REPORT OF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS ON DETENTION OF LOCAL JOURNALISTS

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Dr Lau Teik Soon asked the Minister for Foreign Affair's if he will give his comments on the story reportedly carried in The Sunday Times of London that the detention of the local journalists and the statement about the involvement of the Editor of the Review have "seriously jeopardised its (Singapore's) international reputation", and whether in his view foreign correspondents resident in Singapore have any role to play in the foreign relations of the Republic.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr S. Rajaratnam): Mr Speaker, Sir, I think the hon. Member is referring to an article by a Mr William Shawcross in the Sunday Times of London of 13th March. In answering the hon. Member's question I am in danger of breaching a new convention which certain sections of the Western Press have developed in regard to criticism. If a pressman attacks a politician, that is free speech. But if the politician concerned hits back, then a hue and cry is raised that freedom of the press is in utter jeopardy. A point that has been lost sight of in recent press criticisms about the Singapore Government is that though we have, as a Government, often exercised our right to tell off certain foreign pressmen when we think them misguided, we have never arrested or deported any of them or banned their publications merely for critical and even ill-informed articles about Singapore.

We have done so only when, from being mere observers and reporters, pressmen have become active partisans in our domestic affairs or, as a number of them did, got involved with subversion and the espousal of its cause.

Sir, with regard to Mr William Shawcross' observation in the Sunday Times that the arrest of Singaporeans who have admitted to working with the communists has blackened Singapore's international reputation, it has about as much substance as that paper's efforts a few years ago to sell the Slater-Walker team to the world as model of 21st century entrepreneurs.

Admittedly, Sir, the reputation of the Singapore Government has sunk rapidly in the eyes of a handful of British publications, like the Sunday Times, The Times, the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Economist. But these publications do not represent world opinion and our reputation with some 1 50 nations is as sound as ever before.

Some hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr Rajaratnam: No government or international financiers have told us officially or unofficially that they have lost confidence in the Singapore Government as a result of the recent arrests in Singapore. So I do not know what Mr Shawcross is talking about.

As regards the Member's second half of the question, I am not quite sure what the hon. Member means when he asks whether "foreign correspondents resident in Singapore have any role to play in the foreign relations of the Republic." Perhaps what the Member has in mind is, to me, the astonishing conduct of some foreign newsmen in Singapore and the even more astonishing reaction of certain British publications to the arrest and confessions of Mr Arun and Mr Raman, among others. The coverage in a number of British papers of the public statements of Arun and Raman have not been so much factual reports as sceptical and selective evaluations of what was said by them. The general tenor of the reports was such as to leave in the minds of their readers the impressions that the confessions were rigged and that the people arrested were not really communists or communist supporters but victims of PAP intolerance.

Yet, Mr Speaker, Sir, when the foreign press was invited to question Arun and Raman over TV, their silence was deafening. If Western pressmen really believed that the whole show was stage-managed, that the two gentlemen concerned had been either tortured or terrorised into admitting things they had not done, then one would have thought that here was an opportunity for the Western pressmen to expose by sharp and in-depth questioning of the two that the whole thing was rigged. Here was an opportunity.

Sir, I can think of many occasions in Europe and America when newsmen were not averse to coming into TV studios, were not deterred by studio lights and batteries of TV cameras from grilling subjects who could provide them with news and, in this case, indeed most startling news had the newsmen been able to expose these confessions as a fraud.

It was not that we had put any kind of restraints on the questions the newsmen could ask. There were none. In fact, the Chairman. Mr James Fu, had repeatedly asked the foreign pressmen to put questions and all this was greeted with what I can only describe as "studied silence". Clearly, the foreign newsmen had come determined and convinced that the cause of press freedom or some other cause could best be served by not being provoked into asking questions. This, in my view, is odd behaviour for men who earn their bread and butter and their reputation by asking awkward questions. I can only make a guess at this inexplicable lack of curiosity over confessions which had already been portrayed by sections of the Western press as manifestations of a police state.

My guess, Mr Speaker, is that the Western newsmen sensed from the evidence given to them that an intense grilling of Mr Arun and Mr Raman, far from weakening the Government's case, would only have strengthened it. It would have shattered the myth so elaborately built up in sections of the Western press that the PAP Government was dedicated to stamping out all dissent, crushing all political opponents and building up a totalitarian state. Had there been an intense cross-questioning by foreign pressmen of Arun and Raman, what would have in fact emerged was that we had detained a journalist who had knowingly played along with the communists, and a lawyer with affiliations with British Marxists, not averse, according to Mr Raman, to using violence to bring down the PAP Government. Had the Western newsmen actively participated in the interview, then they would have had to report it as such and report what actually happened and that would have left an impression in the minds of readers in the Western world that the detention was justified. So better keep quiet and leave undisturbed the impression that the TV press conference was rigged. Hence The Times of 18th March could with apparent honesty editorialise as follows:

"The televised statements by Mr Raman and Mr Senkuttuvan, both of them hollow-sounding recitals with a dictated air - by whatever means they were extracted ...",

That is, "the whole thing is phoney. Do not question. Just report what you think happened." Incidentally, Sir, the same paper dismissed the recent Singapore general elections in a couple of obscure paragraphs. It would not have suited The Times' carefully nurtured image of a tyrannical PAP Government to have given importance to the fact that it had instead won all seats for the third time and with an increased majority of the votes cast. So tuck it away.

Similarly, thanks to the silence of the Western pressmen, the Economist of 19th March, the next day, permitted itself this little bit of detached comment, and I quote:

"Roll up for yet another public showing of the uglier face of Singapore's police state. On March 12. the Government persuaded two of the men arrested ... to confess to the error of their ways in a press conference on live television."

Neither of the two journals concerned mentioned the pertinent fact that the Western pressmen were there at the conference and that they had not made the slightest attempt through interview to get at the facts, to get at the truth. Sir, the truth had already been arrived at before the press conference in the editorial offices in London and any fresh and conflicting evidence would be most unwelcome.

Since the PAP Government and the voters of Singapore appear to be adamant in doing what they think is good for Singapore, the Sunday Times and Mr Shawcross have now carried British journalism into the murkier grounds of blackmail. Since they cannot persuade us by threats, what about blackmail. So he warned Singapore that (and I quote):

"as Singapore depends on the international money market for its prosperity (the arrests) can prove counterproductive."

Telling us if we do not do what they say we must do, no more investments. That is how I read it.

Mr Shawcross wants us to believe that were Singapore to release known and self-confessed Communists, stop broadcasting revelations by Communists and pro-Communists how they go about their furtive business of subversion, give immunity to those who, under cover of free speech, breach the laws of libel and slander and scrap the detention laws for which we have popular mandate then, according to Mr Shawcross, foreign investors would be streaming into Singapore, pockets full of money and with joy in their hearts.

Perhaps Mr Shawcross has a pretty low opinion of Asian intelligence and especially of Singapore intelligence. On the contrary it is because we have not been following Mr Shawcross' advice that foreign investors have shown a growing interest in Singapore and increasing nervousness about those countries where the remedies Mr Shawcross suggests have been applied.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I have my own views as to why certain sections of the Western press, and in particular the British press, are going beyond the bounds of journalism to pressurise the Singapore Government into adopting policies which the people of Singapore know would bring back the lawlessness, violence, rioting, and economic stagnation which were features when the Communists and pro-Communists were allowed to run around. The Western press knows, including the Western pressmen here, that we are not crushing opposition. In the recent elections there were any number of parties. We are not crushing opposition which is lawful and constitutional but Communist opposition which is unlawful, and for the suppression of which we have full mandate from the people. And yet they go back, even now, and say we are crushing opposition, never saying we are crushing Communist opposition.

So, Mr Speaker, Sir, under the pretence of upholding human rights and democracy in darkest Singapore, what this section of the press, of the British press in particular, is agitating for through distortion and even blackmail is rights for Communists and pro-Communists to run around once again in Singapore knowing full well what the consequences would be for Singapore.

Is it that they want a revival of the old Singapore? Why is the press doing this? Well, Mr Speaker, that is another story for some other time. Are then the foreign correspondents resident in Singapore suspect? In my view, and I know many of them, most of them are just being straightforward newsmen. But some presumably are specially selected by their editors, including local journalists, for more than mere reporting. For example, Mr Derek Davies of the Far Eastern Economic Review has a flair (it must have been a well developed one, a very unusual flair) for choosing local malcontents for correspondents. I must assume that Mr Davies has carefully assessed their character before appointing them. He must therefore know that he will get biased, blunted and false reports from them. Mr Speaker, you may recollect a British press baron, Lord Northcliffe, if I am right, who said he never had to tell his editor what to write because the man he chose made this unnecessary. Or as a British poet put it more pungently (and I quote): `You cannot, thank God Bribe or twist A British journalist But seeing what the fellow will do Unbribed There's no occasion to.'

Dr Lau Teik Soon (Serangoon Gardens): Mr Speaker, Sir, I wish to ask a supplementary question. When I asked the Hon. Minister whether foreign correspondents in Singapore have any role to play in the formation of our foreign policy, I implied that they really have no role at all, and I think the Minister's answer confirms that. However. I think we do welcome -

Mr Speaker: Dr Lau, what is your supplementary question?

Dr Lau Teik Soon: It is coming up, Sir. We welcome foreign correspondents but we expect them to play a proper role, as the Hon. Minister has mentioned; they should be straightforward newspaper men. In this connection, may I quote -

Mr Speaker: Where is your supplementary question, Dr Lau?

Dr Lau Teik Soon: I would like the Minister's comments on a further remark on the part of William Shawcross, and I quote:

'There is speculation in Singapore that he (Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew) has decided to rid himself of an independent international press in the way he disposed of domestic press criticism.'

May I ask the Hon. Minister what the proper role of the foreign correspondents should be and would he advise the foreign correspondents here.

Mr S. Rajaratnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, first of all, we have not the slightest intention of getting rid of the foreign press. The foreign press may get rid of itself by itself. It is interesting, Sir, that Singapore is not the only country which seems to get into trouble with the Western press. All over Asia and Africa Western pressmen have been either arrested, deported or suspended. In fact, as I have said, in Singapore we have done none of these things. So there is a role for Western pressmen. I am not talking of all foreign correspondents because apart from the British press there has been no complaint from any foreign correspondent, neither from Izvestia nor from Peking nor from Hanoi. If he means by foreign correspondents the Western press, they have a role to play. "Please report as accurately as you can, even critically as you can, so long as you do not interfere in our internal affairs."

Mr Yeo Choo Kok (Delta): Mr Speaker, Sir, a supplementary question. Why should the Government allow the specially selected foreign correspondents to be resident in Singapore if the scope of their activities is beyond the scope of journalism?

Mr Rajaratnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, we would not know when they are specially selected until after we have spotted them. And when we spot them we arrest them.