The Republic of Singapore, under its first and
only Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, has become an island of
democracy, stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia. Lately,
however, Statesman Lee has been making some unstatesmanlike moves
against the press.
Early this month, Lee jailed
four top staff members of the 131,000-circulation Nanyang Siang Pan
(Commercial Daily News), one of the island's largest
Chinese-language dailies. He said the paper had been "glamorizing
Communism and stirring up Chinese chauvinism." The four men,
arrested under internal security regulations, have not yet been
charged with any specific violation of the law. They have been
denied access to an attorney and are still in jail; no trial has
been scheduled.
Five days after the arrests,
Lee announced that the Eastern Sun, a pro-government
English-language tabloid, had received $1.3 million in financing
from Chinese Communist agents. Lee claimed that the Communists had
allowed the Sun (circ. 6,000) to pursue an anti-Communist editorial
policy to deflect immediate suspicion and give China a foothold in
Singapore. When the Sun's publisher, Aw Kow, refused to deny the
financing charge, the entire editorial staff resigned and the paper
folded. Unlike the Nanyang Siang Pan editors, however, Aw Kow has
been neither charged with a crime nor jailed.
Raw Power. Lee's actions,
some Singaporeans believe, were motivated by his sensitivity to the
racial balance in the republic. Three-fourths of Singapore's 2.1 million citizens
are Chinese, the rest Malays, Indians and Pakistanis. A fervid
believer in the merits of Western-style education, the
Cambridge-educated Prime Minister had been under fire from Nanyang
Siang Pan for allegedly downgrading Chinese language and culture in
the schools.
The ethnic issue does not,
however, explain the plight of Lee's latest victim. Still in its
first year of publication, the lively English-language Singapore
Herald (circ. 16,000) has been critical of Lee on many issues,
including a ban on press coverage for the rehearsal of a military
parade, where many onlookers took pictures.
Last week Lee called in the
still-functioning press to watch some raw political power at work.
Flanked by profusely perspiring Hendrik Kwant, manager of a local
Chase Manhattan Bank branch, Lee smilingly announced that the bank
is foreclosing on a $311,000 loan to the Herald. Lee has also
pressured the paper's principal backer, Hong Kong Businesswoman
Sally Aw Sian, to prevent her from putting in new financing,
without which the paper may stop publication this week. The
bland-uncritical Straits Times and its afternoon paper, the New
Nation, will be the only English-language dailies left; there are
nine more Chinese-and other-language dailies.
Lee's justification for his
offensive against the press: "I think that in every democratic
country freedom is limited. If you say you want complete freedom in
an emergent country, I can give you two examples: one is India,
another is Ceylon. Both countries are now in chaos." The dying
Herald replied in a frontpage editorial that Lee had "erred beyond
caution . . . we ask only to be able to tell the truth and to have
the right to live with dignity."
