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PUBLIC STATEMENT ISSUED ON THE 60th ANNIVERSARY OF OPERATION COLDSTORE

PUBLIC STATEMENT ISSUED ON THE 60th ANNIVERSARY OF

OPERATION COLDSTORE

We, the undersigned former political prisoners, affirm and support Dr Poh Soo

Kai’s statement below. We ask for an apology from the People’s Action Party

(PAP) government and reparation, whether symbolic or substantive, for physical

and psychological mistreatment, and consequential deprivation of livelihood

suffered by some of us during and after our imprisonment without trial under

the Internal Security Act (ISA).

The ISA has to be abolished. It has been used by the PAP government

repeatedly against those it feared would be threats to its power.

The ISA has done tremendous damage to us, our families and the people of

Singapore.

DR POH SOO KAI’S STATEMENT

Sixty years ago, on 2 February 1963, I was imprisoned without trial along with

over a hundred others. I was then the Assistant Secretary General of the Barisan

Sosialis. I am now 91 years old and am one of about 50 survivors of Operation

Coldstore alive today. In 1963, most of us were in our youthful twenties.

The PAP government has been relentless in using the ISA, arresting and

imprisoning people without trial.

Those of us who refused to sign “confessions” were imprisoned indefinitely,

some for almost two decades. Dr Chia Thye Poh, then an elected Member of

Parliament, was arrested at age 25 and imprisoned for 23 years; for nine more

years he was forced to live with severe restrictions – three years confined to

Sentosa Island and six years within the limits of Singapore.

Today, I demand accountability for myself and all political prisoners, so that

Singaporeans can understand the roots of our draconian political system. The

PAP has been the only ruling party in Singapore since 1959. Its younger

members may not be fully aware of how their party managed to defeat its

political opponents and critics so thoroughly. It is time they know the party’s

history.

On 19 September 2011, 16 ISA survivors signed a statement calling for the

Singapore government to abolish the ISA when the Malaysian government

announced that it would repeal their ISA.

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PUBLIC STATEMENT ISSUED ON THE 60th ANNIVERSARY OF OPERATION COLDSTORE

The Ministry of Home Affairs responded that the signatories were involved in

“subversive activities which posed a threat to national security” and that they

were not detained for their political beliefs but were “actively involved in

Communist United Front activities in support of the Communist Party of

Malaya (CPM), which was committed to the violent overthrow of the

constitutionally-elected governments in Singapore and Malaysia”.1

I CATEGORICALLY REJECT such spurious and unsubstantiated allegations

and fabricated charges. The PAP government has continued to repeat such lies

for 60 years.

I CHALLENGE the PAP government to produce evidence to substantiate their

allegations against me.

I STRONGLY MAINTAIN that I was arrested under Operation Coldstore

because of my political beliefs, which were based on the anticolonial and pro- working-class manifesto and constitution of the PAP when it was formed. I was

one of its founding members.

Operation Coldstore was about Lee Kuan Yew, the compliant successor of the

British colonialists, needing to keep his position as prime minister.

An account of the key political events in the 1960s will bear this out.

The people of Singapore were anticolonial. They were against the Lim Yew

Hock government for arresting innocent students and trade union leaders in

1956. I now know from de-classified archival documents that Lee Kuan Yew

was secretly plotting those arrests with Lim Yew Hock to win over the British,

who wanted to retain her military base in Singapore.

The PAP had a landslide victory in the 1959 general election. There was no

political crisis or instability in the country in its initial years as government.

Once in government, Lee collaborated with the British who pressed him to act

against the left faction of the PAP led by Lim Chin Siong.

Instability emerged within the PAP itself when Lee expelled his rival Ong Eng

Guan. Ong defended and retained his seat convincingly as an independent in the

Hong Lim by-election of April 1961. He had campaigned on the platform of

1 https://tinyurl.com/33ck2ezv

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PUBLIC STATEMENT ISSUED ON THE 60th ANNIVERSARY OF OPERATION COLDSTORE

keeping the PAP government true to its election pledges, including freeing

prisoners held without trial by Lim Yew Hock.

From the Hong Lim by-election, the British realised with alarm that the PAP

was no longer the force it was when it came into power in June 1959, and that

the electorate had a mind of its own.

In July 1961, the PAP lost the Anson by-election in the face of the same demand

to free those imprisoned without trial. When the seat of Sembawang became

vacant not long after, Lee (having lost two by-elections) did not dare to face

another by-election.

The British threw Lee Kuan Yew a “lifeline”, as they put it. They gave Prime

Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman the merger deal of a Malaysia which included

British North Borneo and Sarawak and which put Singapore’s internal security

in the Tunku’s hand. Lee relentlessly called the PAP left “communists”

and expelled them when they refused to give him complete control to decide on

the terms for merger. The expelled PAP left-wing formed the Barisan Sosialis

which was then the strongest political force in Singapore. But Operation

Coldstore totally decimated them.

Operation Coldstore was ordered by the British, Singapore and Federation of

Malaya members of the Internal Security Council to overcome the challenge

from the Barisan Sosialis. Nine out of the 16 Central Working Committee

members led by Lim Chin Siong were arrested and imprisoned. Their

imprisonment eliminated the Barisan’s top echelon from the September 1963

general election, giving the PAP a clear win. Despite that, the government

almost immediately ordered another wave of arrests, including of another three

members of the Barisan Central Working Committee who were successful in the

general election.

Separation took place less than two years after merger, and the ISA continued to

be the instrument used to suppress political activities which were constitutional

but which the government labelled “subversive”, without needing to provide

evidence. I remained in prison at the pleasure of the PAP government even

when Barisan’s objections to the terms of merger were shown to be valid.

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