My Dear Honourable PM Lee Hsien Loong,
Is Singapore a democratic and egalitarian society? The answer may be an intriguing one especially with government tongue-in-cheek.
I come from a very humble beginning and could only manage to receive basic education. Tertiary education was only meant for scholarship holders and scions of affluent families. I joined the Singapore Police Force because it was a good career option for one with basic education. I joined with an open mind and conviction.
Singapore was under the Emergency Regulation to combat communist armed struggle to seize power. The situation was extremely turbulent. I was posted to the Special Branch and was in the front line fighting the communists and we were prime targets for assassination by the communist killer square.
Lee Kuan Yew had already returned to Singapore as a Cambridge-trained lawyer and was an up-and- coming barrister who was also a very ambitious politician. He was handicapped in his mission in that he lacked a mass base. So when Lim Chin Siong emerged out of nowhere to become the undisputed leader of the Communist United Front end of 1953/54 Lee Kuan Yew saw him as a godsend to provide a mass base for his political ambition.
But he was later jolted out of his fantasy when he realised that Lim Chin Siong was an insurmountable obstacle to his ambition. He formed the People’s Action Party (PAP) in 1954 to advance his political standing and ambition but the mass base was really with Lim Chin Siong.
Lee Kuan Yew and his sturdy fellow combatants were simply no match to the communists with Lim Chin Siong showing his prowess of his leadership. It was Special Branch with the imprimatur of Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock who rescued Lee Kuan Yew and his fellow combatants from being devoured by the communists and paved the way for Lee Kuan Yew to capture power with a land-slide victory in the 1959 general election and propelled him to the post of Prime Minister.
In 1961, the US Central intelligence Agency (CIA) tried to recruit me to be their agent to supply them with sensitive security intelligence. I played along in an ambivalent role which resulted in a crackdown on the CIA and the arrest of four CIA top officers.
This had an earth-shattering effect which reverberated right up to the White House and rattled the American President John Kennedy and his coterie of ministers. Lee Kuan Yew exploited the situation and raised his world political standing to such a dizzying height that he overawed the Americans which was his intention. There was a demand for USD 30 millions but John Kennedy was no pushover and offered Lee Kuan Yew USD one million which LKY considered an insult to accept. Will PM Lee Hsien Loong or any of his gutsy ministers be able to emulate this patriotic performance?
I think it must have been Divine blessing that George Bogaars became the Director Special Branch. He was such a consummate outstanding Director in the maintenance of national security that it mesmerised Lee Kuan Yew who relied heavily on Bogaars for his survival and existence.
When Lee Hsien Loong took over from the seat-warmer PM Goh Chok Thong, he was quite oblivious to the sacrifices made by civil servants like us to make it possible for him and his cabinet stooges to sit on their fat asses to enrich themselves with millions of people’s money to wallow in the luxuries of their high office.
When the president and vice-president of the Pensioners’ Association approached the government for a raise of the pensioners’ poverty-level pensions they were peremptorily dismissed with a most inhuman admonition: You have served your purpose. What you get is enough. We are waiting for you to die.
No one who is a human being will say such inhuman utterance. Lee Kuan Yew for no reason at all defamed me with a blatant lie which he delivered in the August Parliament House and telecast to Singapore and the world. No Singapore judge had the courage to convict him if he was sued. I requested PM Lee Hsien Loong to make a public apology for his father’s sin and he simply remained dumb like a dummy.
The paradox of this comic opera is while PM Lee Hsien Loong treats me with animosity I am making a modest contribution to the Internal Security Department (ISD). How valuable is my contribution, Lee Hsien Loong can easily get ISD to apprise him, if this had not already been done. I am doing this because I think that God wants me to do and not to take it with me to my grave.
I am living on borrowed time at 95 and would like to keep a low key while waiting to be called home to be with the Lord.
May God bless you. Yoong Siew Wah
