Susan Aldous ... the Angel of Bang Kwang Sunday, January 7, 2001
THAILAND'S INDEPENDENT ONLINE NEWS & INFORMATION SERVICE
The ANGEL OF BANGKWANG
FOR the inmates of Bangkwang prison in Bangkok, life in the crowded cells leave them nothing to look forward to. Except when their angel comes calling. Laurena Cahill profiles an extraordinary woman who has made her life a mission to comfort those in need.
They call her the "Angel of Bangkwang", but Susan Aldous is no angel. A single mother with a sketchy education, few visible funds, a hopeless idealist is nearer the mark. In short, Susan Aldous is like the rest of us - trying to make the best of the best of all possible worlds. Yet she stands out. Because Susan - unlike the rest of us - has embraced her own humanity, understood it, and made it work for others. She has opened doors in Thailand, previously considered firmly closed to so-called soft-hearted farangs. Susan's devotes her life to looking after her fellow human beings.
Another laudatory introduction to yet another idealist trying to change the world, you might think. But hang on. Susan's achievements are not easily matched.
Let's start with an introduction.
Enter: Susan. She's a diminutive, 39 year-old blond. She chatters incessantly in a scatty manner. Her stories obfuscate chronology. She answers a direct question with an unrelated story. She is not being evasive. Her mind is in overdrive. It takes an age to pinpoint that she was born to upper middle class parents in Melbourne, Australia. She rebelled, dropped out of school, went wild. She slipped into petty crime, never got caught. Somewhere in the morass she began helping the sick, and neglected. Druggies, drop-outs, and the socially dispossessed dominated her world. She moved to Penang and then Singapore - always working with the underdog.
She came to Thailand to work on a nine day project - that was 15 years ago.
Enter: One of her many clients - Garth Todd Hattan, a prisoner in Cell B-9 at Thailand's top security prison - Bangkwang, otherwise known as the Bangkok Hilton. This 38-year-old former musician has already served six and half years for heroin trafficking.
Separated by a double screen of iron bars and mesh wiring, this is as close as visitors get. Hattan is a tall, gaunt, articulate American. He fidgets nervously with his hands. He is unused to newcomers.
It takes at least 15 minutes before Hattan settles and talks of the full horror of prison overcrowding. There are 20 inmates in his cell. He cannot turn over in his sleep. He lives in fear of further over-crowding. Friends are very few. Trusting others - guards or inmates - never pays off. The privations of an inadequate diet pale in comparison to the mental strain. The boredom is supreme, the constant noise and proximity of fellow prisoners unbearable. Hattan craves for time on his own. He talks of the beach in his native California. He fights backs the tears at the mention of his mother and her recent death. In the all darkness there is one only exception.
" I trust her implicitly," he says as he nods to Susan. Her visits and support over the past five years have helped him cope. Hattan freely admits to doing wrong. He tried to sneak six kilograms of heroin out of Thailand in July 1994 but was caught at the airport. Up to the last moment he was convinced that he would escape his crime.
"Even when I was arrested I was arrogant enough to think I could buy my way out."
Hattan's tone softens when he refers to Susan. Her visits and support have changed him, he says. The prison system has failed dismally to provide rehabilitation. But the deprived conditions have tested him to the limit psychologically. Susan's influence has made him come to terms with his lot and himself. "She has been my rehabilitation. I found myself locked in this hell-hole and this lady has been generous enough to give part of herself to me and others here.
"Because of this, I am starting to like myself a lot better than I did before," he adds.
Hattan hopes to be repatriated to the US next year. With most of his sentence served thanks to various pardons, he is pinning his hopes on being released within 18 months. Then he will devote his time to helping others.
Re-enter Susan. "Some people think that I am soft on the system but I have never suggested that prisoners shouldn't serve their sentences. Many of them have committed very serious crimes - murder, rape and drug smuggling. Yes, they should be in prison but they should not be completely abandoned. Many have not had visits in over 10 or 15 years.
"In many countries if you treated a dog like these prisoners are treated you would be in trouble with law".
Much of her incessant energy has been recently directed at helping the older inmates at Bangkwang. Many are half blind, and in desperate need of corrective eye glasses. Susan has come to the rescue with donations of unwanted glasses from Australia with the help of Optometry Aid Overseas. She has cajoled a local optical shop - Top Charoen - into providing the first eye-testing session within the prison walls.
She is starting a similar programme with dental care - another first for the country's largest prison. She is also bent on installing ceiling fans within the cells to combat the unbearable heat. She is helping to lay on luxuries for inmates such as pillows and mattresses. At this prison, there are no frills.
The Aldous home - a flat just down the road from "the Hilton" is also relatively stark but respectable by local standards.
"If I can't fit things into a suitcase - then I don't really need them," she explains.
She gets a steady but pitifully small donation from a Dutch housewife - who she has never met. She laughs at the idea of having a mortgage, credit cards and a salaried job. "They just tie you down."
Enter Sura Puntusakorn, the prison's director.
Despite the difficulties of his job, Sura is affable and reasonable. He freely admits that the detention centre is creaking at the seams coping with just under 7,000 inmates - twice the level it was originally built to hold.
He lays the blame on the judiciary. Too many people are getting over-long sentences out of all proportion to their crime, he says.
Sura says over-crowding at the Hilton has reached impossible proportions. He warns that the stiff sentence policy in Thailand is no cure for criminal activities - chronic criminals would do anything to escape jail - of course, more crime.
"The sentence imposed on a prisoner should not only fit the crime but look beyond it to the man who has committed the crime. It should take into account his personal circumstances, his family and his ability to rehabilitate.
"None of this is being addressed. All the relevant departments are doing their own thing.
"Drug offences continue to be the main reason why criminals wind up in Bangkwang. The recession has pushed more and more people into drug trafficking. It is seen as an easy means of making money and people are lured in."
A long-term inmate, who did not want his name revealed, said drugs were freely available within the system - provided you had the money to pay for them. Everything else is also available good food, special privileges. In an environment which is ostensibly sealed off the outside world and the economy - you pay, you get. Every commodity from soap to sex has a price. God help you if you can't get the money - and he does provide in the form of food handouts from Christian groups. The catch is you have to mug up on the Bible. But there is money in that as well. To help you bone up on your religious education easy cheat sheets are available to get you through any heavy questioning by the Bible-thumpers. These cost Bt2 per sheet - worth it for a food hand out by anyone's standards.
"Life centres round raising a few baht.
You have no idea of the value of a few baht in here."Susan Aldous may be contacted by e-mail at: onelifesusan@hotmail.com
BY LAURENA CAHILL