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SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT PRESS STATEMENT

MC.NOV.9/64(PM)

SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR. LEE KUAN YEW,

ON THE MOTION ON NATIONAL SERVICE AT THE

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY TODAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1964.

There is an air of complete unreality in the debate on this motion. Nobody

believes that there is any immediate probability or likelihood of the youth of

Singapore being called up in significant numbers to fight or die for Malaysia.

A lot of news was created out of national registration and national service.

About March this year, national registration was first introduced in the Peninsula.

Later national registration was extended to the whole of Malaysia. Out of all this

patriotic propaganda effort, only some 80 young men from Singapore have gone

to Port Dickson for some military training.

For Barisan Sosialis this whole debate is a question of postures. For them

nothing has happened to change their well-established anti-colonial, anti-

Malaysia, anti-national service line. The same old arguments why Malaysia is

neo-colonialist are trotted out again from their 1961 archives. The same

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arguments why our children should not die as cannon fodder for colonialism as

was advanced in 1954, a decade ago, are now trotted out again. The war in

North Borneo, they dutifully repeat, is a suppression of the people's liberation

movement.

The only indication from opposition speeches that this is November 1964

and not November 1962 is that the Member for Hong Lim, who has a keen sense

for tailism, has come out in favour of military training, but with this proviso, that

our youth are not to be sent to fight and die outside Singapore. He has always

quickly tailed behind mass feelings and sentiments. That he should now say that

we should have military training in his way of acknowledging the changed mood

and temper of the people. One can sympathise with his dilemma. He cannot

afford to agree with Barisan because he knows that Barisan is now more and

more isolated from the people. But neither can he afford to support the P.A.P.

motion for he has always condemned and must continue to condemn everything

we have done.

Barisan's same old refrain sounds oddly out of tune in our very altered

circumstances. The situation is graver day by day, said the Member for Jurong.

He reminded the House that no matter what the Central Government's

propaganda is, there were large numbers of local Malaysians together with

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Indonesian guerrillas in the landings in Malaya. Day by day, he said, this

situation was creating difficulties for the people. Malaysia was a neo-colonial

plan. Therefore, it brought disaster. It was a plot whereby the British wanted to

preserve their 400-million worth of investment, to continue the exploitation of

these territories in order to make the hard currency for their balance of payment

commitments. Then, all in the same breath, he said, the British wanted to enlarge

war in South-East Asia in their Colonialist-Imperialist Plan. These are parroted

recitals, a conglomeration of pseudo-Marxist Leninist assertions with which they

have tried to explain away their grave follies in policy pursued in their narrow

party interests. If they know that this situation is getting graver day by day and

causing the people more and more difficulties, then why do they not condemn the

Indonesians and the Malaysian traitors who led them into the country? On whose

side is Barisan Sosialis? On the side of the people who suffered as a result of

curfew along the coastal areas causing hardship to our fishermen or on the side of

the invaders whose incursions into Malaya have made these defence precautions

necessary?

We are not that naive to believe that the Britons, Australians and New

Zealanders are motivated by reasons of charity and feelings of humanity in

coming to our aid. Of course, the British would like to keep their economic

interests in this country. Of course, they would like to keep a military foothold in

this region in order to extend for a few years their military capacity and influence

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in this region, and keep their lines to Australia and New Zealand open. But the

acid test surely is, is it or is it not in our own interests to have some nations who

find it worth their while to help us to keep the Indonesians out of our country.

To suggest that the British created Malaysia by adding Sabah and Sarawak to

Malaya in order to protect their investments -- 90% of which are in Malaya -- is

too ludicrous for words. If Britain knew that adding Sabah and Sarawak to

Malaya was going to lead to this acute situation, involving them in increased

defence expenditure, she may well have taken a different course regarding their

former Borneo territories joining Malaysia. But, Malaysia having been created,

Britain knows that even disastrous damage would be done to her economic and

military interests of Malaysia were to be dissolved as a result of pressure from

Indonesia, whatever the balance of interests may have been before the creation of

Malaysia. And we on our part should have no doubts in our minds that if the

boundaries of Malaysia were to be reduced or altered in any way as a result of

Indonesian pressure, then our own future will be in peril. For the whole of South

East Asia then becomes softened for further encroachments and expansions by

the Indonesians. We live or die as a nation according to whether we are able to

discern where the collective interests of our nearly 11 million people lie.

This Barisan motion and the Government's amendment are a matter of

postures. But they are important, for this is a indication of whether we are

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growing up to the realities of life in South East Asia, or still adolescents in a

world of make believe, of sheriffs and bandits, of revolutionary heroes and

wicked white colonialists. Unfortunately the world cannot be painted in such

simple black and white.

Regardless of the remarkable capacity of the Barisan Sosialis to keep to

their established propaganda rut, the world has moved on, and the people have

moved with events. No man in his right senses doubts that if there were no

British bases in Singapore, confrontation would not have stopped simply at

sporadic guerrilla raids, bomb explosions and subversion. People know and are

resigned to the fact that for a long time, we shall be dependent on foreign

assistance to keep the Indonesians from eroding the boundaries of Malaysia. But

the more the British, Australian and New Zealand forces are used on the ground

either in Sabah and Sarawak or in Malaya, the more Malaysia is thrown

psychologically on the defensive, in having to explain to the Afro-Asian world

why with its nearly 11 million people we are still unable to do our own mopping

up of just a few odd platoons of guerrillas.

Our problem is now to get into a position where we can maintain

indefinitely a firm shield against Indonesian attack with unflagging support from

our allies, and without draining our economic resources.

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We have moved this amendment not because we believe that the Central

Government will suddenly expand its training resources and facilities to build an

army comparable to Indonesia's. If the Central Government begins to raise an

army of 40,000 commensurate with the 400,000 of Indonesia's, we will face an

immediate enormous increase in defence expenditure which may well leave

unpleasant effects on our economy. But it is our hope that by this stand we will

give a lead to our people of the need to face up to our responsibilities. Whilst a

large standing army to emulate Indonesian proportions may be extravagant and

unwise, yet a territorial army of week-day civilians trained at week-ends, who

can be called upon to assist the regular army in maintaining the security of the

nation, is something we can achieve at little cost, provided we the people we

prepared to make the effort.

In moving this amendment, we are making it clear to ourselves and our

neighbours, that we understand what the stakes are in South East Asia.

5th November, 1964. (Time issued: 1515 hours)

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