Once a Jolly Hangman

by Alan Shadrake

  The Burmese government has also kept computers and communication technology away from students and others in opposition to the regime. All computers, software, email services and other telecommunication devices - which hardly anyone can afford anyway - must be licensed but licences are almost impossible to obtain. Yet Singapore has made the best computer technology available to the ruling elite and their business partners. Singapore Telecom, the largest company in Asia outside Japan, was the first to provide Burma businesses and government offices with the ability to set up inter- and intra-corporate communications in more than 90 countries.

  Singapore's concerns are dramatically different from those of countries sharing a border with Burma. Thailand has to deal with the deadly narcotics trade and an overwhelming number of refugees arriving on a daily basis. Banphot Piamdi, the Thai counter-narcotics official, believes Thailand made a big mistake when it voted for Burma's entry into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) given its lack of cooperation in fighting drugs. Not surprisingly, the Singapore government lobbied hard for Burma's 1997 acceptance into the powerful regional alliance. Ironically, its inclusion in ASEAN would force member nations, including Singapore, to address the havoc that their newest ally was imposing on the region - especially since it provides approximately 90 per cent of the total production of Southeast Asian opium - but his hope does not appear to have materialised more than a decade later. Burma's neighbours, China and India, now face severe AIDS epidemics related to increased heroin use in their bordering provinces. Most of the heroin exported from Burma to the West passes through China's Yunnan province, which now has more than half a million addicts. And even Singapore, whose heroin supply comes mostly from Burma, had a 41 per cent rise in HIV cases in 1997 with the problem still unabated as in 2010.

  Meanwhile Singapore has become Washington's forward partner in the unfolding era of East-West trade. Former Ambassador Green called the country 'a major entry port and a natural gateway to Asia for American firms'. US companies exported $22.3 billion worth of goods to Singapore in 2009, its thirteenth largest trading partner, and more than 1,500 US firms now operate in the country. Singapore's strategic and economic importance to the US cannot be overstated. The two countries have a long-term agreement allowing the US Navy to use a Singapore base even though the deal violates ASEAN's 1997 nuclear weapons-free zone agreement. The US has condemned Burma's record of human rights abuses and support for the drug trade but has turned a blind eye when it comes to Singapore's dealings with the regime. Although when in power President Clinton imposed economic sanctions partly for Burma's role in providing pure and cheap heroin to America's youth he did not comment on Singapore's willingness to play ball with the world's biggest heroin traffickers. Ambassador Green told Congress at the time that the US 'has an important role in working with the Singapore government to deal with illegal drug and weapons proliferation issues'. But most US officials have remained silent about Singapore's investments with Lo and Burma's narco-dictatorship.

  Despite being vilified by the world community, Singapore will no doubt continue to expand its investments in Burma. 'Our two economies are complementary and although we can derive satisfaction from the progress made, I believe that there still remains a great potential that is yet to be exploited', said General Nyunt, the country's former intelligence chief. Aided by Singapore's support, Burma's thriving heroin trade has plagued the majority of countries around the globe. While these countries blithely pour money into drug-connected companies based in Burma and thereby help them to expand into foreign markets, an abundance of the world's finest heroin continues to plague their citizens. At the same time, the line between legitimate and illegitimate investments grows dimmer in the global economy. One of Singapore's most vociferous campaigners is Chee Soon Juan, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, who says the funding makes a mockery of Singapore's hardline stance on drug trafficking. 'If the Singapore government truly feels drug abuse is a scourge on society, it would not just want to catch and hang these small-time peddlers', Chee said. 'You would want to go after the big fish and go where the source is. The Singapore government should press Burma on what it's doing to stop this production of opium and heroin.

  24

  Whither Singapore?

  Although some anti-death penalty activists in Singapore feel change is coming, a wider jury is still out on that question. Activist Alex Au and others reckon that the death penalty itself will never be abolished while countries like China and the United States lead the way in retaining it. 'Singaporeans are born to follow, not born to lead', he says. However, many believe that the more controversial mandatory death penalty will eventually be struck from the statute books. It may still take a long time judging by past and recent events, but the slow drip of pressure from within and outside Singapore will eventually result in a stream, then a river which will sweep in the kind of changes that these otherwise delightful people desperately need. But the change they hope for is not just the abolition of the death penalty. It is also about freedom of speech and thought and the ability to express them in public, in peaceful demonstrations, taking part in or watching afternoon television debates like they have in most countries on all kinds of sensitive issues, including crime and punishment - and even Once A Jolly Hangman. Perhaps this will one day become the norm without anyone eavesdropping or reporting them to the authorities.

  Even though the lawyer, abolitionist and human rights campaigner M. Ravi has been relentlessly vilified by the PAP government and its propaganda arms of the media, he continues to fight on and is optimistic that at least its most heinous mandatory death penalty law is on its way out. The Singapore Democratic Party also feels their voice is being listened to by a wider audience. In 2005 they organised a public forum to bring attention to the execution of Shanmugam Murugesu, convicted of trafficking 500 grams of cannabis. He was hanged anyway but Chee Siok Chin, one of the organisers of the forum, said 'We are glad to see that since then, the campaign against the mandatory death penalty for drug peddling has grown'. Things got better at the UN General Assembly in 2007, two years after the Shanmugam Murugesu campaign began making waves. Singapore put itself at the forefront of nations opposing the call for a moratorium on executions. However, the island state found itself isolated when a resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions on 18 December 2007 was resoundingly approved. The spirits of all activists were again boosted by a hard-hitting report in July 2008, when the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute condemned Singapore for its lack of freedoms of expression, assembly and the press, and of the independence of the judiciary. The report, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Singapore, listed 18 recommendations urging the government to implement as a matter of priority. Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the Association, said 'As one of the world's most successful economies, Singapore should be a leader in human rights and the rule of law, and should now have the confidence and maturity to recognise that this would be complementary, not contradictory, to its future prosperity'. He said Singapore falls far short of international standards in many areas. In particular, democratic debate and media comment are extremely restricted and government officials have initiated numerous successful defamation suits against both political and media critics. And this is the point. The egregious record of Singapore in relation to the death penalty cannot be separated from its deeply- embedded structures of authoritarianism and political illiberalism.

  But most Singaporeans - if they were even aware of the conference and the IBA report - are not expecting dramatic change any time soon despite the efforts of many influential lawyers at home. Those who felt hopeful soon had their dreams dashed. In March 2009, as if sending a loud raspberry to the IBA, parliament passed a new Public Order Act 'to create a more effective legal framework for Police management of public order'. The Act 'empowers police to effectively intervene, defuse and de-escalate dynamic situations on the ground with options to calibrate such intervention
s in an appropriate, measured and balanced manner'. Beneath the veneer of jargon and doublespeak this is actually yet another erosion of precious civil liberties. And then in October 2009, more than a year after the IBA report was released, Singapore's Supreme Court threw out an appeal by the Far Eastern Economic Review in its defamation case involving prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew. The publication had been found guilty of defaming the two leaders in an article published in the August 2006 issue, which quoted Chee Soon Juan, secretary general of the Singapore Democratic Party. FEER had appealed the verdict, but judges Chan Sek Keong, Andrew Phang Boon Leong and Judith Prakash dismissed the appeal with costs. They agreed with the earlier judgment that the words used in the article, written by its editor Hugo Restall, were indeed defamatory to both Lees.

  Today Singapore is an extremely wealthy, globalised city-state. But far from giving its political elite the 'confidence and maturity' to open up the political system, to tolerate dissent and criticism and to protect fundamental human rights, the PAP government has actually chosen to go in the opposite direction. It has solidified its near monopoly on the political apparatus of the state by perverting the rights guaranteed in the Constitution through the passage and arbitrary enforcement of unconstitutional domestic laws. The absence of independence in a compliant judiciary and a media silenced through state ownership and the ever-present threat of defamation and libel suits has created a climate for the suppression of basic political freedoms. And in that context there is simply no meaningful debate about the death penalty and its repercussions.

  A very recent case illustrates the lengths to which the governing elite will go to clamp down on even the mildest forms of dissent. For a brief moment in early 2010 things looked like they might be getting better. In a stunning decision, Judge John Ng acquitted leaders of the Singapore Democratic Party who were charged with taking part in an illegal procession on 16 September 2007. Judge Ng said the walk 'did not cause inconvenience to the public, effect traffic flow or make noise which disturbed the public peace. The SDP leaders - Gandhi Ambalam, John Tan, Chee Siok Chin, Charles Tan and human rights activist Chong Kai Xiang - were marking the first anniversary of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund protest that had been held on the same date the previous year. The five, who were wearing t-shirts with the words 'Democracy Now' and 'Freedom Now' with a picture of a lighted candled, had walked from Speakers' Corner along North Bridge Road to Parliament House then along Bras Basah Road to the Istana - the presidential palace - then along Orchard Road to Queenstown Remand Prison. They were also conducting a vigil for Chee Soon Juan who was in prison at that time for speaking in public. The group was charged with conducting a procession without a permit. In his ruling Judge Ng dismissed the prosecutions 'simplistic' interpretation that a group of five or more people walking from one point to another in a public place to commemorate an event constitutes a 'procession'. He concluded that the five had not caused any public order offence. He seemed to vindicate the defendants' claim that taking part in processions and assemblies in Singapore is part of the fundamental rights of citizens provided for in the Constitution as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But on 17 March 2010 hope turned to despair when High Court Judge Choo Han Teck reversed the judgment on the appeal by the Attorney General. It seems Judge Choo ignored the constitutional issues involved - that the right to hold and participate in processions stems from the right to assemble 'peaceably and without arms' in Singapore's constitution and that this right should be given a generous interpretation'. The High Court sent the case back to Judge Ng and he was pressed to impose fines or a jail sentence. By pure chance a few weeks later I happened to bump into Gandhi Ambalam walking along a street in Kuala Lumpur. We went for coffee and he told me that because he refused to pay the $2,000 fine he must now go to jail for two weeks instead. Just as humiliating for a loyal citizen of Singapore he had to apply to a judge for permission to cross the border to Malaysia to attend to some personal business.

  Having lived in Singapore for more than six years, making many good and brave friends along the way, I find it sad to end this book on such a pessimistic note. Gandhi Ambalam's demise might be considered trivial compared to others I have mentioned but I hope that these disturbing and shocking revelations - the kind the authorities are always desperate to cover up - will encourage Singaporeans to stand up, be bolder, think outside the box they have been put in, bring about change and make their country really worthy of its reputation as 'Uniquely Singapore!', a world class nation and not an Orwellian nightmare. And whither Darshan Singh? Will he one day come to realise that his life of killing people on behalf of the state for 50 years was a complete waste of time, as did Albert Pierrepoint at the end of his equally long career? Only he will know I wish him well. And I sincerely hope that when his time comes he too will go to a better place than this.