Web of cash, power and cronies
Singapore isn't just skilled at mandatory executions of drug
traffickers, running an excellent airport and selling cameras on
Orchard Road. It also does a useful trade keeping Burma's military
rulers and their cronies afloat.
Much attention is placed on China and its coming hosting of the
Olympic Games as a diplomatic pressure point on the rampant Burmese
junta. But there is a group of government businessmen-technocrats
in Singapore who will also be closely monitoring the brutality in
Rangoon. And, were they so inclined, their influence could go a
long way to limiting the misery being inflicted on Burma's 54
million people.
Collectively known as "Singapore Inc", they gather around the $A150
billion state-owned investment house Temasek Holdings, controlled
by a member of the ruling Lee family.
With an estimated $A3 billion staked in the country (and a more
than $20 billion stake in Australia), Singapore Inc companies have
been some of the biggest investors in and supporters of Burma's
military junta this while its Government, on the rare times it is
asked, suggests a softly-softly diplomatic approach towards the
junta.
When it comes to Burma, Singapore pockets the high morals it likes
to wave at the West elsewhere. Singapore's one-time head of foreign
trade once said as his country was building links with Burma in the
mid-1990s: "While the other countries are ignoring it, it's a good
time for us to go in
you get better deals, and you're more
appreciated
Singapore's position is not to judge them and take a
judgmental moral high ground."
But by providing Burma's pariah junta with the crucial equipment
mostly denied by Western sanctions, Singapore has helped keep the
junta and its cronies afloat for 20 years, since the last time the
generals killed the citizens they are supposed to protect.
Withdraw that financial support and Burma's junta would be
substantially weakened, perhaps even fail. But after two decades of
profitable business with the trigger-happy generals and their
cronies, that's about the last thing Singapore is likely to do.
There's too much money to be made.
Hotels, airlines, military material and training, crowd control
equipment and sophisticated telecoms-monitoring devices for its
secret police Singapore is manager and supplier to the junta, and
the "cronified" economy it controls.
It's impossible to spend any time in Burma and not make the junta
richer, thanks to Singapore suppliers' contracts with the tourism
industry. Singapore's hospitals also keep Burma's leaders alive
74-year-old junta leader Than Shwe has been getting his intestinal
cancer treated in a Singapore government hospital, protected by
Singapore security. Singapore's boutiques keep junta wives and
families cloaked in Armani, and its banks help launder their money
and that of Burma's crony drug lords.
Much of Singapore's activity in Burma has been documented by an
analyst working in Prime Minister John Howard's direct chain of
command, in the Office of National Assessments. Andrew Selth is
recognised as an authority on the Burmese military. Now a research
fellow at Queensland's Griffith University, Mr Selth has written
extensively on how close Singapore is to the junta.
Often writing as "William Ashton" in the authoritative Jane's
Intelligence Review, Mr Selth has described in various articles how
Singapore has sent the junta guns, rockets, armoured personnel
carriers and grenade launchers, some of it trans-shipped from
stocks seized by Israel from Palestinians in southern
Lebanon.
Singaporean companies have provided computers and networking
equipment for Burma's defence ministry and army, while upgrading
the bunkered junta's ability to network with regional commanders
so crucial as protesting monks take to the streets of 20 Burmese
cities, causing major logistical headaches for the Tatmadaw, the
Burmese military.
"Singapore cares little about human rights, in particular the
plight of the ethnic and religious minorities in Burma," Mr Selth
writes.
"Having developed one of the region's most advanced armed forces
and defence industrial support bases, Singapore is in a good
position to offer Burma a number of inducements which other ASEAN
(Association of South-East Asian Nations) countries would find hard
to match."
Singapore's Foreign Minister, George Yeo, is the current chairman
of ASEAN.
Mr Selth says Singapore also provided the equipment for a "cyber
war centre" to monitor dissident activity while training Burma's
secret police, whose sole job seems to be ensuring pro-democracy
groups are crushed.
Monitoring dissidents is an area where Singapore has particular
expertise. After almost five decades in power, the Lee
family-controlled People's Action Party ranks behind only the
communists of China, Cuba and North Korea in leadership longevity,
skilled in neutralising opposition.
"This centre is reported to be closely involved in the monitoring
and recording of foreign and domestic telecommunications, including
the satellite telephone conversations of Burmese opposition
groups," Mr Selth writes.
Singapore Government companies, such as leading arms supplier
Singapore Technologies, dominate the communications and military
sector in Singapore. "It is highly unlikely," Mr Selth writes,
"that any of these arms shipments to Burma could have been made
without the knowledge and support of the Singapore
Government."
He notes that Singapore's ambassadors to Burma have included a
former senior Singapore armed forces officer, and a past director
of Singapore's defence-oriented Joint Intelligence Directorate,
people with a military background rather than professional
diplomats.
He writes that after the 1988 crackdown, when the junta killed 3000
protesters, "the first country to come to the regime's rescue was
in fact Singapore".
When I interviewed Singapore Technologies chief executive Peter
Seah at his office in Singapore, I asked about the scale model of
an armoured personnel carrier made by his company on his office
table. He said ST sold the vehicles "only to allies".
Does that include Burma, I asked, given that Singapore
controversially helped sponsor the military regime into
ASEAN?
Mr Seah was non-specific: "We only sell to allies and we make sure
they are responsible." He didn't say how. ST and Temasek don't
respond to questions about their activities in Burma.
Singapore is so close to Burma that one of its diplomats there
wrote a handbook for its business people there. Matthew Sim's
Myanmar on my Mind is full of useful tips for Singaporean business
people in Burma. "A little money goes a long way in greasing the
wheels of productivity," he writes.
A chapter headed "Committing Manslaughter when Driving" describes
the appropriate action if a Singaporean businessman accidentally
kills a Burmese pedestrian. "Firstly, the international businessman
could give the family of the deceased some money as compensation
and dissuade them from pressing charges. Secondly, he could pay a
Myanmar citizen to take the blame by declaring that he was the
driver in the fatal accident. An international businessman should
not make the mistake of trying to argue his case in a court of law
when it comes to a fatal accident, even if he is in the
right."
Mr Sim says many successful Myanmar businessmen have opened shell
companies in Singapore "with little or no staff, used to keep funds
overseas". The companies are used to keep business deals outside
the control of Burma's central bank, enabling Singaporeans and
others to transact with Burma in Singapore...
http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articleburmaprotest3.html
