B. Enkhbat: I’m the last person to be pardoned from the firing squad
When we joined him for an interview, he recently came from a“gyandan”(a type of a prison in Mongolia operating under very specific strict rules) to a lower-level security prison, as his priorities as a prisoner were lowered. He was wearing a tracksuit with a sports watch and a “khas”(swastika) symbol necklace on his neck. He seemed to be gaining his weight back since coming from the gyandan. However, his many years in prison have weakened his legs and his teeth are all gone. Translated from Udriin Sonin (Daily News) newspaper.
-Your security level has been lowered and now you are imprisoned here, with other inmates. How long have you been up there?
-The Court’s decision has five steps. The hardest part is gyandan. Criminals who have been in and out of prisons for many years would say that they prefer to suffocate and die on their way to gyandan. It is not a place a regular folk to just get in and do their time.
My health is fine, but my teeth are all gone. They would be swallowed with my food. Well, gyandan is a very difficult place to be for a prisoner. Once someone is out of there, he will crawl for a year for sure. They would lose so much weight and their health would be in a very bad shape. I was held there for five years. Then I came here.
-How is the food here?
-Any prisoner that is not in a gyandan eats food that has the same nutrition as the food that a normal, free person eats. But in a gyandan, the food we get is only has 2,400 calories (editor’s note: calorie amount not indicated by time period). If you take a look at the 1924 General Assembly transcript of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, the members discussed how prisoners should be held in a half-hungry state. A certain member named Nasanbat said, “That’s fine, and hunger is part of their punishment.”
But now, food is not a problem anymore.
-Do you need much psychological strength to survive in a gyandan?
-Yes, you must be very strong in your mind to live there. There is a maximum-security room in a gyandan, named the ‘high room.’ It is for people who were sentenced to death. There was one other person who was there with me. He was executed by shooting.
I would wait in that dark room, listening to footsteps outside and wondering when they will take me out and shoot me. I was pardoned. Since then, no one else has been executed. All the criminals who were sentenced to death after me had their sentences nullified by the state, as Mongolia no longer has practiced capital punishment. I am happy about one thing though. I am the last person in Mongolia to be pardoned from capital punishment, while it was still practiced. Mongolia used to execute around 20 – 30 people a year. Now they have stopped. There is a huge difference between thinking, “when will they shoot me?” and “I will be in prison for 30 more years, but I will live.” It is a very strange feeling to experience.
A man’s life could be very strange. When I was in the high room, there was a young man in with me. He would say, “Brother Enkhbat, I wish to watch the Olympics before I am shot.” I thought, why would you watch the Olympic Games if you are going to be shot? But we all watched it. We prisoners cried when N. Tuvshinbayar earned a gold medal from the Beijing Olympics. He then told me that he can now be shot peacefully. The poor man is dead now.
-When you were sentenced to death and counting your days in the high room, what were your thoughts?
-It is terrifying. I will tell you some things that happen there.
Although we are not allowed to meet anyone from the outside, we are allowed weekly deliveries. We were able to meet our relatives or other people during that time. There was another young man with me, his mother was a state-honoree, and his father was a painter. When the man’s mother and wife visited him, he would get furious. So I asked him one day why he does it. He said “One day I will be shot. When they come, the officers will tell them that I am no longer here, that I am dead. My mother will probably pass out and I cannot imagine that. It is best if we keep a distance from now.”Well, that’s what he does to cope, I thought.
Also, there was a letter sent from the mother of another death row inmate. He just finished his final process in his death sentence, which is requesting a pardon from the President. It was denied. In the letter, his mother said that she is going to the Golden Mount to ask for her son’s life, while his wife had gone to Khuvsgul to see a shaman for his life.
-What were you thinking when you got your pardon for your death sentence?
-When someone is in that room, all sorts of emotional energies gather in that person. When someone receives a pardon and instead gets sentenced to 25 years, it feels like being reborn again.
-It seems that faith dies last.
-Yes, so the final resort would be shamans, among other few things. I was carried away from that room during the night; I did not know I had the pardon yet. My feet were slipping every time I steppedon the ground, and tears were freely coming out.
It took me and the guys over at the court awhile to take me off the high room and the high-security jail. But I got out of there after five years. I think I was supposed to walk in there on my feet and crawl out on my belly.
-Do you think anyone was preventing you from leaving the high-security jail?
-I announced many people of their Chinese blood. While I was in here many people of Chinese descent have reached high-ranking offices—I think because those people were involved. I would never attack or look down upon Chinese descendentswho are serving the Mongolian public. But I have a history of getting into disputes with officials who devote their work to supporting the interests of foreign nations. In every part of society there are groups of people of Chinese-blood or officials that support each other, both visibly and under the table. They are very good at that.
-Some inmates in jails and prisons blame others for their crimes. What is your position on this?
-I am guilty. During my time in and out of jail, I see that many men do not get what they deserve. I think I would complain about that. There are only a few convicts that truly deserve what they get. Their punishments are accepted by the police, judges and other inmates.
I met this man in the gyandan—he’s been in and out of prison seven times since the communist regime. Just recently he came back in here to serve for 20 years for the murder that he had committed. He told me that he knew he was going to get 20 years.
-Are there inmates that are ‘accepted’ in prisons?
-If a driver is strictly following all the traffic laws or regulations, he will never get into trouble. It is the same in prison. If you do not follow the rules, the other world becomes closer than you think.
-Were you happy when you knew you were not going to be executed?
-Well to be honest, I think actually living is better than just simply being alive. Being alive has nothing special to it; anyone can stay alive. But living is something different.
-Are you writing any books?
-I am writing a historical book, titled “History of Mongols before the Hun Empire.” I am involved with other creative endeavors too. The history before the Hun Empire has not been researched very much.
-What do you think about the abolishment of capital punishment in Mongolia?
-Well, capital punishment is still in both the Constitution and in the Criminal Law. Only the President can pardon death row inmates from their punishment. Since that is the case, people still can be sentenced to death; but not executed.
Some people do not even ask for pardons. They refuse to write the request to the President. Sometimes they say that they admit to what they did and they will not ask for forgiveness. Some of them do. I have seen a lot of different personalities in prison.
-Well, did you ask to spare your life?
-No, I did not. Up until today I have sent a total of nine letters to the prosecutor so my security level would be lowered. Nine times I have received the same reply, “We will ask the concerned organizations if your request is within the laws, rules and regulations.” I wondered from whom the Mongolian Prosecutor’s Office would ask about such things.
So I spent five years in the gyandan and before I was done with my time there—five months and five days before my release—I received a letter saying that my case was postponed for another year. I wanted to appeal but they said that I can’t, because I do not have a lawyer.
-Why don’t you have a lawyer?
-I did have one. But my lawyer passed away.
-Why can’t you hire another one?
-While in the gyandan, I sent over 20 requests to hire a lawyer. But today, I do not have a lawyer. The prosecutors said that the investigators that were on my case had criminal charges against them and were taken off duty. They did not reveal much about that. I even asked them why they never told me about it until now.
To be continued.
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