40. UMNO’s “Crush Lee” Campaign

Beneath the increasingly acrimonious exchanges between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur lay a deeper and more fundamental clash between Tan Siew Sin and Keng Swee. Tan was out to block Singapore’s economic progress, and this became clear over the issue of pioneer certificates. The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) had to send to Kuala Lumpur for approval all applications of prospective investors in the island for pioneer certificates that would entitle them to tax-free status for between five and ten years. But during the two years we were in Malaysia, out of 69 applications, only two were approved, one of which had so many restrictions attached that it amounted to a refusal. To make doubly sure that Singapore would be thwarted, on 16 February, Tan publicly advised all industrialists to consult the central government before investing in Singapore so as to avoid “disappointments and misunderstandings” due to wrong assumptions and calculations. He gratuitously added that “assurances given by experts (in Singapore) were not always feasible”.

Not satisfied with blocking us, Tan wanted to take over our entire textile quota. The federal government had claimed quotas for woven textiles and made-up garments when they did not even have factories in which to produce them. Meanwhile, three Singapore textile factories had already been forced to retrench nearly 2,000 workers. Keng Swee said ironically that Singapore was being treated not as a constituent state of Malaysia, but as a dangerous rival to be kept down at all costs. The central government wanted to use the Singapore quota to establish a new garment industry in Malaya while depriving large numbers of unemployed garment workers in Singapore a chance of re-employment. In the end, under gentle pressure from Antony Head, Kuala Lumpur was shamed into giving back the quota to Singapore. By then, Keng Swee was convinced not only that we would not get a common market, but that Tan would seek to siphon off all industrial investments into Malaya regardless of what the investors wanted. He felt totally frustrated.

Keng Swee recounted in his oral history (1981):

“Tan Siew Sin acted on his own to spite us. Tan was very jealous of Singapore and very envious of Mr Lee. He saw the PAP as a threat to the MCA’s leadership of the Chinese in the peninsula and therefore did not want Singapore to succeed. They (MCA ministers Tan and Lim Swee Aun) acted in utter bad faith. And that is why the longer we stayed in Malaysia, the more doubtful we became that we did the right thing.”

Keng Swee then referred to a conversation he had had with Leonard Rist, the World Bank expert who advised the Malayan and Singapore governments on the common market and had recommended that it be implemented in progressive stages.

Keng Swee asked, “Suppose he (Tan) does not play the game and the common market does not get off the ground – what happens?”

Rist answered, “In that event, Mr Minister, it’s not the common market which should be in danger; the whole concept of Malaysia would be in danger.”

Keng Swee was completely disenchanted. Although he had been against our taking part in the 1964 election in Malaya, he now recognised that it was as well that we had, for it enabled us to rally political opinion, which could restrain the excesses of the central government. He had given up any hope of cooperation. He expected no good to come out of Malaysia. Indeed, he expected endless problems. His gloom made Chin Chye even more determined to build some counterweight to the arbitrariness of the centre. Tan’s spite was one powerful reason why we had to mobilise the ground throughout the Federation.

The race issue overshadowed everything else. During a session of the federal parliament in November 1964, Dr Lim Chong Eu, MP and leader of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) based in Penang, commiserated with me over the two race riots we had suffered in Singapore. He said he had experienced it all. From his description of the disorders in Penang in the 1950s, I realised that what Albar and his UMNO Turks had applied in Singapore was a well-tested method. The police and the army held the ring while favouring the Malay rioters – usually bersilat groups, thugs and gangsters let loose to make mischief. Once passions were aroused and enough Chinese counter-attacked, even ordinary Malays joined in. When the Chinese hit back, they were clobbered by the police and army: law and order were enforced against them, not against the Malays. The result was a sullen, cowed population.

We had jumped out of the frying pan of the communists into the fire of the Malay communalists. We had to find a counter to this system of intimidation through race riots, with Chinese being killed and maimed wherever they dared to resist Malay domination. We decided that one effective defence would be to link the opposition in all the towns in the Federation in one network, so that a riot in one major city triggered off riots in others to a point where the police and army would be unable to cope, and all hell would be let loose. So we set out to mobilise fellow sufferers who could together put up this counter-threat. If we could find them in Sabah and Sarawak as well as on the mainland, the Chinese in Kuching, Sibu and Jesselton (now renamed Kota Kinabalu) would also riot, and any communal intimidation by Kuala Lumpur would risk tearing Malaysia apart.

Our moves to unite did not escape attention. On 24 April 1965, the Tunku disclosed in a speech that there were plans for an opposition get-together. He knew the non-Malays were combining forces to make a stand for a multiracial Malaysia, as against a Malay Malaysia, and he suspected I was to be their leader. He warned, “But the people should, however, make a study of this man before they give their heart and soul to any such move. The Alliance and Mr Lee Kuan Yew have worked together for Malaysia, but we found it difficult to carry on after Malaysia.” The Tunku had good reason to be concerned. The opposition MPs in the federal parliament had been getting increasingly restive as they listened to the racist speeches made by Albar and the young UMNO Malay leaders. Dr Lim Chong Eu of the UDP in Penang, the two Seenivasagam brothers of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in Perak, Ong Kee Hui and Stephen Yong of the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and Donald Stephens and Peter Mojuntin of the United Pasok Momogun Kadazan Organisation (UPKO) in Sabah had all by then made overtures to suggest a link-up with the PAP.

The process had begun in January when Dr Lim and Stephens had come to see me separately. Neither meeting had been entirely satisfactory. Dr Lim wanted me to become president of his consumers’ association in order to bring about a broad united front of all non-communal parties in Malaysia. I declined. If we came together it must be done openly, not surreptitiously through a consumers’ association, or we would lose credibility. Stephens was proposing to leave the Alliance, quit his token appointment as federal minister of Sabah affairs, and get his UPKO members to resign from the Sabah cabinet to prepare for the coming state election. He wanted the PAP to merge with UPKO before that in order to help him win over the Chinese votes in the towns and thus ensure him of a majority in the Sabah State Assembly. The son of an Australian father and a Kadazan mother, he was a big, affable, overweight, pleasure-loving journalist who owned a newspaper in Sabah; chief minister until he joined the federal government, he was the ablest of the Kadazans of his time. But he was not interested in my wider project for a united front that would take in the other opposition parties.

Despite these false starts, I circulated a note to all ministers:

“If we miss this moment, it may be years before we are able to get an equally dramatic occasion for a realignment of forces within Malaysia. On the other hand, taking such a step by which all non-communal parties get together must mean a broad opposition led mainly by the non-Malays against the Alliance led by the Malays in UMNO. Once such a convention has been called and a chain reaction triggered off in men’s minds, we can be sure that the fight would very quickly become sharp and acute.”

When UMNO already treated us as an opponent and clearly would not cooperate with us, it was a waste of time to postpone a decision. As far as UMNO was concerned, the fight was on, and unless we gathered strength to meet it, UMNO would always have its own way.

On 12 February, Malaysian opposition leaders had met Chin Chye, Raja and myself at Sri Temasek in Singapore, and again on 1 March at Singapore House in Kuala Lumpur, where Stephens turned up in his official car with a flag fluttering and a bodyguard. We thought him rather brave to have done this, until the Tunku came out with his statement on 24 April when we deduced that Stephens had leaked our plans to him. We had decided to move with caution and had sent Lee Khoon Choy and Eddie Barker (my old friend and former partner in Lee & Lee, then minister for law) to assess the political situation in Sarawak and Sabah. They came back convinced we should not open PAP branches in Sarawak. The Chinese there were very strongly left-wing as in the days of the Barisan in Singapore; they were still resentful at having been bundled into Malaysia, and at the PAP for having helped to bring it about. In Sabah, we were likely to get Chinese support and it was feasible to open PAP branches, but we would have to form a coalition with Stephens’ UPKO, whose Kadazan supporters were in the majority. I decided not to move into East Malaysia directly, but to work with the present leaders of the opposition there. Chin Chye invited them to a meeting in Singapore on 8 May. Stephens absented himself, but the heads of the UDP (Penang), the PPP (Perak) and the SUPP and Machinda Party (Sarawak) attended and signed a declaration with us calling for a Malaysian Malaysia:

“A Malaysian Malaysia means that the state is not identified with the supremacy, well-being and interests of any one particular community or race. A Malaysian Malaysia is the antithesis of a Malay Malaysia, a Chinese Malaysia, a Dayak Malaysia, an Indian Malaysia or Kadazan Malaysia and so on. The special and legitimate interests of different communities must be secured and promoted within the framework of the collective rights, interests and responsibilities of all races.

“The growing tendency among some leaders to make open appeals to communal chauvinism to win and hold their following has gradually led them also to what has been tantamount to a repudiation of the concept of a Malaysian Malaysia. … If people are discouraged and denounced for abandoning communal loyalties because they have found common ground for political action with Malaysians of other races, then the professed concern for a Malaysian Malaysia is open to serious doubts.”

The declaration ended:

“A Malaysian Malaysia is worth fighting for because only in such a Malaysia is there a decent and dignified future for all Malaysians. It is in this spirit and expectation that we, the undersigned, appeal to all Malaysians to support this convention.”

Although I had been away throughout this period attending a Socialist Youth Conference in Bombay and then visiting Laos and Cambodia, UMNO decided that I had been the moving spirit behind the convention and attacked me vigorously. Albar and the Utusan Melayu were getting bolder and wilder in their accusations. Angered by an article in the London Observer, Albar sent an open letter in mid-April to Dennis Bloodworth, its Far Eastern Correspondent, which was published in the Utusan and included this paragraph:

“As you know the Malays are having a rough time in Singapore and are now being oppressed by the PAP. Lee Kuan Yew is continually challenging their national sentiment with provocative statements, yet in spite of all these, it was not the Malays who started the 1964 riots. The riots were started by agents provocateurs, who may even be in the pay of Lee Kuan Yew. Lee’s intention is to create disorder in Singapore at a time when the Malays are gathering to celebrate the birth of Prophet Mohammed, so as to give the impression to the world outside that the Malays are already influenced by Indonesia.”

I decided on a libel action to check these excesses, and my lawyers took the opinion of a leading Queen’s Counsel in London. He had no doubt that it was a libel, and when Albar and the Utusan refused an apology and a retraction, my solicitors took action against them. In their writs they spelt out the innuendo of the libel as meaning that I was a hypocrite, an enemy of and a traitor to my own country, a criminal in that I was responsible for the disturbances and incidents of violence resulting in death and injury to members of the public, and that I was unfit to be prime minister of Singapore.

In the action, I cited a story the Utusan published on 25 March 1965: “Lee is accused of being an enemy of Malaysia and an agent of Indonesia. WALK OVER MY DEAD BODY FIRST – ALBAR … Tuan Syed Ja’afar Albar, General Secretary, UMNO Malaya last night accused the PM of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew as being an enemy of Malaysia and an agent of Indonesia.” I also cited an article on 27 March: “Albar accuses Kuan Yew of being an agent of the communists. … The PM of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, is an agent of the communists and the Djakarta regime which has the evil intention to destroy Malaysia … Lee Kuan Yew has the evil intention to destroy Malaysia and pit the Malays and Chinese against each other”.

Now that those words would be scrutinised in a court of law, they became more circumspect. (In 1966, after separation, Albar and the Utusan agreed to apologise in court through their lawyers and pay for all the costs of my action.)

Not only was I meeting Albar’s poison with reason, but my message was also getting through to secondary UMNO leaders at Menteri Besar (chief minister) level. To Albar’s shock, the Menteri Besar of Perlis, the northernmost state of Malaysia, welcomed a statement I had made, repeating my argument that special privileges for the Malays would only help a small group of bourgeoisie, whereas what was needed was to enable the mass of Malay have-nots in the rural areas to increase their earning capacity.

Then Razak attacked me for a “statement” I had never made and had already denied making – that the Malays were not the indigenous people of Malaysia. Saying that this was mischievous and dangerous and had created a serious situation, he issued an ultimatum that the Alliance government would not work with me and “if the people of Singapore wish to maintain their relationship with us, they must find another leader who is sincere”. Two days later, a group of UMNO youths in Kuala Lumpur burnt me in effigy, and on 16 May, another group picketed the Language Institute where the general meeting of UMNO was due to be held. They carried banners in Malay reading “Suspend Singapore Constitution”, “Detain Lee Kuan Yew”, “Crush Lee Kuan Yew”, and when the Tunku arrived, they shouted “Detain Lee Kuan Yew, detain Lee Kuan Yew!” At the meeting, several delegates demanded my detention, but Ismail said, “This is not the way to do things in Malaysia. We must act constitutionally.” The Tunku subsequently described my alleged remark about the Malays not being indigenous to the country as childish, again ignoring the fact that I had never made it.

Tan Siew Sin again warned us that Singapore could not go it alone. “I would ask them to remember that Singapore cannot exist by itself. Even secession from Malaysia cannot eliminate the fact that less than 1.5 million Chinese there are surrounded by over 100 million people of the Malay race in this part of the world.” On my return from my visit to New Zealand and Australia, I replied that secession was out, but this, too, was ignored, and the Utusan Melayu reported that, on 24 May, Albar had again urged Ismail to take action against me:

“‘If Lee Kuan Yew is really a man, he should not be beating about the bush in his statements and should be brave enough to say “I want to secede from Malaysia because I am not satisfied.” He had entered Malaysia with his eyes open and the present Malaysia was the same Malaysia he had endorsed. Why did he not think of all these objections before? Why only now has he regretted? Why?’ asked Albar in a high-pitched tone. His audience replied, ‘Crush Lee, crush Lee,’ and several voices shouted ‘Arrest Lee and preserve him like entrails in pickle.’ Dato Albar smiled for a moment and then replied, ‘Shout louder so that Dr Ismail can hear the people’s anger. I want to make quite sure that everybody hears the people’s anger.’”

Albar was using the same technique he had employed in Singapore before the 1964 riots. The next day, the Utusan carried a story quoting the Menteri Besar of Selangor, headlined “Lee Kuan Yew is the enemy of the people of Malaya”, and another Malay paper, the Berita Harian, reported that the Menteri Besar of Perak had labelled me “the most dangerous threat to the security of the country.” They were working things up to fever pitch.

The attacks reached a climax when Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad, an UMNO MP (later, prime minister of Malaysia), denounced the PAP in the federal parliament as “pro-Chinese, communist-oriented and positively anti-Malay”, saying Singapore had retained multilingualism while paying only lip-service to the national language, and that “In some police stations, Chinese is the official language, and statements are taken in Chinese.” The national language schools, he said, were the worst-treated on the island, and until very recently had been given only the most primitive facilities. “In industry, the PAP policy is to encourage Malays to become labourers only but Malays are not given facilities to invest as well.” Mahathir was speaking in the debate on the address of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the king.