State media spinning tales to cover up for Home Team’s negligence in allowing Mas Selamat to swim across to Johor
May 10, 2009 by admin
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By Eugene Yeo with input from the Field Report Team
The state media has been busy manufacturing myths to cover up for the gross negligence, ineptitude and incompetence of the Home Team with the revelation that Mas Selamat manage to make his escape by swimming across the Straits of Johor.
We are made the laughing stock of the world again by allowing a crippled terrorist who is not a known good swimmer to swim across the Straits of Johor whether in broad daylight or in the middle of the night completely UNDETECTED.
For the past 14 months, nobody from the Home Team was aware of the fact that Mas Selamat had swam across to Johor. In fact at one point in time, Wong Kan Seng was adamant that Mas Selamat was hiding somewhere on the island.
Now that the embarrassing details of Mas Selamat’s great “swim” was made public by the Malaysian authorities, the Signapore media is spinning lies after lies to distort the truth in order to save face for the beleaguered Home Team.
#Myth 1: Singapore is a small country with a long porous coastline which makes it difficult to patrol
This myth is perpetuated none other than Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng who seriously need to be given revision lessons on elementary geography again.
In an interview with the Straits Times, he said:
“Singapore is a small country. It has a long coastline. It is porous, and it’s easy for people and for goods to be brought in or even to leave Singapore.” (read article here)
According to Wikipedia, Singapore has a coastline of only 196km and is ranked 143rd amongst 195 countries by length of coastline. (source: Wikipedia) In contrast, Malaysia has a coastline of 4,675km and Indonesia, 54,176km.
If the Home Team had foreseen the possibility of Mas Selamat swimming across the Straits of Johor, they could have pre-empted it easily.
The police have said that Singapore’s sea border is porous with ‘multiple landing spots’. Secluded spots include Sarimbun Ramp, Lim Chu Kang, Kranji, Admiralty Road West and Senoko. (read article here)
The northern coastline of Singapore is only 40 - 50km. The Home Team could easily deployed manpower to guard at each of these secluded landing spots to prevent Mas Selamat from escaping.
Admiralty Road West, a road near the Senoko Fishing Port and the Senoko Power Station, lies between two jetties which are off limits to the public. It is the area Mas Selamat Kastari most likely set off from soon after his escape in February last year. (read article here)
Our field report team has scoured the entire Admiralty Road West and found only one landing point along the coast which Mas Selamat could possibly set off from to make his swim across the Straits of Johor and it is completely unguarded.
[We will be publishing an exclusive report on this tomorrow]
#Myth 2: Anybody can swim across the Straits of Johor
This is the second fallacy which the state media has been trying hard to propagate, that it is easy for a 47 year old man with a limp to swim across the narrow Straits of Johor with the help of a flotation device, not withstanding the fact that he is a poor swimmer.
If it had been so easy to swim across the Johor Straits, why didn’t the Home Team deploy more coast guards to patrol the straits and landing points in the first place?
A convicted Singaporean terrorist who knew Mas Selamat Kastari from the days when both were on the run said yesterday that the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) leader was a ‘bad swimmer’. ‘I know this because we went swimming together while on the run in Bali. He can’t swim more than 1km of the strait without some help.’ (read article here)
The Sunday Times is so desperate to prove this point that they even rope in an anonymous ”maritime expert” to corroborate their claims:
“Referring to his navigation charts, the maritime expert said that the 1.1km waterway reaches a depth of about four HDB storeys. It has a m&d and sand base and is not rocky. ‘Although deep, it does not impede swimming. It’s only about 20 laps in a pool and any schoolboy can do that,’ he said. With a floating device, Mas Selamat could have easily drifted to Malaysia’s shore without even having to swim. His bad leg would not have slowed him down.” (read article here)
The journalists also visited Stulang in Johor and found people swimming and picnicking on the rocky, algae-covered shore. Some swimmers had even brought their own ‘improvised flotation devices’ - styrofoam boxes and vehicle tyres. Beachgoers and seaside vendors said it would not be difficult to cross the strait but for the regular police patrol boats on both sides. (read article here)
We would like to challenge the maritime expert and the journalists to prove their hypothesis right by swimming across the Straits of Johor.
Below is a photo of the Straits of Johor taken from the landing point where Mas Selamat had set off from:
As we can see for ourselves, though the Straits is narrow, it is not a swimming pool. The currents are strong and it will not be easy even for an experienced swimmer to swim across.
Mas Selamat would be easily spotted had he tried swimming across during the day and so he would most likely make his attempt at night.
A poor swimmer with a bad leg swimming in the dark without any light would probably take quite a while to get across to the other shore.
By then the alert for Mas Selamat had been sounded and the coast guard would have increased their patrol along the straits. How could Mas Selamat possibly have given them the slip?
#Myth 3: ISD provides the crucial lead which enabled the Malaysian Special Branch to capture Mas Selamat
This is utter rubbish! Nothing is further from the truth. If this is indeed so, the efforts of ISD would be acknowledged by the Malaysian authorities.
Instead, the Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Datuk Hishamudin Hussien attributed Mas Selamat’s capture to the assistance given by the Indonesian authorities:
“Our ties with Indonesia are very strong and without Indonesia’s cooperation, I do not think we were able to make the arrest after his escape from Singapore.” [source: NST]
It is quite obvious from the above statement that the crucial lead was provided by Indonesia and not Singapore as loudly proclaimed by the Straits Times.
The state media’s disgusting attempts to deceive, mislead and confuse Singaporeans over the escape of Mas Selamat in order to obsfuscate the matter so as to protect the Singapore Home Team from shame has failed miserably!
Contrary to what some ball-carriers had written to the Straits Times Forum praising Wong Kan Seng and the Home Team for the arrest of Mas Selamat, they deserved absolutely NO CREDIT at all!
Not only do they deserve no accolades, they should be reprimanded for the lapse of security which allowed Mas Selamat to escape first from WDC and then against all odds from Singapore by swimming across the Straits of Johor.
The Minister of Home Affairs, the Head of ICA and the Chief of the Police Coast Guard must be held accountable for Mas Selamat’s swim across the Johor Straits to Malaysia which is entirely preventable had they been more vigilant and alert.
We had frittered away countless precious resources, time and energy, not to mention the inconvenience caused to ordinary Singaporeans as a result of their gross negligence, incompetence and ineptitude.
An independent commission of inquiry must be convened immediately to investigate the matter and all the three top honchos of the Home Affairs Ministry should resign to answer for their juvenile mistakes!
Is this what we expect from a self-proclaimed first world government? Where is the accountability and where is the transparency?
Stop hiding behind the media to exonerate yourselves from any blame. The people have eyes to see for themselves! This is the type of performance we get for paying our ministers the highest salaries in the world. Is this acceptable?
Unlike Malaysia and Indonesia, Singapore is only a small little dot. Our Home Team is well-equipped, staffed and financed. There is no excuse for letting Mas Selamat swim across the Straits of Johor without anybody realizing it for the last 14 months.
Who should be held responsible for this fracas? Who has been complacent? Can we trust these people not to repeat the same mistakes again when they are simply swept under the carpet?
Singaporeans must stay vigilant constantly to expose the deficiencies within the government and the blatant lies sprouted daily by the state media. Don’t forget we are the ones paying their bloated salaries and we are definitely not getting our value for the money.
