As a continuation of the opening
thread posted, it was surprising to stumble on the following
paragraphs of a report that is seldom noted :
:
An extract from the ThinkCentre : ''Comet
in Our Sky : Lim Chin Siong in History''
In a startling and revisionist essay, Dr Greg Poulgrain of
Griffiths University observes that the British Governor of
Singapore and his Chief Secretary in their reports to London had
admitted that the
police could find no evidence to establish that Lim was a
communist.
Poulgrain claims it was
actually Singapore's then Chief Minister, Lim Yew Hock, who had
deliberately "provoked" the bus and other industrial workers and
Chinese middle students to riot in 1956 in order to have Lim Chin
Siong arrested.
Lim Yew Hock's own admission to responsibility for the riot
appears in an official report to the British Government which
Poulgrain found in the
Colonial Office records in London which are now open to
researchers.
"Lee Kuan Yew was
secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock," adds
Poulgrain, "in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the
subversives ban in making it illegal for former political detainees
to stand for election."
In 1959, while Lim was in prison,
the PAP won the general elections under which Lee became Prime
Minister, and Singapore was granted self-government by the
British in all matters except for internal security, defence and
external affairs.
Although Lim and other leftist political detainees were released
from prison, their co-operation and alliance with Lee ended in 1961
due to disagreements over policies and strategies.
Until then the media presented the PAP as a leftwing party,
indicating the pervasive and dominant influence of Lim's faction
within and outside the party. Their rivalry was intense and
ideological. Lee finally resorted to arrests to remove Lim and his
faction.
When Lim and other political detainees such as Fong Swee Suan and
S. Woodhull were released, they were appointed Political
Secretaries. But the honeymoon was soon over.
The PAP split in 1961 saw Lim taking away with him almost the
entire PAP branches and personnel to form and lead a new party, the
Barisan Socialis (Socialist Front).
With the Archives of Public Records
Office being opened in London - after the statutory period of
secrecy has expired - the ''Truth
of the Past'' can now be fully known.
Since the release of new declassified information from the Public
Records Office in London, Malaysians had the benefit of
understanding the facts that led to their May 13 racial riots in
1969. The Malaysian are able to satisfy themselves that there were
no racial tensions that sparked the riots, but that the purposeful
accentuation of racial faultlines to cause a riot with racial
overtones that will allow a small group of aggressive Malay
Capitalist Politicians to usurp powers from the Conservative Malay
Royalists under Tunku Abdul Rahman - (who had preferred a unified
multi-racial approach in economic and political progress).
What will the Public Records Office in London reveal for those who
have been accused of being communists by the Ruling Party - locked
up unjustly, allowed to languish in prison for the better part of
their youth ?