The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (58 page)

Things had not been standing still on the merger front. A Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference convened in Singapore, with representatives from Sarawak, Brunei, North Borneo and Malaya, had ended with a communiqué issued on 24 July in which all participants underlined the “necessity and inevitability of the united states of Malaysia”, and since its final shape and form would require further discussion, agreed to create a Malaysia Solidarity Consultative Committee to ensure that the momentum towards it was maintained. Ten days later, the Malayan and Singapore governments announced after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur attended by Keng Swee as finance minister that we would seek UN help to study how a common market could be set up.

In August, Keng Swee and I had a three-hour conference with the Tunku and Razak to settle the terms for merger. Ghazali bin Shafie, the permanent secretary of the ministry of external affairs, was present. He was to be their key official in charge of the merger details.

The next month, I spent three days in Kuala Lumpur with the Tunku, discussing further details. On my return to Singapore in mid-September, I told the press, “Merger is off the launching pad and the latest developments have put it in orbit, with June 1963 as the target landing date.” I used the vocabulary of a time when the world was enthralled by the Soviet Union’s spectacular space flight in 1961 with Yuri Gagarin on board, and with America’s efforts to put a manned spacecraft into orbit. On finance, I explained that under the federal constitution, every state gave powers over customs and excise and income tax to the central government, but because Singapore would have control of education, labour, health and social services, we would receive a considerable proportion of them to discharge these responsibilities. Therefore the number of our representatives in the federal parliament had to be adjusted, “otherwise we would be representing ourselves twice over”.

Chin Chye had written to the leaders of the opposition parties in the Assembly to ask them to state their stand on the two basic points
contained in the agreement in principle, namely that defence, external affairs and security should be in the hands of the federal government in Kuala Lumpur, while education and labour policies would remain with the Singapore government. On 29 August, the day the letters were published in the press, Dr Lee Siew Choh declared in a signed statement that the 13 Barisan assemblymen would accept:

“(1) Full and complete merger with Singapore as the 12th state of the Federation: or (2) As a stage to eventual merger, Singapore as an autonomous unit in a confederation. In a merger, the party seeks the immediate entry of Singapore into the Federation as a constituent state, automatic Malayan citizenship for Singapore citizens, proportionate representation in parliament, general elections in Singapore before merger and pan-Malayan general elections after it. In a confederation, it seeks full internal autonomy for Singapore in internal matters, including security, with external affairs and defence in the hands of the Federation government.”

The Barisan had adopted a proposal by James Puthucheary that they go for complete merger in the belief that the Tunku would not agree to it. Keng Swee, Raja, Chin Chye, Pang Boon and I were delighted. They had not rejected it; indeed, they were calling for more and closer merger than we were seeking. It was the ideal issue on which to frame the questions for a referendum: which kind of merger did the people want?

25. Moving Towards Merger

We committed ourselves to holding a referendum in September on merger with Malaysia. To carry out merger just on a majority vote in the Legislative Assembly was out of the question; the people would believe we had sold them down the river, whether or not the terms were fair. They had to be given the facts, have the alternatives explained to them, then choose for themselves. Moreover, that way the Tunku could not take us for granted.

Next, the PAP must remain as the government to achieve this. Hence, the overriding need was to have a majority in parliament. Although that majority was only 26 to 25, I believed that if it came to a crunch, the non-communists in the opposition, with the exception of Marshall (one vote) and perhaps Ong Eng Guan and his two followers – now the United People’s Party (UPP), were not likely to vote with the Barisan. And once I had given the background to the present conflict in my radio talks, I was in a much stronger position to press home my arguments.

We now had to pin the communists down on what kind of merger they wanted, not let them wriggle and to call again for an independent Singapore. But wriggle they did. After the split, they equivocated for weeks, using delaying tactics by urging the people to concentrate first on the anti-colonial struggle. Before a cheering crowd of 10,000 at a mass rally on 13 August at the Happy World stadium to mark the formation of the Barisan Sosialis, Lim Chin Siong declared that colonialism was the greatest obstacle to merger between Singapore and the Federation. It was British colonialism that divided Malaya into two separate entities. “Therefore, if we do away with colonialism, we will be closer to a merger,
and if merger means genuine reunification, we shall be very happy to support it.” Thunderous applause greeted Lim when he spoke in Malay and Hokkien, but I was not so sure that his listeners enthusiastically agreed with this part of the speech. Reunification, genuine or otherwise, would dilute their Chinese-speaking majority and render them vulnerable to security action.

The Barisan was not the only uncertain factor. The British were key players in this drama, for everything depended on their reaching an understanding with the Tunku that he must play a crucial role in the future of Singapore, and that would entail not only an “association”, but actual merger. Philip Moore, in his report of 18 October to Ian Wallace in the Colonial Office in London, said:

“There was never, of course, any question of our not being prepared to deal with the problem of the communists in Singapore in the short term, but we had to persuade the Tunku that he alone, in the present climate of international opinion, could deal with Singapore in the long term. … It was essential to disabuse him of his illusion that Singapore could safely be left to the British on an indefinite basis.”

I believed that after we lost the Hong Lim and Anson by-elections and the communists made a bid to remove the PAP constitutionally and take office, the Tunku must have seen that he had no other choice but to take Singapore into Malaya on special terms so as not to upset the Malay electoral majority in the Federation. He would want to have control of internal security, defence and foreign affairs. The Tunku said publicly on 27 October 1961 that by 1963 “in all probability, Britain will give Singapore a constitution that makes Singapore independent. The day Singapore gets independence, it will establish diplomatic relations with the countries we oppose. Embassies from countries like China, Russia, Yugoslavia and other communist bloc members would be set up. We would then have the communists right at our very doorstep.”

But the Tunku had his price for taking in Singapore. As far back as August, his government had given the British six months’ notice of withdrawal from the Internal Security Council. The British deduced that since they needed the Malayan government to take over Singapore to keep the communists in order, he, the Tunku, would require that the Borneo territories should be completely integrated into the Federation first. I had of course realised there would be a problem of timing. From my visits to these territories to do cases in their courts, I knew that their level of political consciousness was not high and their leadership still unformed. I had left it to the British to sort this out, and assumed that they had already settled this question with the Tunku.

On 16 November, the Tunku left for London from Singapore for talks on Malaysia with the British government. He was in a happy mood and told the press it was safe to assume that Malaysia was “in the bag” – that is, the three Borneo territories and Singapore would all join the Federation. He was quick to add, as the
Straits Times
put it, with a disarming smile:

“I would like to be quite honest. I would like it to happen at least simultaneously, otherwise the people of the Federation would be pretty nervous. Singapore is regarded in the Federation as something of a problem child. … The constitutional proposals are not a complete merger. It would be more correct to say it is a form of very close association.”

This remark made my job more difficult.

In London, after his talk with Macmillan for only 80 minutes, he was all smiles as he told the pressmen, “We do not have to wait till 1963.” In a joint statement on 22 November, the British and Malayan governments said, “The ministers took note with satisfaction of the Heads of Agreement recently negotiated between the governments of Malaya and Singapore for merging Singapore with the Federation.” Why had the Tunku come round? Macmillan had charmed him and virtually promised him the Borneo territories, subject to the findings of a commission to determine the wishes of the people.

Meeting leaders from Sarawak and North Borneo to discuss the Malaysia plan, October 1961. From left: Yong Nyuk Lin, Toh Chin Chye, Ong Kee Hui (Sarawak, later minister in the federal government), myself, Donald Stephens (British North Borneo, later chief minister, Sabah), Rajaratnam and Tun Mustapha Harun (British North Borneo, later also chief minister, Sabah).

In Singapore, we presented to the Legislative Assembly the main Heads of Agreement for merger in a white paper:

“Singapore will get 15 seats in the federal House of Representatives and two in the Senate.

“The 624,000 Singapore citizens will not lose their state citizenship rights they enjoy in Singapore. With merger, they will automatically become nationals of the larger Federation and carry the same passport as other nationals of the larger Federation. They will have equal rights, enjoy the same protection and be subject to equal duties and responsibilities.

“The free port status of Singapore will be maintained.

“The general direction and control of the government of Singapore will be as at present, by the cabinet consisting of the prime minister and ministers appointed on his advice. … The present Legislative Assembly in Singapore will continue as a State Assembly, but it will have no power to enact laws relating to defence, external affairs, security and other federal matters.

“Singapore will have autonomy in education and labour policies and generally a larger measure of reserve state powers compared to other states in the Federation.

“Singapore will retain a very large proportion of the state’s revenue.

“The special position of the Malays who are Singapore citizens will be safeguarded.”

On 20 November, Ahmad Ibrahim tabled the motion that “This House affirms that the first objective of all true patriots of Malaya is to achieve the reunification of these two territories in a merger of Singapore and the Federation of Malaya.” The Barisan was in a quandary. They saw that the move towards Malaysia was gathering speed and appeared unstoppable, so they tried to delay proceedings by filibustering, Dr Lee Siew Choh speaking for seven and a half hours over two days. After the
first half hour, he spoke gibberish. He had a team of hack writers in the opposition Members’ room churning out reams of repetitious drivel that Barisan assemblymen brought to him in the chamber. Often he could not even read what had been written for him. We wondered what advantage he hoped to gain by holding up the proceedings for one or two days since we did not have to meet any deadline. Finally Chin Chye, I and other ministers stood up on points of order to ask the Speaker, Sir George Oehlers, whether Dr Lee should be allowed to repeat himself again and again. But Oehlers was weak at the knees. We were dismayed that the communists could instil such fear even in him that he would stretch all the rules to let the Barisan hold up the debate. We decided that if we won the next election, we must have a Speaker with a stouter heart.