Singapore committed to good ties with Vietnam and Cambodia, says MFA after furore over PM Lee Hsien Loong's comments

It responds to furore in the two countries over PM Lee's remarks on 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia
The Straits Times, 8 Jun 2019

Singapore is committed to building on its good relations with Vietnam and Cambodia, and hopes that they can continue to grow based on candour and trust, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said last night.

Its statement was in response to unhappiness in Vietnam and Cambodia over Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's recent comments on the 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.

"Singapore highly values its relations with Cambodia and Vietnam. Notwithstanding our differences in the past, we have always treated each other with respect and friendship," the ministry said.

"Bilateral relations have grown in many areas, and we worked together with other South-east Asian countries to build a cohesive and united ASEAN."

This was the context of PM Lee's comments, said the statement, adding that they reflect Singapore's longstanding viewpoint, which has been stated publicly before.

Singapore upholds the principle that no country should violate the sovereignty of another.

Additionally, if it were not opposed, Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia would create an undesirable precedent for small countries such as Singapore.

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan made separate phone calls to Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh and Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Prak Sokhonn yesterday. Dr Balakrishnan explained these points to his counterparts. "They agreed that notwithstanding the serious differences in the past, we have taken the path of cooperation, dialogue and friendship," the statement added.

Both Hanoi and Phnom Penh have protested since PM Lee wrote a Facebook post on May 31 that mentioned Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in 1978.

The Vietnamese troops then ousted a Khmer Rouge regime that had wiped out up to one-third of Cambodia's population.

In expressing his condolences for the death of Thai statesman Prem Tinsulanonda, PM Lee wrote about how ASEAN - then comprising Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines - came together "to oppose Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia and the Cambodian government that replaced the Khmer Rouge".

"Thailand was on the front line, facing Vietnamese forces across its border with Cambodia. General Prem was resolute in not accepting this fait accompli, and worked with ASEAN partners to oppose the Vietnamese occupation in international forums," PM Lee wrote.

"This prevented the military invasion and regime change from being legitimised. It protected the security of other South-east Asia countries and decisively shaped the course of the region."



PM Lee also mentioned the issue during his keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue on May 31 when he was talking about the formation of ASEAN.

Cambodia and Vietnam objected to PM Lee's remarks. Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh told local media earlier this week that PM Lee's comments were "unacceptable" and "not true".

Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it "regretted" that PM Lee's remarks did not "objectively reflect the historical truth" and, as a result, caused "negative impact" on public opinion.

Netizens from Vietnam also flooded PM Lee's Facebook page expressing unhappiness.

On Thursday night, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Facebook that he deeply regretted PM Lee's statement, and said it revealed that the "leader of Singapore had indeed contributed to the massacre of Cambodian people".

"His statement reflects Singapore's position then in support of the genocidal regime and the wish for its return to Cambodia," he said.

In its statement yesterday, the MFA noted that Singapore's founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew wrote in his memoirs about Singapore's longstanding view of what happened.

ASEAN, then comprising five members, also stated its position on Cambodia clearly in a joint statement that was circulated to the United Nations Security Council in 1979, which "affirmed the right of the Kampuchean people to determine their future by themselves, free from interference or influence from outside powers in the exercise of their right of self-determination".



MFA said: "Singapore had no sympathy for the Khmer Rouge, and did not want to see the Khmer Rouge return to Cambodia."

It noted that in 1988, ASEAN sponsored UN General Assembly resolutions condemning the Khmer Rouge to ensure it would not be part of any eventual government in Cambodia. "Singapore and ASEAN were keen to provide humanitarian assistance to the Cambodian people," it said.

"ASEAN spearheaded the 1980 International Meeting of Humanitarian Assistance and Relief to the Kampuchean People, which took place under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council."

The statement said PM Lee had made reference to this history "to explain how statesmanship and foresight helped to end the tragic wars that caused great suffering to the people of Indochina, and to bring about the peace and cooperation that the region enjoys today".

"He also wanted to emphasise that regional stability and prosperity, as well as ASEAN unity, cannot be taken for granted. The current geopolitical uncertainties make it all the more important that ASEAN countries maintain our unity and cohesion, and strengthen our cooperation."

Select Committee on fake news: 22 recommendations unveiled to combat online falsehoods in Singapore

Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehood Report - 20 Sep 2018





Select Committee releases 22 proposals to combat fake news
It calls for new laws to give Govt power to quickly disrupt spread of falsehoods
By Royston Sim, Deputy Political Editor, The Straits Times, 21 Sep 2018

A parliamentary Select Committee has called for new laws that will grant the Government power to swiftly disrupt the spread of online falsehoods, as part of a broad suite of measures to counter the "live and serious threat" posed by fake news.

The Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods made 22 recommendations in all, from enacting legislation to urging technology companies to take proactive steps to tackle fake content and creating a national framework to guide public education on falsehoods.

It submitted a 176-page report to Parliament on Wednesday, almost six months after it held public hearings over eight days in March to listen to oral representations from 65 individuals and organisations.

Responding to the committee's report yesterday evening, the Government said it accepts in principle the recommendation for a multi-pronged response to tackle deliberate online falsehoods.

The 10-member committee, chaired by Deputy Speaker of Parliament Charles Chong, was appointed in January to examine the phenomenon of deliberate online falsehoods and study what measures Singapore should take to prevent and combat the problem.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, committee member and Senior Minister of State Janil Puthucheary said the phenomenon of deliberate online falsehoods "threatens our national security".

He pointed to how "malicious actors" have been testing the limits of what they can do online.

"They essentially have been looking for different ways to weaponise falsehoods on the Internet. This phenomenon has grown in strength and has resulted in consequences in various parts of the world."

Different governments are taking steps to protect their people and their countries against online falsehoods, he said. "They see and appreciate the need for swift action, and Singapore, too, is doing our best to act early."



There is no one silver bullet to tackle this complex problem, the committee said, as it proposed multiple short-and long-term measures, grouped in five broad areas.

Its recommendations are aimed at disrupting online falsehoods, nurturing an informed public, reinforcing social cohesion and trust, promoting fact-checking and dealing with threats to national security and sovereignty.

Yesterday, the Government said it will study the committee's report closely and work with stakeholders to roll out the non-legislative and legislative measures it recommended over the next few months.

On disrupting online falsehoods, the committee said the Government should have the power to limit or block the spread of fake news, and discredit the sources of such falsehoods. Legislation will be needed to disrupt the spread and influence of fake news, it stressed.

In recommending new laws - a move observers had expected - the committee did not delve into specifics. Rather, it set out the principles any new laws should follow.

For instance, the measures need to be effective in a matter of hours, to achieve the aim of stopping the falsehoods from going viral. These measures could include take-down powers and blocking access.



The committee also suggested that there be laws to cut off digital advertising revenue to those who spread fake news and impose criminal sanctions in serious cases, such as when falsehoods cause public disorder or interfere in elections.

In a nod to concerns about legislative over-reach and stifling free speech, the committee said the new laws should be calibrated, taking into account the context and circumstances of each case.

"It is also important that they be accompanied by checks and balances," the committee said, adding that adequate safeguards need to be put in place to ensure due process and the proper exercise of power.

To bring about a more informed public, the committee recommended creating a framework to guide efforts to improve media literacy among Singaporeans.

It suggested that media organisations and industry partners consider setting up a fact-checking coalition to swiftly debunk fake news, and gave several ideas on ways to ensure accurate journalism.

Technology companies need to be more transparent and accountable, the committee said. It listed steps they could take, including closing accounts that are designed to amplify online falsehoods and banning the placement of advertisements on sites that spread fake news.

It added that the Government should consider both legislation and other forms of regulation to get technology companies to comply.

"Legislation would be needed particularly for measures to be taken in response to an online falsehood, since Facebook, Google and Twitter have a policy of generally not acting against content on the basis that it is false," it said.



The committee devoted the first half of its report to outlining the serious harm of deliberate online falsehoods, which can and have wreaked havoc. Such falsehoods are a "unique phenomenon of an unprecedented scale", and can damage the social fabric of a nation and violate national sovereignty.

Deliberate online falsehoods are a real and serious problem for the world, and Singapore, it concluded.

Mr Chong said all members agreed unanimously on the report.

On why the committee has called for what he described as "strong measures", Dr Janil pointed to the nature of online falsehoods.

"They are more easily believed, they travel further, they travel faster and they are much harder to dislodge. We need measures that have the same degree of strength to counter the asymmetry that exists between the falsehoods and the truth that is out there."

Facts, falsehoods, feedback - Janil Puthucheary has firm grasp of them all

Singapore recently saw a major Cabinet reshuffle, during which fourth-generation ministers stepped up to key positions. These younger leaders will also feature prominently in the new Parliament session, which opens today (7 May). In the third of a series of interviews, The Straits Times speaks to Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information and Transport Janil Puthucheary. Increasing complexity of engaging with the public in an era of social media is an issue that is core to his work at MCI
By Yasmine Yahya, Senior Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 7 May 2018

In the weeks after historian Thum Ping Tjin was questioned for six hours over his research into Operation Coldstore, there were some rumblings on social media that the Government had gone too far during the parliamentary committee hearing on fake news.

Concerned, Dr Janil Puthucheary went down to the ground to ask people: Did they really feel that way?

He recounts: "This is exactly what we did when we were receiving feedback on how everybody was so angry and worried about the Select Committee process and the six hours: We went to the grassroots, into the constituency, door to door - and nobody asked about it, nobody wanted to talk about it, nobody was the least bit concerned about it."

It is one example of how there is sometimes "a disconnect" between a vocal segment of society and the average Singaporean, he says in an interview with The Straits Times last week.

That does not mean he dismisses what he reads online, he stresses.

"You need both. You have to understand what are the implications of feedback coming through the different channels," he says.

The increasing complexity of engaging with the public in an era of social media is an issue that is core to Dr Janil's work at the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI). It is an area that the ministry has significantly stepped up on, in particular after the watershed 2011 General Election.

The Government has since been seen to be more responsive to feedback, and this is dependent, in turn, on getting an accurate sensing on the ground.

Dr Janil says the key is not to rely on any single channel or any single viewpoint.

"You must have more than a triangulation, a multitude of inputs and a multitude of viewpoints.

"And then go back out again and ask, 'Is this what you're really worried about? I'm told this is what you're really worried about.' "

Foreign interference in Singapore politics: ACRA rejects company application from Thum Ping Tjin, Kirsten Han; says it has foreign funding links to George Soros

Purposes of proposed firm clearly political in nature: ACRA
It rejects company application, saying it has links to foreign funding from group with political agenda
By Joanna Seow, Manpower Correspondent, The Straits Times, 12 Apr 2018

An application by historian Thum Ping Tjin and freelance journalist Kirsten Han to register a company has been rejected on the grounds that the registration would be contrary to Singapore's national interests.

The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) said yesterday that the purposes of the proposed company, OSEA Pte Ltd, "are clearly political in nature".

OSEA Pte Ltd, it said, has links to foreign funding from a group led by billionaire George Soros, which was set up to pursue a political agenda the world over.

ACRA noted that OSEA was to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of a British-registered company called Observatory Southeast Asia (OSEA UK).

OSEA UK has received a grant of US$75,000 (S$98,000) from a Swiss charitable entity, Foundation Open Society Institute (FOSI), said ACRA.

FOSI is closely associated with Open Society Foundations (OSF), founded and led by Mr Soros, it added.

In a statement, the authority said that what happens in other jurisdictions is not the concern of the Singapore Government.

"OSF and FOSI, and other foreign philanthropies and groups, can fund whatever causes they like elsewhere," it said.

"In Singapore, however, our position is that none of them can be allowed to fund Singaporean organisations or individuals participating in our domestic politics. The registration of OSEA Pte Ltd would therefore be contrary to Singapore's national interests.

"Singapore's politics should be for Singaporeans alone to determine. We should not allow foreigners to interfere in how we should govern our country. Nor should we allow any group of Singaporeans to lend themselves to being used by foreigners to pursue a political activity in Singapore."

ACRA said an application was made to register OSEA Pte Ltd on Feb 8. Dr Thum - a research fellow and coordinator of Project Southeast Asia at the University of Oxford - was cited as its director and Ms Han its editor-in-chief.

Its proposed activities included organising discussion fora, workshops and other events in Singapore, such as "Democracy Classroom" sessions.

Another of its objectives was to provide editorial services to a website named New Naratif, which both are involved in.

ACRA said New Naratif has been publishing articles "critical of politics" in the region, such as articles claiming that certain governments are using violence to maintain political control, had manipulated events or framed them for political gain, and have "rigged" their electoral systems.

"The purposes of the proposed company are clearly political in nature," said ACRA.

Operation Coldstore and the perils of academic misinformation; History is not the preserve of historians

By Kumar Ramakrishna, Published The Straits Times, 4 Apr 2018

Singaporeans have been abuzz over the extraordinary marathon exchange at the Select Committee hearings on deliberate online falsehoods involving Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam and Dr Thum Ping Tjin, an Oxford-based historian.

Netizens are wondering why a hearing on the fake news problem came across instead as a technical, and sometimes testy, academic debate on contending interpretations of Singapore's post-war history.

The following key points are pertinent.

First, Dr Thum lit the fuse to his own bonfire. In his formal submission to the Select Committee, he had made two key assertions: first, that "the politicians of Singapore's People's Action Party" had, over the decades, been regularly disseminating "falsehoods".

Second, he alleged that, beginning with the February 1963 internal security dragnet Operation Coldstore, official governmental announcements that "people were being detained without trial" because of "involvement with radical communist conspiracies to subvert the state", were in fact, a "lie".

He asserted that Coldstore itself was mounted for political and not security reasons, to enable founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to secure "political gain" over his opponents.

It was almost as if Dr Thum was baiting the Government, and Mr Shanmugam - known for his pugnacity in the courtroom - duly responded. That is to say, when one waves a red flag in front of a bull, one should not be surprised when the bull charges.

A second pertinent point arising from the hearing is that Dr Thum repeated his "central contention", that "there is no evidence that the detainees of Operation Coldstore were involved in any violent Communist conspiracy to subvert and overthrow the Singapore Government".

FLAWED METHODOLOGY

He added that "thus far, no historian has come out and contradicted the central thrust of my work". This is inaccurate.

On April 1, 2015, I launched at the National Library my book Original Sin? Revising The Revisionist Critique Of The 1963 Operation Coldstore In Singapore.

The book essentially critiqued the notion by Dr Thum and similar "revisionist" historians that Coldstore was mounted for crass political reasons rather than legitimate security ones.

In other words, it is simply untrue that his scholarship has been unchallenged.

Public Hearings on Fake News: 27 - 29 March 2018

Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods - Public Hearings
- 14 - 16 March 2018
- 22 - 23 March 2018


Day 6: 27 Mar 2018






No need for new laws to tackle fake news, say activists
They call instead for greater public access to information and more media literacy
By Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh, The Straits Times, 28 Mar 2018

There is no need for new legislation to deal with online fabrications, said activists and content producers, as they called for greater public access to information and improving media literacy.

Their call sparked a long debate yesterday when four of them appeared before the Select Committee on deliberate online falsehoods, as one of its members, Mr Edwin Tong, sought for over five hours to convince them otherwise.

Yesterday was the sixth day of public hearings, which have so far seen 51 representatives speak since March 14. The last hearing is slated to take place tomorrow.

Mr Tong pointed out that previous witnesses - including academics and legal experts - had identified gaps in existing legislation and acknowledged that stronger laws, along with a slew of other measures such as public education, would help tackle the scourge of fake news.

He and fellow committee member Janil Puthucheary also noted that a poll by government feedback unit REACH found that about nine in 10 respondents felt there should be more effective laws to require the removal or correction of false reports.

But the panel of speakers - made up of Maruah vice-president Ngiam Shih Tung, freelance journalist Kirsten Han, The Online Citizen chief editor Terry Xu and graduate student Howard Lee - remained largely unswayed.



The four witnesses had in their written submissions argued that existing laws are sufficient to deal with online falsehoods.

Human rights group Maruah cautioned that any new laws could stifle free speech and be used to stifle legitimate, dissenting views.

Mr Xu noted that countries cited in the Green Paper on online falsehoods as introducing new laws are doing so because their existing laws "are very liberal" compared with Singapore's, "which cover all aspects of free speech".

The witnesses suggested instead more media literacy and political education, as well as a Freedom of Information Act.



Yesterday, Mr Tong asked the panel how online falsehoods, hate groups that have cropped up on social media and offensive cartoons, among other things, can be countered without new legislation.

Ms Han said repeatedly that she was against new laws, including those to compel technology giants such as Facebook and Twitter to take down content.

CIA closely monitored PAP's struggles with leftists

Lee Kuan Yew considered leaving party after pro-communists won control of CEC: Source
By Lim Yan Liang, The Straits Times, 31 Jan 2017

In August 1957, Singapore was still a British colony. However, earlier that year, Britain agreed to set in motion the wheels for internal self-government.

The Labour Front, helmed by then Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock, was in power in Singapore's fledgling Legislative Assembly, and the People's Action Party (PAP), led by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, in opposition.

That month, at the fourth PAP conference, pro-communists won control of the top posts in the Central Executive Committee (CEC), the party's highest decision-making body - a blow for its more moderate wing.

Such a blow that Mr Lee's name cropped up in intelligence reports by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in the context of a bold new development. Mr Lee might leave the PAP to start a new party with the Labour Front's Mr Lim, the CIA was told.

A source within Mr Lim's Labour Front party told the American consulate-general that Mr Lee was staying in the PAP temporarily so as to marshal the moderates "to create confusion among the leadership".

"Failure to regain his authority, which appears likely because of his present weakened position, may lead to his resignation at an opportune moment to help the Labour Front form a new party," read the intelligence report.

It was part of a trove of 930,000 declassified documents published online by the CIA this month. Many of its reports at the height of the Cold War were concerned about rising communist influence in Asia.

The report on the PAP, headed Communists Assume Virtual Control Of Influential Singapore Party, went on to say such an alliance would be "a logical development" for both men, given Mr Lee's loss of influence in the PAP and Mr Lim's need for a stronger political outfit.

Such an alliance would be urgent, as city council elections - the first time all seats would be open for popular voting - were a few months away, the CIA noted.

Of course, its reports were compiled from intelligence by officers in the field in various countries, with all the challenges of authenticity and motivation for such information that this might involve.

Indeed, history turned out differently: Mr Lim's government launched a series of anti-communist arrests. Among the 35 picked up in the first swoop were five of the six newly elected left-wing members of the PAP's CEC.

The arrests allowed the moderate wing of the PAP to regain control, and caused the Labour Front to lose support among the Chinese majority. The PAP went on to win 13 of the 32 seats in the city council later in December to Labour Front's four.

The agency's database of more than 12 million pages on CIA activities from the 1940s to 1990s also includes some 28,000 pages of declassified presidential briefs from the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Historians told The Straits Times that the CIA assessments have stood the test of time, and provide insights into what the US thought was important to know of Singapore and the world, and also how that information was processed into assessments and used in policy briefs.

"They show that the CIA 50 years ago was well informed about politics in Singapore, and able to make perceptive judgments about Lee Kuan Yew and how he was defining Singapore and its policy dilemmas," said Mr Kwa Chong Guan, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. "There is not much to disagree with in these assessments even today."

MDA lifts ban on 240 publications after routine review

They range from anti-colonial and communist material to adult interest books
By Chong Zi Liang, The Straits Times, 26 Nov 2015

A ban on 240 publications, ranging from decades-old anti-colonial and communist material to adult interest books, has been lifted after a routine review by the Media Development Authority (MDA).

But 17 publications or sources remain prohibited under the Undesirable Publications Act, which restricts publications that the Government considers contrary to public interest. This means individuals are not allowed to possess these publications and they cannot be distributed or sold in Singapore.

The announcement was made on the online portal of the Government Gazette yesterday . The MDA said it "routinely reviews prior classification decisions, in order to ensure that they keep pace with societal norms".

It added that the decision was made after discussions with government agencies and the Publications Consultative Panel, which gives views and feedback to MDA.

Nanyang Technological University media law expert Mark Cenite said the move "seems more like a housekeeping exercise than a substantive policy change", as many of the publications are out of print or no longer in demand.

Also, the authorities can still prosecute violators under other laws, such as the Penal Code, that deal with obscene content, he said.

Terror's evolving threat to Singapore

By Zakir Hussain, Deputy Political Editor, The Straits Times, 27 Apr 2015

A FEW weeks after the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, two Al-Qaeda operatives arrived separately in Singapore to start scouting for targets.

A plan was formed to detonate six truck bombs across the island.

The men, codenamed Mike and Sammy, met members of a clandestine radical network, surveilled targets and made plans to buy ammonium nitrate for the bombs.

Targets included embassies, an MRT station, water pipelines and the defence and education ministries.

Fortunately, the Government was tipped off and, by December, the first group of 13 Jemaah Islamiah (JI) members had been arrested, which averted a terror attack and its painful consequences.

By then, Mike and Sammy had left the country. Mike was actually Indonesian bomb-maker Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi, who was killed in a shootout in the Philippines in 2003. Sammy is a Canadian called Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, who is now serving a life sentence in the US.

Since the 2001 arrests, 66 individuals have been detained here under the Internal Security Act for terror-related activities.

This wave of global terrorism has posed the most significant threat to Singapore in recent decades. The threat has grown, and is unlikely to go away anytime soon in this globalised world.

Revisiting Operation Coldstore

In recent months, several historians and former detainees have questioned the legitimacy of a major government crackdown on communists and leftists in 1963, saying Operation Coldstore was politically motivated. Officials and several academics have responded to these claims, saying the communists posed a real security threat, while some say more evidence ought to be made available. Lim Yan Liang reports.
The Straits Times, 11 Apr 2015

IN THE early hours of Saturday, Feb 2, 1963, hundreds of armed policemen set off from the Special Branch headquarters in Robinson Road and outlying police stations in a major islandwide operation.

Codenamed Operation Coldstore, they visited homes and offices of leftist leaders and trade unionists, detaining 107 that day.

The swoop, The Sunday Times reported the next day, was "aimed at preventing subversives from establishing a 'Communist Cuba' in Singapore and mounting violence just before Malaysia".

These arrests shattered the underground communist network throughout the island.

The threat lingered, but as it faded over the years, many of those detained were released and went on to lead quiet lives.

In recent years, some have sought to give their version of events. As the 50th anniversary of Coldstore approached, several former detainees and academics began working on a book on their perspective on the detentions.

In The 1963 Operation Coldstore In Singapore: Commemorating 50 Years, launched in late 2013, they argued that the arrests were politically motivated against the leftist opposition and overstated the security threat.

Other articles and commentaries have also surfaced. Former Coldstore detainee Poh Soo Kai, a Barisan assistant secretary-general, argued last December that the purpose of Coldstore "was to eliminate Lim Chin Siong and the Barisan Sosialis from the 1963 general election".

In a feisty response to Dr Poh, the Government reiterated its position that Barisan was the main vehicle of the Communist United Front (CUF). The Barisan was formed by left-wing members who broke away from the People's Action Party (PAP) in 1961.

A new book launched this month also challenges several of these "revisionist" accounts of the communist threat head-on.

In "Original Sin"? Revising The Revisionist Critique Of The 1963 Operation Coldstore In Singapore, historian Kumar Ramakrishna rebuts three broad claims made by those who argue Coldstore was politically motivated.

These are: that the communist threat had been neutralised by the 1960s, that Barisan Sosialis leader Lim Chin Siong was not a communist or a security threat, and that Coldstore had been mounted to get rid of the progressive left.

Insight looks at these arguments and the rebuttals, and what shape the debate might take.

The Singapore that Lee Kuan Yew built

''Once in a long while in the history of a people there comes a moment of great change.''

Mr Lee Kuan Yew's victory speech in 1959, after being elected Singapore's first Prime Minister, foretold the transformation of the country from a tiny slum-ridden trading post into a global metropolis by the time he stepped down in 1990.

The Sunday Times looks at how Mr Lee and his team changed the destiny of Singapore and Singaporeans.
The Sunday Times, 29 Mar 2015

Housing: The wonder of taps, the fear of lifts
By Chong Zi Liang, The Sunday Times, 29 Mar 2015

When Madam Hiap Cheng Lay moved into a Housing Board rental flat in 1972, she felt a mixture of excitement and fear.

The mother of two young boys was eager to leave the attap house she had been sharing with another family.

However, there was just one problem: Her new home was on the 10th storey.

"I was really scared of entering the lift the first time. Who knew what would happen when the doors closed?" she recalled.

But taking the lift soon became a routine, and she grew to enjoy being 10 floors up.

"It was breezy being that high up. I no longer had to live in a stuffy kampung house."

Madam Hiap, now 71, is among hundreds of thousands of Singapore families who have benefited from the country's public housing programme.

When Mr Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister of self-governing Singapore in 1959, his Government embarked on a massive and urgent building programme.

In three years, the newly formed HDB built about 26,000 flats, more than its predecessor, the Singapore Improvement Trust, had built in 32 years.

Mr Lee also pushed for home ownership instead of rental, saying in his memoirs, From Third World To First, that during the riots in the 1950s and early 1960s, people would destroy cars and other property.

But they acted differently during riots in the mid-1960s after they owned homes and property.

Mr Lee saw young men carrying their scooters to safety up the stairs of their HDB blocks.

"I believed that a deep sense of property was instinctive in a person," he wrote.

"I was strengthened in my resolve to give every family solid assets which I was confident they would protect and defend, especially their home."

By the time Mr Lee stepped down as Prime Minister in 1990, eight in 10 Singaporeans were living in HDB flats.

Today, Madam Hiap is among 90 per cent of HDB dwellers who own their homes.

Recalling her kampung days in Bukit Panjang, she said she shared a house with wooden walls and a zinc roof with about 30 people.

There was no electricity or running water.

Candles were used at night.

Water had to be fetched in pails from a well about 250m away from the village.

"The streets were completely dark at night. We had to carry candles shielded by newspapers in case the flame went out," she said.

After she got married, life hardly improved as she shared another attap house with another family.

She still had to get water from a public tap by the roadside.

All that changed in 1972, when she moved into her first HDB flat that was rented for about $70 a month.

"You can't imagine what a difference it makes to have water coming out of a tap in your own home. Before that, even something as simple as brushing your teeth was a chore," she said.

Meanwhile, she made a living selling kueh illegally until 1975, when she rented a drinks stall at a hawker centre.

She worked from 6am to midnight almost daily.

"The other stallholders said, 'There's only 24 hours a day and you're working 18 of them, don't be too hard on yourself,'" she recalled.

But she had two young sons and her businessman husband was a gambler.

Her hard work and thrift enabled her to buy a $60,000 four-room flat in Jurong West in 1982, where she has been living since.

These days, she works only in the morning, leaving a helper to run the stall till 9pm.

Her two sons, now 46 and 47, completed their polytechnic studies and are doing well. They hold stable jobs, have their own families and live in their own HDB flats.

Madam Hiap, whose husband died about four years ago, said she had a tough life, but she is convinced she would have been worse off in another country.

"I don't have any education and can't even write my own name," she said.

"But I have a home that belongs to me. The Government has been fair to people like me and I will always be grateful."

Why inaccuracies in movies can contaminate memories

By Jeffrey M. Zacks, Published The Straits Times, 19 Feb 2015

New York - This year's Oscar nominees for Best Picture include four films based on true stories: American Sniper (about sharpshooter Chris Kyle), The Imitation Game (about mathematician Alan Turing), Selma (about the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965) and The Theory Of Everything (about physicist Stephen Hawking).

Each film has been criticised for factual inaccuracy. Doesn't Selma ignore Lyndon B. Johnson's dedication to black voting rights? Doesn't The Imitation Game misrepresent the nature of Turing's work, just as The Theory Of Everything does Hawking's? Doesn't American Sniper sanitise the military conflicts it purports to depict?

You might think: Does it really matter? Can't we keep the film world separate from the real world?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Studies show that if you watch a film - even one concerning historical events about which you are informed - your beliefs may be reshaped by "facts" that are not factual.

In a study published in the Psychological Science journal in 2009, researchers had college students read historical essays and then watch clips from films containing inaccurate information. Despite being warned that the films might contain factual distortions, the students produced about a third of the fake facts from the movies on a subsequent test.

In a study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology in 2012, researchers repeated the experiment and tried to eliminate the "misinformation effect" by explicitly asking the students to monitor the clips for inaccuracies.

It didn't work. The more engaged the students were by the clips, the more their memories were contaminated.

Why do we have such a hard time sorting film "facts" from real facts? One suggestion is that our minds are well equipped to remember things that we see or hear - but not to remember the source of those memories.

Rewriting history to understand our present

That Singaporeans remember some events of the past better than others is linked to a new generation wanting to rewrite history to better understand the times they live in
By Kwa Chong Guan, Published The Straits Times, 30 Jan 2015

THE findings of a recent Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) survey about the best remembered and least remembered events of Singapore's past have started another cycle of soul-searching on whether we are forgetting our history and, if so, what we should do about it.

The survey revealed that a low 16.6 per cent of the 1,500 citizens polled were aware of the 1963 detention of 113 persons for alleged communist activities, an incident dubbed Operation Coldstore. This was despite a new cycle of debates among a younger generation of historians challenging the official account that these 113 and others were engaged in communist activities.

There appears to be some concern that, in not remembering Operation Coldstore, Singaporeans are forgetting a key historical event of our past which we should be more aware of than the opening of the two casinos in 2010 - which topped the list of events that Singaporeans could recall. Explanations that the opening of the two casinos is a recent event which people can recall, in contrast to Operation Coldstore, which occurred 52 years ago, are not sufficient.

Some 89.8 per cent of those polled were aware of an event which occurred almost 200 years ago: Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles' landing on this island. It also cannot be that we are more aware of events which impact our daily lives - like breakdowns of the MRT trains or the Sars outbreak - and unaware of political events such as opposition politician J.B. Jeyaretnam's 1981 victory in the Anson by-elections because their connections to us today are forgotten.

Recency does not sufficiently explain the lack of awareness of key political events. Nor is the issue merely that of alternative versions of our history and how to decide objectively which version to accept. I believe what we are seeing is a highly charged contest about rewriting history to understand our present and prospects for the future.

Singapore diplomat rebuts former Coldstore detainee

By Walter Sim, The Straits Times, 21 Jan 2015

SINGAPORE's High Commissioner to Australia, responding to a second online commentary by former leftist detainee Poh Soo Kai, has accused him of obfuscation and disregard for historical evidence.

Many senior Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) leaders have made their own peace with history since the end of the Cold War, Mr Burhan Gafoor wrote.

But he added: "Dr Poh is among the diehards who persist in denying the verdict of history."

Mr Burhan's latest reply came in a letter to the Australian National University's New Mandala website, which ran a Jan 14 article by Dr Poh, 82, who claimed the CPM was a decimated force in Singapore by the 1950s and posed no security threat to justify the 1963 crackdown when he was detained.

That crackdown, Operation Coldstore, has become the subject of an ongoing debate, with several former detainees and historians saying it was politically motivated.

But the Government maintains the arrests were justified as the CPM was a major security threat, and last week accused revisionist historians of distorting history to serve their political agendas.

Dr Poh, who was assistant secretary-general of the Barisan Sosialis, was among 113 left-wing politicians and unionists arrested in Operation Coldstore.

In an earlier New Mandala article on Dec 3, he claimed the arrests were a "set-up" against political opponents of then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, including Barisan chief Lim Chin Siong.

Mr Burhan rejected that claim in a nine-page letter on Dec 18, which cited British archives and accounts of CPM leaders to show Barisan was a key tool of the CPM.

Dr Poh then issued his latest rejoinder, saying the arrests were "simply politically motivated to mow down legitimate opposition". He also rejected claims that the Anti-British League (ABL) and Barisan were communist proxies.

A Singapore under the Barisan, Dr Poh said, would have seen freedom of speech and assembly, social justice and economic dignity.

In his letter yesterday, Mr Burhan said that although the CPM's armed insurgency in Malaya had been blunted by the mid-1950s, Singapore still faced the threat of Communist United Front groups, which had infiltrated trade unions and other mass organisations.

He noted that former CPM secretary-general Chin Peng himself said in his memoirs that the party could "amass and maintain a huge following among the working classes" in Singapore by 1959. Chin Peng wrote that left-wing unions and their members "well appreciated they were under the control of the CPM", he added.

Mr Burhan disputed Dr Poh's claim that Barisan was an ordinary political party, saying CPM leaders like Mr Eu Chooi Yip had themselves confirmed that the Barisan was formed on CPM orders.