Singpore. The cat is finally out of the bag. Thank God.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

For Singapore, it is good news. The cat is finally out of the bag. Previously the world did not know the real sad goings on in Singapore with the repression of their people's rights by the Lee Kuan Yew administration. Notice I refer to the Lee Kuan Yew administration. It is true that his son, Lee Hsien Loong is the Prime Minister and not him. But since the son is only a push over, with no respect or indifference from all, the show is still that of the ailing father. And the good news is that the dirty work of the father is now being known by all. That is bad news for the Lee the dictator.

Singapore is not the Peoples Republic of China. Neither is it India. It is not a place for the Americans to manufacture cheap labor goods, because cheap labor no longer exists there. It is no longer competitive for mass produced assembly line products. The manufacturing must of necessity be high end, high technology, with high wages. There is also banking, insurance and international trade.

In all these areas, a good honest government, upholding the rule of law is necessary. Lacking this quality, it becomes risky for banking insurance and international trade since your securities, assets and contracts are no longer safe. Since investors and businessmen can no longer trust the law of the land to protect their investments and their contracts.

And the good news is that no matter how much they try to deceive the rest of the world in thinking it is a democracy, now with global information passing throughout the world at the click of a mouse, they no longer can keep their abuse of the law and their repression under the carpet anymore.

Take the media. Since 1950s they have arrested and detained peaceful political opponents under the Internal Security Act and illegally tortured and imprisoned them for years, destroying them both bodily and mentally. Since the media then as now was state controlled, they effectively kept their population and the rest of the world ignorant of what was going on.

In this way, with the State controlled media saying only good things, people, especially the rest of the world did not know the true extent of the repression, and they managed to get away with murder. This is no longer possible now. The Internet is now available to everyone.

Dr. Chee Soon Juan an opposition activist and politician has been routinely and without let up, harassed, charged with false charges and imprisoned at least 5 times in the last 7 years. The rest of the world is now fully aware of the political repression that is going on against this peaceful man. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the European Union, the American government and world leaders are aware and appalled at the abuse of the law in Singapore in this case, and they have made their voices heard. The indignation of the free world against the repression of peaceful activists like Dr. Chee and others is now public knowledge. This hurts the reputation of the government of Singapore.

Take the political process. Singapore claims it is a democracy with free and fair elections. Thanks to the free flow of information, which the Lee dictatorship is unable to control, the world knows that Lee's claim that it is a democracy is so much hogwash. We have all seen it on television and the news at the recent elections in 2006. The State controlled newspaper was deployed to tarnish the image of James Gomez, an opposition politician by calling him a liar and a cheat, all because he had forgotten to file a parliamentary elections form before elections. There were daily televion and radio broadcasts repeatedly calling him a liar and cheat so as to defame him before elections. The dirty work suceeded. He lost the elections. Opposition politicians were defamed in the state controlled press. They were not given any publicity in the state controlled press. Opposition politicians were not allowed to speak at political rallies. The people were terrified to stand as candidates against the government from the knowledge of what other opposition candidates had suffered merely from standing for elections. All this goings on about Lee Kuan Yew's "free and fair elections" has been known throughout the world, thanks to the Internet.

The fact that the Singapore press has been voted 148th down the list among countries that totally lack a free press, by the respected French Journalists without Borders. This fact too is known by all.

In the past people did not know that Singapore is being used as a money laundering center for Indonesian corrupt businessmen and the Military junta of Burma with their illegal drug money. That ugly fact is now well known too, thanks again to the Internet and the free flow of information.

Educated Singaporeans are leaving Singapore in droves to settle in other countries in a massive constant brain drain, not because they cannot earn a living in Singapore, but because they refuse to live under an authoritarian government as slaves and not free men. The country mainly benefiting from this brain drain is Australia. Think about it. Singapore spends time and effort educating their children and Australia benefits from their skills. Isn't this an irony.

To replace the educated and skilled Singaporeans who leave, they bring in immigrants. But these immigrants are themselves not the best. As these immigrants themselves know what a pathetic country Singapore is. Had they been given a choice, they would have gone to better countries such as Australia, but since they cannot, due to poor qualifications, they settle for second best. Singapore.

And when these second best foreigners in Singapore get the chance, they leave Singapore for better places like Australia.

All this happens because you now have the free flow of information, which Singapore is thankfully unable to control.

And with all this sad state of affairs, Singaporeans are unable to have children. The fertility rate among women has fallen below the replacement level. The people have decided, it appears, that Singapore is not such a good place to bring up children, being a dictatorship. They might as well wait to be in other countries to have children. All this is information which is within the global sphere.

Recently there was a Canadian case, Oakwell verses Evernorth in Canada. The Defendants in that case are arguing that a Singapore judgement should not be enforced in Canada because the Singapore judiciary is corrupted. This too is well known.

And lastly, here I am writing this blog, from California, United States, which I could not have done previously.

I think the prognosis is good. These dictators cannot last much longer. I understand there is already a slowdown in the amount of money entering Singapore for trade and finance. The next thing to expect is the outflow of foreign capital from Singapore due to the unacceptable risk, lack of an independent judiciary, and the danger of misappropriation of investor's moneys and the possible denial of contractual rights by the corrupt judiciary. Singapore can become a democracy after all. The force of events is pushing Singapore in the right direction.

Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
EMail: gopalnair@us-immigrationlaw.com