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The
New Democrat, 1996, Issue No. 4
Chee
Soon Juan with Aung San Suu Kyi
in 1998 when he met the
Burmese leader
to interview her for his book To Be
Free
(Monash Asia Institute, 1999, pp. 374)
Swedish
book on Aung San
Suu Kyi by Chee Soon Juan
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People
ignore Government's intimidation – even nuns have come to
sign petition
7 Oct 07
Two Catholic
nuns strode confidently up St Martin's Drive to pen their names
to the petition letters to the Burmese military regime and the
Singapore Government.
Over the past few days, the PAP
Government has been running a campaign to discourage people from
coming to the Burmese embassy.
It started off with ASP
Deep Singh telling the petitioners last Sunday to leave the area
as five or more people constituted an illegal assembly, the first
day of the letter campaign.
When
that failed, the police resorted to stationing themselves at the
entrance to St Martin's Drive, stopping visitors and taking down
their particulars. The officers were turning people away. This
too had limited effect, as people still came in numbers.
Over
the next few days, some letter-writers to the Straits Times
started saying that the SDP was making use of the plight of the
Burmese for our own ends.
This was a ridiculous
accusation. The Singapore Democrats have been following and
speaking up on the situation in Burma for more than 10 years
now.
As early as 1996, we published an article in our
newspaper, The New Democrat, about the Singapore
Government's investments in Burma, and called for the release of
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Dr Chee himself has through the
years written about Burma and spoken at various conferences about
the repression there. In fact, one of the chapters in his book To
Be Free is about Burma and Aung San Suu Kyi. The chapter has
even been translated and published in Sweden.
In any event
the police did not let up the pressure on the SDP's petition
campaign. The Singapore Democrats understand that some monks in
Singapore wanted to hold a prayer session outside the Burmese
embassy but was told not to do so by the police.
We
also heard from various sources that the police have been asking
the monks at the temples to tell the devotees not to go to the
embassy. The police themselves were warning Burmese nationals at
the Peninsula Plaza not to attend the SDP's petition-signing
campaign.
Other petition campaigns were subsequently
organised and the local media quickly played up these events. The
SDP is told that the police even provided buses to transport
petitioners from Peninsula Plaza to the petition sites.
Back
at the Burmese embassy, nearly 1,100 signatures were collected
over a period of eight days. This is despite all the silly
politicking and intimidation by the Singapore Government.
The
table will remain at St Martin's Drive for one final night
tonight. It seems like we have been at the site for such a long
time that one volunteer quipped that the table has now become
15-A St Martin's Drive.
Whatever happens from here, one
thing is clear: something historic happened outside the Burmese
embassy. Apart from the fact that the Burmese came in droves to
vent their anger and say their prayers for their homeland, and in
the process created a memorial-shrine of messages, flowers and
candles, Singaporeans also learned how public civil action can be
conducted in a dignified and peaceful manner.
For our
friends from Burma, justice cannot come sooner. We stand in
solidarity with you.
For
our fellow Singaporeans, our own quest for freedom and democracy
is just beginning.
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