The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (90 page)

I was still uncertain as to what would happen, whether there would be a rearrangement, a separation, or a collision, when Philip Moore paid me a farewell call on 30 July; he was to be posted to the ministry of defence in London. It was a highly charged, emotional parting. The British, above all, had to be kept in the dark about our discussions and I had to make sure I did not give any hint of the changes we were secretly negotiating to Moore who had been so understanding and supportive. I was grateful for all he had done, I told him, but I had to go on with Malaysia regardless of the consequences. I had persuaded the people to join the Federation and I could not abandon them. It was my responsibility
to see that the constitution was honoured. I could not back out. His expression showed grave concern for my personal safety and the future of Singapore.

On 31 July, I left Singapore to attend a PAP rally in Kuala Lumpur and go on to the Cameron Highlands for my annual holiday with Choo and the children. Before I left Kuala Lumpur, I called on Antony Head at Carcosa for half an hour. I was apprehensive that he might have got a whiff of what was going on. I knew that if he had the slightest hint of it, he was resourceful and strong enough to unscramble whatever we had agreed upon, just as he had thwarted our plans for rearrangement in February. He showed no sign of suspecting anything was amiss, and I was satisfied that this time Razak and Ismail had not leaked anything to Fenner, who would certainly have informed him.

In fact, on 6 August, Head sent this assessment to London:

“Future prospects are gloomy. There is little chance of a political
détente
since neither side trusts the other. A modified form of disengagement without altering the constitution is possible but not likely. Lee’s employment overseas now seems to be ruled out and the Malay extremists are growing increasingly powerful. The most likely outcome is renewed racial riots possibly of a much bigger scale than before. … One of the main causes of the present trouble is the more extreme Malay chauvinists who are led by Senu, the minister for information, Khir Johari, the minister for education, and Ja’afar Albar, the secretary-general of UMNO; Senu and Ja’afar Albar in particular are involved in a competition to be more Malay than each other. If they could be squashed or silenced it would be most helpful; but Razak has shown that he is not prepared to be at all tough with these men, no doubt fearing that they might, by the appeal of their chauvinism, outflank him in his present position of heir apparent to the Tunku. He has therefore cautiously decided to move sufficiently in their direction to safeguard his own political position. …”

On British policy, Head wrote:

“As long as a hostile Indonesia threatens Malaysia’s independence and territorial integrity, our interest in the stability of Southeast Asia, our obligations under the Defence Agreement, and Malaysia’s need for help against a greatly superior enemy, seem certain to require our continued presence here. … But to stay could cause difficulties for us, for I think it would be both unwise and improvident for British policy to assume that there will be a prolonged period of comparative stability in Malaysia.”

The day after the rally at the Chin Woo Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, I drove to the Camerons, where I rested, played golf and walked with the children, while I waited for the telephone call from Keng Swee and Eddie to say that I should meet them in Kuala Lumpur. I did not want Head to suspect that I was back in Kuala Lumpur and up to something.

Keng Swee went to Kuala Lumpur for a meeting with Razak on 3 August, the day before the Tunku was due home. Razak came to the point quickly. He said he had received the Tunku’s reply. The Tunku was in favour, subject to two conditions: (a) Singapore was to make an adequate military contribution to our joint defence and enter into a defence agreement with Malaysia, and (b) no treaty was to be entered into that would contravene the objectives of that agreement. Keng Swee recorded that many detailed proposals were made in the course of the discussion: there should be a defence council; all Singapore forces should be under a joint military command for operational purposes, and the central government would help to train them; Singapore should raise an infantry brigade, and patrol Singapore waters with our own craft. Ismail also wanted Malaysian embassies and high commissions around the world to conduct Singapore’s external relations.

Keng Swee assessed their object was to limit the size of our armed forces and have a voice in controlling them. Ismail was open about this
but Razak dissembled. Keng Swee said we could not afford an extensive military establishment anyway – four battalions and some patrol boats would be the most we could contribute. Razak appeared very pleased and said Keng Swee should be Singapore’s defence minister, but the question of overall command remained vague and the peacetime status of the Singapore forces after Confrontation was still not raised. This was to lead to trouble later.

They asked if Keng Swee had the drafts prepared. He said he had and showed the papers to Razak. Razak read the agreement, skipped the proclamation, but carefully scrutinised the amendment bill. He appeared satisfied and returned the documents, asking that the points about our defence arrangements and external treaty be incorporated in the second draft. They then discussed the timetable. Razak wanted his attorney-general to examine the texts. Keng Swee suggested that if we produced them on 6 August, after the Tunku’s return, and they put up any counterproposals or amendments the following day, agreement could be reached on 7 August, the documents signed on 8 August, and the whole exercise could be wound up on the 9th.

They pointed out that the Menteri Besars of the Malay states and the chief ministers of Sabah and Sarawak had to be informed. Ismail said that the latter must be detached from their British advisers, and it would be best to summon them to Kuala Lumpur – the welcoming party for the Tunku could provide the pretext. Keng Swee asked if they could count on the Sabah and Sarawak votes. Razak had apparently done his arithmetic and said they didn’t expect any trouble.

Ismail then raised the question of the need for time to print the agreement, the bill and the proclamation. Keng Swee concluded that they wanted to go through with the exercise as quickly as possible, but a number of tricky problems stood in the way: for instance, would there also be time to get the Sabah and Sarawak chief ministers to Kuala Lumpur on 8 August? Flight schedules might make it impossible. Keng
Swee felt he should insist on sealing the agreement before anybody was informed; it was evident that without the utmost good luck and efficiency it would be tough going to push everything through by 9 August. After an hour’s meeting, Keng Swee phoned me in the Cameron Highlands from Singapore House (in Kuala Lumpur) to tell me the outcome, in Mandarin. It was not his strongest language, but there was no direct dialling to the Camerons in 1965, and trunk calls had to go through operators who spoke no Mandarin.

On the morning of Friday, 6 August, I travelled by car to Kuala Lumpur. Choo and the children stayed behind in the Camerons until Saturday so people would see them and think I was still there. Neither Keng Swee nor Eddie was sure that the Tunku, who was now back, had not changed his mind, in which case everything was off. But when I arrived in Kuala Lumpur that afternoon, they were there with the documents. After I had studied and approved them, they went to see Razak, Ismail and Kadir Yusof, the attorney-general. The meeting went on for hours and hours as I waited impatiently and alone at Singapore House. Late in the evening, Eddie phoned to say that Tan Siew Sin wanted amendments included whereby we would take over the guarantees that the central government had given the IMF and the World Bank for loans granted to Singapore, a niggling detail. I agreed to that, and Eddie and Kadir Yusof started work on the drafts. More hours passed before Eddie phoned again to say that Razak’s stenographer was so unaccustomed to legal documents that the typing was getting nowhere. As Wong Chooi Sen and my personal assistant Teo Ban Hock were both at Singapore House, Eddie called them to Razak’s home, where they did the typing and completed the job, amendments and all. But it took them until well after midnight. When he returned to Singapore House with Keng Swee, Eddie said they had all got drunk while waiting, and when the documents were finally ready, he was the only one sober enough to want to read them before he signed. Razak, who liked Eddie from their hockey-playing
days in Raffles College, said, “Eddie, it’s your draft, it’s your chap who typed the final document, so what are you reading it for?” So Eddie, too, signed without further ado –
“sign buta”
(signing blindly), as he told me in Malay. Keng Swee was so soused that he had gone straight to bed. But Eddie went through the documents, was greatly relieved to find no mistakes, then handed them to me.

After I had quickly scanned the amendments myself, I looked at Eddie and said, “Thanks, Eddie, we’ve pulled off a bloodless coup.” It was a coup against the British government and their vigilant proconsul Head, a constitutional coup engineered right under the noses of the British, Australians and New Zealanders who were defending Malaysia with their armed forces. At very little notice, we had thought of a way to achieve what the Tunku could not accomplish with his own staff because it had to be carried out in great secrecy and the shortest possible time, including three readings of the bill in one session of parliament on a certificate of urgency, or it could never have succeeded.

I had been apprehensive that Head would probably have advised his government to acquiesce at extra-constitutional measures to neutralise the PAP if he had found out in time to stop it. But with the documents signed, even if the British persuaded the Tunku and his colleagues not to take it through parliament, once I had published the agreements and the proclamation of independence in the government gazette, Singapore’s relationship with Malaysia would change irrevocably.

Now I had to get my other colleagues to agree. I telephoned Chin Chye to ask him to come up to Kuala Lumpur, although it was after midnight. Next I spoke to the Istana telephone operator. The Istana exchange was manned 24 hours a day, and the man on duty that night was a most reliable retainer from the days of the British governors. I told him to get a car to pick up Chin Chye immediately and bring him to Kuala Lumpur by early next morning. I then spoke to Raja and asked him to drive up. I did not want them to come together because that would
arouse speculation that something was up, and also because they would stiffen each other’s resolve to oppose any rearrangements of Malaysia, let alone a clean break.

Chin Chye arrived early that morning. As he came in by the front door, Eddie left by the back to avoid meeting him. I brought Chin Chye up to date and showed him the documents. He was upset and disturbed. Shortly afterwards, Raja arrived. Othman Wok, our minister for social affairs, had driven him up in his car. Then Keng Swee joined us, and we sat down and talked. For a few hours Chin Chye and Raja contemplated the painful decision confronting them. They did not want to sign.

At about noon on 7 August, I went to the Residency to see the Tunku. I waited for some 30 to 40 minutes in the sitting room while he was conferring with some of his officials in the dining room – I could see them in deep conversation through the glass door. Then he came out and sat with me alone for about 40 minutes.

I began, “We have spent years to bring about Malaysia. The best part of my adult life was to work towards Malaysia, from 1954 to 1963. We have had only less than two years of Malaysia. Do you really want to break it up? Don’t you think it wiser to go back to our original plan, which the British stopped, a looser federation or a confederation?”

But from his body language, I knew the Tunku had made up his mind. He said, “No. I am past that. There is no other way now. I have made up my mind; you go your way, we go our own way. So long as you are in any way connected with us, we will find it difficult to be friends because we are involved in your affairs and you will be involved in ours. Tomorrow, when you are no longer in Malaysia and we are no longer quarrelling either in parliament or in the constituencies, we’ll be friends again, and we’ll need each other, and we’ll cooperate.”

I dropped the subject. I had prepared myself for a long session, but once I saw he had closed his mind to any alternative, I told him that my difficulty was with Chin Chye, Raja, Pang Boon and all those Singapore
ministers whose families were in peninsular Malaysia. He told me that I had to settle that problem myself. I sought his help; would he see them?

“No. It is unnecessary,” he replied.

I returned to Singapore House to report our discussion to the others. Chin Chye sat at the desk by the foot of the stairs near the dining room, writing something. As I walked up the stairs, I saw that he had drawn a line down the middle of a piece of paper; on the left, he had put the arguments for, and on the right, the arguments against separation. It was Chin Chye, the careful academic. Raja, a chain-smoker, was outside on the patio puffing away. I drew Othman aside to ask if he would sign. He was a Malay and would again become a member of a minority if he did. He had no difficulty in signing, he said, but he was worried about the communists in Singapore. Twenty-five years later, in an interview on the anniversary of our independence, he recalled that I assured him, “Don’t worry, that’s my problem. I’ll handle that.”

After making no progress with both Chin Chye and Raja for some hours, I said to Chin Chye, “Why not see the Tunku? The old boy says he can’t hold the situation. You’d better see him, because I have seen him and I have come to the conclusion that this has gone beyond argument.” He agreed, so I went to the Tunku again that afternoon and told him that I had two ministers, Chin Chye and Raja, who were not going to sign and were absolutely adamant about it. Their families were in Malaya and they wanted to see him.

The Tunku was firm. “No, I don’t want to see them. Nothing more to discuss. You tell them.”

I said, “I have told them. At least you must write to them. Then they will take your word as final.”