Cold Blooded Murders (25 page)

The committee did not think, however, that
the scheme would be
successful in winning
these men from their past and present allegiances,
and their own
assessment of society, merely by encouraging them to secure their material
needs. That was but the first step. All men besides their physical needs had
their intellectual and spiritual needs ‘however dimly they themselves may
perceive this’. There should, therefore, also be an educational programme,
which should include socio-political re-education. ‘Considerable attention’
should also be paid to recreational facilities which in themselves were
educational.
The committee recommended the necessity to
develop a ‘house system
encouraging healthy competition in games’ (a proposal
which some experienced police officers with knowledge of the deadly games rival
secret societies were inclined to play—with knives and daggers, chairs, sticks,
bars of iron etc—viewed with some misgiving). The committee urged that the men
be mixed as completely as possible regardless of their secret society
affiliations. In the Reformative Training Centre, systematic mixing had been
practised, the committee noted, and members of rival gangs had learned to live
together amicably.

As for the spiritual education of detainees,
the committee was rather diffident about making recommendations, but they did
suggest that detainees should be encouraged to re-establish any religious
associations they may have had. But detainees should, the committee insisted, be
free not to be approached by religionists. “We believe that an approach to
moral attitudes of living can only be secured if the men cease to regard
themselves as different, and completely divorced from society.” They
recommended that groups of entertainers should visit the settlement, and radio
should be available to the detainees. In this way, the committee hoped that it
would be possible for the men to develop to some extent a proper interest in
the outside world. Books, magazines and newspapers should, therefore, be
available to them.

In the third stage, detainees would be moved
back to Singapore to live in open security camps, in which they would be
employed, at equitable rates of pay, on constructive projects designed to
emphasise the contribution that could be made in the community. Friends and
relatives could visit them and in this way, detainees could become
progressively accustomed to normal society. The committee recognised that their
stay on Pulau Senang would have accustomed them to a decidedly artificial way
of living: they would have had no contact with normal society, particularly
feminine society.

In the fourth stage, detainees would be
released subject to supervision by the police or an after-care officer. The
committee recommended that the only necessary conditions for release should be
that the detainee was considered to have reformed to the extent that he was
unlikely to return to gangsterism, and that permanent and regular employment
was available for him.

The report of the Ad Hoc Committee was
endorsed by the Commissioners. Jek, one of the members of the Ad Hoc Committee,
later successfully fought a parliamentary election and became a Minister in Lee
Kuan Yew’s cabinet. The other former detainee, S. Woodhull, was arrested again,
this time by the Internal Security Council (consisting of representatives of
the Malaysian, the British and the Singapore Governments) and detained. When
released, he continued his legal studies in England and later practised law in
Malaysia.

No time was lost by the Commissioners in
approving this scheme and forwarding it to the government. It was acted upon
without delay. By May 1960, long before the Commissioners had completed their
overall inquiry into the prison system, the Pulau Senang Scheme was in
operation. Hundreds of gangsters were working on the island, creating something
of their own, and, in this way, through toil and sweat, earning the right, the
Commissioners hoped, to take their place in the community of useful citizens.
This was the experiment that failed.

Pulau Senang was not without its
critics. In the Assembly in June 1963 (a month before the revolt on the
island), the former Chief Minister, David Marshall (15 years later to become
Singapore’s first Ambassador in Paris), complained that the government was
‘using persons who have not been convicted by any courts, as slave labour’.
They were paid very little. He said they should be paid trade union rates and
their families should be supported by the government. Marshall said he had
visited the island and he came away with a very strong impression of an aura of
fear in all those detainees, an aura of helplessness and hopelessness, “because
they are so utterly at the mercy of every minor official on that island. Their
release or their continued detention is at the whim of officials and is no
longer subject to law. They are beyond the pale of the law.” He thought it a
very unhealthy atmosphere, and went on to say that he found it difficult to
understand “whether, in fact, bringing these people in close propinquity over a
long period, subject to not merely superior discipline of the officers from the
prisons but the discipline of their own groups, does not build an esprit de
corps which could endanger our peace, if in fact they are, as I have no doubts
some of them are, drawn from secret society gangs.”

The Home Minister, Ong Pang Boon, reminded
Marshall that the previous government had no scheme for rehabilitating secret
society gangsters: they just locked them up three to a cell. When the People’s
Action Party came to power, this state of affairs was considered undesirable,
and Pulau Senang was being tried as an experiment. Only time could tell whether
it would be a success. The Minister claimed that the results to date were
encouraging.

As for an aura of fear at Pulau Senang,
Marshall might have found sullen detainees because the week before, several
warders had been assaulted and the detainees involved had been punished. The
Minister said he had visited the island several times and found no aura of
fear. As for the dependants of the detainees, they could always apply for aid
to the Social Welfare Department.

Marshall explained that he was not
criticising the concept of Pulau Senang: he thought the experiment a good one.
What he criticised was the use of the detainees as slave labour. He had been
impressed by the very considerable assets in buildings, vegetable gardens,
irrigation works and the provision for water, which were constructed by the
detainees. His submission was that if a man is made to work, he should be paid
full wages, deducting there from the cost of his enforced lodging and the cost
of his board. They did not even have a canteen. They could not order a cup of
coffee. “Gangster or no gangster, Sir, if you are trying to attract them to a
human way of life, I would suggest a proper approach, and from the point of
view of socialists and persons who believe in the trade union movement, I
resent the suggestion of using persons detained by executive act, as slave
labour.”

The Home Minister told the House that
canteen facilities were available: they could purchase cigarettes and tobacco,
toilet articles, confectionery and groceries. Arrangements for meals and drinks
were being made. He denied Marshall’s charge that the detainees had no alternative
but to volunteer for work: he insisted that the work was of a voluntary nature,
regarded and accepted as part of their training and rehabilitation process. “In
their case work has a therapeutic meaning, and wages are a secondary matter.”
He agreed that detainees had been told that if they want to secure their early
release they must go to Pulau Senang. That was accepted. Only through work at
Pulau Senang, his general behaviour there, could it be known if the gangster
had reformed.

Dr Goh Keng Swee, then Minister for Finance,
poured ridicule on Marshall’s suggestion that detainees should be paid the rate
for the job. He accused Marshall of trying to make political capital out of
Pulau Senang. His suggestion that the government was employing slave labour in
Pulau Senang, the Minister described as ‘completely sanctimonious humbug’.
Pulau Senang was a scheme to rehabilitate secret society gangsters. “It is not
a matter of the wicked government catching innocent people and putting them to
do some slave work for the benefit of the party or the government.”

Were the government ‘so absurd, so
ridiculous’ as to accept Marshall’s proposal that the detainees should be paid
the rate for the job, this surely would be an invitation to the public to join
secret societies and thereby get a remunerative career in Pulau Senang, with
food and everything thrown in. The Minister insisted that the main thing was to
impress upon the detainees that work is creative and is of value to society,
and to inculcate in these unfortunate young men pride in work, and a sense of
social responsibility.

Marshall was stung to reply. “Who can speak
of pride in work, being paid $0.30 a day whilst your family starves on social
welfare pittance,” he thundered, “ … whilst their families starve, they sweat
at hard labour in the sun with pick and shovel and get paid by this beneficent
government $0.30 a day. Mr Speaker, what kind of self-respect do you think you
can build in a human being like that? What kind of attitude do you think you
can build in a human being like that towards a society which treats him in that
fashion?” Not one of these men, he reminded the House, had been convicted by an
impartial judge.

The Prime Minister intervened to recall that
he had spent a ‘rather exciting evening’ at the Aftercare Association, when the
Superintendent of Pulau Senang had provided a concert consisting of ex-detainee
performers. He urged Marshall to lend his patronage to this very deserving
Aftercare Association. The Home Minister made two further points: all detainees
were paid $0.30 a day, which was higher than the rate paid to convicted
prisoners. In about three years, nearly 400 detainees had been successfully
rehabilitated at Pulau Senang. Up to the end of 1962, the total cost of the
upkeep of Pulau Senang was $1,110,495. Some $30,677 had been paid to the
detainees for work done.

On
the morning of 12 July 1963
, the tragic day of the
Pulau Senang uprising, Major Peter L. James, a retired regular British army
officer, then Director of Singapore Prisons, got to his office in (Upper
Pickering Street about 12:30
pm
.
He had spent the morning on inspection in Changi Jail. He was told that Dutton
wanted him urgently on the radio. Pulau Senang was linked to the main island by
radio telephone. James rang Dutton at 12:40
pm
.
Dutton told him that ‘there is a rumour here that there is going to be trouble,
that they are out to get me.’

James asked Dutton what action he had taken.
Dutton said he had arrested the ring-leaders and was trying to contact the Marine
Police. James told Dutton he would get in touch with the police in Singapore
right away. Dutton protested that this was not necessary. As Dutton continued
to argue, James broke the connection. Then he telephoned the police. James got
through to the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Cheah Teng Check, and Cheah
said he would send a troop from the reserve unit there without delay. James
then telephoned Dutton to tell him to expect the police at about 2:00
pm
. Button’s reaction was to grumble
‘there is no need for that’. At the trial of the ringleaders, James gave
evidence that he told Dutton to carry out Standing Instructions. This meant
that if there was trouble, Dutton and his staff should get off the island.
Dutton replied: “Good God! There’s no need for that. There are always plenty of
them who will stand by me.” James told Dutton that he would ring again at 2:00
pm
.

On the island, the situation worsened
rapidly. Dutton realised, too late, that he needed help, urgently. His frantic
and belated call for help was received by the Marine Police at 1:12
pm
. They recognised Dutton’s voice.
Dutton kept saying: “Situation very bad. Please inform Coastguard.” The message
was repeated three times. A police boat was instructed to proceed to Pulau
Senang from Tanjong China. All marine officers at sea were informed.
Lance-Corporal Abdul Aziz bin Saji was patrolling off Pulau Sebarok. He
received a message at 1:14
pm
.
that there was rioting at Pulau Senang. He was ordered to proceed there
immediately. He went in as close to the island as was possible with the low
tide. Through binoculars he saw a lot of people on the beach. Five minutes
later, he saw a prison boat heading towards Indonesian waters. The police boat
set off in pursuit. He indicated for it to stop, but the boat continued on its
course. The corporal fired
two warning
shots. He then fired at the engine, but missed. At 2:00
pm
a Customs boat joined in the chase, overtook the police boat and rammed
the escaping boat which sank. The seven occupants were picked up by the police
boat. Just before the collision, Marlow, a mechanic, who had been kidnapped,
jumped into the sea. He, too, was rescued. His real name was Chan Seng Onn. At
Pulau Senang, where he was known as Marlow, he was in charge of outboard motors
and their servicing. A group of gangsters had surrounded him and ordered him
into the boat.

James knew nothing of this dramatic
development. Just before 2:00
pm
,
he again rang Pulau Senang, but could make no contact. Almost at once the
Master Attendant telephoned with the news that there was trouble on the island;
fire was burning.