James Rupert Russell Mawdsley, 26, who expected to be arrested. jailed and tortured after crossing the border from Thailand, said his greatest fear was that he might compromise Burmese dissidents.
It was his third arrest in an extraordinary two-year personal campaign to rally support against the government and he has learned through hard experience to manage his response to torture. He said: 'It's amazing how little they have to do to fuck you up. What cracks you up is thinking what they might be doing next. My first time in Rangoon it was eight hours before I talked, the next time it was 19. It takes training to build up.'
Mawdsley, from Cheshire, was arrested last Thursday after crossing into Burma at Tachilek, a trading town on the Thai border. Activists are calling for a mass uprising on Thursday. The date, 9-9-99, is seen as auspicious in a country obsessed with numerology. The edgy government says it has arrested 40 people but opposition groups say the real number is much higher.
Mawdsley is the only foreigner among them. His sentenced is 17 years. This includes a reinstated five-year sentence of which he served 99 days in solitary confinement in Rangoon's notorious Insein Prison before being deported last year.
In May he told me of his experiences and of his determination to continue. He said: 'You're absolutely isolated with no one to help you. There's a bunch of people who can do whatever they like and for as long as they like. You think, "What's the point of me staying silent for a year and then talking? I might as well talk now."
'So you put all this pressure on yourself to talk. But what one should always try to think is, "Am I in unbearable pain?"And the answer's always "No", because if you are in unbearable pain you can't put the question to yourself.'
He said: 'I won't deny there weren't times in prison and when I was being tortured when I didn't think, "Oh shit! what's all this about? What if I don't get out?" '
His greatest fear, however, has always been for the safety of those Burmese who assisted his protests. He said: 'It was my biggest worry that I was going to let people down who I loved and trusted, so I had a story in my head about the past three years of my life, about where I'd been, who I'd met, what we'd said, and I used to run it through my mind two or three times a day in prison.
'It was arduous doing it. It was so hard to concentrate in those first two weeks when I was terrified. But I made myself go through it, so that if I did crack I could give them this story.'
He had also deliberately sought to preserve his own ignorance: 'I've never sought to mix with the hobnobs, to get to know the secrets of their organisation. I don't want to know those things, because I know I'm going back and back and back into Burma. I do distance myself from that, and I'm naturally more interested in the people at the bottom. That's what this whole thing is about.'
Between his last two arrests, Mawdsley tried lobbying British business and parliament, giving talks to human rights groups: 'People tried to convince me that I could be most effective working from England. That's a lie. The best place to be is inside Burma, mixing with the authorities and the only place I can do that is in prison.'
He felt his British passport and white skin offered some protection. He said: 'The point is not to demonstrate. The point is to challenge the junta and I do that during the interrogation. I'm speaking for the exiles, the refugees and resistance groups who if they raised these points would be executed or put in prison for 20 years. I get 30 hours' detention.'
Through dialogue Mawdsley hopes to force a crisis: 'I saw how much in resources they put into me. If there were thousands of us, they'd be buggered. It would force a reassessment. What would they do? Shoot us? That's not going to happen, especially if people are reasonable: Tell me what I'm doing that's wrong. If the junta can't formulate the words they might realise they've not got a leg to stand on.
'Some of the guys near the bottom - say prison guards, the police, even officials in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - they hear and like me. They'll be questioning the junta now: "Do I obey this order?" '
Mawdsley also hopes to help the junta's victims: 'It's hard for us to understand in this country, but when you're isolated and made to feel worthless you begin to believe it. I went through a phase in prison believing I was stupid and wrong. It's all you hear and you get no support. So giving support is of massive importance. It gives people the will to struggle on.'
Mawdsley said that he has never been seriously worried that he would simply disappear into a Burmese jail. He also holds Australian citizenship. However, both the British and Australian embassies are still vainly seeking consular access. He was being held in Keng Tung, a remote north-eastern city but an embassy official said: 'We are unhappy with the way the case has been handled and we did not have access to Mr Mawdsley before the trial took place.'
In London, Mawdsley's father David said he was 'extremely worried', adding: 'He has God on his side and a strong mind, but it is the physical side which is of grave concern.'
