The Concentration Camps

Life for the political prisoners was a nightmare. The British had no evidence with which to drag them to the special courts and impose prison sentences so they kept them locked up at the Concentration Camps, hostages to the harsh whims of the British commanders, prison guards and army officers. From the moment of his transfer from the inter- rogation centres to the Detention Centre, the freedom fighter became a mere number. Political prisoners were forced to live in barracks of corrugated metal with 30 other prisoners, in which they froze in the bitter cold of winter and baked in the intolerable summer heat. Before sunset checks were carried out on the prisoners and then followed the long, dramatic night in the barracks. The doors were closed until morning. No one was allowed out during the hours of darkness, which was broken up by the strong beams of light emanating from the searchlights. These were trained on the prison- ers by the guards who stood on their towers ready to shoot and kill anyone who might be out in the courtyard or the buffer zones. Most of the barracks had no lavatory. During the day the prisoners were able to move around in the small yard of a sector containing 2 or 4 bar- racks. The sector was fenced in with barbed wire and surrounded by buffer zones in which only the guards and tracker dogs circulated. Prisoners passed the time reading, exercising