冷藏行动60周年

60TH ANNIVERSARY OF OPERATION COLDSTORE
by Teo Soh Lung

February 2, 2023 marked the 60th anniversary of Operation Coldstore. On February 2, 1963, the majority of opposition party leaders were incarcerated without trial, many for over a decade. Dr Lim Hock Siew was imprisoned for 20 years, Ho Piao and Lee Tee Tong for 18 years, Said Zahari for 17 years and Dr Poh Soo Kai for 11 years. Dr Poh was subsequently imprisoned for another six years. Many others spent over a decade in prison.

Today, it is obvious why the PAP government imprisoned all those opposition leaders for decades. It was simply to ensure that they would all be forgotten by members of the public and thus would no longer pose a threat to the PAP government. The PAP are definitely worse than our colonial master when it comes to treating political opponents.

Remembering the enormous sacrifices of those who were imprisoned under Operation Coldstore and the waves of arrests that followed, Function 8 and Transformative Justice Collective held a press conference on 2 February 2023 at The Arts & Civil Space. Journalists from the local and foreign press as well as members of civil society and survivors of Operation Coldstore attended the conference. The press statement can be read here https://tinyurl.com/4rfe3e98. At the press conference, the statement and names of 60 Operation Coldstore survivors and their families were read by Kokila Annamalai, Kirsten Han and Joanna Lee.

A few days before the press conference, it was rumoured that the government would announce something about Operation Coldstore in the national media. On the morning of the press conference, the front page of The Straits Times screamed “Teen detained under ISA. Planned to bomb army camp – Stab people with knife – Declare Coney Island as ISIS province.” A photo of a boy alleged to be Muhammad Irfan Danyal Mohamed Nor (Irfan) aged 18 wearing a ski mask and holding a knife appeared on the right side of the article.

The article was a distraction. But its intent was clear. It was to remind the public that the ISA is still needed and even young people would not be spared from being labelled as terrorists.

The Ministry of Home Affairs’ press release dated 1 February 2023 published two photos, allegedly of Irfan in Annex A, one wearing a ski mask and holding a knife while the other with his index finger raised, which according to the description in the newspaper, was intended to “mimic ISIS fighters”. Both photos were used by the newspaper, the more dramatic one of him holding a knife was used on the front page while the other was in the inside pages. See https://tinyurl.com/2s4ztx4b.

The intention of the ministry is clearly to instil fear in the public and justify the continued use of the Internal Security Act (ISA) in Singapore despite the call for its repeal by the former political prisoners.

We do not know if the two photos were taken by Irfan, if the boy is really Irfan. The background of both photos is white. They appear to be taken at the same spot where part of a picture frame is visible. If “Irfan” had fantasised and acted alone, who could have taken the photos for him as the photos do not appear to be selfies? Maybe it was the ISD officers who out of boredom, decided to have some fun by getting the teenager to pose for them. If this is the case, it is pretty insidious. Why didn’t they make him pose with a toy rifle that is depicted in Annex C of the press release?

In response to the press statement issued by 60 survivors of Operation Coldstore, The Straits Times of February 3, 2023 reported the Ministry of Home Affairs as saying that “the allegations and assertions in the statement by the former detainees are not new.” It added: “The Government has addressed it comprehensively in past public communications, which are a matter of public record.” See https://tinyurl.com/w3r5darv.

These claims are not substantiated.

In the 60th anniversary statement, the political prisoners demanded of the government to “provide evidence to support the justifications they gave for launching Operation Coldstore.” No evidence has been produced.

We are fortunate that we still have survivors who can testify that they are innocent of the allegations levelled against them. And we are fortunate that the archives in London have allowed access to these survivors and historians who have combed through the documents and who in the end have reached the conclusion that Operation Coldstore was a political and not a security exercise. Surely it is time for the PAP to refute these historical documents with their own evidence and documents and subject them to public scrutiny. Allowing access to a few selected academics is not sufficient.

I believe the PAP government do not have any evidence to defend the demands of the 60 political prisoners and their families for the repeal of the ISA, an apology and compensation for the sufferings they endured. I say this because the government have chosen to remain silent to these demands and have chosen to distract the public by publicising the detention of a teenager. On this matter too, there is a deliberate act of rationing information of arrests, under the ISA.

On 21 February 2023, Channelnewsasia reported on the issue of a detention order against a 15 year old boy in December 2022 and the release on restriction orders of a 16 year old in January 2023. See https://tinyurl.com/2xry34er.

When the Ministry of Home Affairs issued the press release of 1 February 2023 announcing the detention of Irfan in December 2022, it was already aware of the two boys being arrested, detained and released on restriction orders. Why did they choose not to include these two boys in the press release of 1 February? Why issue a second press release on 21 February 2023 regarding these two boys? Was it the government’s intention to give the public the impression that Singapore is frequently plagued by Islamic terrorists?

The rationing of news is further supplemented by ad hoc articles. In between the two press releases, Kumar Ramakrishna, professor of national security studies had his article The ‘Coney Island caliphate’ and radicalised youth published in The Straits Times of 7 February 2023. Ramakrishnan swallowed line, hook and sinker the government’s allegations against Irfan. Again, this article acts as a reminder to the public, about the need to retain the ISA.

Finally, for a government that is obsessed with rehabilitation of children and young persons using the draconian ISA, it cannot even keep track of the number of children they have arrested under the law. In The Straits Times of 2 February, Minister Shanmugam revealed that nine young people below the age of 21 were dealt with since 2015. In the press release of 21 February, the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that “11 self-radicalised Singaporean youth aged 20 or below” had been dealt with under the ISA since 2015. I wonder how reliable are the statistics provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

It is my sincere hope that documents on Operation Coldstore will be made available to the public. If the government is serious in maintaining their claim that it was a security exercise, then let us all see the evidence.