Earlier this year, Home Truths talked to Diana Mawdsley just after her son James, 26, was sentenced to 17 years of solitary confinement in a Burmese jail. She returns now to tell us how James and the Mawdsley family are coping...
James Mawdsley's crimes were entering Burma without a visa, distributing leaflets that called for the junta to recognise human rights, for universities to be re-opened, and for the junta to hold a dialogue with the National League for Democracy. If he serves his whole sentence, James will not be released until he’s 43 years old. When James left for Burma, members of his family knew that he might end up in prison. He’s always been an idealistic and principled person, and his commitment to human rights has led to imprisonment in a Burmese prison before. Last time he survived torture and degrading conditions, but still sent letters home that spoke of forgiveness:
"I was taking a wash one afternoon. Guarding me was a man I had reason to despise, and despise him I did. The very sight of him made me sick at heart. The thought that he might be the one to bring my food would make me angry, then this day as I was taking a wash, I looked at him as he crouched on the ground ten feet away. He was gently picking out weeds from the earth, utterly absorbed in his task, a mind a million miles away from prison and his task of guarding me. And in that moment I saw the man stripped bare of all the superficial trivialities by which we judge each other. He was born as innocent as me. He wanted peace and rest and freedom, just as much as me. He was not so much a guard as one of millions of prisoners in Burma. And my heart went out to him. And ever since that moment whenever I saw him again, I felt glad. The tension between us had vanished and he was as glad to see me as I was to see him."
After hearing Diana read this extract from one of James' letters, many of you wrote to Home Truths with messages of support for James which she was able to pass on to during her recent visit to him in prison. Diana returned from Burma only last week, elated at having been able to visit her son on four separate occasions. In the Home Truths studio, she talked to John Peel about her experiences ...
Diana: It was wonderful seeing James - he’s in good fettle.
John: So physically he’s all right.
Diana: Physically he’s getting enough food which he didn’t last time. This time they’re feeding him; it’s pretty boring, but he’s got enough. He’s very pasty. He's in a solitary cell, but he has no time alone - there are six guards allocated to him, two at night. Every 15 minutes they record what he's doing. They only let him out of the cell for 20 minutes every 24 hours. But mentally, physically, and spiritually he’s strong, and his sense of humour’s still there.
John: So what sort of conditions is he living in?
Diana: He’s in a solitary cell, but since a visit from the International Red Cross he now has a wooden seat on his lavatory bucket. Now he found that remarkably comfortable. He’s asked the prison authorities in front of His Excellency the British Ambassador, whether he can clean his own cell. He doesn’t wish other prisoners to be his servants. That permission has to come from Rangoon.
John: How many times did you get to see him.
Diana: I saw him 4 times. I was in Kentung for two weeks.
John: How difficult was it?
Diana: It was hard. It was hard.
John: Were you allowed to hug him?
Diana: Yes, we embraced, indeed we did - at the beginning and end of each visit…
John: Can you take us through the first visit in particular?
Diana: There were six armed guards, with their kalashnikovs and side arms, there was the governor, his interpreter, military intelligence, his interpreter and an emigration office and his interpreter… but who could speak English, anyway, we didn’t know. And three photographers, so we’re talking about 15 people…
John: Watching your every move, and listening to your every word …
Diana: Absolutely. The photographers jumping out of the wood work to flash their cameras...
John: Not a relaxing situation at all..
Diana: And then James thought it was the first visit and the only visit. And he felt he had to get so much in, that he started haranguing the Governor - he was quite civil - haranguing the Governor on the treatment of prisoners.
John: Not specifically himself …
Diana: Oh no! He has no ill treatment.
John: But of the other prisoners …
Diana: He has seen and heard things that are unpleasant. The Governor’s face started to look totally stupefied. I could only see the Governor’s face, and I was thinking to myself, "Oh darling! Don’t rattle your chains so loudly!"
John: Were you aware when you first went to see him, that you’d be able to go and see him again...
Diana: We tried - I was given the impression that I would be able to see him more than once. Then unaccountable difficulties were put in my way. But one battles for what one wants, and I found that the military intelligence officer in Kentung … was helpful... but I refused to beg. I would not beg. I just said my finances were limited, I was in Kentung for two weeks and I would appreciate being able to see my son as often as possible, but I wouldn’t beg for it.
John: So, are you planning to return to see James again..
Diana: I can’t afford it! If he spends seventeen years - at least we’re a large family, so my husband is going out in January. Then I have a daughter and two other sons. They'll follow at two monthly intervals. And when I told this to the MI man, he looked appalled! This wave of Mawdsley’s coming though Burma on regular basis!
John: But James must have been much heartened…
Diana: Oh very heartened indeed. He’s in good fettle.
John: And you were able to tell him that the rest of the family will be trekking over one by one…
Diana: Yes, yes… He doesn’t want us to spend our money and he apologises for that, and I said oh don’t worry darling, we want to do it. Then he apologised to me for the miseries he must have known I was enduring in Kentung. I said, "You’re damn right!
John: Presumably now you’ve seen James and what the conditions are like in the place he has been imprisoned, that in itself makes it a little easier to bear …
Diana: Oh yes, it’s a great comfort, because it’s a prison, but its nothing like Insein prison. I visited Insein prison and I would say to you that the horrors that happen in Insein have been absorbed into the fabric of the building. This prison is in a better place, it’s in the Shan hills, so malaria is not a worry to us. There is a cool season and James’ cell is larger. And he has been subjected to no ill treatment whatever this time, not like last time. Last time he was most brutally tortured and when he left prison he was in a bad way.
John: He’s obviously determined to see his sentence out, and is determined to have the plight of Burmese people brought by any means to public attention.
Diana: As a mother I wish he wasn’t there, but as a human being, how can I not have respect for him?
John: Are you ever frustrated by his intransigence? Don’t you ever feel he could do something - I suppose you’d see it as a compromise, and you would do too…
Diana: "I can’t speak for James, but God willing, God willing, that savage sentence, will not have to be completed. I can only say God willing. And then I hope you'll be able to speak to him personally.
John: You said that there were times when you’d quite like to box James’ ears…
Diana: Oh yes quite. But he understands. It would be a loving box!
John: Why would you want to box his ears?
Diana: For just the reasons you asked I suppose in the first place. Why James? Why did he feel this need? As a mother I wish he wasn’t there, as a human being I respect his respect for humanity. But just sometimes, I think, "Oh for heaven’s sake - couldn’t you have worked from this side of the border!"
