1 SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT PRESS STATEMENT MC. JA. 86/62 EXTRACTS OF THE WINDING UP SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR. LEE KUAN YEW, ON HIS MOTION ON MALAYSIA IN THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ON 29TH JANUARY, 1962. We should all be grateful that this time we have been spared the ordeal of further 7 ½ hours speeches on this motion seeking the support of the House for Malaysia in principle. Obviously the Barisan Sosialis have learned that their tiresome performance in the two weeks of repetitious speeches during the debate on the merger proposals had not won for them either praise or support of the people. From all their arguments in this debate one thing is clear, namely , they have learnt that to say they support merger in principle and then quarrel with merger in practice has put them into an embarrassing position and confused their own supporters. So this debate on Malaysia has been cut short because they have decided to go back to the more simple and straightforward propaganda line of being against the proposal of Malaysia both in principle and practice. LKY/1962/LKY0129.DOC 2 What is curious is that this switch of line coincides with the policy statement of the Indonesian Communist Party attacking Malaysia as being anti- Indonesia. From June last year to December, the time of the Kuching conference, the line of the Barisan Sosialis as the open-front Communist political organisation has been that in principle they support Malaysia. Indeed the Secretary-General of the Barisan Sosialis, Mr. Lim Chin Siong, said in writing to the Straits Times in June last year that he would support a confederation of all the five territories provided internal security was left outside the hands of the Central Government. In Kuching as recently as the 17th and 18th of December the Member for Thomson, as the representative of Barisan Sosialis from this Assembly to the Malaysia Solidarity Consultative Committee Conference, said categorically that he supported Malaysia in principle. However on 30th and 31st December the P.K.I. held their conference and denounced Malaysia as anti-Indonesia. But on the 7th of January in Kuala Lumpur at the resumption of the adjourned meeting of the Solidarity Committee, after this policy statement of the Indonesian Communist Party condemning Malaysia as anti-Indonesia, the Member for Thomson was the only delegate to the Solidarity Committee meeting who refused to stand up and raise his hand to say "Hidup Malaysia" when everybody else did LKY/1962/LKY0129.DOC 3 so at the call of Dato Mustapha, the North Borneo delegate. And at the so-called socialist-front conference in Kuala Lumpur which even the most politically blind now know to be nothing more than a Communist-front conference, the line is anti-Malaysia and instead self-determination for Singapore and Sarawak by 1963. The Member for Havelock has alleged that I disclosed at a party meeting in June 1960 that Malaysia was a British plot. The Barisan Sosialis and Mr. Lim Chin Siong must have been in full knowledge of all information in the possession of the Member for Havelock when Mr. Lim Chin Siong made a written policy statement one year after the Member for Havelock said I disclosed this British plot of Malaysia. But how is it that in June last year knowing full well that it was a British plot, Mr. Lim Chin Siong still advocated a confederation of all the five states provided internal security was not left in the hands of the Central Government? For the purposes of the record may I put the Member for Havelock's recollection right on what was said at the party meeting. I never said that Lord Selkirk had shown me a telegram that he sent to the Colonial Office. No U.K. Commissioner does that, and certainly not Lord Selkirk. I recall referring to the Russian loan of over a thousand million roubles for the purchase of arms by Indonesia, and saying that the British understand that general tension in the whole area must mount as a consequence. That one day in LKY/1962/LKY0129.DOC 4 the near future, West Irian will be settled either by force or by the imminent use of force. They must therefore be conscious of the fact that once West Irian has been removed as a colonial irritant on the Indonesian Republic, the British North Borneo territories of Kalimantan are bound to loom large in the fore-front of the South East Asia Horizon, and being practical people the British know it is to their advantage to move one step ahead of history. It is not, as the Member for Thomson and the Member for Havelock have suggested, the fear of a rising tide of anti-colonialism in the Borneo territories that bothers the British. These are fanciful thoughts in the context of the reality of the Borneo situation. Neither the Member for Havelock who has not been there, nor the Member for Thomson who was there only for the first time last December for a few days in Kuching and Brunei town has any idea of the real position. Let me remind them of a few salient facts. Sarawak has some 750,000 people, of whom about half are Dayaks, one-quarter Malays and one quarter Chinese. The Dayaks were once part of the kingdom of the Sultan of Brunei. Later they were ruled by the White Rajah, who gave special privileges to the Malays over the Dayaks. With the advent of direct British rule in 1946, the special position of the Malays under the Rajahs was wiped out and there was LKY/1962/LKY0129.DOC 5 complete equality between the Malays and the Dayaks. The Dayaks far from being anti-British because the British colonial government improved their position after the Second World War, are extremely happy with the present position of equality as against the previous position of inequality. The only anti- colonial elements in Sarawak are found in the towns of Kuching and Sibu, and where pro-Communist left-wing elements have over the last few years under training from elements in Sibu just begun to operate amongst a section of the Chinese. And so it is with North Borneo. It would be 15 to 20 years before the nationalist movement of the Dayaks, the Dusuns, the Muruts and Malays and the Chinese can reach the point where the British position will be at all threatened. It is not internal pressure that is making the British withdraw peacefully before the time is up. I suggest is it the relentless logic of external pressures. And so when the Barisan Sosialis talk of the S.U.P.P. and Party Rakyat of Brunei, I hope they will put these things into perspective. The influence of the S.U.P.P. is only in one section of the total Chinese population in Kuching and Sibu, the two main towns Sarawak, the size of Muar and Kluang respectively. They are not the only towns in Sarawak and not the whole Chinese population live in Kuching and Sibu. LKY/1962/LKY0129.DOC 6 In North Borneo, there is no socialist party, but there are about 12 nationalist parties now and more are being registered. Out of a population of 430,000 three-quarters are Dusuns, Muruts and other indigenous people and one- quarter Chinese. In Brunei, the population is 80,000 people. Of these only 20,000 are Chinese and although only 3,000 have citizenship rights as subjects of the Sultan, the rest are Malays and indigenous people. No Chinese in Brunei are members of the Party Rakyat. Of the 60,000 Malays and indigenous people about 25,000 are adults, and even assuming that everyone supports the Party Rakyat of Brunei, all it means is that a constituency which is about the size of Geylang Serai supports the Party Rakyat. And when the Barisan Sosialis of Singapore and the Socialist Front in the Federation, which unfortunately today is openly and heavily Communist penetrated and dominated, though not to the same extent as the Barisan Sosialis in Singapore, talk about the anti-colonial freedom movements of Borneo, the British officials there must be laughing their sides out. If it were only the internal pressures of the Borneo territories, the British colonialists have to contend with, then I say they could safely remain there another 15 to 20 years. LKY/1962/LKY0129.DOC 7 As a nationalist and a socialist party, our decisions are based not on what the colonial power does or does not do but on what is or is not in the interests of our people. The argument has been advanced by the Barisan Sosialis, in particularly by the Member for Thomson, which runs alone this line: if any proposal is supported by the colonialist then it is pro-colonial and must be opposed because obviously the proposal is in the interests of the colonialist otherwise they would not have supported it. Therefore since British colonialists have welcomed Malaysia it must be opposed by anti-colonialists. That may be the anti-colonial Communist tactics and policy, but any nationalist party that works on such a fallacious principle will wind up in the gutter. The British obviously know that withdrawing from a position of sovereignty in Singapore and the Borneo territories is in their long-term interests. And I am quite sure they are not quite happy about withdrawing from a position of sovereignty and that is why I asked the Member for Thomson during the debate on West Irian whether he would support the liberation of the British Borneo territories if the British do not withdraw in the same way as he supports the liberation of West Irian.