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2 Singapore squirms as Burmese
protest By Alex Au
"Police take a stern view against those
who organize and participate in illegal assemblies
or processions. It is an offense to do so without
a permit." This sharp warning was carried in the
country's national daily on September 27, 2007 in
an attempt to warn off anyone intending to
organize marches. The country was not Burma, but
Singapore.
A month earlier, on August 25,
2007, 30 to 40 Burmese residents
in
Singapore had marched two kilometers down Orchard
Road, the main shopping street, to a point near
the City Hall. They did so to show solidarity with
the then-nascent protests in Rangoon over the
recent fuel-price hikes. "They just wore ordinary
white T-shirts, carried no placards, and no one
shouted slogans," reported an observer. "It was
entirely peaceful." The point was to send pictures
back to Burma to encourage their compatriots.
Barely 20 steps from the starting point,
the group was intercepted by a police inspector
and four or five officers videotaping the
participants. The inspector "advised" the
participants not to proceed, or else they might
face charges. To underline the seriousness of the
warning, ID particulars of 23 of the participants
were recorded. Despite this, the march continued,
only to encounter the same police officers about
one kilometer further on, near the presidential
palace. Another warning was given.
A week
later, at the end of August, the 23 participants
received letters from the police requiring them
attend police interrogation over this "illegal
procession". They had to make signed statements,
and were issued a warning not to participate in
any such activities again. Said one of those who
was called up, whose name has to be withheld for
her own safety, "the police told us: 'If you do it
again, you will be deported immediately'."
As protests intensified in Burma, with
monks joining in and being beaten and arrested for
their trouble, Singaporeans too were increasingly
moved by events over there. University students
began to organize, choosing October 4 to hold a
mass event across four campuses.
The
police were not far behind. At the Singapore
Management University, a 7.30pm peace vigil was
set to take place in the open deck on the ground
floor of the library building. "At mid-afternoon,
the police contacted the Dean of Students telling
him that unless we had a permit, the Peace Vigil
would be an illegal assembly," said Mark Myo, one
of the organizers. The event thus had to be moved
indoors into the library.
Something
similar happened at the Kent Ridge campus of the
National University of Singapore. The campus
newspaper, The Ridge, reported that "appeals were
made to hold outdoor vigils", but the proposal was
rejected, "as it is not in keeping with the
university culture and may not serve an academic
purpose". In the end, at Kent Ridge, the vigil
didn't take place at all.
The most
contentious case could be the battle of wills that
took place at the end of September between the
Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and the police.
The SDP had set up a petition table outside the
Myanmar embassy and invited people to come sign
two petitions - one to Singapore's prime minister,
the other to the Myanmar ambassador. At one point
over 200 people, Singaporeans and Burmese, showed
up. They lit candles, stuck messages onto the
embassy gates and stayed on peacefully as a
gesture of solidarity.
Throughout, the
police tried to tell people to leave, videotaping
faces in an attempt to scare individuals off. "We
advise you to leave; we are investigating this
case," repeated the officer-in-charge ad
nauseum. Some left; others moved a little, but
still hung around.
At the entrance to St
Martin's Drive, where the embassy was located,
more policemen were deployed to prevent people
from walking up the narrow road towards the
embassy and the petition-signing area. A man named
Wunna was among those who tried to enter. "The
plainclothes policemen stationed there warned me
not to proceed into the road, or else they would
investigate," he said. He decided not to risk it,
and turned back.
By then, Singapore's
foreign minister, George Yeo, had already issued a
statement on behalf of Asean "demand[ing] that the
Myanmar government immediately desist from the use
of violence against demonstrators."
It
would hardly do for the Singapore government to
engage in similar behaviour. Even short of
violence, prosecution and deportation would put
them in the same moral basket as the Myanmar
military junta.
It is an open secret that
the Singapore government and many companies here
happily do business with the Myanmar generals. As
reported in the newspaper Today, on October 5,
"Myanmar's official data reports Singapore as its
second-largest investor with over US$1.57 billion,
mostly in the services sector." Flowing in the
other direction are funds connected with the
regime, substantial amounts of which are believed
to be parked in Singapore banks.
Moreover,
the Myanmar generals regularly come to Singapore
for medical treatment.
This cozy
relationship may explain the fact that police
surveillance of the 30,000 - 60,000 strong Burmese
community in
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