Australian degree for MM Lee brings protests
By Rob Taylor
Mar 22, 2007
Reuters
CANBERRA, March 22 (Reuters) - A plan to award former Singapore
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew with an honorary degree has brought
protests from academics at one of Australia's top universities, who
on Thursday accused Lee of presiding over an authoritarian
regime.
Lee, who was Prime Minister from 1959 to 1990 and is now Minister
Mentor for the island state, will be given an Honorary Doctorate of
Laws by Canberra's Australian National University next week.
But senior academics have written to the university's
Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb in protest at the award, complaining that
Lee quashed all opponents during his three-decade rule.
"It's outrageous. You can admit that the man oversaw an
extraordinary development, but the cost of that was basically a
one-party state and an intellectual atmosphere that was
intimidatory at best," Dr Michael McKinley, an ANU specialist in
international relations and diplomacy, told Reuters.
Lee, 83, is due to accept the award during a visit to Australia
with his wife. The ANU is regularly listed as one of the world's
top universities and is Australia's peak research-based
campus.
A spokeswoman for the university said there would be no comment on
opposition by academic staff to Lee's degree, although ANU
Chancellor Dr Allan Hawke said "the good outweighs the bad" on
Lee's record.
Hilary Charlesworth, the Director of ANU's Centre for International
Governance and Justice, said she was baffled by the decision to
award Lee, whose son Lee Hsien Loong is Singapore's third Prime
Minister.
"Any human rights lawyers would be really concerned by this," she
told Australian media.
High-profile Australian barrister Stuart Littlemore, who was banned
from entering Singapore to represent opposition politician Chee
Soon Juan in a defamation case, told the Canberra Times newspaper
that ANU's decision to award Lee "brings shame upon it".
The elder Lee is credited with transforming resource-poor Singapore
into one of the world's most dynamic economies at the cost of
political and social freedoms among the island's small 4.5 million
population.
Lee banned public demonstrations, introduced tight controls over
the press and has sued opposition leaders for defamation, arguing
it was better to be feared than loved.
McKinley, who often speaks in Singapore, said Lee's government
intimidated Singaporean academics, who felt they would be targeted
if they were to talk about political issues.
"People still do not feel free to voice their opinions and
certainly the chances of any political opposition being represented
in parliament are absolutely minimal," he said.
"The politics of the country still remain essentially one-party and
the anecdotal evidence is that he is still very, very
powerful."
But ANU said the award was to honour Lee's achievements and further
the university's relationship with Singapore.
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