STORIES
The Trial of Stephen Ward
There were peers and prostitutes, West Indian gangsters, a War Minister, a Russian Naval Attaché, a slum landlord, a mysterious ‘Miss X’, Douglas Fairbanks Junior, a two-way mirror, whipping sessions, and lashings of sex. Among the scandals of the swinging sixties, the Profumo Affair was truly grand opera. And the man who was forced to take the beating for it all was an enigmatic man named Stephen Ward.
Stephen Thomas Ward (born in Kent on 19 October 1912) was a central figure in a very British public scandal which profoundly affected the ruling Conservative Government. Aged 50 in 1963, Dr Stephen Ward was a successful society osteopath as well as being a talented artist. He was proud of his upper crust social connections and he relished the company of beautiful young women. Viscount Lord William (‘Billy’) Astor, a patient and friend of Ward, leased him a cottage on the Astor family estate in Cliveden, Buckinghamshire, and that’s where it all started in July 1961.
The witty and urbane Ward was the son of Arthur Evelyn Ward, Canon of Rochester Cathedral in Kent. He was educated at Highgate School in London and qualified to practice as an osteopath in Missouri, USA. He married Patricia Mary Baines in 1949, but they were soon divorced, for Ward was a philanderer unsuited to the strictures of marriage, and he unashamedly used his social skills and career to cultivate many rich and powerful members of British society. He once stated that, “I know a lot of very important people and am often received in some of the most famous homes in the country. Sir Winston Churchill and many leading politicians have been among my patients.”
As a gifted portrait artist, Ward had members of the Royal Family and leading politicians of the age sit for him, including Prince Philip, The Duke and Duchess of Kent and Lord Snowdon, at that time married to Princess Margaret. But when Dr Ward found himself in the dock at the Old Bailey, accused of living off the immoral earnings of prostitution, his rich and powerful friends all deserted him.
At Cliveden in July 1961, two of Ward’s guests included a Russian Naval Attaché named Yevgeny Ivanov and the sexy, raven-haired teenage nightclub entertainer Christine Keeler (born in Uxbridge, Middlesex on 22 February 1942). As Keeler frolicked in the nude by the swimming pool, she was seen by two other guests who were just arriving. These were John (‘Jack’) Profumo, the Minister for War and his wife, the actress Valerie Hobson. Profumo liked what he saw, obtained Christine’s telephone number from Ward and later asked her out. He did not know that she had left that weekend party at Cliveden with Ivanov, with whom she was enjoying a torrid affair. It has since been alleged that Ward was co-operating with MI5 to entrap Ivanov, using Ms Keeler as a classic cold war ‘honey trap’ to hopefully elicit important information from the diplomat. But Ivanov was not much more than a hard-drinking, whore-mongering hedonist, however, and nothing came of MI5’s subtle plan.
Profumo’s dalliance with Ms. Keeler was to prove disastrous to his political career, for the slender and attractive Christine had a number of low-life lovers, and Profumo’s illicit affair soon became known to the British tabloid press, who live for such juicy gossip. The cabinet minister had several trysts with Keeler at Ward’s flat, and she also once fellated him in his car. Fatally for Ward, Profumo gave Keeler £20 sterling on at least two occasions after having sex with her.
Two of Keeler’s other lovers were West Indian dope-peddlers and gangsters named John Edgecombe and Aloysius ‘Lucky’ Gordon, who were both insanely jealous men. In October 1962, the pair came to blows in a Soho nightclub, where Edgecombe sliced Gordon’s face with a knife. Edgecombe then went into hiding and Keeler changed her address to hide from Gordon. Edgecombe contacted Keeler to ask her help in finding a solicitor before the police caught him, but Ms Keeler refused to help and said that she intended to testify against him in court.
On the afternoon of 14 December 1962, Edgecombe arrived at Ward’s London apartment where Christine was visiting her friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, who was then living with Ward. When the two women refused to let him in, Edgecombe fired shots at the door lock with an automatic pistol. The alarm was raised and the normally quiet Wimpole Mews was soon swarming with police and pressmen. Edgecombe escaped in a taxi but later arrested at his home in Brentford, Essex.
Ms. Keeler then disclosed details of her promiscuous lifestyle to ‘The Sunday Pictorial’. She said that she had slept with both Profumo and Ivanov, thus making an implied threat to national security. She also stated that some ‘parties’ at Cliveden had been orgies, where famous peers, politicians and judges fornicated openly with harlots. At one dinner party, she said, a naked member of royalty had served guests clad in nothing but a face mask. Legal advisors at the newspaper told editors that the story, though truly sensational, was too hot to handle. It was therefore pulled from the presses before publication and Ms Keeler received only half her promised fee.
But rumours of the scandal spread to Parliament, where questions were asked of the Home Secretary. On 22 March 1963, Jack Profumo made a personal statement to the House of Commons, declaring that “there has never been any impropriety whatsoever” in his relationship with Ms. Keeler.
Political insiders knew this to be a lie. The press would not let the story go, and more questions were asked in Parliament. On 4 June 1963, Profumo came clean with a statement acknowledging that he had lied to the House, and tendered his resignation which was sadly accepted by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
Intense media interest was now focused on Doctor Stephen Ward. This extraordinary man seemed to span two totally different worlds: the glittering society of peers, diplomats and ministers; and a lurid subculture where nightclub hostesses like Keeler and the blonde Mandy Rice-Davies consorted with hoodlums and racketeers. Ms Rice-Davies, it transpired, had for two years been the mistress of the notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman, whose name coined a new phrase – ‘Rackmaneering’. Both women had at times also lived with Ward – what precisely was their relationship?
Prompted by the Home Office, the Metropolitan Police had been investigating Ward from April 1963 and in June he appeared at Marylebone magistrates court on assorted charges related to prostitution, and the evidence heard there provided a sensational appertiser for his following trial at London’s famous Old Bailey.
Hundreds queued overnight for places in the public gallery, camping out on the pavement with blankets and thermos flasks. The trial opened on 22 July 1963, and the waiting crowd buzzed with expectation of glimpsing the now legendary figures of Keeler, Rice-Davies and Dr Ward himself.
Ward appeared soberly dressed in the dock, a very youthful 50-year-old with a hint of a ruined Peter Pan about him. Five charges were read out relating to living off the immoral earnings of prostitution and to procuring. To each charge he firmly replied “Not Guilty!” and the trial was under way.
The police had interviewed over 140 potential witnesses in building a case against Ward, but most of the evidence against him was flimsy at best. Here was a successful osteopath who enjoyed a healthy salary and also made money from his sketchings and paintings. Why would Ward need extra income from procuring?
The prosecuting counsel, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, opened with an account of how Keeler and Rice-Davies (described as ‘prostitutes’, which enraged them both) had come into Ward’s life. He had first met Christine at Murray’s Club in 1958 when she was 16, and invited her down to Cliveden. Ward met Mandy at the same club in 1959 and had set them both up in a flat at Comeragh Road, where it was alleged that he “had on a number of occasions brought male friends to see them”, allegedly for sexual purposes. It was soon after this that Mandy met Rachman and became his young trophy mistress.
The first count concerned living off Keeler’s ‘immoral earnings’ while she was staying at his apartment at 17 Wimpole Mews between 1961 and 1962. The second account concerned living off Ms Rice-Davies at the same flat for a four-month period in 1962. During evidence and cross-examination, however, it transpired that though Ward charged the girls 6 pounds per week in rent, he had also many times given them financial loans that they rarely returned, and they also ran up huge telephone and electricity bills which he had to pay. If anything, the two women were living off him.
Other more colourful charges related to an apartment at Bryanston Mews which Ward had taken up early in 1963. At one stage there had been a two-way mirror permitting viewers in the living room to watch sexual antics taking place in the adjoining bedroom without being seen. Enter the mysterious witness known as ‘Miss X’, aged 18. She had firmly declared no interest in watching anything like that, to which Ward allegedly replied, “I don’t want you to watch, darling. I want you to perform!” What had obviously been a joke in bad taste by Ward was now actually being used as evidence in a criminal trial. The famous Ludovic Kennedy, who was covering the trial for his book, wrote, ‘I wondered in what circumstances she (Miss X) had been persuaded to come here and tell her snivelling little tale.’
More serious were allegations made by Ms Vickie Barrett (nee Janet Barker) who stated that Ward had repeatedly procured men for her at Bryanston Mews; taken cash for her services but never paid her. On each occasion, she stated that she had been picked up by Ward in his car and driven to his flat where a naked man was waiting for her in a spare bedroom. She had been given condoms and on several occasions she had whipped or caned elderly men at the rate of ‘one pound a stroke’ whilst wearing frilly underwear and high-heeled boots. (During recess, the joke going the rounds of the local tavern was, ‘Question: If you call the ‘talking clock’ what does she say? Answer: ‘At the third stroke, it will be three pounds precisely......’)
Another prostitute named Ronna Ricardo made similar claims at the committal proceedings, but withdrew her story at the trial proper. She stated later that she had been coerced by the police in making up a story to incriminate Ward. Detectives had threatened to have her daughter taken from her and put into care unless she co-operated, she said. She now admitted that the only man she had sex with at Ward’s flat was her pimp/boyfriend ‘Silky’ Hawkins. The two of them with Ward and another woman named Frances Brown had indulged in troilism (group sex) together, and no one had been paid. Now this was juicy tabloid fodder, but hardly criminal behaviour.
Ward himself leapt to his feet in an angry outburst during Ms Barrett’s cross-examination, and in time her story was to be exposed as highly dubious. For one thing, there were guests staying at Ward’s flat during the period when she was supposed to be plying her trade there, and none of them had ever seen her. The apartment itself had been besieged by reporters for some time, for it was after the Profumo scandal had broken. In open court Ward told his defence counsel James Burge that he had twice picked up Ms. Barrett, and paid her for sex in his flat on both occasions.
Barrett’s whole story was faintly ridiculous anyway. As Ludovic Kennedy stated in his book; how did all this come about? Did Ward have a visitor who suddenly asks, ‘I say old chap, I rather feel like a tart. Can you get one for me?’ Ward replies, ‘Of course old boy! Just strip off in the spare bedroom there and I’ll nip out and find one.’ And why would a hardened prostitute like Ms Barrett trust Ward to keep her earnings without demanding her due cash? Ward was a social gadfly and witty raconteur. Acting as a humourless professional pimp was totally out of character for him.
Mandy Rice-Davies was great entertainment for the court. Her pert wit had already been demonstrated in the magistrates’ court when asked if she was aware that Lord Astor had firmly denied her statement that she had slept with him. She replied with the immortal line, “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” At the Old Bailey she cheerfully reeled off a list of her lovers: Ward, Lord Astor, Peter Rachman, Douglas Fairbanks Junior, ‘an Indian Doctor’ whose name she couldn’t remember, and “a boyfriend of mine!”
The judge then asked her, “Was it normal for Ward to be in the flat at Wimpole Mews when you were having sexual intercourse with other men?” Mandy replied, “Oh yes; it’s quite normal isn’t it? There’s nothing wrong with it, is there?”
It emerged very clearly that a lot of pressure had been applied to get some sort of conviction against Ward. Besides over 140 potential witnesses, Keeler herself had been interviewed no less than 24 times. Ward believed that he had become a scapegoat for the whole Profumo affair, and that false allegations were being made out of malice, or hope of profit from newspaper sales. The strain was driving him to the edge of a nervous breakdown. He did not deny his dissolute lifestyle, “but it is ridiculous to say that I have received money for introducing girls to men. Of course I always had pretty girls around me and took them to parties, but if this was followed up by the men who then gave them presents, surely there is no complaint against me, and in any case I don’t see anything wrong in it.”
But the judge obviously did not agree. On the evening of 30 July, halfway through the judge’s summing up, the court adjourned at 4.30pm as usual. Ward felt trapped, abandoned by his influential friends, and deeply depressed by the judge’s conclusions. Overnight, having given no indication of his intention beforehand, he took an overdose of sleeping pills and was rushed to hospital.
With the court numbed by this development, the judge decided that the trial should continue, and he completed his summing up without Ward sitting in the dock. Just after 7pm on 31 July, having deliberated for over four hours, the jury brought in their verdict: Guilty on counts 1 and 2 (relating to Keeler and Rice-Davies); Not Guilty on the other three counts.
Dr Stephen Ward did not hear the verdict. He never recovered from his coma, and died on 3 August. In a suicide note, he had written of the ‘horror day after day at the court and in the streets. It’s not only fear; it’s a wish not to let them get me. I’d rather get myself.’
Others in the cast of this seedy soap opera fared better. Jack Profumo left public life and devoted himself to charity fundraising for Toynbee Hall in the east end of London and was awarded a CBE in 1975. His faithful wife supported him until her death in 1998. Profumo himself died in March 2006, aged 91.
Christine Keeler was jailed for nine months for contempt of court for failing to appear at Lucky Gordon’s trial on drug charges. Desperate for cash, she became a full-time prostitute for several years. In 2001 she published her autobiography (‘The Truth at Last: My Story’, ghosted by Douglas Thompson) in which she made a number of sensational but unverified claims, most notably that Ward had been running a Soviet spy ring whose members included both Anthony Blunt and Roger Hollis, the head of MI5.
Mandy Rice-Davies went on to dabble in acting and singing, and wrote a number of novels before marrying a millionaire and running a successful nightclub in Tel Aviv, Israel. Riddled with scandal and corruption, the Conservative Party lost the 1964 general election by a slim margin of 4 seats to Harold Wilson’s Labour Party.
Few attended the funeral of Stephen Ward but a number of leading literary figures such as Kenneth Tynan and John Osborn clubbed together to send a wreath of 100 white carnations bearing the message, ‘To Stephen Ward. Victim of hypocrisy.’
IF YOU need a check on my True Crime series of stories, published in the Hua Hin Observer, here is a complete list to date:
April 2002 -The Green Bicycle case, 1921. May 2002 - The Craig/Bentley Case, 1952. June 2002 - The A6 Murder Case, 1961. July 2002 - Murder of the Earl of Errol, 1941. August 2002 - The O J Simpson murder trial, 1995. September 2002 - The Aileen Wuornos case, 1989. October 2002 - The Ronald Opus case, 1993. November 2002 - Madame X, 1929. December 2002 - The Spree Killer, 1984. January 2003 - Shootout at Smiths' Club, 1966. February 2003 - The Christine Dryland case, 1991. March 2003 - Poisoned Pie in Essex, 1982. April 2003 - The Heydrich assassination, 1943. May 2003 - The Diana Davidson Murder case, 1969. June 2003 - The death of Alkibiades, 404 BC. July 2003 - The headsman of Colmar, 1780. August 2003 - The Ruth Ellis case, 1955. September 2003 - The Mel Jones Murder case, 1975. October 2003 - The Bluebeard of the bath, 1915. November 2003 - Murder in a combat zone, 1966. December 2003 - The Barn Restaurant murder case, 1972. January 2004 - The assassination of JFK, 1963. February 2004 - Judge Falcone and the Mafia, 1992. March 2004 - Gilles de Rais/Bluebeard, 1404-1440. April 2004 - The hand in the sand case, 1885. May 2004 - The body in the bag, 1979
The Death of a Drug Lord
By Bertil Lintner
Khun Sa, 73, once known as the “Lord of the Golden Triangle”, is dead. Throughout his career as one the world’s most prominent drug traffickers, he simultaneously had some very solid contacts - and protectors - in his native Myanmar and beyond.
The fact that he spent the last years of his life incommunicado inside a compound protected by Myanmar’s secret intelligence service gives some indication as to how important the country’s ruling junta considered it after his surrender in January 1996 to keep him isolated and quiet. And, despite his surrender, drugs are still flowing across Myanmar’s borders in all directions, which shows that the networks he once created and of which he was a part are still very much intact.
Khun Sa was probably one of the most colourful and controversial figures on the Myanmar drug scene. Despite being indicted on drug trafficking charges by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn, New York, in January 1990, he continued to live comfortably at his then headquarters at Homong near the Thai border opposite Mae Hong Son, where this writer met him on two occasions in the early 1990s. In fact, there was precious little evidence of the then supposed hunt for what the mainstream press often referred to as “the notorious warlord”.
By no stretch of the imagination could Homong have been described as a “jungle hideout”, a common phrase used by the press in the 1980s and early 1990s. On the contrary, it was, and still is, a bustling town boasting well-stocked shops, spacious market places, a well laid-out grid of roads with streetlights. More than 10,000 inhabitants lived in wooden and concrete houses amid fruit trees, manicured hedges and gardens adorned with bougainvillea and marigolds. Huge signs indicated where you could have your travel permits to Thailand across the border issued.
There were schools, a Buddhist monastery, a well-equipped hospital with an operating theatre and X-ray machines - all maintained by qualified doctors from mainland China - video halls, karaoke bars, two hotels, a disco and even a small park complete with pathways, benches and a Chinese-style pavilion. Overseas calls could be placed from two commercially run telephone booths.
Local artifacts, historical paintings and photographs were on display in a “cultural museum”, and a hydroelectric power station was being constructed, but never fully finished, to replace the diesel-powered generators then providing Homong with electricity. Other unusual construction projects included an 18-hole golf course intended for the many Thai, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Hong Kong, Malaysian, South Korean and Japanese businessmen who were then flocking to buy precious stones at Khun Sa’s gem centre, also located in Homong. As a young man, Khun Sa was an avid golfer, and over the years he was known to have made several influential friends on golf greens.
At that time, he was supposed to be the most wanted man in the world, but, in reality, he was pursued by no one. He lived in a one-storey concrete building surrounded by a well-tended garden featuring orchids, Norfolk pines and strawberry fields. But his house was also ringed by bunkers housing 50-calibre, anti-aircraft machine-guns and swarms of heavily armed soldiers. “You never know,” he once told me during an interview. “I have an army, so I’m free. Look at poor [Myanmar opposition leader] Aung San Suu Kyi. She’s got no army so she’s under house arrest.”
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS: Khun Sa was born in 1934 in a small village in northern Shan state of an ethnic Shan mother and Chinese father. But he grew up as an orphan as his father died when he was three. His mother remarried the local tax collector of the small town of Mong Tawm, but two years later she died as well.
While his three stepbrothers went to missionary schools and were given the Christian names Oscar, Billy and Morgan, the young Khun Sa was raised by his Chinese grandfather amid the poppy fields of Loi Maw mountain in northern Shan state. His only formal education consisted of a few years as a temple boy in a Buddhist monastery. During one of our interviews, I noticed that all his correspondence had to be read to him and that his replies were dictated.
Khun Sa gained his first military experience in skirmishes with the Kuomintang, or nationalist Chinese forces who had set up bases in Loi Maw in the early 1950s. Following Mao Zedong’s victory in China in 1949, thousands of Kuomintang soldiers came streaming south, and, supported by the surviving Republic of China government in Taiwan - and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - they tried in vain to “liberate” the mainland from their new sanctuaries in Myanmar, then known as Burma.
The Kuomintang invasion resulted in a reign of terror for the ordinary people who lived in the areas, as the nationalist Chinese collected taxes, forcibly enlisted recruits and encouraged poppy cultivation in the area to finance their “secret” army. At the age of 16, Khun Sa formed his own armed band to fight the intruders. In the early 1960s, his small private army was even recognized officially as the “Loi Maw Ka Kwe Ye”, a home guard unit under the Myanmar army.
“Ka Kwe Ye” (KKY), which literally means “defence” in the Myanmar language, was Yangon’s idea of a local militia to fight the Kuomintang as well as local, separatist Shan rebels. The plan was to rally as many local warlords as possible, mostly non-political brigands and private army commanders, behind the Myanmar army in exchange for the right to use all government-controlled roads and towns in Shan state for opium trafficking. By trading in opium, the Myanmar government hoped that the KKY militias would be self-supporting.
The warlords, who were supposed to fight the insurgents, strengthened their private armies and purchased with opium money military equipment available on the black market in Thailand and Laos. Some of them, Khun Sa included, were soon better equipped than the Myanmar military itself.
Khun Sa, then 33, decided to challenge the supremacy of much more senior Kuomintang opium warlords. In May 1967, he set out from the hills of northern Shan state with a large contingent of soldiers and a massive 16-ton opium convoy, destined for Ban Khwan, a small Laotian lumber village across the Mekong River from Chiang Saen in Thailand. More traders joined his convoy, and by the time it reached the city of Kengtung in eastern Shan state, its single-file column of 500 men and 300 mules stretched along the ridge for more than a mile.
The convoy crossed the Mekong and the Kuomintang rushed to intercept it. Fierce fighting raged for several days, but the outcome of the battle is still somewhat obscure. At that time, General Ouane Rattikone, the commander-in-chief of the Royal Lao Army, ran several heroin refineries in the nearby Ban Houey Sai area, and sent the Lao air force to bomb the battle site. Officially, he cheated both Khun Sa and the Kuomintang, and made off with the opium. Other sources told this correspondent that the opium had already been sold, and Khun Sa subsequently made his first significant investment in Thailand.
On attempting to contact the Shan rebels, perhaps to switch sides, in 1969 he was arrested and imprisoned in Mandalay. He was charged with high treason for attempting to contact the rebels, not for drug trafficking, for which at the time he had informal government permission to engage in.
In April 1973, his men who had gone underground in the jungle kidnapped two Soviet doctors who were working at the hospital in the Shan state capital of Taunggyi. An entire division of Myanmar government troops was mobilized to rescue the doctors. The operation was unsuccessful and it was not until August 1974 that the foreign hostages were supposedly unconditionally released through Thailand. By strange coincidence, Khun Sa was released from prison shortly afterwards. It was later revealed that Thai northern army commander General Kriangsak Chomanan had helped to negotiate an exchange of prisoners.
Friends in high places
Khun Sa later slipped away to northern Thailand, where he established a new headquarters at Ban Hin Taek in Chiang Rai province.
His so-called “Shan United Army”, SUA, was supposed to be fighting for Shan independence from Myanmar, but was, in reality, little more than a narco-army escorting opium convoys and protecting heroin refineries. In 1982, the Thai army decided to turn against him, and Khun Sa and the SUA were driven out of Ban Hin Taek. But they soon established a new base, this time inside Myanmar, at Homong, where new refineries were set up to process raw opium into heroin.
By then he was officially the most wanted man in the world, indicted by the United States and referred to by then-US ambassador to Thailand William Brown as “the worst enemy the world has”. But, even so, the stream of high-powered visitors to his not-so-secret headquarters never ceased to amaze observers.
Among them was Lady Brockett, an American model turned British socialite, and her husband, Lord Brockett, who used to party with Britain’s Prince Charles. Khun Sa even presented the lady with a pair of ruby-studded shoes, which he had designed himself.
Despite all the anti-drug bravado from the US, Khun Sa also had influential American friends, including James “Bo” Gritz, a highly decorated Vietnam War hero who used to spend much of his time searching for American prisoners of war and those missing in action in Indochina. Gritz’s trips to Homong were allegedly financed by Texas oil tycoon Ross Perot, once a US presidential candidate.
Another American acquaintance was Shirley D Sac, a New York gem dealer and socialite who at one stage said she was going to sponsor a Shan human rights foundation. In Thailand, Khun Sa’s representatives enjoyed a close and cordial relationship with that country’s intelligence services, and, on the Myanmar side, his organization maintained an official trade office in Taunggyi.
The head of the eastern command of the Myanmar army at that time was General Maung Aye, now the second-highest ranking officer in the ruling junta. Not a single shot was fired between Khun Sa’s army and Myanmar government forces while Maung Aye was in command. Perhaps those high-level contacts inside the Myanmar army influenced his decision to give it all up in January 1996, when he surrendered and disbanded his private army. He moved to Yangon with four young Shan women, who served as his mistresses in his retirement.
In return, his three daughters and five sons were allowed to enter into business in Myanmar. His favorite son now runs a hotel with a casino near the border town of Tachilek, while one of his daughters is well established in business in Mandalay. Many ethnic Shan nationalists, who had joined his organization believing that he was a devout Shan patriot, were devastated by his decision to lay down arms.
Remnants of his 20,000-strong army refused to honour the agreement with the government and went underground as the newly formed Shan State Army (South). They are still fighting for their ideals in the hills around Homong, now a government-controlled town and still a bustling centre for the local drug trade.
Khun Sa’s surrender and new deal with the Myanmar government was interpreted differently by one unexpected quarter. Barry Broman, the Yangon CIA station chief in the 1990s, said in an interview with the Asia Times newspaper edition on June 3, 1997, that “on their own, the Burmese [Myanmar] effected the capture of Khun Sa. They made a major dent in the drug trade and we gave them no credit.”
In reality, Khun Sa was never “captured”; he gave himself up in exchange for a lucrative deal for himself and his family. And there was never any “dent” made in the narcotics trade he promoted. If Khun Sa’s surrender proved anything, it was that the networks that controlled the trade were able to survive even without their so-called “kingpins”.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Lo Hsing-han was the designated “king” of the Golden Triangle. Following his capture and arrest in 1973 - also for treason, not drug trafficking, which he likewise as a government-approved KKY commander was permitted to engage in, Khun Sa filled the gap and rose to drug dealing prominence.
Nowadays, it’s the United Wa State Army’s Wei Xuegang who controls the bulk of the illicit trade. The bottom line is that the drug trade could never flourish without those networks and official complicity in Myanmar, Thailand and elsewhere. Khun Sa may be gone, but that makes little difference. It is business as usual in the Golden Triangle, only with a new cast of characters.
Copyright 2007 www.atimes.com
Caveman’s Wake
By Antonio Graceffo
Beneath a clear blue tropical sky, the yellow kayak rocks on a transparent ocean, amid green mangrove forest and majestic limestone peaks. Rays of an orange sun play on the water. A small opening in the limestone beckons with mystery. The tiny boat is specially designed to bend around corners, squeeze through tight passageways, and float in mere inches of water. Passing through the narrow corridor, you lie on your back and watch the show of rock formations passing overhead. Suddenly, you are through the rock. The sun returns as the tunnel opens into a hidden lagoon. You find yourself at the bottom of a round canyon, staring up at thirty metres of rock face, covered in rare plants, playing home to numerous endangered animal species.
If you are lucky, you will see a giant lizard hunting on the beach, or the crab eating monkeys come down to take their morning meal.
This is the sea-kayak experience. It took nature millennia to create these wonders for us. It takes man only a few years to destroy them.
John “Caveman” Gray, who runs John Gray’s Sea Canoe, in Phuket, calls himself a natural historian. One of his many programmes aimed at saving the balance of nature is taking tourists on environmentally safe tours. The kayaks don’t pollute the oceans. The tourists are absolutely forbidden to throw away trash or to remove anything from nature.
The company policy is stated clearly on the website: “John Gray’s Sea Canoe is an activist organization Your booking is a stand for honesty, quality, enlightened human resources, environmental conservation and basic human rights. We need your participation if we are to promote these concepts in our host communities.”
Thailand’s coasts are under constant threat from a variety of sources. The high-speed power boats and massive party boats preferred by many tourists create an environmental hazard, as well as a dangerous situation for larger marine animals and coral reefs which can be hit by these fast moving vessels. Tourists in party mode often forget that they are guests in nature and guests in a foreign country where they need to behave themselves.
Poverty also adds to the environmental threat. Locals, who often earn less per day than many tourists spend on a single meal, are tempted to harvest protected sea-products or endangered plant and animal species in order to support their families. Fishermen often catch fish using dynamite or cyanide which are both major environmental hazards.
Anytime you deal with environmental issues, awareness is one of the biggest obstacles you must overcome. Rich people, living in western countries may be the ones who possess the most power to influence legislation and change government policies in favour of the environment. But many of them have no knowledge of the wonderful coast of Thailand. Taking tourists there and showing them the unprecedented beauty under threat will make the environmental issues a reality for them.
You can’t possibly fight to preserve a resource that you didn’t know you possessed in the first place. “I want people to develop an appreciation for the wonders of nature”, says John Gray. For this reason, his tours are one part education, one part adventure, and two parts fun.
Is it possible for man to save the environment? “Humans can do anything we want, as long as we never forget that we are just over-grown monkeys”, says John, who is also called Ling-Yai, the big monkey.
It is easy for people to forget that we are part of the food chain. Reminding us that we are monkeys helps us keep in mind that we belong to nature too.
John Gray, a vegetarian, lives in a small wooden Thai house with 18 dogs and an eagle he rescued. “I found her because a neighbour tried to sell her to me, after he had shot her with a slingshot”, explained Gray.
The poor animal had its wings clipped, and could no longer fly. “She was a target for dogs and cars.” Now, John would have to hand-feed raw meat to the great bird until the wing grew back, which he told me would normally take about six months.
Gray, a former professional rugby player from Hawaii is an absolutely massive figure. At sixty-two years old, he is still powerfully built. One look at him, and you wouldn’t even consider hurting his environment.
Unfortunately, raping the environment is so lucrative that the struggle to preserve nature can turn deadly. The poaching, smuggling, and illegal sale of birds nests from the islands is a huge business. After harvesting, the majority of the nests go through a variety of middlemen, all of whom tack on their fees, till they are sold to end users in Japan. John Gray has fought tirelessly to stop the harvesting of birds nests. In October of 1998, Sea Canoes’ operations manager Panwong “Pan” Hirunchai was shot in the stomach, right knee, and bicep by two men, allegedly working for birds nest gangsters.
John Gray doesn’t limit his environmental protection work to Thailand. He is also active in Vietnam and the Philippines, among other locations. In the Philippines, he was credited with being instrumental in helping the Tagbanua Colomian Tribe to establish ancestral domain and receive exclusive land rights to the beautiful island of Coron. “He helped them with connections, introducing them to the right people”, said Rannie, a former employee of Gray. After establishing his sea kayak company in Coron, John brought Rannie and others to Thailand for training. He then gave the company to the locals as a means of creating jobs and entrepreneurship. While he was in Coron, he learned about the plight of the Tagbanua tribe and joined in their fight to protect their island.
“One of the lawyers helping the tribe was shot and almost died in the hospital”, said Rannie. “A family of businessmen run the local politics. They have interest in the island, so they don’t want the tribe to get the ancestral domain. For example, on another island, El Nido, the permits to gather birds’ nests is run by the municipal government. People have to bid for the right to harvest the nests and sell them. But here in Coron, only the Tagbanua have the right to gather birds nests.”
John fell in love with a Philippine city called Puerto Princesa, located on the Island of Palawan, where he works together with a progressive mayor, Hagedorn, to protect the islands many endangered species. John was involved in a program to repopulate the giant clam population, which had been decimated by poachers. When a disreputable Korean concern offered to set up a hotel on the beach, John warned the Mayor. “Don’t sell to them, they will probably eat all the giant clams.”
Working together with the islands leading reptile expert, Dr. Glen Rebong, the two men hope to save one of the world’s most endangered alligator species. “There are only 70 left in the wild”, said Dr. Rebong.
Starring out the window of the mini-van, watching the pristine forests of Palawan pass by, John Gray said, “This is last place in the Philippines with trees.”
To appreciate the natural beauty of Thailand’s coasts, you have to experience a sea kayak trip for yourself. And so, I joined a tour, headed to Panak Island and Hong Island. Before stepping into the boats, a Thai guide, named Beer, runs through a safety briefing. “At high tide you cannot go into the caves, or you could be trapped inside and have to wait six hours. Go in late when tide is slowly lowering. When the guide tells you to lie down, he is not kidding, be careful. Long nose people can have problem.”
Beer was half stand up comedian. “My nose was longer before, but now, it was cut off. So, be careful. And, remember you are on holiday, so don’t hurry.”
“Please don’t collect anything in the caves or on the island. If you want to collect things, collect them in your camera.”
The highlight of the sea kayaking expedition is exploring the hongs, or caves, which would be inaccessible by any other means of transport. Sea kayaking felt like spelunking as we wormed our way through the narrow corridors of stone. Each time we emerged on the other side, in a fantasy world of natural beauty.
In the more difficult caves, tourists were merely passengers; the paddling was left to the expert Thai guides. “We are much bigger than they are”, said a huge American man from Texas. “We should be paddling while they rest.” “Actually, we only paid for 80 kg. So, you and I have to pay for overage.” I answered.
After the caves, we were permitted to take the kayaks out alone. The big Texan and I tried to set off on our own, and suddenly realized why we needed guides. The large inflatable kayaks were unbelievably difficult for two novices like us to handle. We spun. We drifted. We went three strokes forward, and one back, then did a 360. Finally, after what seemed like hours of paddling, we made it to the safety of an island about fifty meters away. Planting one of our oars in the earth, we wanted to claim the island in the name of lunacy. It turned out, however, that we had been beaten to it by a family of fierce looking waterfowl.
The trip over had been good practice and paddling back to the boat, exhausted, only took twice as long.
The tour made four stops in all. Toward evening, Beer and the other guides helped us to make Kratong, a type of floating offering made during Thailand’s Loi Kratong festival. This was a way of introducing foreigners to both Thailand’s natural beauty and its ancient culture. The Kratong are a delicate affair, constructed of carefully folded leaves, decorated with flowers, incense, and a candle.
As night fell, the surface of the water was alive with a phosphorescent plankton that sparkled and danced. One by one, we released our Kratong, making an offering to the ocean gods, to say thank you for a pleasant day on the sea.
“Don’t forget to say a wish”, said Beer. “But don’t bother to wish that you win the lottery. I already wished that, and I don’t want your wish to go to waste!”
Wishes are supposed to remain private, but my wish was that the natural wonders of Thailand’s coasts would be preserved. And I also wanted to come in second in the lottery.
Antonio Graceffo is an adventure and martial arts author living in Asia. He is the Host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts Odyssey”. The Pilot episode, shot in the Philippines, is running on youtube “The Monk From Brooklyn - Kuntaw in the Phillipines”. Antonio is the author of four books available on amazon.com
Contact him at: Antonio@speakingadventure.com see his website www.speakingadventure.com
Obscure Tour – Kiribati
So you have been everywhere have you? You have faced up to missing luggage, dodgy taxi drivers, kids using the back of your seat for football practice, boring in-flight movies and connecting flights that do not connect.
You sit back with a smug look on your face comparing destinations with other grizzled, seasoned travellers. Been there, there...and there!
Well we are delving into those last few destinations left on the planet you may not have been to, fasten you seat belt for your journey to... Kiribati.
Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. It comprises 33 atolls dispersed over 1,351,000 square miles (3,500,000 km2) straddling the equator and borders the International Date Line to the east. The name Kiribati is the local variant of “Gilberts”, derived from Kiribati’s pre-independence name, the Gilbert Islands.
South Tarawa, located on Tarawa Atoll is the capital and largest city. Other settlements include London and Poland (named after a Polish explorer who aided the villagers) on the atoll of Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island), and Tabontebike on the biggest island of the Kiribatian atoll of Abaiang.
Kiribati consists of about 32 atolls and one island (Banaba), with at least three in each hemisphere. The groups of islands are:
Banaba: an isolated island between Nauru and the Gilbert Islands.
Gilbert Islands: 16 atolls located some 930 miles (1,500 km) north of Fiji
Phoenix Islands: 8 atolls and coral islands located some 1,100 miles (1,800 km) southeast of the Gilberts
Line Islands: 8 atolls and one reef, located about 2,050 miles (3,300 km) east of the Gilberts.
Banaba (or Ocean Island) is a raised-coral island that was once a rich source of phosphates, but it was mostly mined out before independence. The rest of the land in Kiribati consists of the sand and reef rock islets of atolls or coral islands that rise but a few meters (at most 6.5 feet) above sea level. The soil is thin and calcareous, making agriculture very difficult. Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in the Line Islands is the world’s largest atoll. Based on a 1995 realignment of the International Date Line, Kiribati is now the easternmost country in the world, and was the first country to enter into the year 2000 at Caroline Island, which, not coincidentally, has been renamed Millennium Island.
According to the South Pacific Regional Environment Program, two small uninhabited Kiribati islets, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, disappeared underwater in 1999. The islet of Tepuka Savilivili no longer has any coconut trees due to salination. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that sea levels will rise by about half a meter (20 in) by 2100 due to global warming and a further rise would be inevitable. It is thus likely that within a century the nation’s arable land will become subject to increased soil salination and will be largely submerged.
Kiribati has few natural resources. Commercially viable phosphate deposits were exhausted at the time of independence. Copra and fish now represent the bulk of production and exports. Tourism provides more than one-fifth of GDP.
Foreign financial aid, largely from the United Kingdom and Japan, is a critical supplement, equal in recent years to 25% to 50% of GDP. Agriculture accounts for 12.4% of GDP and 71% of labour; industry 0.9% of GDP and 1.9% of labour; trade 18.5% of GDP and 4.1% of labour; commercial trade 5.7% of GDP and 1.4% of labour; and service industries 5.7% of GDP and 1.4% of labour. The main export and import countries are Australia, USA, France, Japan, Hong Kong and Germany.
Kiribati’s narrow export base and its enormous need for imports contribute to the country’s large deficit in the merchandise trade balance. However, the country has several sources of external income, including fishing license fees, investment income, seamen’s remittances, and external grants. These inflows are usually more than sufficient to finance the large trade deficit. As a result, Kiribati’s current account balance has been in surplus most of the time in the past decade.
Kiribati is a sovereign, democratic state and has a 42 member Maneaba ni Maungatabu (House of Parliament), elected every four years. The Beretitenti (President) is elected from among three or four candidates nominated by the Maneaba from its ranks.
Kiribati was inhabited by a single Micronesian ethnic group that spoke the same Oceanic language for 2,000 years before coming into contact with Europeans. The islands were first sighted by British and American ships in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The islands were named the Gilbert Islands in 1820 by a Russian admiral, Adam von Krusenstern, and French captain Louis Duperrey, after a British captain, Thomas Gilbert, who crossed the archipelago in 1788.
Tarawa Atoll and others of the Gilbert group were occupied by Japan during World War II. Tarawa was the site of one of the bloodiest battles in U.S. Marine Corps history when Marines landed in Nov. 1943; the Battle of Tarawa was fought at Kiribati’s former capital Betio on Tarawa Atoll.
The Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands gained self-rule in 1971, and were separated in 1975 and granted internal self-government by Britain.
The people of Kiribati mostly live in villages with populations between 50 and 3,000 on the outer islands. Most houses are made of materials obtained from coconut and pandanus trees. Frequent droughts hinder reliable large-scale agriculture, so the islanders have largely turned to the sea for livelihood and subsistence. Most are outrigger sailors and fishers. Copra plantations serve as a second source of employment. In recent years, large numbers of citizens have moved to the more urban island capital of Tarawa.
To increase opportunities for the islanders, the government has placed greater emphasis on education. Primary education is free and compulsory for the first six years, now being extended to nine years. Mission schools are slowly being absorbed into the government primary school system. Higher education is expanding; students may seek technical, teacher or marine training, or study in other countries. To date, most choosing to do the latter have gone to Fiji.
Overcrowding has been a problem, and in 1988 it was announced that 4,700 residents of the main island group would be resettled onto less populated islands. In 1994, Teburoro Tito was elected president. Kiribati’s 1995 act of moving the international date line far to the east to encompass Kiribati’s Line Islands group, so that it would no longer be divided by the date line, courted controversy. The move, which fulfilled one of President Tito’s campaign promises, was intended to allow businesses all across the expansive nation to keep the same business week. This also enabled Kiribati to become the first country to see the dawn of the third millennium AD, an event of significance for tourism. Tito was re-elected in 1998. In 1999, Kiribati gained UN membership.
For those wishing to visit Kiribati probably the best time to visit would be outside of the wet season, which runs from December to May when rainfall variation is high in most of the islands. Temperature varies between 25’ and 33’C and 50 to 63 per cent of annual possible sunshine of 4135 hours. A gentle breeze from the easterly quarter is predominant.
Kiribati has two international airports (Tarawa and Kiritimati). The main port is Betio (Tarawa). Phones are available only on Tarawa and Kiritimati and radio phones are used elsewhere.
At last count (1999) there were only 3,800 telephones in use, and although all modern telecommunication facilities are available they are in limited supply – the ideal place to get away from it all!
As each atoll is so small, getting around is not difficult, with the main islands having regular bus services, while car rental is also available, and tour agencies also offering transport. Getting between the islands is also well catered for, with a choice of flights or sea travel, and on some of the shorter journeys this may even be by canoe!
The National Tourism Office in Kiribati has a recommended list of accommodations ranging from hotels to guesthouses, all of them on Tarawa (9), Christmas Island (5), and one on Butaritari. However they can assist with finding a place to stay on some of the other islands, although this is generally very basic, costing about AUS$30 per night. Prices in the hotels for a single room are generally in the AUS$50 – 75 per night range but ask your travel agent for more details.
All visitors to Kiribati must possess a valid passport and onward ticket and must have proof of sufficient funds to support themselves while staying in the country. Most visitors will not require a visa for stays of less than 30 days. Traveller’s cheques and all major currencies are accepted by the bank and may also be exchanged for currency at some local hotels.
For those of you interested, the bungalow pictured right would set you back about 200,000 Euro, it features 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, Cable/Satellite TV, Patio/Deck, Wheelchair Access and the community features include, Bike Paths, Clubhouse, Golf Course, Parking, Pool and Public Transportation.
There is no restriction on the importation of currency into Kiribati via Travellers cheques, foreign bank notes and/or other instruments of payment. Credit Cards such as Master Card and Visa Card are also accepted. Branches of the Bank of Kiribati are located at Bairiki, Betio and Bikenibeu and Kiritimati (Christmas Island).
SUMMARY: Kiribati may seem a little behind the times, but because the international date line now makes a detour around its islands, every new day on Earth begins in this Pacific island nation. And a day can take a long time dawning on Kiribati, if you take into account all its islands: Kiribati’s total span equals that of Western Europe. Of course, its actual landmass is considerably smaller: All of the islands, together, cover less territory than the city of London.
With its small islands separated by vast distances, it’s easy to get off the beaten path in the Republic of Kiribati (pronounced KIR-ee-bahss). The country offers visitors a chance to see what the Pacific was like before the arrival of resorts and other amenities. Although there may be better scenery and beaches (and even diving) in other South Pacific locales, the I-Kiribati, as they refer to themselves, are very friendly and their culture fascinating, especially in more remote villages. The sea dominates these islands and may even one day reclaim them all, so it takes a pretty intrepid traveller to get there; once there however, you will enjoy a relatively primitive lifestyle and learn again to live with nature and its whims, and be forced to forget about what time it is - it’s “island time” there, so it’s best not to have serious time restrictions if you want to explore this country.
KIRIBATI
(REPUBLIC OF KIRIBATI)
TOTAL AREA:
280 SQ MI (726 SQ KM)
POPULATION (2005 EST.):
105,432;
CAPITAL & LARGEST CITY:
SOUTH TARAWA, 40,311
OTHER LARGE CITY:
ABAIANG, 5,502
MONETARY UNIT:
AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR, KIRIBATI DOLLAR
LANGUAGES:
ENGLISH, GILBERTESE
ETHNICITY/RACE:
MICRONESIAN
RELIGION:
ROMAN CATHOLIC, CONGREGATIONALIST
PROTESTANT, MORMON, BAHA’I
AGRICULTURE:
NOTHING SIGNIFICANT.
INDUSTRIES:
TOURISM, COPRA AND FISH.
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