates were to
ld by one of the leaders to start conserving water. They were obviously planning a long campaign. The small prison shop was overrun and its products; cartons of milk, soft drinks, tinned fruit and vegetables and cigarettes, were seized and dispensed to the rioters free of charge. We could hear the men cheering and clapping in their appreciation of the free bounty. A megaphone was taken from an office in Wing 6 and became the means for communicating with the outside world.
At 1.50pm one of the ring leaders addressed the journalists and camera crews standing at the gates of the prison. The prisoner asked the media to help aid the inmates in their appeal for amnesty. They hoped that the media would put pressure on Sanya Thammasak, President of the Privy Council, to give the inmates what they wanted.
At 2pm the Director-General of DOC appointed the Vice Director-General, Vijid Thongkum, to resolve the situation. The guy with the megaphone continued to address the journalists. The riot would not stop until the prisoners’ demands were met. They realised that their actions were wrong and they were sorry that they had been driven to these lengths. All they wished was to be allowed a second chance to return to society and show themselves to be good citizens. They wanted to make their contribution towards making Thailand a great place to live. He continued on with their grievances. The prisoners felt that they were badly treated in Bang Kwang and that nobody on the outside really cared about their welfare. They said they were being treated no better than caged animals. They had to take over the prison because no one else was going to help them. The politicians who promised mass amnesty had all but disappeared. Furthermore, if they didn’t get amnesty, they would rather die.
The Last Executioner Page 12