Last Updated 29/03/2007 2:44:38 PM
Singapore's founding leader, Lee Kuan Yew, says Australia has outgrown the dark future he once predicted, that Australians would be the "poor white trash of Asia". Mr Lee was speaking in Canberra after receiving an honorary law doctorate from the Australian National University.
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Presenter/Interviewer: Graeme Dobell
Speakers: Singapore's founding leader, Lee Kuan Yew
DOBELL: Lee Kuan Yew is 83, but he still knows how to throw a political punch, at protesters or questioning journalists.
LEE: I'm quite accustomed to a hostile group of questions, it's not going to change me and I'm not going to change you. We are going to prosper, you are going to prosper. But if I allow you to run my country it will spiral downwards and will hit rockbottom.
DOBELL: The protests from university staff and students were about Singapore's human rights record and whether Lee Kuan Yew should be honoured. Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has acknowledged some concerns about Singapore's record, but emphasised Mr Lee's role as what he calls a great regional leader. The citation for the honorary doctor of laws describes Mr Lee as the father of modern Singapore, a statesman of unique standing in the Asia Pacific and an honest friend of Australia.
After the receiving the award, Mr Lee gave was asked about the protesters, outside the hall, who described him as a dictator. He replies that Singapore meets every governance standard as set by the World Economic Forum in its global competitiveness report.
LEE: Run through every single item, rule of law, transparency, integrity of the system, efficiency of the civil service, confidence of the courts both domestically and internationally.
JOURNO: Would you have allowed a similar protest when you were prime minister to occur in your country?
LEE: Well you know I have protests of about 100 to 100-thousand people, communist-led, and in the 1950s and 60s if I didn't have the kind of robust energy to counter them in a huge heckling exchange I wouldn't be here today.
DOBELL: The university citation describes Singapore's founding leader as a long standing and candid friend of Australia, who hasn't hesitated to tell Australia when it's in error. Most famously, nearly 40 years ago, Lee Kuan Yew warned Australians that they could become the poor white trash of Asia. Today, he says, Australia is different.
LEE: No you have changed, I mean the Australia I came to in 1965 was a very different Australia, you were a white Australia, there was the Asian exclusion act, and in 1960s the US changed their rules and in 1967 or 68 you changed yours, and Canadians followed suit and we lost a lot of talent. And today we've not only lost Malaysians and others who used to come to Singapore, in your last census there were 50-thousand Singapore born persons now in Australia, and more will come over time because they find when they can't make the top jobs and it's easier living here.
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Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
23 Mar 2007
Snap Action! Protest ANU’s Honorary Doctorate for Lee Kuan Yew
An article calling for a protest from Young Labor Left Act called as a result the decision to confer a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. Spread the word bloggers.
Where: The Great Hall, University House
When: 10:30am, Wednesday March 28
The ANU’s decision to confer a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on Lee Kwan [sic] Yew has outraged academics and human rights campaigners. Rightly so! It shouldn’t just be academics that are outraged though.
Lee Kwan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore governed with an iron fist for 31 years. His regime, democratic in name only, was autocratic and repressive. In his current role as Minister Mentor Mr Lee still wields considerable influence over the authoritarian and paternalistic government. Where some tyrants use violence to keep their populations in check, Lee Kwan Yew used the law. In his hands it became a weapon wielded with accuracy and efficiency to crush dissent and tighten the ruling People’s Action Party’s grip on power.
That the ANU would honour this arrogant autocrat with a Doctorate of Law of all things is absolutely atrocious. That news of this would break just a day after Vice Chancellor Ian Chubb was encouraging As Chee Soon Yuan wrote in his letter, it is a decision that “boggles the mind and rankles the soul.” Join us at University House this Wednesday at 10:30am as we stand up for democracy and human rights in Singapore.
Chee Soon Yuan, Secretary General of the Opposition Singapore Democratic Party, himself a target of Mr Lee’s repressive regime has written to Vice Chancellor Ian Chubb to express his “deep concern” and “utmost dissapointment,” asking “what values are you imparting to the minds of those who walk through the gates of ANU? What image are you conferring on the ANU?” He also asks for your support. Register your own protest by emailing Ian Chubb at Vice-Chancellor@anu.edu.au and join us in a Snap Action Protest this Wednesday.
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Where: The Great Hall, University House
When: 10:30am, Wednesday March 28
The ANU’s decision to confer a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on Lee Kwan [sic] Yew has outraged academics and human rights campaigners. Rightly so! It shouldn’t just be academics that are outraged though.
Lee Kwan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore governed with an iron fist for 31 years. His regime, democratic in name only, was autocratic and repressive. In his current role as Minister Mentor Mr Lee still wields considerable influence over the authoritarian and paternalistic government. Where some tyrants use violence to keep their populations in check, Lee Kwan Yew used the law. In his hands it became a weapon wielded with accuracy and efficiency to crush dissent and tighten the ruling People’s Action Party’s grip on power.
That the ANU would honour this arrogant autocrat with a Doctorate of Law of all things is absolutely atrocious. That news of this would break just a day after Vice Chancellor Ian Chubb was encouraging As Chee Soon Yuan wrote in his letter, it is a decision that “boggles the mind and rankles the soul.” Join us at University House this Wednesday at 10:30am as we stand up for democracy and human rights in Singapore.
Chee Soon Yuan, Secretary General of the Opposition Singapore Democratic Party, himself a target of Mr Lee’s repressive regime has written to Vice Chancellor Ian Chubb to express his “deep concern” and “utmost dissapointment,” asking “what values are you imparting to the minds of those who walk through the gates of ANU? What image are you conferring on the ANU?” He also asks for your support. Register your own protest by emailing Ian Chubb at Vice-Chancellor@anu.edu.au and join us in a Snap Action Protest this Wednesday.
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22 Mar 2007
Anger at ANU honour for Lee
Emma Macdonald Australian National University academics are outraged at a decision by university management to bestow an honorary Doctorate of Laws on former prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew in Canberra next Wednesday.
Mr Lee and his wife are due in Australia on Monday as part of a tour of the region where they will meet with Australian political and business leaders.
But the decision to honour Mr Lee has incensed university staff, students and human rights advocates who accuse him of running an authoritarian regime in Singapore over the past four decades in which he has quashed any political opposition.
ANU chancellor Allan Hawke alerted staff to Mr Lee's visit when he invited them to the ceremony due to take place in the Great Hall of University House at 11am next Wednesday via an internal email.
He said "the ceremony is a special occasion to honour Mr Lee's achievements and further the university's relationship with Singapore".A number of academics contacted by The Canberra Times expressed their shock at the move, which they say was taken without any wider consultation and would embarrass the university.
Director of the ANU's Centre for International Governance and Justice Hilary Charlesworth said her concern had been so strong that she and senior staff had written to vice-chancellor Ian Chubb in protest, while several other academics chose to air their anger at university management on their personal blogs.
"Any human rights lawyer would be really concerned by this. Frankly, I am baffled, I do not understand why they have done it," Professor Charlesworth said.
Another senior academic, who asked not to be named, said, "Since when does an institution which prides itself on openness and speaking truth to power give honorary degrees to those who have overseen authoritarian regimes which restrict democratic expression and academic freedom and implement the death penalty?"
Dr Hawke said the academics were entitled to their views and he would always be happy to hear their opinions.
While he was aware of Mr Lee's controversial reputation, he believed "the good outweighs the bad" in terms of Mr Lee's contribution to Asia, support of Australia in the region and strong involvement in APEC.
Australia's relationship with Singapore was severely strained throughout last year when the Singaporean Government now headed by Mr Lee's son Lee Hsien Loong carried out the execution in December of 25-year-old Melbourne man Van Tuong Nguyen after finding him guilty of drug trafficking.
This was despite the personal appeals of both Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Mr Lee still maintains a strong political presence as "Minister Mentor" at age 83.
High-profile QC Stuart Littlemore said the ANU's decision was "seriously inappropriate".
"You have to wonder what their motives are and whether they are to strengthen revenue prospects for the ANU which could only be described as a terrible sellout."
Mr Littlemore is a staunch critic of Singapore's legal system, having attended a number of defamation trials as an observer for the International Commission of Jurists.
He has also recently been banned from entering the country to represent Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party, Chee Soon Juan, against defamation claims made by Mr Lee.
Mr Littlemore has written to Professor Chubb this week, saying "I can't understand why the ANU should wish to ingratiate itself with the anti-democratic Lee regime ... The university's decision brings shame upon it."
Mr Chee has also condemned the decision in a letter to Professor Chubb, saying "do you not think that the award of this honorary degree to Lee Kuan Yew mocks the memory of Nguyen and the others who were hanged by the Singapore Government?"
"The irony, nay, hypocrisy of conferring this award, and of the Doctor of Laws to boot, boggles the mind and rankles the soul."
Professor Chubb defended the decision yesterday, saying it merely reflected the close ties the ANU had with Singapore and the National University of Singapore in particular. "We have staff exchanges, split degrees, secondments, student exchanges, and significant interaction at a number of levels. The ANU and NUS are both represented in the Association of Pacific Rim Universities and in the International Alliance of Research Universities." Mr Lee's visit coincides with a presidents' meeting of the alliance in Canberra next week. Professor Chubb said the ANU catered for about 200 undergraduate and postgraduate Singaporean students each year.
In 1994, the University of Melbourne bestowed an honorary Doctorate of Laws upon Mr Lee. The university was also forced to defend the decision at the time.
Source: The Canberra Times
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21 Mar 2007
URGENT ACTION - Block Singpore's Lee Kuan Yew Honorary Doctor of Laws
Note: The SDP asks all of our friends to register your protest against the conferment of an honorary Doctor of Laws on Lee Kuan Yew by the Australian National University (ANU; see letter below). Please write to Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb at Vice-Chancellor@anu.edu.au
Letter to ANU
20 March 2007
Professor Ian Chubb AO
Vice-Chancellor and President
Australia National University
Canberra, ACT 0200
Australia
Vice-Chancellor@anu.edu.au
Dear Sir,
I read, with deep concern, in the Straits Times (18 Mar 07) that the Australian National University (ANU) is conferring the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa on Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's Minister Mentor, on 28 Mar 07.
If this is indeed true (strangely, I could not find any announcement of this event on the ANU's website http://www.anu.edu.au/), then I must register my utmost disappointment with your institution.
You may remember that one of your fellow citizens, the late Nguyen Van Tuong, was hanged by the Singapore Government for peddling drugs. In all probability, Nguyen's contraband emanated from the poppy fields of Burma, Asia's foremost producer and trafficker of narcotics.
This is where it gets interesting. The Singapore Government invests in commercial projects with Burma's drug lords, notably a man by the name of Lo Hsing Han. It was the Australian Special Broadcasting Services that first broke the story. The US State Department confirmed that "over half of [the investments from] Singapore have been tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han'' since 1998. Andrew Selth, an analyst with – of all institutions – the ANU, reported "notorious [Burmese drug] traffickers like Lo Hsing Han are thought to control a number of companies in Singapore that are investing heavily in Burma." He also wrote that, in September 1988, two months after the US State Department said that Burma's junta killed more than 1,000 students during a popular rebellion, "the first country to come to the regime's rescue was in fact Singapore".
I believe that the abominable irony is not lost on you.
Coming back to Nguyen's death, Lee's administration rejected all pleas for clemency by the Australian, Singaporean, and international communities. Nguyen, then 25 years old, was hanged in November 2005.
Contrast this with the case of Julia Bohl, a 22-year-old German lady who was also convicted of drug trafficking. Because of quick and quiet diplomatic pressure brought to bear on the Singapore authorities, the amount of drugs she was carrying was miraculously reduced to below the legal limit that would have mandated a death sentence. Instead of being hanged, she served a three-year prison sentence and was released in 2005.
Tragic as Nguyen's execution was, he at least got to hold his mother the day before he was killed. This was a result of intense pressure from all concerned, especially his lawyers and the Australian media. His former death-row mate, Shanmugam, a Singaporean, who went to the gallows before him never had the same privilege. Shanmugam's mother begged to touch his son one last time on the eve of his execution. It was denied.
It is hard to imagine that things could be any worse. But it was for Amara Tochi, a Nigerian, who was hanged for trafficking diamorphine together with Nelson Malachy, another African national. It is reported that Malachy had testified that his co-accused had no knowledge that the packet Tochi was handed contained illicit drugs. Even the trial judge admitted that: "There was no direct evidence that [Tochi] knew the capsules contained diamorphine. There was nothing to suggest that [Tochi's supplier] had told him they contained diamorphine, or that he had found that out of his own." But for some legal reason that escapes many, Tochi was found guilty and hanged. As he pleaded for his life and asked his counsel not to "allow these people to kill me" he was led to his death without ever seeing his loved ones ever since his arrest two years earlier in 2004. He was only 21 years old.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, stated that in Tochi's case "the Government of Singapore has failed to ensure respect for the relevant legal safeguards." More generally, Alston said that Singapore law making the death penalty mandatory for drug trafficking was inconsistent with international human rights standards.
Vice-Chancellor Chubb, do you not think that the award of this honorary degree to Lee Kuan Yew mocks the memory of Nguyen and the others who were hanged by the Singapore Government? More important, what message are you sending to those drug peddlers awaiting their executions in Singapore?
The irony, nay, hypocrisy of conferring this award, and of the Doctor of Laws to boot, boggles the mind and rankles the soul.
And speaking of laws, the Singapore Government continues to introduce, amend, and apply laws to cripple freedoms of speech, association and assembly of my fellow citizens. Just a couple of weeks ago, your conferee said in an interview: "The Americans try to prescribe democracy by saying governments should allow free association, demonstrations and a free press. Here you want to hold a demonstration, you must have a permit first." His minister for home affairs, however, says that "the government does not authorise protests and demonstrations of any nature." In 2005, a group of four Singaporean democracy advocates staged a silent protest, calling for transparency and accountability from the Government. They were met by the riot squad and ordered to disperse. My fellow activists and I continue to be harassed, prosecuted and jailed for speaking in public.
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Letter to ANU
20 March 2007
Professor Ian Chubb AO
Vice-Chancellor and President
Australia National University
Canberra, ACT 0200
Australia
Vice-Chancellor@anu.edu.au
Dear Sir,
I read, with deep concern, in the Straits Times (18 Mar 07) that the Australian National University (ANU) is conferring the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa on Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's Minister Mentor, on 28 Mar 07.
If this is indeed true (strangely, I could not find any announcement of this event on the ANU's website http://www.anu.edu.au/), then I must register my utmost disappointment with your institution.
You may remember that one of your fellow citizens, the late Nguyen Van Tuong, was hanged by the Singapore Government for peddling drugs. In all probability, Nguyen's contraband emanated from the poppy fields of Burma, Asia's foremost producer and trafficker of narcotics.
This is where it gets interesting. The Singapore Government invests in commercial projects with Burma's drug lords, notably a man by the name of Lo Hsing Han. It was the Australian Special Broadcasting Services that first broke the story. The US State Department confirmed that "over half of [the investments from] Singapore have been tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han'' since 1998. Andrew Selth, an analyst with – of all institutions – the ANU, reported "notorious [Burmese drug] traffickers like Lo Hsing Han are thought to control a number of companies in Singapore that are investing heavily in Burma." He also wrote that, in September 1988, two months after the US State Department said that Burma's junta killed more than 1,000 students during a popular rebellion, "the first country to come to the regime's rescue was in fact Singapore".
I believe that the abominable irony is not lost on you.
Coming back to Nguyen's death, Lee's administration rejected all pleas for clemency by the Australian, Singaporean, and international communities. Nguyen, then 25 years old, was hanged in November 2005.
Contrast this with the case of Julia Bohl, a 22-year-old German lady who was also convicted of drug trafficking. Because of quick and quiet diplomatic pressure brought to bear on the Singapore authorities, the amount of drugs she was carrying was miraculously reduced to below the legal limit that would have mandated a death sentence. Instead of being hanged, she served a three-year prison sentence and was released in 2005.
Tragic as Nguyen's execution was, he at least got to hold his mother the day before he was killed. This was a result of intense pressure from all concerned, especially his lawyers and the Australian media. His former death-row mate, Shanmugam, a Singaporean, who went to the gallows before him never had the same privilege. Shanmugam's mother begged to touch his son one last time on the eve of his execution. It was denied.
It is hard to imagine that things could be any worse. But it was for Amara Tochi, a Nigerian, who was hanged for trafficking diamorphine together with Nelson Malachy, another African national. It is reported that Malachy had testified that his co-accused had no knowledge that the packet Tochi was handed contained illicit drugs. Even the trial judge admitted that: "There was no direct evidence that [Tochi] knew the capsules contained diamorphine. There was nothing to suggest that [Tochi's supplier] had told him they contained diamorphine, or that he had found that out of his own." But for some legal reason that escapes many, Tochi was found guilty and hanged. As he pleaded for his life and asked his counsel not to "allow these people to kill me" he was led to his death without ever seeing his loved ones ever since his arrest two years earlier in 2004. He was only 21 years old.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, stated that in Tochi's case "the Government of Singapore has failed to ensure respect for the relevant legal safeguards." More generally, Alston said that Singapore law making the death penalty mandatory for drug trafficking was inconsistent with international human rights standards.
Vice-Chancellor Chubb, do you not think that the award of this honorary degree to Lee Kuan Yew mocks the memory of Nguyen and the others who were hanged by the Singapore Government? More important, what message are you sending to those drug peddlers awaiting their executions in Singapore?
The irony, nay, hypocrisy of conferring this award, and of the Doctor of Laws to boot, boggles the mind and rankles the soul.
And speaking of laws, the Singapore Government continues to introduce, amend, and apply laws to cripple freedoms of speech, association and assembly of my fellow citizens. Just a couple of weeks ago, your conferee said in an interview: "The Americans try to prescribe democracy by saying governments should allow free association, demonstrations and a free press. Here you want to hold a demonstration, you must have a permit first." His minister for home affairs, however, says that "the government does not authorise protests and demonstrations of any nature." In 2005, a group of four Singaporean democracy advocates staged a silent protest, calling for transparency and accountability from the Government. They were met by the riot squad and ordered to disperse. My fellow activists and I continue to be harassed, prosecuted and jailed for speaking in public.
to continue reading
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