by Teo Soh Lung

Thirty-nine years ago today, six young Singaporeans were arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA). An earlier arrest of 16 people on 21 May 1987 failed to satisfy the PAP regime. The six arrested were Chew Kheng Chuan, Chng Suan Tze, Tang Fong Har, Fan Wan Peng, Ronnie Ng and Noor Affandi Shahid. 

The first three were friends of several of those earlier arrested and detained while the remaining three were Singapore Polytechnic students. Their “crime” was simply to issue a statement denying the government’s allegation that some of those who were arrested had anything to do with their activism in the polytechnic. Like the 16, none of the six was found to have weapons or documents showing that they had been involved or intended to cause any upheaval in Singapore using violent or non violent means. 

It is interesting to learn from Singapore Human Right Alert which Function 8 had recently upload on their website, that soon after arresting the 16 people on 21 May 1987, the PAP government faced a barrage of protests from all over the world. Ministers and diplomats were kept busy by foreign journalists. They were surprised that the detainees had so many friends outside Singapore who were willing to spend time campaigning for their release. Several had even delayed their pursuits in higher academic qualifications. PM Lee Kuan Yew and his ministers were shocked and angry. What was worse was that the Catholic Church in Singapore appeared to be supportive of the detainees. On 27 May, Archbishop Gregory Yong had presided over a mass at the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour which was attended by 2500 people. Many had to stand outside the church. Four family members of those detained gave personal testimonies. A press statement was issued and a pastoral letter was read in all Catholic Churches on Sunday, 31 May.

PM Lee was angry and likely worried that the Singapore Catholic Church would follow the Churches in the Philippines and South Korea in protesting against their corrupt governments. He had to tame the Church, to nip it in the bud. He had subdued the foreign press and political opponents before. The Catholic Church should not pose any difficulty especially when his minions like Dr Ee Peng Liang, a lay Catholic holding some influential position in the Church would obey his orders. 

So a plan was hatched. A meeting would be arranged with Archbishop Yong and his representatives who must be approved by PM Lee and the ISD. Following that meeting, the strategy was to shock the archbishop with the appearance of the the Vatican Charge d’Affairs, Fr Giovanni D’Aniello and appear at a press conference with local journalists. 

The Archbishop and his representatives were thus invited to the Istana. They were given selected written statements of Vincent Cheng to read. PM Lee then met with them. After the meeting, they left the Istana for the carpark. But before the archbishop could drive off, he was called back to the Istana to meet a “European priest”. Not suspecting any foul play, the archbishop told his representatives to drive off. 

Returning to the Istana alone, he met the European priest, Vatican Charge d’Affairs, Fr Giovanni D’Aniello who had flown in from Bangkok. How he was snatched from the Singapore airport and whisked off to the Istana to meet the prime minister and the archbishop, no one knows. It cannot be coincidental because PM Lee was a master strategist. He liked to use the shock and awe technique to extract maximum results in his favour. 

At the Istana, the archbishop was apparently advised by Fr Giovanni who had met and discussed with PM Lee earlier to make a statement based on what the government had told him. (I wouldn’t be surprised if that was PM Lee’s idea!). 

And so a press conference was convened. Only local journalists were present. Foreign journalists were not invited. The archbishop then declared that he had to accept the government’s evidence that Vincent Cheng had made use of the Church because he himself had admitted it. Clearly, the archbishop being a religious person could not appreciate that a person in custody and tortured was not capable of writing any truthful statement.

ARCHBISHOP ACCEPTS GOVT “EVIDENCE” 

Human Rights Alert Update No. 4 of 3 June 1987 reported the surprise press conference of 2 June 1987 as follows: 

“Archbishop Turns the Key. Detainees’ Families Harrassed. “

Giving in to constant pressure from the government Archbishop Gregory Yong yesterday joined Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in a press conference from which the foreign press was excluded. The Archbishop said he was shown the government’s files on Vincent Cheng and was satisfied with the evidence because “…the man himself admitted that he was using the church…”. However, the Archbishop has not yet talked to Vincent Cheng himself.”

How could the archbishop abandon his flock on 2 June when just a week ago, on 27 May he had presided over a mass at the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour attended by 2500 people? How could he forget that his Church had issued a press statement supporting the 16 detainees the following day and a pastoral letter was read in all churches on Sunday, 31 May?

After the act of disowning his flock at the press conference, it was easy for the Archbishop to simply obey the orders of Lee and his minions. While churches in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Europe, England and America openly supported the detainees and prayed for their release, the archbishop continued to listen to the orders of the PAP government. The four priests, Joseph Ho, Patrick Goh, Guiliaume Arotcarena and Edgar D’Souza tendered immediate resignations from their positions in the organisations they presided in order to avoid a conflict between church and state. The threat of arrests was real at that time if they did not resign. A few days later on 6 June, the archbishop without any notice, suspended them from preaching and having any contact with the organisations they were working with. Fr Arotcarena in his book PRIEST IN GEYLANG said that he learnt about his suspension from The Straits Times. Churches were forbidden to openly pray for the detainees. It was so absurd for the head of a powerful Catholic Church to act in the way he did. Till today, I cannot accept or understand why he had behaved in such a disgraceful, cowardly manner.

Since the archbishop had refused to help the detainees, the families of Catholic detainees wrote to the Pope. Below is the report from Update No. 7:

LETTER TO POPE 

The families have expressed their sense of abandonment by the Catholic Church after the Archbishop of Singapore, Gregory Yong, gave his support to the Government and prohibited prayers for the detainees from being said in his parish churches. He has further instructed the families that they should not attend the same church together. 

In a letter to Pope John Paul II expressing their grief and sense of injustice, the families say, “Holy Father, every moment, every heartbeat, we are praying that God will protect His servants who have been detained… But it is difficult to be strong, for we feel like sheep whose shepherd has left them and we do not know which way to turn.”

The archbishop had abandoned his flock. What he did was not only wrong but foolish. If he thought that Lee would respect him for that, he was naive. 

Anyway, the archbishop is dead. In my opinion, he was no comparison to his predecessor Archbishop Michel Olçomendy MEP who I respect for his firm stand against the PAP’s “Stop at Two” policy.