Singapore's - Thieving Bastards

Sense of proportion?

Lee Kuan Yew defends salary increase for Ministers
Bernama
05 Apr 07

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has defended the impending salary increase for ministers and told its critics to have "a sense of proportion" when debating the issue.

Lee said that for the average family earning S$1,500 or S$3,000 a month, the proposed salary increase might be an astronomical figure.

"But for people in government like me, having to deal with these sums of money which we have accumulated through the sweat of our brow over the last 40 years, you have to pay the market rate," he told the Singapore media covering his visit to Australia published in The Straits Times today.

Otherwise, he said, the top talent in public sector would join the private sector.

"And then you've got an incompetent man and you've lost money, by the billions. So get a sense of proportion".

Singapore cabinet ministers are currently drawing S$1.2 million salary a year but Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said recently that the amount was below the benchmark of S$2.2 million, and should be increased in order for the public sector to attract and retain talent.

Minister Mentor Lee described as "absurd" for Singaporeans to quarrel over the amount the ministers should be paid. "You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government," he said.

The total cost to pay ministers and other office holders is now at S$46 million a year, which Lee said, amounted to about 0.13 per cent of the government's total expenditure.

"We are quarreling about whether we should pay them S$46 million or S$36 million, or better still S$26 million. So you save S$20 million and jeopardise an economy of S$210 billion? What are we talking about?" said Lee.

The proposed salary increase has attracted debate among Singaporeans who are against the move.

But Lee told them: "I say you have no sense of proportion; you don't know what life is about. And just think, what would your apartment be worth with a poor government and the economy down?"

Asked on his salary, Lee, said he earned S$2.7 million a year as Minister Mentor.

"A top lawyer, which I could easily have become, today earns S$4 million. And he doesn't have to carry this responsibility. All he's got to do is advise his client. Win or lose, that's the client's loss or gain."

On views that the ministers should be willing to make sacrifices and not to be there for the money, Lee said: "Those are admirable sentiments, but we live in a real world."

The proposed salary increase will be tabled in Parliament on Monday.

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Singapore: Lee-Fearing Nation

Spotted on SingaporeRebel.

"Ordinary people do not fear the Internal Security Act as much as they fear that if they voice criticisms against the government they will be punished in ways that can directly affect their livelihoods. Shopkeepers and taxi-drivers worry their licences will be revoked, and businessmen whether big or small, have the same apprehension. Civil servants fear their independent views on public matters will deprive them of promotions or get them transfers to insignificant ministries or the ultimate punishment - loss of employment. The press fears. The police fears. The ISD (Internal Security Department) fears. The army fears. The PAP MPs fear. And the ministers fear...Everyone fears Lee."
- T.S. Selvan, author and former ISD officer


"Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I'm meaningless."
- Lee Kuan Yew, Oct 6, 1997

Singapore : The Ultimate Island : Lee Kuan Yew's Untold Story
Lee's Legacy

Opinions of Lee in the country are many. More often than not they are a curiously alternating vocabulary of praise and criticism. As his talents and gifts are many and unusual, so are some of his defects. They tell on the way people view him when in their different moods. When people are angry, they forget his merits, and when are happy, they ignore his faults. He then becomes the only barrier between man and chaos. He is glorified to a point where it is said that since God has forgotten to endow the country with any natural resources, he redresses the oversight by giving Lee to the country.

Some are genuinely caught in a moral dilemma because as they condemn of some of his shortcomings they cannot easily overlook his outstanding contributions to their material well-being. He has not been a mindless despot like some of the Third World politicians. Some, however thankful they are, still find it hard to morally excuse him for treating his political opponents with an almost neurotic disapproval and condemnation. He is accused of binding everyone to his system while he himself stays out of it. Even the Godless think he plays God. But they do not say whether God is a dictator.

But what is the long and short of it? Where does Lee stand? Curiously, what will Lee himself think of his role as he continues to lead his flock? Will he be chuffed by his admirers' adulations? Will he be stung like Prometheus by the diatribes of his critics? Or does he have his hopes pinned on history's final judgement?

To look back. When the British finally left the island, the migrants invested Lee with the power of sovereignty and they expected this sovereignty to be used in their rights and interests. The migrants did not wish the bossy and holier-than-thou colonial type authority. That phase was over. It was time, the migrants rightly thought, to belong and identify, to participate and be counted. It was in recognition of this right that the Sahib had also returned the island to the people.

Lee took over. Democratic politics immediately became an irredeemable sin; a political perversion. An Easterner by upbringing and a Westerner by education, a Machiavellian by instincts and a Zarathustran by genes, he at once concluded that a state could neither be run on Judeo-Christian virtues nor by any airy-fairy Western liberal exhalations. He sought authority in the way the East and governments of all larger states had been ruled before the British, American and French revolutions. Lee must have also picked up some handy habits from his early partnership with the communists. Communism, which believes that the state is a divine idea, subsumes the complexities of human experience under a rigid collectivist and monolithic order - one single will, one single state, one single party rule. More importantly, the communists' faith in the grave philosophy of the end justifying the means became a lethal weapon in Lee's hands. Not to forget, once in power, the communists do not capitulate; they want to rule forever.

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JUSTICE IN SINGAPORE is Janus-faced.

The preface to Francis Seow's latest book, Beyond Suspicion? The Singapore Judiciary (Southeast Asia Studies Monograph Series) Is included below. Francis Seow is a former Solicitor-General of Singapore, former president of the Singapore Law Society -- and a former prisoner of conscience. He now lives in exile in the USA. He is a prominent human rights defender and critic of Singapore's ruling party and has published extensively on Singapore's human rights record.

The Preface of 'Beyond Suspicion? The Singapore Judiciary'
The Singapore courts - when adjudicating commercial cases between two contending parties where neither the authorities nor the political élite are involved or interested - may be relied upon to administer justice according to the law. In this regard, Singapore judges have an overall reputation for the integrity of their judgments. The enthusiastic reports of international organizations, such as the Geneva-based World Economic Forum or the Hongkong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, have to be read subject to this important rider.

This book, however, is concerned with the other face of justice in Singapore: where these very same judges, sad to say, inpolitically-freighted cases have repeatedly demonstrated a singular facility at bending over backwards to render decisions favourable to the Singapore government and its leaders. Whereupon their judicial contortions have acquired an international notoriety that concerned human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, and latterly the Lawyers' Human Rights Watch Canada, were moved to send their legal representatives to Singapore to observe the trial proceedings herein at first hand. Their observations confirmed what many Singaporeans have known all along: that the political context of such cases invariably influence the judges in their decisions.

And yet, the Singapore judiciary was historically free and independent of the government of the day or any other controlling legal authority, until the ruling People's Action Party - with no viable political opposition to keep it balanced and in check - began insensibly to entrench itself in the body politic of the nation. In that time, Prime Minister Harry Lee Kuan Yew, now nominally senior minister but still the enduring éminence grise of the People's Action Party (PAP) government, systematically gained control over the courts, which he exercises currently through his judicial point man and great friend, Yong Pung How: the chief justice*. In addition, Lee appoints only politically correct lawyers as judges whose loyalty he ensures with princely remunerations - well over and above the comparable market rates for judges worldwide. Corruption often-times simulates many forms and disguises: paying obscenely high salaries and bonuses to judges is one, for they inevitably assume the gratifying form of monthly retainers by the government for loyal services rendered or to be rendered. Given that he who pays the piper calls the tune, it is virtually impossible for judges to do justice by the citizens when the state or its leaders are involved as litigants, as this narrative will amply demonstrate.(* Yong Pung How has since stepped down from the judiciary. The current Chief Justice is the former attorney-general, Chan Sek Keong, appointed in April 2006)

Unlike previous defamation actions, the legal blitzkrieg herein - masterminded by Harry Lee Kuan Yew - was exceptional in the sheer number of PAP plaintiffs who retained in concert disparate law firms of high-priced lawyers and who, against valid objections and normal procedural laws, were allowed by the courts to maintain multiple lawsuits over the same matter against the defendants: lawyer and unsuccessful opposition candidate Tang Liang Hong, his wife, Teo Siew Har, and, ultimately, his defence counsel, J.B. Jeyaretnam, who was also then the secretary general of the opposition Workers' Party. The insidious purpose of this unusual legal manoeuvre was intended to overwhelm the resources in personnel and finances of the defendants, and of Tang in particular, and to hamper their defence - a manoeuvre that was patently obvious to the judges but who, chose to turn a Nelsonian eye on these legal shenanigans.



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AUSTRALIA: Controversial visit by Singapore's founding father

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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Singaporean rights activist criticises ANU over Honour

Wednesday, 28 March 2007. 18:33 (AEDT)

Pictures from New Mandala

A leading Singaporean civil rights activist says the Australian National University's decision to honour former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew is baffling.

Dr Chee Soon Juan is the secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party.

He has been imprisoned several times for speaking in public without a license and alleges mistreatment while in custody, including food poisoning.

Dr Chee has criticised Mr Lee's civil rights record many times and is surprised by today's awards ceremony.

"It's just very baffling, given the track record of Singapore," he said.

Dr Chee says the legal honour for Mr Lee is inappropriate, given the erosion of civil rights under his government.

"Lee has used laws very cleverly to make sure that democratic activities, political activities are kept to a bare minimum," he said.

He says the award for the visitor is sending the wrong message.

"I think it's a big slap, I think Australia is sending this signal that, look come here, we want your dollars, we really don't care how society functions for you," he said.

Mr Lee has defended himself, saying that Singapore topped reports by the World Economic Forum.

"Rule of law, transparency, integrity of the system, efficiency of the civil service, confidence of the courts both domestically and internationally, it's at the top," he said.

But Dr Chee disagrees.

"There is no rule of law in Singapore," he said.

"The Government of Singapore use laws to run the country the way that it sees fit."

Mr Lee is currently the Singaporean Minister Mentor to his son's Government.

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Singapore's Lee to face student protest

The Age
March 27, 2007 - 7:29PM

Former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew will face protests when he is awarded an honorary doctorate at Canberra's Australian National University on Wednesday.

Mr Lee's award has angered some ANU academics who accuse him of running an authoritarian regime.

He will be awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Laws at a ceremony on Wednesday morning.

ANU's branch of Young Labor Left is organising a protest against the award, saying it will draw members of all ANU colleges and a large number of staff, students and organisations on campus.

The rally is due to begin at University House at 10.30am (AEST).

A motion condemning the decision will be debated at the ANU Student's Association's ordinary general meeting on Thursday afternoon.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Monday acknowledged there had been international concern about human rights issues in Singapore but praised Mr Lee as a "great regional leader".

"The fact is in the overall sense, Singapore has been a spectacular success," Mr Downer said.

Mr Lee will receive the doctorate from ANU Chancellor Allan Hawke at 11am (AEST).

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ANU College of Law Registers Protest Against LKY's Doctorate of Laws

AUSTRALIA: Academic outrage over honour for Lee Kuan Yew

22/03/2007

A plan to award former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew with an honorary degree has outraged academics at one of Australia's top universities. Mr Lee will be given an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by Canberra's Australian National University next week.

Presenter/Interviewer: Linda LoPresti

Speakers: Dr Michael McKinley, senior lecturer in international relations at the Australian National University

Listen[approx.3mins 55 secs]

Spotted the following letters from Michael Coper posted on the New Mandala site

Professor Coper (Dean of the law faculty at the ANU) has responded to recent inquiries regarding the decision to bestow LKY with the Doctorate of Laws by denying any Law faculty involvement with the decision. …

Dear Students

I am copying to you an email I have just sent to my colleagues here.

In a nutshell, the purpose of the email is to make it clear that the recent decision of the ANU to award an honorary doctorate of laws (Hon LLD) to Mr Lee Kuan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore, was a decision of the ANU Council, not a decision of the ANU College of Law. In fact, the College was neither consulted about, nor had any part in, the decision. Had the College been consulted, it is clear from the protests lodged with the Vice Chancellor that many colleagues would have opposed the decision.

I re-emphasise the point made in the attached about how much ANU values its relationship with the National University of Singapore, with Singapore itself and with its people. Nothing in the current controversy detracts from that.

Regards

Michael Coper

(the attached message)

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Power, corruption and lies

Although I am posting the article here for my own purpose there does seem to be a few similarities between the Chinese and Singaporean model, and huge differences as well. One thing did grab my attention and that was Hutton's references to Leninism which has been a topic on this site in the past and linked to Lee Kuan Yew.

To the west, China is a waking economic giant, poised to dominate the world. But, argues Will Hutton in this extract from his new book, we have consistently exaggerated and misunderstood the threat - and the consequences could be grave

Will Hutton
Monday January 8, 2007

Guardian

The emergence of China as a $2 trillion economy from such inauspicious beginnings only 25 years ago is such a giddy accomplishment that the temptation to see its success as proof positive of your own prejudices is overwhelming. And the west's broad prejudice is that China is growing so rapidly because it has abandoned communism and embraced capitalism. China's own claim - that it is building a very particular economic model around what it describes as a socialist market economy - is dismissed as hogwash, the necessary rhetoric the Communist party must use to disguise what is actually happening. China proves conclusively that liberalisation, privatisation, market freedoms and the embrace of globalisation are the only route to prosperity. China is on its way to capitalism but will not admit it.

But the closer you get to what is happening on the ground in China, its so-called capitalism looks nothing like any form of capitalism the west has known and the transition from communism remains fundamentally problematic. The alpha and omega of China's political economy is that the Communist party remains firmly in the driving seat not just of government, but of the economy - a control that goes into the very marrow of how ownership rights are conceived and business strategies devised. The western conception of the free exercise of property rights and business autonomy that goes with it, essential to any notion of capitalism, does not exist in China.

The truth is that China is not the socialist market economy the party describes, nor moving towards capitalism as the western consensus believes. Rather it is frozen in a structure that I describe as Leninist corporatism - and which is unstable, monumentally inefficient, dependent upon the expropriation of peasant savings on a grand scale, colossally unequal and ultimately unsustainable. It is Leninist in that the party still follows Lenin's dictum of being the vanguard, monopoly political driver and controller of the economy and society. And it is corporatist because the framework for all economic activity in China is one of central management and coordination from which no economic actor, however humble, can opt out.

In this environment genuine wholesale privatisation is impossible and liberalisation has well-defined limits, as President Hu Jintao himself brutally reminds us. The party, he says, "takes a dominant role and coordinates all sectors. Party members and party organisations in government departments should be brought into full play so as to realise the party's leadership over state affairs". It may be true that party organisations in the provinces (some with populations bigger than Britain's) and in the chief cities are jealous of their autonomous local political control, but all retain the discretionary power to do what they choose and override any challenge or complaint from any non-state actor - or, indeed, from state actors if they cross the will of the party.

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