Book Review
The
Singapore nightmareSaid Zahari's 17 years in prison
|
Book Review
The
Singapore nightmareSaid Zahari's 17 years in prison |
GUANTANAMO, ABU GHRAIB, PINOCHET. .. But before that was Singapore. To remind us of this ugly precedent is Said Zahari's account of his 17 years in a Singapore lock-up. The book's sectional headings alone make the flesh creep. "The terrifying knock on the door;" "In protest of forced labour;" "The damaging consequences of forced feeding;" "Beaten mercilessly;" "How Lim Chin Siong was destroyed;" "Ho Piao's resistamce to torture;" "Tan Fong Har's depths of depair." In 1963 Said Zahari was arrested and handcuffed like a common criminal. He was thrown into Outram Prison together with 113 persons made up of members of the Barisan Socialis and Partai Rakyat Singapore, newspaper editors, trade unionists and university students arrested in a raid code-named, in the military style, "Operation Cold Store." The detainees included five prominent opposition leaders who were to remain in prison in 1978: Lim Chin Siong, Dr Lim Hock Siew, Dr Poh Soo Kai, Lee Tse Tong, and Ho Piao. Dr Poh Soo Kai, was released in November 1973 only to be rearrested in June 1976. Two others, however, Dr Lim Hock Siew and Said Zahari, were conditionally released on 18 November 1978 and exiled respectively to the offshore islands of Pulau Tekong Besar and Pulau Ubin. In August 1979 Said Zahari was released unconditionally. Dr Poh Soo Kai, Ho Piao and Lee Tse Tong, however, remained in Moon Crescent Detention Centre. The Barisan leader, Lim Chin Siong, was released in 1969, ill with depression, after many years in solitary. Detainees were forced to wear prison uniform. They were mentally and physically tortured. Various methods were used to wear them down. They had to wake up at 6 am, conform with a fixed schedule of activity, and pummeled with loud music. Protests were robust. Detainees went on hunger strike and were force fed. The force feeding of Michael Fernandez makes painful reading and tells us acutely about the narcotic obsession with terror of those in authority. Deprivation of sleep was what they inflicted on Ho Piao. But the planned destruction of Lim Chin Seong, the giant whom the prime minister feared most of all, makes painful reading. Despicable indeed are men in power who will go to extremes to make Singapore one hundred percent safe for foreign investors. Said Zahari did not surrender to torture and confess to being an Indonesian agent (a "crime" they had concocted), They were wrong to think he would succumb. Had not Ahmad Khan, the principal interrogato of the special branch, threatened to have him |
| shot with his own gun
if he
was unco-operative? The man had underestimated the
unconquerable human spirit that was his prisoner, the type that,
once he was released from the
dampness of solitary confinement taught Malay and
learnt Mandarin. Said Zahari was released on 22 August 1979. But he humbly tells about those locked up much longer than he was - Dr Lim Hock Siew (1963-1982) and Chia Thye Poh, an MP, only released in 1992, an old man of 58. Professor Nik Anuar's foreword to the book sees Lee Kuan Yew as the villain of the piece. He fails however to remember that Said Zahari was editor of the Utusan Melayu and that his long and cruel nightmare was the reward for his refusal to give in the Tunku Abdul Rahman's demand that Utusan become the mouthpiece of UMNO, A Singapore citizen, he was expelled to that island where he was detained one year and five months later by the tripartite security committee made up of Britain, Malaya and Singapore. On his becoming prime minister Lee Kuan Yew continued the detention proving that even for newspaper editors, fortune is fickleness itself..# Lim Kean Chye Book reviewed: The Long Nightmare - My 17 years as a political prisoner by Said Zahari Utusan Publications 2007 |
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