Aussie activists reveal the dirt on Asian jails in two new books
Two Australian women have put out books recently about prisons in Laos and Thailand. Kay Danes published an account of her well-publicised drama in Vientiane five years ago, while Debbie Singh documented the tale of her brother's imprisonment in Klong Prem and subsequent efforts to have him - and his son - brought home. You really have to marvel at the feisty attitude of some of the women they breed in Oz [Australia]. Danes and Singh are both mothers, yet despite the demands of raising a family they have also faced and beaten - to varying degrees - significant challenges posed by stubborn governments and bureaucratic thinking.
As the title of her book says, Danes endured a nightmare in Laos, imprisoned with her husband Kerry, for alleged wrongdoings related to a coveted gem mine in the country's north. The Danes ran a security firm that ended up being responsible for more than a tonne of sapphires from the Huay Xai mine. Kay says she and her husband, a former SAS soldier, were effectively held hostage for 10 months in Phontong prison by a "paranoid communist regime" intent on taking over the mine and getting back any gems spirited out of the country by the Danish mine manager who fled to Bangkok.
There were other aspects to the drama. The Danes also ran a firm in Thailand that provided security for an expatriate businessman who was involved in a struggle with one of the Kingdom's most notorious corporate figures. This aspect of the story is not fully explained in the book, presumably for legal reasons, given the Thai businessman's fearsome record of taking his opponents to court. Did this man pay the Lao government to keep the Danes - responsible for his opponent's personal security - in jail? You are led to believe that may have happened, but its not fully revealed or spelled out.
Danes writes emotively. Phontong is a "gulag" where prisoners live in squalor and are routinely tortured. "Gulag" seems a little over-the-top, but the bulk of text is well written and credible. How many other farangs have emerged to tell the tales from inside a Lao jail? Danes' account of her fellow prisoners is moving and upsetting. I was left wondering why prison officials in Vientiane would feel the need to beat prisoners - foreign, Hmong or Lao - and commit ugly acts such as burning people's genitals.
This book reinforces the belief shared by a number of Western embassies here that the Lao regime includes some ugly figures, not much better than the generals in Rangoon. A book like this, exposing the dark underbelly of Laos, is a stark contrast to the country's tourist promotions and the gentle manner of the bulk of its people. In the beginning one gets the impression that Kay Danes is playing a game with soldiers, blissfully unaware of the risks. At the end of the 10-month confinement and separation from her young children, she seems close to emotional breakdown. But you fully understand why she is campaigning on behalf of those suffering such outrageous cruelty and neglect in Asian jails.
Debbie Singh's book tells another tale - a suburban housewife's lobbying for a prisoner exchange treaty between Australia and Thailand, her visits to Bangkok to support her brother and other foreigners stuck in Klong Prem, and her effort to win custody of her brother's son, now a part of the Singh family down in Perth.
If ever there was a case to push an uninterested government for a prisoner exchange treaty this was it. Debbie's younger adopted brother, John Doran, was arrested in 1997 for attempting to cash a A$1,000 (Bt30,000) "dud" cheque. Back home, he probably would have walked away with a slap on the wrist or a good-behaviour bond. But Doran had the misfortune of committing this crime shortly after the economic crash, at a time when anti-foreign feelings were running high. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Out of contact with his family and depressed about his predicament, it appears he bungled any chance for an appeal.
Seven months after his imprisonment, he finally wrote a letter home. That began a six-year battle, which culminated in Doran's return as the first Australian prisoner transferred home under an exchange treaty that Debbie Singh and numerous other Aussies with relatives in Thai jails had long pushed for. Doran, a quiet and almost shy man, flew back to Casuarina prison, just south of Perth, in April 2003.
Months after Singh returned to Thailand and collected John's son Jason - with the approval of the boy's mother, who had remarried and moved to the US. Jason was under the care of relatives in Kalasin, but his mother was happy for him to be raised in Perth by Debbie and her husband Richard. The unexpected sting in the tail was that the relationship between Debbie and John Doran broke down, and when the latter was released - after a pardon from His Majesty the King - he allegedly neglected to contact his family or properly thank them.
Both the Danes and the Doran/Singh sagas have been told on Australian television. The best part about these prison tales is that they are largely authentic. Some of the other books written by British and Australian prisoners who have done years in Thai jails are either not regarded as being greatly accurate accounts of life inside or are reported to misconstrue crimes that the men concerned were convicted for. However, these books are in another class. I enjoyed them both.
Copyright 2005 Nation Multimedia Group
44 Moo 10 Bang Na-Trat KM 4.5, Bang Na district, Bangkok 10260 Thailand
Tel 66-2-325-5555, 66-2-317-0420 and 66-2-316-5900 ; Fax 66-2-317-2071
http://www.nationmultimedia.com
