Feud Between Scions of Singapore’s Founding Father RekindlesWith death of Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter, her brother applies for demolition of house at center of bitter family dispute
By: Toh Han Shih
“To honor my parents’ last wishes, I am applying to demolish the house at 38 Oxley Road and thereafter to build a small private dwelling, to be held within the family in perpetuity. I am the sole legal owner of 38 Oxley Road. After my sister's passing, I am the only living executor of my father Lee Kuan Yew’s estate. In his will, he wished for the house to be demolished “immediately after” Wei Ling moved out of the house. It is my duty to carry out his wishes to the fullest extent of the law,” said Hsien Yang on his Facebook on October 15.
“We have observed that Hsien Loong and Ho Ching want to milk Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy for their own political purposes. We also believe, based on our interactions, that they harbor political ambitions for their son, Li Hongyi,” alleged the statement of Wei Ling and Hsien Yang. “Lee Kuan Yew believed that Hsien Loong and Ho Ching were behind what was represented to the family as a government initiative to preserve the house.”
The ball is now in the court of the government of Lawrence Wong, who succeeded Lee Hsien Loong as Singapore's Prime Minister on May 15, to decide whether to approve the demolition. Mourning Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter Lee Hsien Loong, Ho Ching, and their son Hongyi attended the wake of Wei Ling on October 10, which was open to everybody. Hsien Yang said on his Facebook on October 10, “Respects can be paid on a strict queue basis for everyone. There will be no exceptions, not even for VIPs.” However, Hsien Loong, Ho Ching, and their two sons, Hongyi and Haoyi, were not at Wei Ling’s private funeral on October 12, which was by invitation only, Asia Sentinel learned from sources. Citing an unnamed source, the South China Morning Post reported that Hsien Loong was not invited to the service. The son and daughter of Hsien Loong’s late first wife Wong Ming Yang, Yipeng and Xiuqi respectively, attended the private funeral, which was managed by two sons of Hsien Yang, Huanwu and Shaowu. Hsien Yang, his wife Lim Suet Fern, and eldest son Shengwu, were not in Singapore to attend Wei Ling’s funeral, because they feared, rightly or wrongly, they would not be safe in their country. A video of Hsien Yang’s eulogy was played at Wei Ling’s private funeral on October 12. Hsien Yang’s eulogy disclosed that he and his sister sometimes fought physically when they were young but had always been close, while Hsien Loong was a loner when he was young. The video, which is posted on Hsien Yang’s Facebook, has been played and viewed more than half a million times. Hsien Yang and Suet Fern are believed to be living in the UK. Shengwu, a professor of economics at Harvard University, lives in Boston. On October 11, Singapore Police said Hsien Yang and Suet Fern were free to return to Singapore. In a tweet on October 12, Shengwu said of his aunt, “Her funeral is today, in Singapore. It pains me that I cannot be there to say goodbye.” In 2020, he paid a fine of S$15,000 (US$11,448) for contempt of court, but refused to admit guilt for alleging in a private Facebook post that Singapore had “a pliant court system.” On September 29, Hsien Yang wrote on Facebook that he had paid Singapore Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan more than S$600,000 for defaming the two in an earlier Facebook post about their rental of two huge heritage houses (called bungalows in Singapore). The two ministers sued Hsien Yang for libel in August 2023, after Hsien Yang accused them in a July 23, 2023, Facebook post of getting the Singapore Land Authority to grant them preferential treatment in renting the dwellings. On October 1, Foreign Minister Balakrishnan alleged on Facebook, “Mr Lee Hsien Yang’s Facebook post of 29 September 2024 shows that he will say anything without regard to the facts. He had previously claimed that we should have sued him in England. We responded by pointing out that we sued for his libels published in Singapore, and which were primarily meant for, and concerned, Singaporeans.” “It is also rich of him to claim that he tried to honor Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s wishes when he knows that his conduct, vis-à-vis his father, has been the subject of scathing remarks by the Courts,” the Foreign Minister added. Balakrishnan cited a judgment in November 2020 by a Singapore court of three judges which suspended Suet Fern for 15 months for misconduct over Lee Kuan Yew’s will, which has been a bone of contention regarding his house. Ironically, Hsien Yang has been a target of libel lawsuits which were pioneered by his father, who had deployed the same legal measures against Philip Bowring, an Asia Sentinel founder and editor, and Singapore opposition politicians like JB Jeyaretnam. Reactions On Hsien Yang’s plan to demolish the house and build a small private residence in its place, Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, chief editor of Jom, an independent Singapore media outlet, said on Facebook on October 15, “Guess it'll be much harder for the PAP to accuse LHY of profiteering now.” “Lawrence Wong's government may have to make a decision. One that'll signal if he will truly be a leader who listens to what Singaporeans want, or one very much aligned to party elders. And hopefully, another marker in the road as Singapore moves past the shadow of the Lees. After LHL, no more Lees anywhere in power, please, for the foreseeable future. Among many other reasons, society needs a proper interrogation of LKY's legacy, including how he dealt with political rivals,” he added. In a Facebook post on October 15, Lim Tean, the leader of a Singapore opposition party People’s Voice, said, “I applaud Lee Hsien Yang for taking decisive action now to fulfill the wish of Mr & Mrs Lee Kuan Yew to have 38 Oxley Road demolished. When reading the now very famous paragraph 7 in Lee Kuan Yew’s Will- the so-called Demolition Clause, note his command to his three children that the house is to be demolished immediately upon his death or if Lee Wei Ling chose to live in it, then immediately upon her moving out of the house. Now that Lee Wei Ling has passed on, the house must be demolished with all due haste!” In a Facebook post on October 13, Bertha Henson, a former editor of Straits Times, Singapore’s main newspaper, said “the elephant in the room” is what will happen to the house on Wei Ling’s death. On October 15, commenting on Hsien Yang’s application to demolish the house, Henson said on Facebook, “As I said earlier, the elephant is coming out of the room.” Toh Han Shih is a Singaporean writer in Hong Kong |
