In a Singapore state of mind

In a nation that believes sanitisation gives it strength, the death penalty is, on the surface at least, seen as a necessary evil.

You can learn a lot about Singapore from the toilets at Changi International Airport. Spotlessly clean, the cubicles are half a metre deeper than a standard stall, giving passengers ample room to take in their luggage without having to perform gymnastics to close the door.

The basin taps turn on automatically. As with many things in this proud, productive nation, it's well planned so you don't have to think.

The self-flushing toilet also masks another side of Singapore - the punitive side. Locals call Singapore a fine city; there is a fine for everything — from an irritating $S150 ($120) for not flushing old-style toilets up to the mandatory death sentence for trafficking in drugs.

Doubtless the toilet design was lost on the Australian Nguyen Tuong Van as he marked time at Changi airport on December 12, 2002. He waited 4½ unsettling hours in transit for his connecting flight, Qantas QF10 to Melbourne. Passing through security at boarding gate 22, he set off an alarm and a search revealed a packet of heroin strapped to his back and another in his backpack.

Since then, he has had almost three years to focus on Singapore's glossy-on-top, but correctional at heart, system. On Friday next week, barring an unprecedented backdown by the Singapore Government, the 25-year-old Melbourne salesman will be hanged at Changi prison.

As the campaign to stop the hanging builds in Australia, there is still barely a ripple in Singapore. Ask a local whether the Government should hang Nguyen, you'll get: "If they don't hang him, people will say it's not fair. How many people did he kill? Two, lah?"

In fact, that's a Briton who was extradited from Australia, Michael McCrea. The Australian Government would not hand him over until they were assured he would not face the death penalty. He has been charged with culpable homicide which carries a penalty of life in prison. There will be no such clemency for Nguyen.

When told Nguyen is a drugs case, the woman replies: "Drugs, well, then they can't make an exception."

There is no tolerance, in government or among a well-schooled public, for drug crimes. The Government has convinced its citizens that going soft on drugs will bring down this wealthy society. The irony of a country so vehemently opposed to drugs in its own domain investing heavily in Burma, the source of the region's heroin supply, goes unreported in Singapore.

The Opposition politician Chee Soon Juan cites the Singapore Government Investment Corporation's contribution to the Myanmar Fund in the 1990s as an example of this hypocrisy. The fund is controlled by Lo Hsing Han, one of Burma's most notorious opium drug lords, through his Asia World Company. Lo's son, Stephen Law, is married to a Singaporean and is based in Singapore.

The corporation, established in 1981 to manage Singapore's foreign reserves, has a portfolio of more than $136 billion. "If the Government wanted to be serious about drugs, it would not be in bed with the drug barons in Burma," Chee said at a recent death penalty forum in Singapore. "Together, they were investing in properties, building hotels."

After the investment was made public, the Government quietly withdrew the funds. "Singapore has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Burma; the Myanmar Fund was just a very small portion," Chee said. At the forum, he challenged Singaporean journalists to investigate the claims, which have never been reported in the country.

As with the controversial Burma investments, the state-controlled media plays its part in Nguyen's case. It has largely ignored his fate, only highlighting the case when the Government speaks out to defend its position. In two reports last week, Singapore's foreign ministry attacked the United Nations' special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings and executions, Philip Alston, for having "grossly misrepresented the facts" surrounding the death sentence for Nguyen. When Alston sought to explain his position, a second report called his response a "smokescreen".

Because Nguyen is an Australian, this case has received more coverage than any other. Churches in Singapore are also absent from the debate because of unspoken boundaries that keep religious groups from commenting on government policy.

In Singapore, the Government works hard to ensure the death penalty is never humanised. An anti-death penalty concert in May was not allowed to use the face of Shanmugam Murugesu, a Singaporean then on death row, in its promotional flyers.

Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, who writes a Singaporean internet blog, says: "They are always doing something to keep a buffer between the human side and the need for a safe Singapore. A lot of Singaporeans accept the death penalty as essential to their safety and security."

Vadaketh, 28, a rare Singaporean willing to speak out, has been studying in the US for the past six years. He sees Singapore's fear of domestic chaos as natural for a small, young nation - especially one with big, once-intimidating neighbours - which needs to be internally unified to survive.

"I don't think it's any more [fear] than any small state and there was a lot of justification for it between 1965 and 1980. Malaysia and Indonesia are next to us and other small countries like East Timor had problems," he says. "In the early stages, [those fears] were very reasonable. In today's world, a lot of fears are leftovers from our early days."

If Singapore has a little-man's chip on its shoulder about being told what to do, you can trace it back to childhood. The country came into being only after it was thrown out of the Malaysian Federation in August 1965.

Since then it has carved a remarkable space for itself in South-East Asia by embracing change and using its greatest strength — its people. Its relations with Malaysia remain prickly. Malaysians commonly call Singaporeans the barbarians of South-East Asia, seeing a country that has forsaken its cultural identity in its drive for wealth. But many of them come to Singapore to share in the dividends.

Singapore's success depends on compliant people and 40 years of one-party rule. Its founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, and now his son, Lee Hsien Loong, have brought that about.

But now Singapore has decided it wants the control and the creativity. Civil society is being carefully cultivated in areas specified by the Government. There was unprecedented public debate earlier this year about Singapore's first casino, then it emerged that the impetus for the debate came from the Government. "The Government put it out there, forced it out there … to galvanise people into policy discussion. We want people to discuss certain policies, that we think it's fine for them to discuss, whereas we don't want people talking about the death penalty," Vadaketh says. "Very few things happen organically from the ground up. The cynical way of looking at it is Singaporeans care more about resorts and casinos than the death penalty. They are more concerned about where they spend their next dollar than some poor soul in Changi prison."

However, Singaporeans have learnt to respect the Government's might. They do not discuss government policy with taxi drivers. "Singaporeans are more closed, lah," says one driver when asked if his passengers are discussing the hanging. "They don't talk to taxi drivers at all."

Yet Vadaketh sees positive changes. "There is much more tolerance to alternative lifestyles or professions. As a kid, it was doctor, lawyer or engineer equals success. Now people are more open."

The recent forum on the death penalty attracted 100 people, mainly young, despite the Government's opposition to the discussion. "The level of discussion is not where we would want it to be but a lot more is discussed now than 10 years ago," Vadaketh says. "The death penalty is a late bloomer." And perhaps too late for Nguyen Tuong Van.

posted by Husky @ 11/22/2005 06:34:00 PM  |