by Teo Soh Lung
Statutory declarations are statements signed by persons before an officer of the court. It should contain only truths but for people who have lost their freedom, they often contain untruths and half truths.
On 18 April 1988, nine former ISA prisoners released a joint statement denying participation in any Marxist conspiracy to overthrow the PAP government by using communist united front tactics. All hell broke loose the next day! Eight of the nine were rearrested and sent back to prison. The ninth, Tang Fong Har escaped arrest because she was in London. She has since then been living in exile.
Did the nine anticipate being rearrested after the release of their statement?
My late mother had time and again advised me after my first release from prison, to ignore the government’s taunts and unjust allegations. “Let others bully you. You don’t bully others!” But that sense of being unjustly accused for something that I did not do kept bugging me. I was constantly reminded that I was a fugitive in my own country!
In February 1988, I was asked if I would like to be interviewed by BBC about my time in detention. I agreed. Thus I was interviewed at my office and the programme called NEWSNIGHT, featuring the success story of Singapore was slightly damaged by my one second appearance narrating that I was hit by ISD officers when I was detained. I recall that my friends and I were terrified after the interview because we saw so many plainclothes officers outside the building trailing the BBC team!
Who instigated the drafting of the joint statement was one of the questions asked of many of those who had to sign statutory declarations. Senior officers accused me of being the instigator because I was interviewed by BBC and I was not rearrested! They said that others thought it was safe to make a joint statement because nothing happened to me! But how could I read the thoughts of my friends!
The first few days of my rearrest was relatively peaceful. They must have thought that it was pointless to interrogate me because I would have nothing to say since I told the officers that if they like, they can name me as the leader and the rest can go free. I told them I could solve the problem for them if they allowed me to see all my friends. Of course that was a naïve suggestion! They were utterly furious.
On the 9th day of my rearrest, the Deputy Director, the late Mr Sim Poh Heng stormed into the interrogation room. His face was as black as the opium gods in the Taoist temple. He said: “The rest have signed their statements and you are the last!” He went on: “I won’t ask you to say you were not beaten up!” I said that even if he did, I wouldn’t. So I didn’t state whether I was beaten up or not. Readers can therefore assume that I was beaten up.
It didn’t take too long for a statement to be drafted. In fairness to the Sim, I stated in the declaration that I was warned by him that if we released the statement, we would all be rearrested. One of the officers later told me that I was ungrateful to Mr Sim and that I had done him in for revealing that I was warned. Actually, it was not my intention to do Mr Sim in. He was basically a decent person and tried his best to save us from prison.
After being warned by Mr Sim, I consulted Chew Kheng Chuan who I happen to meet. Being an optimist, he said it was not too late to call a meeting with the others. I somehow knew that it was not possible to call off the release of the statement because some of the signatories had already despatched it out of Singapore!
And so the meeting that night was filled with tension. No one was willing to consider the consequences. Some were hostile and filled with bravado. “We are ready to be arrested!”
On 18 April 1988, copies of the joint statement were hand delivered to the foreign press and mailed to The Straits Times.
The next day, as I left my house for work, I noticed that I was being trailed. When I reached office, I received a call from AsiaWeek’s journalist, Lisa Beyer. I think I told her that we may be arrested. She said but you are not arrested now. I said “not yet”.
Soon after putting down the phone, plain clothes officers entered the premises. After a search which included their salvaging the contents of the waste paper basket into a trash bag, I was taken to my home for another search and then to Whitley.
All eight of us and our lawyer Patrick Seong were arrested that day. We subsequently signed statutory declarations. Many of the declarations contain falsehoods regarding ill treatment or said nothing about ill treatment. In addition, those not arrested were summoned to the ISD headquarters at Phoenix Park. They too signed statutory declarations, some of which also contain untruths. Altogether, 14 statutory declarations were signed and published in The Straits Times.
I don’t know how those who signed declarations which didn’t tell the truth feel. I remember that not long after everyone had signed the declaration, I was asked to see Tang Lay Lee. Mr Sim told me that Lay Lee was in a state of depression and I was asked to console her. How on earth could I console her when I was also in a state of depression! Anyway, I was escorted to a room where she was. There was a Bible on the table. Oh, while she was allowed a Bible, I was not offered one since my arrest! I was staring at walls throughout!
I cannot remember what I said to Lay Lee. I probably told her that what was done cannot be undone and there was no need to regret what has been done.
Reading Lay Lee’s statutory declaration today, I think I know why she was so depressed. She had stated that she was well treated and had no complaints against any ISD officers when in fact she suffered physical blows even more than me! The ISD officers were so afraid that she would lodge complaints against them that they made her confirm that she had no intention of lodging any complaint against them!
In the years following her release, she told friends that she was not only hit by both male and female officers for being a Catholic, she was also doused with cold water in freezing cold temperature when she was unwell and in a state of shock and confusion.
Nearly 40 years have passed since Operation Spectrum took place. Both the director and deputy director of ISD have passed on. Among the 22 who were arrested, two have passed on – Tay Hong Seng and Yap Hon Ngian William. Mr Francis Seow who took on my habeas corpus application and subsequently was arrested when he came to interview me, has also passed on.
Today, the PAP government does not wish to remind us of Operation Spectrum. I don’t know if PAP history mentions Operation Spectrum. Maybe one day, when there is a change of government, the archives of the ISD will be open for scrutiny for all of us. By that time, I will be dead!
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