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Poh Soo Kai ; Editors, Hong Lysa & Wong Souk Yee LIVING IN A TIME OF DECEPTION © Function 8 Ltd & Pusat Sejarah Rakyat, 2016 ISBN: 978-981-09-8183-9 Th is original edition in English is fi rst published in 2016 by Function 8 Ltd and Pusat Sejarah Rakyat 22 Marshall Road 2, Jalan Bukit 11/2, Seksyen 11 Singapore 424858 46200 Petaling Jaya www.function8.org Selangor, Malaysia www.facebook.com/function8ltd www.facebook.com/pusatsejarahrakyat First printing in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd Second printing by Toppan Security Printing Ptd Ltd All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in any other form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publishers. National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Names: Poh, Soo Kai. | Hong, Lysa, editor. | Wong, Souk Yee, editor. | Function 8 Ltd, publisher. | Pusat Sejarah Rakyat (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), publisher. Title: Living in a time of deception / Poh Soo Kai ; editors, Hong Lysa & Wong Souk Yee. Description: Singapore : Function 8 Ltd ; Petaling Jaya : Pusat Sejarah Rakyat, 2016. EDITORS Identifi ers: OCN 933964192 | ISBN 978-981-09-8183-9 HONG LYSA & WONG SOUK YEE Subjects: LCSH: Singapore--History. | Singapore--Politics and government. | Political prisoners--Singapore--Biography. | Poh, Soo Kai. Classifi cation: LCC DS610.4 | DDC 959.57--dc23 4 LIVING IN A TIME OF DECEPTION POH SOO KAI 5 Contents Abbreviations and Acronyms 6 Chapter 8 Medicine and me 210 Preface 8 Chapter 9 Plotting towards 1963: Trade unions and political detainees 217 Chronology of events 10 Chapter 10 Fixing the Barisan: Th e merger scheme Photographic record 20 and Operation Coldstore 244 Introduction 36 Chapter 11 Rushing in and out of Malaysia 273 Chapter 1 Family Ties 50 Chapter 12 Sukarno, Merger and Separation 298 Chapter 2 Clubbing Days 75 Chapter 13 Leaving none unscathed: Chapter 3 Fajar Sedition Trial 93 Indefi nite imprisonment without trial 312 Chapter 4 Th e emergence of Lim Chin Siong 119 Chapter 14 Still defi ant aft er all these years 339 Chapter 5 Plotting towards 1959: Chapter 15 Writing Defi ant History 363 Th e constitutional talks 142 Chapter 16 Still Left 383 Chapter 6 Plotting towards 1959: Party politics 164 Chapter 7 Plotting towards 1959: Selected list of books and articles 394 With the assistance of Fong Chong Pik and Francis Th omas 183 Index 396 8 LIVING IN A TIME OF DECEPTION Preface 9 Preface hen I was released from detention under the Internal Security space for discussion of Singapore history as a result of this publication, WAct ( ISA) the second time in 1982, Lee Kuan Yew said that I was the PAP could not give a reasoned response. And so, the ruling party fell defi ant, but that he would give me a second chance. He was referring to back on a reproduction of Battle for Merger, which was no more than an the press statement I had made upon my fi rst release at the end of 1973 anti-communist diatribe. where I had called him, ‘a political pimp’. Th erefore, it would seem that With encouragement from friends, especially those in Function 8, being defi ant was one of the reasons for my arrest under the Preservation I decided that a more comprehensive book on the tumultuous events of Public Security Ordinance (PPSO) and its successor, the Internal of the 1950s and 1960s in which I was personally involved should be Security Act ( ISA). I am still defi ant. I draw a strict line between what is written. I would like to thank Hong Lysa and Wong Souk Yee for their just and what isn’t. expertise in research and craft ing the book. Without their enthusiastic In 1994, when the 30-year limit came up for the records of the help, this book would not have seen the light of day. However, all British archives to be partially declassifi ed for the period up to 1963, opinions expressed in this book are solely mine. I went to spend some time in London at the Public Record Offi ce. I I am also most fortunate to have Ngoh Teck Nam as translator of wanted to have the facts to back up the stand that my friends and I took, the Chinese version of this book. Teck Nam is a comrade and a fellow that we were arrested under the PPSO, and later the ISA, for political ex-political detainee. reasons and not on any account of security or subversion. Th is stand is Historian Th um Ping Tjin has most generously shared with me diametrically opposed to Singapore’s mainstream account which the recently-released documents which he has consulted at Th e National younger generation has been fed with. As late as 2006, when Tan Jing Archives in Britain. Th ese include documents which he obtained under Quee and Michael Fernandez spoke at a forum about the use of the ISA the Freedom of Information Act. and their prolonged imprisonment, the Singapore government issued a Finally, I owe it not only to comrades and friends, but also the statement that ex-political prisoners would not be permitted to rewrite younger generation, to explain and debunk the offi cial Singapore history. It was both a threat and a challenge. historical narrative. In 2009, I accepted the challenge. Tan Jing Quee, Koh Kay Yew and I edited Th e Fajar Generation: Th e University Socialist Club and the politics Poh Soo Kai of postwar Malaya. Th e thrust of this book, however, was against British November 2015 imperialism and not directly at the PAP. With the opening of a bigger 296 LIVING IN A TIME OF DECEPTION Rushing in and out of Malaysia 297 Most critically, between the Tunku and Lee, it was apparent that the Th e Tunku could not keep Singapore without British support, and British chose to back the latter. Th e Tunku had shown himself to be weak with opposition from its majority Chinese population. Arrangements when he succumbed to pressure from Indonesia and the Philippines for Singapore’s Separation were craft ed by Razak and Goh Keng Swee on the need to ‘ascertain’ the wishes of the Borneo territories to join following the PAP victory in the Hong Lim by-election to ‘allow for both Malaysia. Th e Tunku also had a fi rm grip on electoral victories in his sides to disengage from what would be a disastrous collision’.54 Singapore territory, as long as he did not alienate his base in UMNO. While he was would run its own army, but for operational purposes, it would be put a political compradore who received the independence of his country on under whoever commanded all Malaysian forces opposing Indonesia a silver platter, he was by far more secure in his position than Lee, and during Confrontation. Lee stressed in his memoirs that Razak kept hence less vulnerable to British pressure. changing his mind, and that the British were completely in the dark about Lee revealed in his memoirs that the Tunku had told him in the moves towards Separation. He even congratulated himself and Eddie mid-August 1964 immediately aft er the riots that the British prime Barker who draft ed the legal documents for pulling off a constitutional minister, Alec Douglas-Home had advised the Tunku to form a national coup against the British government.55 government to include the PAP.51 Th e Malaysian prime minister did not Barisan member of parliament Chia Th ye Poh pointed out then fall in line. Lee’s stock with the British improved further with the Labour that Separation was executed without the consent of the Singapore Party under Harold Wilson winning the 1964 general election, as he parliament, or of the people. It could thus be said to be a coup against the crowed about at the time. In his memoirs Lee put it in self-righteous people of Singapore who, all said and done, had voted in a referendum terms: ‘Th e Tunku would have to deal with a British Labour government for merger. that would not be sympathetic to feudal chiefs who put down a Tunku Abdul Rahman best summarised Lee’s role in rushing in democratic loyal opposition that abjured violence.’52 Th e position of the and out of Malaysia in the inscription he penned in the copy of his 1977 British is pertinent to understanding the brinkmanship that Lee and the memoir56 that he sent to Lee. Lee did not think that it was revealing or PAP indulged in with seeming recklessness and impunity. awkward to inform the readers of Th e Singapore Story that the Tunku Lim Kean Siew’s comment on the Josey expulsion episode of mid- regarded him as: 1965 hit the nail on the head. He asked rhetorically why the PAP was Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Th e friend who had worked so hard to protesting so much over the expulsion of Alex Josey, when journalists like found Malaysia and even harder to break it up. Said Zahari and A Mahadeva were being imprisoned without trial. Th e only diff erence was that Josey was a supporter of the PAP. Lim called the PAP’s fears over the possibility of the arrest of Lee ‘even more strange’. Th e Alliance had been using detention without trial before the formation of Malaysia; the PAP itself used such arbitrary laws in Singapore with little hesitation to arrest and detain Barsian Sosialis leaders. Apparently as long as such laws were not used against the PAP, it was all right.53 54 Lee Kuan Yew, Th e Singapore Story, p.
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