This is the typical Lee after the 1970s..
Here is what really happened at the Foreign Correspondents'
Association dinner (OBVIOUSLY NOT REPORTED IN THE ST)
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SINGAPORE (AFP) - Singapore's iron-willed founding father Lee Kuan
Yew has said he will not allow the foreign media to tell his
country what to do on domestic issues.
Speaking to the Foreign Correspondents Association late Friday, Lee
said the tiny but affluent Southeast Asian city-state cannot fully
emulate the political practices of other developed western
countries.
"We're not going to allow foreign correspondents or foreign
journalists or anybody else to tell us what to do," the 82-year-old
former prime minister said.
"There are very few things that I do not know about Singapore
politics and there are very few things that you can tell me or any
foreign correspondent can tell me about Singapore," said Lee, who
has successfully sued several media critics for libel.
Lee, whose son Lee Hsien Loong is the current prime minister, is
admired worldwide for transforming Singapore into one of Asia's
wealthiest nations in just over 30 years despite its lack of
natural resources and limited manpower.
However, the government has also been criticised by human rights
groups and the media for clamping down on dissent as well as
curbing press freedom and other political rights.
Only one party, the People's Action Party (PAP), has ruled the
country since independence in 1965. Opposition leaders have been
crippled by financially draining defamation suits filed by PAP
stalwarts.
But Lee, who holds the advisory post of minister mentor in his
son's cabinet, said the system worked well for Singapore, and
dismissed opposition candidates contesting the May 6 general
elections for having no credible alternative program.
During the question-and-answer session, Lee also dressed down a
Singaporean journalist working for a foreign news agency who had
asked why it was difficult to get data on the salaries of cabinet
ministers.
"Oh come off it, it's in the budget," Lee snapped. "I'll have none
of it. You cannot pay the ministers without a proper budget," he
said.
"I will not put up with any slur that we are trying to hide our
salaries. It's rubbish, plain rubbish and as a Singaporean you
ought to know that."
Raising his voice, Lee cut off the journalist in the middle of a
follow up question.
"I'm telling you the reply before you finish the question, so
please consider carefully what else you're going to make, what
other slurs you're going to imply. You're not going to intimidate
me, ever."
Lee told another Singaporean foreign correspondent she was "talking
like an ignorant voter" when she asked why constituencies who had
voted for the opposition are left out in government improvement
projects.
