Koh Tarutao Penal Colony Timeline [Archive]

GWR

10-06-05, 06:20 PM

The process of creating a timeline for the island prison of Koh Tarutao is complicated by the fact that two of the major information sources are in novel form. This is presumably because the authors of these works wished to leave themselves an ‘escape mechanism’ from litigation. Accounts that may be fictional are thus placed between […..]s.

It’s interesting that these two novels were first published in the same year. Their accounts tally sufficiently to suggest there may have been some cooperation between the two authors. Both accounts appear to use a significant number of factual characters. Win’s novel has the advantage that its ‘Appendix’ and photographic illustrations make it clear which characters are fictional. I have created a notation below to indicate the source of each timeline item.

Please feel free to comment, suggest additions & create errata for this timeline.

SOURCES:

The Pirates of Tarutao (1994) Paul Adirex (Aries Books) [PT]
Democracy, Shaken & Stirred (1994) Win Lyovarin (113 Comp. Ltd.) [DS]

TIMELINE:

The Director General of the Dept. of Corrections (DG-DOC) commissions a survey of suitable islands for a penal colony, as far as possible from Bangkok. [PT]

MAY 1937: Survey Report submitted. DG-DOC requests the penal colony is commissioned by June 1938. [PT]

JUNE 1937: Construction of Tarutao Vocational Training Settlement (TVTS) commences, using ordinary criminals from nearby prisons. [PT]

JUNE 1938: TVTS begins accepting prisoners. [PT]

MAY 1939: The first Governor is invalided out to a less strenuous post, suffering from malaria. He is replaced [by Khun Apipat]. [PT]

BY JUNE 1939: About 2,000 hardcore criminals are transported to TVTS. These prisoners are confined in compounds at Taloh Wow, near the administrative buildings & the houses for the 250 guards & their families. [PT] By one account, the island even had its own brothel [National Park literature prepared by a Peace Corps Volunteer]; althought its not clear if it was intended only for the use of prison guards in such a solitary posting.

SEPT 18th 1939: 70 political prisoners (from the 1933 Boworodet Coup, the 1935 Corporal Rebellion & further political unrest in 1938 caused by Boworadet Coup plotters who had been released early) arrive at TVTS from Bang Khwang Prison in Bangkok. There is also now a further compound five kilometres South of Taloh Wow, at Taloh Udang; for a further 1,000 hardcore criminals. The political prisoners are given their own compound (under ‘open’ prison conditions) slightly nearer Taloh Udang beach; overlooking Pulau Langkawi in Malayan waters. [DS & PT]

OCT 17th 1939: A Tarutao-based fisherman & coffee shop owner, ‘Mee’, and three members of his family use a small sailboat to spirit 5 political prisoners off Tarutao to Langkawi. (Mee’s coffee shop was frequented by some political prisoners) The five escapees claim political asylum in Malaya. (Mee uses his 5,000 Baht earnings to give his youngest daughter an education in Penang. The money is smuggled to Mee in advance by Praya Suraphan’s wife.) The five escapees are Naval Captain & politician Praya Sarapai Pipat, Army Colonel & former Ratchaburi Governor Praya Suraphan Senee, newspaper editor Louis Kiriwat, lawyer Chalam Liampetrat and railroad engineer Khun Arkaney Rattagarn. The Governor is reprimanded for the escape, but is allowed to remain in his post when it becomes apparent that the escapees are unlikely to become an embarrassment by trying to return to Thailand. [DS & PT]

GWR

11-06-05, 05:34 PM

Please note that Part 1 has also been amended!

The main sources here are both novels; although they both contain factual information. Indeed, Win's novel has an appendix to show his fictional characters. Adirex's novel is surprisingly factual, although somewhat sensationalised Thus, accounts that may be fictional are placed between […..]s. I have created a notation below to indicate the source of each timeline item.

SOURCES:-

The Pirates of Tarutao (1994) Paul Adirex (Aries Books) [PT]
Democracy, Shaken & Stirred (1994) Win Lyovarin (113 Comp. Ltd.) [DS]

TIMELINE:

[DEC 7th 1941: The arrival of two escaped British Army fugitives-from-justice on the island. [PT] The two fugitives willingly surrender as POWs when they discover Malaya has been invaded by the Japanese. They are placed with the political prisoners.] [PT]

DEC 8th 1941: The Japanese invade Thailand & Malaya.

MARCH 1942: [The Governor of Satun Province agrees to help the Imperial Japanese Army imprison 1 American, 2 British, 4 Indian POWs captured in (newly) Thai-administered Kedah (AKA ‘Saiburi Samuk’). They are moved to TVTS with the political prisoners.] Wartime is already beginning to limit the amount of supplies sent by the government to TVTS. Medical supplies are beginning to run out and the two doctors are sent back to Bangkok to help bombing-raid victims. Food rations are reduced. Malaria becomes rampant. (About one-third of the now 4,000 inmates will die during the war) With no monks on the island for cremations, hasty & careless burials become a problem. Graveyards are scavenged by dogs & wild animals. [PT])

APRIL 1942: The political prisoners successfully petition the Thai Government to remove them to a ‘better’ site on Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. Its also likely that these prisoners were moved to avoid them being (embarassingly) captured by allied forces. Conditions on Koh Tao prove to be every bit as bad. They are eventually royally-pardoned in 1944 at the request of the Khuan Apaiwong Government, after the Phibun Government loses a ‘vote of confidence’ in Parliament. Many of the political prisoners return to important governmental & social positions. [The foreign POWs remain behind.][PT]

[The few remaining POWs find it hard to maintain the gardens left behind by the political prisoners. They gain permission from the Governor to hunt for game like wild pigs to supply both prison camps. The POWs are given two guns and limited ammunition; and are accompanied by armed guards.] Many of the guards are themselves former TVTS prisoners. [Crocodile & snake skins are also sold to the mainland in order to procure extra supplies.] [PT]

When petitioned by the Governor for more assistance, the DG-DOC tells the Governor that he must use his own initiative to solve problems, as Thailand is suffering widespread shortages because of its ‘occupation’ and its own reoccupation of former ‘vassal’ states. [PT]

Prison guards and their prisoners take to begging from cargo boats passing the island (inshore, to avoid allied submarines). The Governor also begins to cut down tropical hardwood lumber (without permission) to trade for supplies. Desperation allows this situation to degenerate into actual piracy with armed guards & prisoners attacking coasters on the Penang to Satun & nKantang routes. Initially, the objective is to obtain food & medical supplies. Later on, all goods & belongings are taken; as wartime has created a huge black market. Crews & passengers are murdered. Boats are burnt and sunk to destroy evidence. Bodies are weighed down with anchors and consigned to the deep for the sharks. Both sailboats & motorboats are employed by the pirates. The Governor appears to condone all such survival measures [having perhaps succumbed to insanity, while some POWs help organise the ‘trade’ to maximise profits. The Governor’s son uses telegraph office staff on the mainland to inform the pirates of ship movements, whilst also selling goods on the black market and finding ways to keep the police station in Satun ‘sweet’.] [PT]

JAN 1944: Thai Provincial Police Zone 9 HQ in Songkhla begins to receive complaints of possible piracy from merchants. Contraband is beginning to turn up in local markets. [PT]

[A Satun informant is murdered, with possible collusion from the Satun Police; whose commander is a former DOC colleague of Khun Apipat]. The pirates begin to conceal contraband more carefully on other islands away from the prison camps [and in Tarutao’s crocodile cave]. Some [of the POWs] start to prey on larger ships by basing themselves further out-to-sea at Koh Adang. They also terrorise the Sea-Gypsy population on nearby Koh Lipe. They begin to use captured motor vessels. [PT]

APRIL 1945: The Ministry of the Interior plants informant guards & prisoners on the island to try & confirm rumours that the piracy is emanating from the prison camps. [PT]

MAY 10th 1945: Germany surrenders. The pirates begin to consider how they can benefit from increased shipping in the vicinity at the inevitable end of the war. [PT]

[AUG 1945: POW pirates conspire to kill those POWs who haven’t engaged in piracy; as it has become obvious this latter group are trying to warn ships to stay away from the island. Fishermen help six of this group to escape to Langkawi, but one of the escapees is killed.] [PT]

SEPT 12th 1945 Japanese forces in South East Asia surrender at Singapore, soon after the two atom bomb attacks on Japan.

The British Navy responds to complaints by Penang merchants and organises patrol boats to accompany shipping convoys through the area. Without permission to invade the island by the Thai Government, these patrols resort to killing pirates at sea as a ‘warning’. Sea-Gypsies are used as informants by the Royal Navy. [PT]

The pirates begin to look for escape routes. [The Governor tells the increasingly suspicious Bangkok authorities that all the POWs were released at the end of the war. Informants report they are still present. Indeed, the POWs were never formally listed as being held on Tarutao; as the Governor of Satun took them purely as a means to curry favor with the Japanese.] [PT]

FEB 1946: The British Government asks the Thai Government for permission to raid the islands with support from a Thai DOC official. [PT]

MARCH 1946: The Thai & UK Governments both approve action against the pirates. The Royal Navy arrive with three warships and about 300 [Gurkha] troops are taken ashore at the prison camps by landing-craft. Informants have prepared lists of guards & prisoners to arrest. Contraband caches are discovered. [The remaining pirate POWs are killed as they try to escape.] Thai suspects are sent to Thai courts on the mainland. A new Governor is sent from Bangkok to supervise the remaining prisoners. [PT]

1947-1948: The Penal Colony is closed.[DS & PT]

1974: The Tarutao Islands become a National Park. The locals are somewhat resentful of the Park being imposed on them. (These often violent confrontations between Park wardens & locals are another story, however.) The Sea-Gypsy island of Lipe is deliberately left out of the National Park. (In the nineteenth century, the Thai authorities deliberately encouraged the Sea-Gypsies to relocate from the Andaman islands to Lipe, and gave them Thai nationality; to try & avoid the British claiming this island group.) [National Park literature]

Please feel free to comment, suggest additions & create errata for this timeline.