From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

abang-adik
(big
brother-little brother) relationship, with little brother giving way graciously.
When non-vital interests were at stake, we were prepared to humour 
abang
, but
not when 
adik
had legitimate interests to defend, as in the next issue that arose –
Malays in the SAF in Singapore.
In February 1987 my son Loong, then minister for trade and industry and
second minister for defence, answered a question on Malays in the SAF at a
constituency function. Our Malays were asking MPs why we did not have Malay
national servicemen in sensitive key positions in the SAF like the air force or
armoured units. The cabinet had decided to take the matter into the open. Loong
said that in the event of a conflict, the SAF did not want any of its soldiers to be
put in a difficult position where his loyalty to the nation might conflict with his
emotions and his religion. We did not want any soldier to feel he was not
fighting for a just cause, or worse, that his side might not be in the right. In time,
as our national identity became more developed, this would be less of a problem.
The Malaysian media read this as implying that Malaysia was the enemy. An
unending stream of critical articles ensued.

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The Malaysian foreign minister, Rais Yatim, raised this speech with our
foreign minister. Malaysia, he said, was a “glasshouse” in the matter, because its
own Chinese were represented only to a small extent in the armed forces and in
the top echelons of the civil service. This, he added, was clearly understood and
accepted by the MCA, that Malaysian policies were based on Malay dominance.
Therefore Malaysia could not be critical of Singapore on this issue. However,
airing these problems publicly created internal pressures on UMNO leaders to
respond, because it was difficult for Malay Malaysians not to associate
themselves with Malay Singaporeans. But we had never criticised their policy of
having a Malaydominant armed forces.
Later, in October 1987, I met Mahathir at the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in Vancouver. He said that all the things he had wanted to
do in cooperation with me had gone wrong. They started to go wrong with the
Herzog visit, then came the issue of Malays in the SAF. In April 1987 two
assault boats with four SAF personnel entered a small creek, Sungei Melayu,
opposite Singapore – Malaysian territorial waters – by mistake for 20 minutes.
Malaysia delivered a verbal protest. They were suspected of spying. I apologised
for their mistake but pointed out that they could not have been spying as they
were in uniform. Mahathir said he could not come to Singapore to see me
because the atmosphere had gone sour. He suggested that we should have a few
Malay pilots to show Malays in Malaysia that we trusted our Singapore Malays
and that we did not consider Malaysia to be our enemy. He said all governments
had to fudge; Malaysia regularly denied discriminating against the Chinese in
the Malaysian armed forces. Singapore should also deny publicly our policies on
Malays in the SAF. For good Singapore-Malaysia relations, he advised that we
should conduct ourselves in a manner that would not make the Malays in
Malaysia unhappy about Malays in Singapore.
That meeting, however, helped to restore some personal rapport. He had also
asked me to help in the development of Langkawi, an island off the coast of
Kedah, as a tourist resort by getting Singapore Airlines to fly in passengers. SIA
launched a three-day package in Japan and Australia, but without success. I told
him Langkawi could not compete with Penang and the Thai island of Phuket
near by because it did not have the infrastructure. He asked me to discuss the
problems with Daim.
Daim Zainuddin is his close aide and long-standing friend from his home
state, Kedah. He has a quick mind, is good at figures and decisive, and had been
successful in business before he became finance minister. As finance minister,

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Daim initiated the policies that moved Malaysia from state-owned enterprises
into profit-oriented private enterprise corporations. Without his active
intervention, Malaysia’s conversion to free-market policies might not have been
so broad and so successful. Daim was a shrewd deal-maker who honoured his
agreements.
Before I stepped down as prime minister in 1990, I tried to clear the decks
for my successor. Drug traffickers travelling on the Malayan Railway from Johor
Bahru to Singapore had been able to toss drugs out of train windows to
accomplices waiting at prearranged points. I had therefore told Mahathir in 1989
that we intended to move our customs and immigration from Tanjong Pagar
Station in the south to Woodlands at our end of the Causeway, to make checks at
the point of entry. I anticipated that when this move was completed, passengers
would disembark at Woodlands and take our MRT trains, buses or taxis into
town. Malaysians would be unhappy because, under the law, the land would
revert to Singapore when it was no longer being used for the railway. I therefore
proposed to Mahathir that we should redevelop this railway land jointly.
Mahathir designated Daim Zainuddin to settle the terms with me. After several
months of negotiations, we finally agreed that there would be joint development
of three main parcels of land at Tanjong Pagar, Kranji and Woodlands.
Malaysia’s share would be 60 per cent, Singapore’s 40 per cent. The Points of
Agreement (POA) was signed on 27 November 1990, a day before I stepped
down. As it turned out, I did not succeed in handing over my office to Goh Chok
Tong with a clean slate. Three years after the agreement was signed, Daim wrote
to me to say Mahathir thought it was unfair because it did not include a piece of
railway land at Bukit Timah for joint development. I replied that the agreement
was fair in that I had given Malaysia 60 per cent instead of a 50 per cent share of
the three parcels of land. It was a deal done between him and me, and it was
difficult for Prime Minister Goh to have it reopened.
Before, during and after Malaysia, the Malaysians have taken one step after
another to restrict Singapore’s access to their economy. They imposed taxes and
made laws and regulations to reduce or cut off their use of our ports, airports and
other services, especially financial services. They directed their banks and other
borrowers not to raise loans from foreign banks in Singapore but to use foreign
banks which had branches either in Kuala Lumpur or Labuan, a tax haven they
had set up on an island off Sabah. They forced us to become more competitive.

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After 1990 I refrained from official dealings with all Asean governments,
including Malaysia, so as not to cross lines with Prime Minister Goh.
Unfortunately, for a hearing in chambers in a defamation suit in January 1997, I
swore in an affidavit that Johor Bahru was “notorious for shootings, muggings
and car-jackings”. This caused a furore in Malaysia when made public by the
defendant who had absconded to Johor.
The Malaysian government angrily demanded a retraction and an apology. I
apologised unreservedly. They were not satisfied and wanted my statement
withdrawn from the court document. I saw no point in refusing. I had been
careless and put myself offside. In a signed statement, I repeated my unreserved
apology and stated that I had instructed my lawyer to have “the offending words
removed from the record”. The Malaysian cabinet met and announced they had
accepted my apology. We noticed, however, that they cut off all bilateral
contacts and in effect froze ties. Mahathir also said that Singapore always made
things difficult, as in the case of the dispute over railway land. The barrage of
protests and denunciations continued for several months, and as in the past
reached a crescendo in threats to cut off our water supplies.
From 1992 our customs and immigration consulted and negotiated with
Malayan Railway (KTM) and Malaysian immigration and customs to move their
railway line to meet our CIQ (customs, immigration and quarantine) post in
Woodlands. Prime Minister Mahathir, in April 1992, confirmed this when he
wrote to Prime Minister Goh, “In fact, we feel that it would be more convenient
for both countries to have the same checkpoint in Woodlands.” However, the
Malaysians wrote officially in June 1997 that they had changed their minds and
had decided to retain their CIQ at Tanjong Pagar. Singapore replied in July 1997
that they could not remain at Tanjong Pagar because it would create serious
operational problems for both countries: people would be cleared by their
immigration as having entered Malaysia before leaving Singapore. Furthermore,
Malaysian officials, operating in our territory without the presence of Singapore
officials to lend them authority, had no power to act.
In last-minute negotiations in July 1998, Malaysian foreign ministry officials
claimed for the first time that Malaysia had a legal right to have their customs
and immigration at Tanjong Pagar. We gave them three months to put up their
written legal arguments for proper consideration. When the time came, they
asked for an extension to December 1998.
Prime Minister Mahathir did not make it any easier by the public comments
he made while he was in Namibia. Shown by Malaysian journalists the reports of

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earlier letters and documents that his officials had written to our officials,
agreeing that Malaysia’s CIQ would move to Woodlands, he said, referring to
the POA, “In our opinion it is not enough for an international agreement to be
signed by just two officials. Such agreements have to be approved by the heads
of government and ratified by the cabinet and Parliament” (as reported in
Malaysian newspapers on 28 July 1998). This was an unusual view of the law.
Mahathir added that Malaysia would not shift its CIQ from Tanjong Pagar to
Woodlands, that “That’s our stand and we will stick to it.” After the dispute
became public, Jayakumar, our minister for foreign affairs, in a statement in
Parliament in July 1998 recounted the exchanges between the two governments.
Older UMNO leaders have not forgotten the intense campaign of
vituperation and intimidation they mounted against me in mid-1965. They had
attacked me then for advocating a Malaysian Malaysia, burnt my effigy and
demanded my arrest. That was at a time when they controlled the police and
army. I could not afford to give in. They then decided to get Singapore out of
Malaysia. This barrage could not have been for my education. My younger
colleagues knew the fireworks were intended for them. But they knew what
would happen to their political standing if they wobbled. When MPs asked
questions, Prime Minister Goh and Foreign Minister Jayakumar set out the facts
on the railway land in Parliament, including the agreement and subsequent
letters between Daim and me. Goh disclosed that he had told Mahathir the POA
was a formal agreement and he could not vary its terms. However, within a
framework of wider cooperation, which included the long-term supply of water,
he could vary the POA. In the robust debate that followed, a younger generation
of MPs stood up to be counted. Community leaders also made it clear that they
were not impressed by Malaysia’s methods of making friends and influencing
neighbours.
While these exchanges were being traded, I launched the first volume of my
memoirs,