From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

peranakan
(a local-born Chinese), not a 
totok
, a Chinese-speaking
Chinese recent immigrant who was less assimilated.
But as economic conditions deteriorated, Sukarno embarked on more foreign
adventures. To support his diplomacy with the Afro-Asian world he had a sharp
if opportunistic foreign minister in Dr Subandrio. During 1963 Subandrio often
saw me in Singapore, whenever he was in transit. As the formation of Malaysia
became imminent, he began talking in arrogant terms. Sitting beside me on a
settee in my office at City Hall one morning, he tapped my knee and waved his
hand at the window to say, “Look at all the tall buildings in Singapore. They are
all built with Indonesian money, stolen from Indonesians through smuggling.
But never mind, one day Indonesia will come here and look after this country
and put this right.” By “smuggling”, Subandrio was referring to exports through
Singapore by their own merchants who evaded Indonesian taxes and foreign
exchange requirements. I understood his feelings, having seen for myself the
deplorable conditions of life in Jakarta, where people washed themselves, their
clothes and their rice, and performed their natural functions in its 
kali
or canals,
in public; I did not dismiss his aspirations to take over Singapore as idle talk.
When we became independent in 1965, Indonesia was in “Confrontation”
against Singapore and Malaysia. President Sukarno and Dr Subandrio tried to
exploit Singapore-Malaysia difficulties by offering Singapore the bait of
immediate recognition on conditions that would have affronted and angered
Malaysia. A turning point came several weeks later, on 30 September, with
Gestapu, the Indonesian acronym for 
Gerakan September Tiga Puluh
(movement of September 30), when General Suharto, leading the special forces,
put down an attempted coup by their communists. With the support of troops
under loyal commanders in the army, navy, air force and police, Suharto warned
the rebel military forces at the palace and at a radio and communication centre to
surrender peacefully. Daunted by the show of force, the rebel forces fled. It was
the end of the coup.
At the time we did not realise how momentous this failed coup was, because

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we were too preoccupied with the gruesome murder of several senior Indonesian
generals and the killing that followed of thousands (estimated at half a million),
some of them ethnic Chinese, the alleged supporters of the communists. Suharto
played it out slowly and subtly, like an Indonesian 
wayang kulit
, a performance
with puppets shown in silhouette as shadows on the screen. So carefully was this
shadow play choreographed, so gradual the moves to strip Sukarno of authority,
for some time we did not see that power had already shifted away from Sukarno
to Suharto. For more than six months, Suharto did not oust the president, but
acted in his name to keep up appearances as he quietly gathered the levers of
power in his hands, removing Sukarno’s supporters and weakening his position.
Adam Malik, the new foreign minister, did not show any switch in policy. In
March 1966 Sukarno signed a presidential decree that gave General Suharto
power to take all necessary steps to guarantee security and preserve stability. I
was still not sure that Sukarno was out, such was his charismatic hold on his
people. It was only a year later, in February 1967, that Suharto was formally
elected acting president by the national assembly.
By June 1966 Suharto was sufficiently entrenched to end Confrontation
simultaneously with Singapore and Malaysia. Bilateral relations took some time
to normalise. The Indonesians sent economic fact-finding missions to Singapore
immediately in June and July 1966, more for public relations than for substance.
In August we reciprocated with a trade mission. There was some psychological
movement forward in a so-called “$150 million handshake” when Singapore
undertook to provide this initial sum in private commercial credit to Indonesian
traders and allowed Bank Negara Indonesia, a state-owned bank, to reopen in
Singapore. We agreed to resume two-way trade on a non-discriminatory basis.
They reopened all Indonesian ports to our ships. They promised that after they
had made amendments to their laws, they would let our banks open Indonesian
branches, but none were allowed to open until the 1990s. (Those that did open
were unlucky. Within six years, by 1997, they were mired in Indonesia’s
financial crisis and the loans they had extended were at risk.)
There were underlying obstacles to the restoration of relations:
misconceptions on politics, security and economics, disagreements over
maritime boundaries, sea passage and the policing of bilateral trade. What they
called “smuggling” was perfectly legal in Singapore because we were a free
port. We could not act as their customs officers. We did not fully understand
them and took a long time to learn to navigate our way through the labyrinths of
their administration.

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For some years there was no warmth in our relations and progress was slow.
They had a tendency to adopt a big brother attitude. In March 1968 Adam Malik,
speaking to the Indonesian community in Singapore, disclosed that he had
assured me Indonesia was ready to protect Singapore against the communists
after the British withdrew in 1971: “We shall protect them (200 million people
of Asean) even if the threat comes from Genghis Khan.” (Asean, the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations had been formed in August 1967 in Bangkok with
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand as members.) The
language of the joint communique issued at the end of his visit was more
diplomatic: “to strengthen existing ties on the basis of equality and mutual
respect and non-interference in the domestic affairs of each other”.
A few months later, in mid-October 1968, relations plunged disastrously
when we hanged two Indonesian marine commandos sentenced to death for
killing three persons when they exploded a bomb in 1964 at the Hong Kong &
Shanghai Bank branch in Orchard Road. The Indonesian reaction was more
violent than we had anticipated. A group of 400 uniformed students sacked our
embassy in Jakarta and the ambassador’s residence. Indonesian troops guarding
the embassy were conveniently absent. Foreign Minister Adam Malik appealed
for calm, saying he had no wish to retaliate against Singapore!
There were popular calls for a total shipping and trade boycott and a review
of bilateral relations. For five minutes, telecommunication services to Singapore
were suspended. Student mobs also sacked the two remaining Singapore
diplomatic residences. The passions aroused spilled over into anti-Chinese riots
against their own citizens of Chinese origin, in Surabaya in central Java and
Djambi in Sumatra.
By the end of October, however, matters seemed to cool down when Adam
Malik warned that cutting off trade with Singapore would only harm Indonesia.
He referred to the poor condition of their own port facilities and said, “We
should think of our minimal ability.” He expressed the hope that quarrels would
not harm intra-Asean harmony, and said that the international image of
Indonesia would suffer. There was a partial lifting of the shipping ban, and by
early November all curbs had been lifted. At the end of November a three-man
Indonesian parliamentary delegation visited Singapore with a mandate to bury
the hatchet.
The chill in relations thawed only very gradually. In July 1970 we sent Lee
Khoon Choy as ambassador to Jakarta. K.C., as his friends called him, was a
good linguist, fluent in Bahasa Indonesia and interested in Indonesian arts and

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culture. He worked hard and successfully, befriending the top Indonesian
generals who were Suharto’s closest aides. They wanted to understand us and
found him a friendly and well-connected interpreter. Gradually he established
personal understanding and gained their confidence.
That September, at the Non-Aligned Summit in Lusaka, I met Suharto for the
first time as we assembled for the meeting. Then I called on him at his villa to
spend half an hour on pleasantries and to discuss the approach to be taken on
Cambodia and Vietnam. He asked for my views on US involvement in Vietnam
and was a good listener. An American withdrawal, I said, would have grave
implications for stability in the region. A communist victory in Vietnam and
Cambodia was likely to lead to changes in Thailand which had a traditional
policy of adjustment to and accommodation of new forces. He agreed with me.
We found we shared some common views about developments and dangers in
the region. It was a fair start for half an hour.
A major step forward was made when Major-General Sudjono Hoemardani
visited me in April 1971. He believed in the supernatural and was one of
Suharto’s confidants on spiritual and mystical matters. When faced with big
decisions, K.C. reported, Suharto would go to a special cave with Hoemardani to
meditate before making up his mind. We discussed nothing significant for one
hour in Bahasa Indonesia, but his note-taker told K.C. that he was extremely
satisfied with the meeting. Hoemardani had expected me to be “tough, snobbish
and arrogant” but instead found me “friendly, outspoken and kind”.
A year later, in March 1972, K.C. arranged for Lieutenant-General Soemitro,
chief of the national security command, to drop in quietly without his
ambassador’s knowledge. He did not want his foreign affairs ministry to know
of his secret mission for the president. Soemitro, who spoke English, went
straight to the point. Suharto wanted to clear doubts about Singapore’s stand on
certain problems and to hear from me personally.
He stated the Indonesian view on the Straits of Malacca, that the littoral
states should have control over it. I said it had been international waters for
centuries and that was the basis for Singapore’s survival. We would go along
with Indonesia and Malaysia on measures recommended by international bodies
for its safety and security. But we would not want to be involved in any action to
take control of the Straits or levy toll that could lead to conflict with the
Russians, Japanese and other big maritime nations. Soemitro replied that
Indonesia would take measures to exert its sovereignty over the Straits, that if
the Russians tried to get tough, Indonesia would not hesitate to have a

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confrontation. I must have looked unconvinced for he added in a serious tone
that the Russians could try to occupy Indonesia and they would not succeed.
A month later Suharto sent General Panggabean, his most senior minister
and general in charge of defence and security affairs, to see me. He was a bluff,
direct-speaking Sumatran Batak, his manner different from Suharto’s quiet
central Javanese ways.
He said Indonesia had wasted precious time that should have been put into
economic development. Now the armed forces had to be subservient to the
overall economic development of the country. He wanted Singapore, as the
economically more advanced country, to complement their needs. I assured him
we had a vested interest in seeing Indonesia develop.
They invited Keng Swee to Indonesia in October 1972, knowing he was my
closest colleague. He found them less suspicious after my meetings with their
three top generals. Further, regular intelligence contacts between S.R. Nathan,
our head of intelligence, and his Indonesian counterpart, Lieutenant-General
Sutupo Juwono, had convinced them that we shared their views on the big
issues.
The stage was now set for my visit, scheduled for May 1973. It had been
carefully prepared. K.C., quoting the Indonesian generals, reported “a serious
emotional obstacle to sincere friendship”. If there was to be genuine friendship
with President Suharto, the episode over the hanging of the two marines had to
be closed with a diplomatic gesture that addressed “Javanese beliefs in souls and
clear conscience”. They proposed that during the official wreath-laying at the
Kalibata Heroes Cemetery, after paying my respects to the slain generals of the
1965 coup, I go to the graves of the two marines and scatter flowers on them.
K.C. thought this the key to an improvement in relations because the Indonesian
generals placed great store by this gesture. I agreed.
When I arrived on the morning of 25 May, I was greeted by a full-scale
guard of honour of the army, navy, air force and police, who were lined up for
inspection, and a 19-gun salute. It signalled that a new page was to be turned. An
editorial in one of their newspapers commented, “A long time seems to have
been needed to take the one-hour flight from Singapore to Jakarta, after various
visits to the UK, US, Europe, Japan and Taiwan. Only after having roamed the
world does Lee Kuan Yew come to Indonesia for an official visit.” The editor
was right. I had first to demonstrate that Singapore could survive without living

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off the economies of Indonesia and Malaysia. We were not parasites dependent
only on our neighbours. We were linking ourselves to the industrial countries,
making ourselves useful to them, manufacturing their products with their
technology, exporting them worldwide. We had changed the survival equation.
The decisive meeting was with Suharto, one-on-one, what he called