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ANU
Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb
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SDP writes to
Australian university on degree conferment on Lee Kuan Yew
20
Mar 07
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.
In addition, several of us
have been sued for defamation and ordered to pay crippling sums
of damages and costs. We have been made bankrupts and barred for
standing for elections. I have been previously sued on two
occasions and ordered to pay almost AUD 1 million in damages to
Lee and his associates. A third lawsuit also by Lee against my
party, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), and its leaders is
on-going which will result in hundreds of thousands of dollars
being awarded to the Minister Mentor and his son, Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong.
Detention without trial continues to be
wielded over the heads of Singaporeans like the sword of
Damocles. I attended the memorial service of one of Lee's former
detainees, Ho Piao. Ho was a unionist who was tortured by Lee's
Internal Security Department officers. His ordeal is documented
in the 1978 Amnesty International Report. According to the report
Ho was tied to a wooden chair, strangled, and punched repeatedly
in the stomach and ribs. When he almost passed out, an officer
hurled himself at Ho and knocked him to the floor. Whilst on the
floor, the officers continued to rain punches and kicks to his
head. Ho testified: "They pulled me from the floor and tied
me to the chair. Another group came in to torture me. The torture
went on for four days. I did not eat or sleep for four days."
As some of his former fellow-detainees recounted his beatings at
the memorial service, his teenage son sat sobbing quietly on the
side.
Many of the late Ho Piao's contemporaries, most of
whom were in the political opposition, were locked up for almost
two decades without ever being charged for any crime. One such
prisoner was Chia Thye Poh who was detained for 32 years.
The
media remain under the firm strangulation of Lee. All newspapers
are owned and run by the Singapore Press Holding, chaired by one
of his loyalists and former deputy prime minister, Dr Tony Tan. A
former journalist who worked briefly as a global affairs
columnist for the Straits Times, had this to say: "The
Straits Times…is run by editors with virtually no
background in journalism. For example, my direct editor was Chua
Lee Hoong, a woman in her mid 30s. She was an intelligence
officer. Other key editors are drawn from Singapore's
bureaucracies and state security services. They all retain
connections to the state's intelligence services, which track
everyone and everything."
Academic freedom is a ghost
consigned to wandering hopelessly in the halls of Singapore's
state-controlled universities. Academics such professors
Christopher Lingle, Bilveer Singh, and Lim Chong Yah who publish
information unflattering of Lee's government were bullied into
submission; Dr Lingle was forced to flee Singapore when he was
interrogated by the police and subsequently criminally
prosecuted. As a neuropsychologist, I was teaching at the
National University of Singapore. I was sacked three months after
I joined the SDP. When I disputed the dismissal, I was sued for
defamation.
You may be interested to know that while you
confer this award on Lee, your counterparts in Britain, such as
the University of Warwick, Imperial College in London, and the
London School of Economics, turned down invitations by the
Singapore Government to set up campuses in the city-state. The
reason? The Singaporean authorities would not protect the
academic freedom and freedom of speech of their staff and
students in Singapore.
It is impossible for me to relate
to you the entire history of repression in Singapore in this
letter. In this age of the Internet, however, such information is
not hard to obtain. After you have read it, you may begin to
understand why your decision to confer this honour on Lee Kuan
Yew is such an affront to those of us, both in Singapore and
throughout the democratic world, who truly value the sacredness
of justice and freedom.
You may argue that as
Vice-Chancellor you answer to only your staff and students. In
which case, may I ask what values are you imparting to the minds
of those who walk through the gates of ANU? What image are you
conferring on ANU?
Chee Soon
Juan
Secretary-General
Singapore Democratic
Party
cc
Claudia Newman-Martin, President, ANU
Students' Association sa.president@anu.edu.au
Mark Smyth,
President, ANU, Law Students' Society
lss@anu.edu.au
Matt Tinning,
Co-convenor, ANU Students' Amnesty
International
matthew.r.tinning@student.anu.edu.au
Carla
Bongiorno, Urgent Action Coordinator, ANU Students' Amnesty
International
CarlaBongiorno@hotmail.com
Prof
Michael Coper, Dean and Convenor, ANU College of Law
michael.coper@anu.edu.au
Tim
Bugg, President, Law Council of Australia
mail@lawcouncil.asn.au
Simeon
Beckett, President, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR)
admin@alhr.asn.au
The
ANU Alumni
alumni@anu.edu.au
Jane
O'Dwyer, Media Manager, ANU
Jane.ODwyer@anu.edu.au
Australian
High Commission,
Singapore
public-affairs-sing@dfat.gov.au
Note:
The SDP asks all of our friends and allies to spread this email
and to register your protest against the conferment on Lee Kuan
Yew to Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb at Vice-Chancellor@anu.edu.au
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