TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent Dr Silviu Ionescu, the Romanian diplomat implicated in the double hit and run accident at Bukit Panjang three weeks ago, has defended himself against fresh evidence arising from the case. On 15 December 2009 at around 3am, a car belonging to the Romanian embassy hit three pedestrians at Bukit Panjang before speeding away. One of them, 30 year old Mr Tong Kok Wai, had since died from his injuries. The car was later found abandoned at Sungei Kadut. Dr Silviu claimed he discovered the car to be missing and lodged a police report in the morning. A few days ago, a taxi driver by the name of Mr Neo told the media that he picked up a Caucasian man resembling Dr Silviu at Sungei Kadut at around the time of the accident. The man asked him for the contact number to the police. He later dialed "999" in Mr Neo's cab to report a car theft. In his latest interview with Romanian online news daily click.ro yesterday, Dr Silviu said he took a taxi to the police to notify the car theft: "We could not communicate with the taxi driver when I first walked more than ten minutes. I knew no English and could not give me any phone number in Emergencies." Dr Silviu admitted calling the police in a second cab which appeared to be Mr Neo's: "In the second cab I asked to be taken home. I wanted to announce the police there, that I had been wandering the streets after I left the first cab. I managed to understand that second taxi driver who gave me telephone number of the emergency. The taxi receipt is in the car with which I went. But that does not mean anything, " he added. Mr Neo had earlier told Chinese paper Lianhe Wanbao that he kept a receipt of his Caucasian passenger's trip. He did not drive the passenger to a police station, but to a condominium in Orchard Road. Dr Silviu initially told the media that both he and his driver discovered the car theft at the embassy after which he lodged a police report. He did not mention that he took a taxi to report the theft. The driver said he was sleeping at that time and was informed of the car theft by Dr Silviu himself. In the meantime, another eye witness has stepped forward to testify in the case: A Mr Tay claimed he saw the Romanian embassy car stopped at a traffic junction along his car minutes before the accident. He described the driver as being bald, having a round face and was wearing a white T-shirt and dark-colored coat, which fitted the image of Dr Silviu Ionescu. By his side is a 20 year old long-haired Chinese/korean  girl who wore thick make-up. Both of them appeared to be drunk and fighting with each other inside the car. When the traffic light turned green, the embassy vehicle did not move, prompting the vehicles behind to sound the horn. Mr Tay claimed the embassy vehicle was speeding at more than 90 km/hr in the direction of Bukit Timah road. For some inexplicable reasons, the Singapore police did not impound Dr Siviu's passport and allowed him to leave the country after three days for treatment of his diabetes. The Singapore media has been unable to contact Dr Silviu who is currently believed to be in Romania. He had since given two interviews to click.ro. According to another Romanian news website hotnews.ro, there is no extradition treaty between Singapore and Romania. Despite all evidence pointing to Dr Silviu as the prime suspect of the case, the Singapore police is still "investigating" it. In a similar case 5 years ago in Romania, a rock musician Teo Peter was killed in a road traffic accident in the capital Bucharest by a vehicle driven by U.S. Marine Christopher VanGoethem. The representatives of the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest sent the soldier home immediately. VanGoethem was subsequently tried in a U.S. military court which acquitted him for causing the death of Teo Peter. He was only given "a letter of reprimand for obstructing justice and making false official statements." The case sparked a massive outcry in Romania, but the Romanian government did not pursue the matter as the U.S. is a key strategic ally. Madam Yenny Young, the wife of Mr Tong was reported in click.ro saying that she wanted the driver to "pay for her husband's death". It appeared that she would have a better chance if she sues the Romanian embassy for damages in Romania itself than to wait for the Singapore police to conclude its "investigations". Related articles: 1. Dr Silviu Ionescu: I have no connection with the case 2. Dr Silviu Ionescu flagged taxi at Sungei Kadut 3. From Romania with love: The Great Singapore escape of Dr Silviu Ionescu 4. Singapore police has not ruled out Dr Silviu Ionescu as a suspect in its investigations 5. Romanian diplomat suspected to be driver of Audi in hit and run accident at Bukit Panjang  Read More →

By Hurr Riyahi In the transcript released by CNA about the interview Lee Kuan Yew had with National Geographic, he said:  “Well, we make them say the national pledge and sing the national anthem but suppose we have a famine, will your Malay neighbour give you the last few grains of rice or will she share it with her family or fellow Muslim or vice versa?”. It is these kinds of rhetorical questions and the respective rhetorical replies that has up till today, for the last fifty years, kept the Malays an isolated community and inspired some of the most intolerant policies such as refusing to give equal opportunities in ministries and military.      Absolute Lack of Logic In Question   What is so unbelievable is that a Cambridge trained lawyer, a statesman for 50 years, someone who has read so much, met so many intellectuals all the time will ask a question such as this which is bankrupt of logic. Firstly do any two individuals behave in the identical manner that one can generalise for a whole community? Secondly are they governed by social or religious laws which will prohibit them from giving their last grains to their non-Muslim neighbours? Basically you can never be able to logically argue Malays will not share their last grains of rice with their non-Muslim neighbours. There is no set of logical arguments that can support such a claim. One can instead ask the question will Chinese share their last grains of rice with their non-Chinese neighbours? That may be a more important question because given the HDB racial quotas, the non-Chinese will depend on their Chinese neighbours for the rice than the other way round. But then again one cannot logically argue Chinese will not share their last grains of rice with non-Chinese neighbours for the similar arguments above.   Rhetoric invalidated by evidence   Lee Kuan Yew is one who always demands that someone must talk with evidence, though he himself did not provide any evidence to support his rhetorical question. That is because evidence clearly show that Malays have always in the last 180 years of coexistence with Chinese in Singapore have protected their Chinese neighbours during each crisis moment. If one is to read through the various postings on the net to this, they will see the truth ( i will use some here to illustrate). During the depression years when there were some segments of population facing severe food scarcity, Malays had helped their Chinese neighbours. During World War II, Malay Regiment defended the Chinese population who were being systematically killed by the Japanese. They could have joined the Japanese and plotted to drive the Chinese out of Singapore to China or kill them in greater numbers. They fancied no such ideas. Instead they defended Singapore Chinese with their own lives. It is extremely disgraceful that a leader such as Lee Kuan Yew who lived through that era and who saw the sacrifice of Malays for Chinese come out to pass such  remarks. If one is to go around and survey the Malay community today, they will find that there are many "Malays"  who are as old as more than 90 years old who are ethnically and biologically Chinese. When they were infants or children, they were given up by their Chinese biological parents out of desperation for adoption and Malay families adopted them. The Malay families then could have refused or dumped those Chinese children then, especially when they themselves faced difficult times. However they did not.  During the race riots of 1960s, the Malays defended their Chinese neighbours and vice versa. The racial attacks were instead targetted against those from outside their kampongs. This is well documented. Lee Kuan Yew will not be able to find a single piece of evidence in Singapore 180 years history where Malays betrayed or turned against their Chinese neighbours during a crisis.   Collective Stigmatisation   To single out Malays and pass such rhetorical remarks is collective stigmatisation. Some segments of Singapore masses who still revere Lee Kuan Yew will inevitably be influenced to believe it is true, especially since many Singaporeans are not critical and independent thinkers. Much of the suspicion towards Malays in this country by Chinese is largely because of the baseless and rhetorical rmemarks passed by politicians which have collectively stigmatised the Malays with such malicious language. Such a practice only isolates the Malay community from the larger Singaporean community and creates unnecessary long term risks to the country.   Unparallelled Rhetoric   After 180 years of living together, if the political leaders of this country cannot understand the Malays beyond their imaginations, nightmares, stereotypes and self-constructed fears, then it just shows how backward our political leaders are. As one blogger commented, there has been no historical prescedent where a Hindu leader in India questioned whether the Indian Muslims will share their last grains of rice with Hindu neighbours. Nor has any Thai leader asked that about their Malays. Nor has any Buddhist leader in Sri Lanka asked that about their Sinhalese, Tamil or Malay Muslims. Nor has any Christian leader asked that about their Muslims in Africa or Palestine or any other part of the world. This kind of unimaginable rhetoric can only surface in Singapore. No wonder you also see some of the unparralleled double standards applied to Malays such as within the military or ministries.   What Damage Do This Kind of Rhetoric Do   This is not the first time Lee Kuan Yew has fired such rhetorical questions and remarks. Once in order to defend his policy of not giving Malays and Muslims equal opportunity in the military and ministeries, he argued that he will think twice about putting Malays in important positions in military and ministeries as they will hesitate to act against their Malaysian  and Indonesian relatives in a wartime. In my eariler article, I categorically showed Malaysian Chinese and China Chinese  migrating to Singapore pose more risk to national security if they are in military and ministeries. It is interesting that Singapore is willing to bear those real risks but chicken out in areas of fictatious risks.   As mentioned earlier this kind of rhetoric only add on to the suspicion and mistrust that many Chinese have towards Malays in Singapore. A friend of mine who was in an important ministry department shared that he does not foresee any change in  the policy within the military because many Chinese actually support Malays from not being given equal opportunity in the military.. Some naive apologists will point out that there is a Malay general now but how many Malays who ought to be generals or colonels or majors have been denied their opportunity. As a blogger wrote in a comment that during the JI fiasco one of the JI members was telling his Chinese neighbour who was going abroad to study that he/she must not worry and that he will take care of his/her parents. It is ironical becuase his JI was plotting to instigate a war between Singapore Chinese and Malaysian Malays. This sounds so similar to the earlier case in race riots during 1970s where violence was between those who were not neighbours. You do not see a  meltdown of relations between those who are integrated. It happens only between one group which is isolated from another group. So by isolating the Malays further by passing such kind of rhetoric as what Lee Kuan Yew did, the risks to social meltdown is only emancipated. It is so ironical that PAP constantly talks about how social integration is critical and any social meltdown will destroy Singapore and yet they do things which aggravate the risks. If the current isolation of Malay community from the larger Singapore community does not improve within the next ten years, one can expect a very serious social meltdown thereafter. One can easily make this assessment if they only study the situations in Africa, Bosnia etc where there were serious social conflicts. That is the kind of grave risk that Singapore is facing though there is an attitude of denial amongs those who know it and an attitude of ignorance amongst others who should know it.  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent YPAP member Eric How was slammed by netizens for his callous remarks on them “slapping on the government senselessly” because they did not get “any fruits of benefits” from their forefathers. Mr How was commenting in a discussion thread on the YPAP Facebook started by the moderator of 3in1kopitiam kojakbt asking for an apology from another YPAP member Sear Hock Rong on his blog: [Source: YPAP Facebook listed in the public domain] Mr Sear had earlier described the 3in1kopitiam forumers as being “terrorists” for a “YPAP Counterstrike squad” set up by some of them. In his reply to “kojakbt and friends”, Mr How chided them for attacking the Singapore government in the 3in1kopitiam forum and said that they should blame it on their karma or forefathers instead: “Do not be bitter and go on slapping on the Government senselessly because you did not get any fruits or benefits from your forefather. You will have to blame on your karma or your forefathers for not getting all the paths right for their off springs.” His remarks sparked a massive outcry in cyberspace with over a hundred comments posted in SPH-owned Hardwarezone Forum in a single day. Danguard was appalled by Mr Eric How's understanding of "karma": "wow blame your karma or forefathers ... for someone so young to say such things - he will have it forthcoming to him when the time comes. no need to argue too much with such air heads." leadtin felt let down by the PAP: "I have absolute zero confidence in the current PAP leaders. then looking at these YPAP ginna, i LOLed... jitao negative confidence + repulsive..." mfbatzap opined that Mr Eric How is just a "nobody" in PAP: "this guy is damn epic fail.. prob some nobody in YPAP who wants his voice to be "heard" you know, those kinda kid who always acts smart but inside actually empty but when he/she starts speaking, you can actually tell whether he's an empty vessel or not. haha." Alpha_Hippo was obviously mad after reading Mr Eric How's remarks: "so angry after reading this. Hope his whole family xxx and his business all bankrupt then he will know what is suffering!" There were no immediate comments from Mr Eric How. Besides him, his fellow comrades are also involved in an ongoing flame war with forumers from 3in1kopitiam. YPAP members were alleged to have lodged numerous complaints to Delphi Forums to get the forumers banned for "infringing copyrights material." Another YPAP member Sear Hock Rong was rapped earlier for his endless taunting of an online critic of the PAP Mr Alex Tan. It was later exposed that Mr Sear's company has numerous business dealings with Eunos grassroots organizations where he is serving as a grassroots leader. YPAP Chairman Teo Ser Luck has been strangely silent over the controversies engulfing YPAP. It is not known if he is aware of what is happening.  Read More →