(no subject) (r)

[BurmaWatch@xxxxxxx]

NTERVIEW-Briton vows to fight on in Myanmar

By David Brunnstrom

  
BANGKOK, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A Briton serving 17 years for pro-democracy 
activism in military-ruled Myanmar has not wavered in his convictions and has 
no plans to appeal for early release, his mother said on Wednesday. 

Diana Mawdsley said after her first visits to her son James since his 
September arrest and jailing in remote northwestern Kengtung town that he was 
keeping his spirits up with the Bible and works of Soviet political prisoner 
Alexander Solzhenitsyn. 

``James wants to fight on robustly. At the moment he has no plans to make any 
sort of appeal. 

``He says there's no judicial process as we know it in Burma and whether he 
serves one month, one year, or seventeen years, it will be up to the junta to 
decide,'' she told Reuters. ``But I would say as his mother, I'd like to see 
him out of there.'' 

James Mawdsley, 26, from Lancashire, was jailed after illegally entering 
Myanmar in September to distribute pro-democracy leaflets. It was his third 
arrest there in two years and the government has said he could not expect 
mercy. 

His mother said he was ``very, very pale and pasty'' due to solitary 
confinement for all but 30 minutes daily exercise, but otherwise appeared in 
good health. 

``He's not lost weight and is in cracking good spirits. He will not make one 
single complaint about himself.'' 

But he had complained to prison authorities about treatment of local 
prisoners, who he said had been beaten by guards. 

Diana Mawdsley said she believed her son must sometimes feel deep despair and 
loneliness. ``But he's determined not to worry us and we're determined not to 
worry him. There must be a point at which we all break, but at the moment 
James is nowhere near it.'' 

Her son told her he had not been tortured while serving this term. Last year 
after release from 99 days in Yangon's notorious Insein Jail, he reported 
being beaten with bamboo poles, having staves rolled down his shins and being 
deprived of water. 

She said he also praised fellow Briton Rachel Goldwyn, who has been slammed 
by activists for refusing to criticise Myanmar's military. Goldwyn was 
released after serving less than two months of a seven-year jail term for an 
anti-government protest. 

James was being watched round the clock in his larger than average cell -- by 
six guards in the daytime and two at night. 

After a prison inspection by Red Cross officials, he was given a piece of 
wood as a seat for his lavatory bucket. 

James, deeply religious, was making a determined effort to keep clean and 
intellectually alert in jail, and would dream of building a school for 
refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border. ``That keeps him going, that thought,'' 
she said. 

Mawdsley said she was grateful the government had allowed her four hour-long 
visits to her son, but thought she could have been allowed longer as she had 
come so far. Her husband plans a visit in January, followed by her three 
other children. 

``I told the military intelligence man that we planned to come every two 
months and he looked absolutely appalled at the thought of this wave of 
Mawdsleys coming over,'' she joked.