My letter to the Commonweath Secretariat on the Maldives Inquiry and former Singapore judge GP Selvam

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have written the following Email dated today June 30, 2012, to the Commonwealth Secretariat on the unsutability of this man GP Selvam to officiate over the Maldives Inquiry Commission. If you agree that such a man is clearly unsuitable, I would urge others in Maldives and the rest of the world to write to the Secretariat expressing your concern.

Thank you.

Gopalan Nair

Attorney at Law

Fremont, California, USA

Tel: 510 657 6107

Dear Commonwealth Secretariat

Maldives Commission of Inquiry

Email: info@commonwealth.int

Dear Sir,

I have been informed that a former Singapore judge GP Selvam has been appointed by you to officiate over the Inquiry as regards the coup.

I wish to inform you that in my opinion, this man is totally unsuitable for the post as a result of a defect of moral character.

I was born in Singapore and was a lawyer there from 1981 to 1991 after which I left for the US and obtained political asylum. I am now a US Citizen practicing law in California.

During my legal career in Singapore I had joined Singapore's opposition party, the Workers Party and worked in trying to unseat the then Lee Kuan Yew administration. As is the style of the Lee administration, the law was used to harass, intimidate and destroy me both politically and otherwise. And this man, GP Selvam, as a Singapore judge, willingly abused the law to suspend me for 2 years in approximately 1991 merely for writing a letter to the Attorney General of Singapore.

I had written to Singapore Attorney General for his reasons on why he refused to advice the President of Singapore to grant a pardon to the late Singapore opposition politician JB Jeyaretnam. The disciplinary proceedings against me arose out of my writing the 2 letters.

The brief facts are as follows:

1. In the 1980s JB Jeyaretnam, a lawyer, was the bete noire of Lee Kuan Yew politically. Lee was determined to destroy JB Jeyaretnam.

2. No doubt under his orders, the Attorney General of Singapore Tan Boon Teik filed 3 charges involving check fraud against JB Jeyaretnam.

3. The Singapore court found him guilty. He appealed to the High Court in Singapore and lost. There was no further appeal.

4. The Law Society of Singapore commenced disciplinary proceedings against him. He was found guilty and disbarred in Singapore. At this time in lawyer disciplinary proceedings there was another appeal to the Privy Council in London (the House of Lords). Jeyaretnam appealed to London.

5. The London court found JB Jeyaretnam not guilty on all counts. This is their outraged message

"Their Lordships have to record their deep disquiet that by a series of misjudgments, the appellant and his co-accused Wong, have suffered a grievous injustice. They have been fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced for offences of which they are not guilty. The appellant, in addition, has been deprived of his seat in Parliament and disqualified for a year from practicing his profession. Their Lordships order restores him to the roll of advocates and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Singapore, but, because of the course taken by the criminal proceedings, their Lordships have no power to right the other wrongs which the appellant and Wong have suffered. Their only prospect of redress, their Lordships understand, will be by way of petition for pardon to the President of the Republic of Singapore."

6. Since applying for a pardon was Jeyretnam's only option to restore his good name, he formally applied for a pardon.

7. The Attorney General of Singapore, advising the president of Singapore, wrote his objection to any pardon which was published in the Singapore paper Straits Times. He said a) because he was not given an opportunity to appear at the London proceedings the London judgment was flawed b) as Jeyaretnam had not shown "remorse, repentance and contrition for the crimes he committed" he should not be pardoned.

8. I knew that the statement of the Attorney General that he was not allowed to appear at the London court was patently untrue. In fact the solicitor for the Singapore Law Society who was in court in London had specifically informed the judges that the Singapore Attorney General was aware of the London hearing and did not wish to appear.

8. As to Jeyaretnam not showing "remorse repentance or contrition" how could a man show these feelings for a crime he did not commit!

9. I therefore wrote a letter to the Attorney General asking an explanation as to why he said this, under these circumstances.  His response to me was that he was not a party to the proceedings and that if I need answers I should contact JB Jeyaretnam. Not satisfied with his letter I wrote again pointing out what he was incorrect and that if he does not give me a satisfactory reply, I would publicize the correspondence. I then faxed the correspondence to every lawyer in Singapore.

10. He replied that he was reporting me to the Law Society of Singapore for misconduct. The Law Society filed a charge of "threatening" the Attorney General and another, "making false accusations against the Attorney General"

11. I denied the charges. The disciplinary inquiry against me took many days. Eventually the disciplinary hearing found me guilty. Under the procedures, the matter went before a 3 panel court in Singapore to look into the findings and to sentence me. One of the judges was GP Selvam. He ordered that I be suspended from practicing law in Singapore for 2 years. All I did was to write a letter to the Singapore Attorney General.

11. The Commonwealth Secretariat office will be able to obtain copies and transcripts of this case from the Singapore High Court. If the Secretariat needs me to forward them, I will try to locate them for forwarding. GP Selvam had acted completely without any integrity of decency when he suspended me for 2 years merely for writing to Singapore's Attorney General. It is obvious that when he did this, he was merely acting as Lee's tool to destroy and silence a government critic.  

I now come to another case that that was in the news about this judge once again misusing the law to serve the Lee Kuan Yew government by destroying political opponents. This was the case of Tang Liang Hong. The brief facts are as follows:

1. In 1997 Singapore held it's national parliamentary elections. One of the constituencies contested was Cheng San Constituency. The opposition candidate among others was Tang Liang Hong, a Singapore lawyer.

2. At this time it was well known that the entire Lee family including himself had purchased million dollar properties from a development called Jade Mansions. It was known that every member of his family including himself had received preferential discounts from the purchase price not given to the members of the public. Being Prime Minister and Senior Minister, it appeared as corruption or a form of corruption.

3. Tang Liang Hong spoke about this at one of the political rallies before the elections.

4. For having said this, Lee Kuan Yew and others of his family sued Tang Liang Hong for defamation of character. In Singapore it is well known that if he sues you, you know you have lost even before you step into the courtroom. Lee has never lost a case.

5. The man picked for the dirty job was the judge GP Selvam.

6. Just for mentioning this fact, Selvam found Tang guilty of a staggering damage award of $8.07 million Singapore dollars (at today’s exchange rate about US$7 million). What is even more incredible is that he seized not only all of Tang's assets, he also seized all his wife's assets even though she had nothing to do with it. William Saphire the journalist once described this as an "extortion racket". Tang and his wife now live in Melbourne Australia. He fled for his life.

7. There is ample evidence of this case in the public domain.

I would categorically state here that using this man to officiate over the inquiry of such great importance to the future of the Republic of Maldives, totally and permanently discredits the proceedings. GP Selvam is a person with a flawed character unsuitable and incapable of coming to any impartial decision.

He has shown himself to be a man who would do anything, however unconscionable to further his interests.

Furthermore, I am sure he is required under the rules to disclose any action in the past that may be derogatory against him. If he had failed to mention these cases, he has further incriminated himself by his failure to disclose, which he knew he was under an obligation so to do.

I strongly recommend that he be promptly removed from any office in these proceedings. I am going to publish this in my blog Singapore Dissident http://www.singaporedissident.blogspot.com/. This report in my blog will remain permanently in the Internet for all to see.

Gopalan Nair

Attorney at Law

Fremont, California, USA

Tel: 510 657 6107

A Message to the People of Maldives on Judge G. P. Selvam. You have got the wrong man for the job.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The people of Maldives could not have made a bigger mistake in choosing former Singapore judge GP Selvam to officiate in their National Commission of Inquiry investigating the Coup. He has not been known as a person capable of any judicious impartiality required for such an office.

I have personal knowledge of this man's career as a judge and suffice it to say, it is not something one can be proud of.

I have stated my views in the following video. I hope the people of Maldives re-consider the choice of this man for their own good.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qTRYH38-Ws&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Gopalan Nair
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107

Singapore's Lee Ruling Family's attack dog, former Judge GP Selvam travels to the Maldives for more dirty work

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The editor in chief of the Times of The Maldives,  Mr. MA Adam had written to me yesterday for my views on the Maldivian dictatorship appointing former Singapore Judge GP Selvam in a national inquiry to look into the recent military coup in that island.

GP Selvam spent his entire career disgracefully, using the law to destory, impoverish and silence Lee Kuan Yew's political opponents. The question to me was whether he can expect to be impartial.

I have written about him in my earlier blogs here. I have pointed out that Mr. Selvam is a thoroughly unscrupulous man who has no regard for anyone else and would do anything, however despicable he is orderd to do to further his career.

Below are my asnwers to Mr. Adam's questions

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California

Dear MA Adam, Editor,

Thanks very much for your inquiry. It is a pleasure to respond.

1. Question: Do you think Selvam is the best person for such inquiry? If not, why not?

The answer is as follows.

1. A background on Singapore is necessary. Despite it's attempts to paint the island as a democratic country, the truth is completely otherwise. Since 1959 Singapore is effectively a dictatorship. Lee Kuan Yew, 89 years old is effectively still the supreme ruler. In order not to look like one, some years ago, he stepped down and appointed his son as the Prime Minister and gave himself the title of Minister Mentor.

2. Despite Singapore being tiny, 16 miles north to south, 26 miles east to west, the government has created 87 electoral divisions. The reason for the large number is that even if a handful of seats fell to the opposition, it will still literally be a one party state which it is.

3. Today the opposition has 6 seats. However it is incorrect to describe Singapore's present opposition as really so. In fact they are a diluted version of opposition. They fear to confront the Lee government on real live issues because they will be removed if they did. The very fact that they were even allowed to contest the elections is because they are not the real thing. If they were even before contesting the elections, they would have been sued for defamation of character, charged with imaginary crimes and disqualified from office. They have allowed the 6 to go in so as to hoodwink the world into believing that Singapore is a multi party democracy. In any case 6 can do nothing in the face of 81 government members in Parliament.

4. As an example of this, JB Jeyaretnam, a lawyer who had challenged Lee Kuan Yew at elections was jailed, impoverished, bankrupted and disqualified from Parliament. He has since died. Another example of this repression is Dr. Chee Soon Juan. He was a university professor. He was dismissed from his job, sued for defamation of character for millions of US dollars which he cannot pay, bankrupted, disqualified from politics and refused permission to travel abroad. You can contact him through his political party The Singapore Democratic Party.

5. Lee's principle tool for repression is using the courts to sue for defamation of character, bankrupt the opponent, disqualify him from politics and jail him if necessary. In fact such misuse of the law courts is so rampant and systematic so much so that there is not one opposition politician who has not been victimized this way.

6. As a result the entire population is so afraid to question authority that no one in his right mind dares to participate in opposition politics. Why ruin your career and allow yourself and your family to be impoverished for life? On the other hand, the path to success in Singapore is to join Lee's bandwagon and do anything he wants. If you are educated and prepared to embark on this disgraceful path, you not only can enjoy a very secure life, you will also become a millionaire if Lee likes you.

7. Now coming to the Law courts, every single judge in Singapore is prepared to sacrifice the law in order to please their master Lee Kuan Yew. And Lee's pleasure is that the judges bend the law and destroy those victims which Lee orders destroyed. For example it is easy for these judges to say that even the slightest criticism is serious defamation of character which requires the payment of a million dollars in damages. Who is to say otherwise?

8. Now I come to GP Selvam. He is a Singapore Tamil, in a predominantly Chinese island. Tamils today form only 8 % of the population. Especially so, for an Indian to succeed like Selvam, you have to be completely ruthless in what you do to please the Lee ruling family.

9. Selvam went to Singapore University unlike many others including myself who were educated in England. It is not possible to say with any certainty, since Singapore’s state controlled press, absent investigative journalism, will not tell you such things, it is believed that since a young age, he became a member of the People’s Action Party and shown himself to be a loyal supporter of the Lee family dictatorship. You can imagine him in similar vein to Rudolf Hess or Goebbels, Hitler's supporters. I am only comparing the 2 simply to stress the point.

10. He was given a job as a lawyer in the firm Drew and Napier which was then the largest law firm in Singapore and specialized in marine law. After some years he was selected to become a judge.

11. I am sure in his position as judge he has abused the law routinely to carry out the orders of the Lee Ruling family. 2 cases that come to mind are as follows.

12a. In 1984 I became an active member of the opposition Workers Party of which JB Jeyaretnam was it's secretary general. We were trying to topple the Lee Kuan Yew government. I had contested the 1988 and 1991 national elections against the ruling Lee's Peoples Action Party. Having joined the opposition, I naturally became a target for persecution and victimization by the government. I lost all my cases in court, I lost all my clients and every aspect of my daily life was thwarted whenever possible.

12. I was practicing law in Singapore from 1981 to 1991. Approximately around 1988, I had written a letter to the Singapore Attorney General to explain why he refused to advice the president to grant a pardon to the late opposition politician JB Jeyaretnam when London's Privy Council, Singapore’s then highest court (Singapore has since abolished appeals to the Privy Council) had declared him totally innocent of all criminal charges.

13. A short background to my 1988 case. Lee Kuan Yew had ordered the Attorney General of Singapore to file trumped up criminal charges against Jeyaretnam so as to destroy him politically. He was found guilty of 2 charges of check fraud and 1 charge of filing a false affidavit. He was found guilty of all 3 charges.

14. Jeyaretnam appealed. On appeal the Singapore court affirmed the convictions. Under Singapore law there was no further appeal. Since he was a lawyer, the Singapore Legal profession commenced disciplinary proceedings to have him disbarred. They did so. But for lawyer disciplinary proceedings, there was an appeal to the Privy Council London. Jeyaretnam appealed.

15. In London, the judges categorically declared that all these charges were all wrong, Jeyartnam suffered serious injustice and that he should be reinstated to the Bar. However since they did not have jurisdiction to reverse the criminal finding, they recommended that Jeyaretnam apply for a pardon.

16. Upon return to Singapore triumphant, Jeyaretnam did apply for a pardon. Lee Kuan Yew's Attorney General, Tan Boon Teik advised the President not to pardon Jeyartnam. His letter which was published in the Straits Times, stated that as he had not shown "remorse contrition and repentance for his crimes" pardon was impossible. He also said that the Privy Council's judgment was wrong because he was not given an opportunity to be heard at the London hearing although there was ample evidence that he was notified and decided not to appear.

17. Since what he claims is factually wrong, I wrote him a letter to explain why he said what he did. Just for writing this letter, the Attorney General demanded the Law Society of Singapore to commence disciplinary proceedings to have me disbarred.

18. I think the Attorney General was taken aback by my reaction to the threat of disciplinary proceedings. In almost every case, when a Singapore lawyer is threatened with discipline for having the courage to stand up to this dictatorship, he almost always withdraws, apologizes and is silenced. What else could one do? However I refused. I disputed the charges. In 1991, the Singapore Law Society as expected found me guilty of unethical conduct. The charge was that I had "threatened" the Attorney General and had "falsely accused" him. In fact I only wrote a very polite letter.

19. The next stage in my case was a hearing before a 3 judge court for the necessary discipline to be imposed. At this point I was completely disgusted with Singapore’s legal system and left Singapore permanently for the USA.

20. After I had left, the case came before the 3 judge court. One of the judges was this man GP Selvam. He ordered that just for writing a very polite letter to the Attorney General of Singapore, I was ordered suspended from practice for 2 years. What he was trying to do was to send a message to me that if I wanted a peaceful successful life in Singapore, I should stop attacking the Lee Ruling family or their government.

21. Now the second instance of misusing the law by this judge. In 1997, there was an election in Cheng San GRC (Group Representation Constituency) in Singapore. One of the opposition candidates was a lawyer Tang Liang Hong who ran under the opposition ticket of Workers Party. He openly declared at a rally that the Lee family members had dishonestly profited from the purchase of million dollar homes by receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks. This was a fact.

22. After he said this, Lee Kuan Yew and the then Prime Minister Goh Chock Tong, whom he had appointed Prime Minister, published articles in the local state controlled newspapers that Tang was a Chinese chauvinist, a racist and a thorough rascal. Since these statements about him were not true, Tang filed a police report against the Lees.

23. The very next day Lee commenced libel actions against Tang in his courts. One of the judges appointed for this case by Lee was GP Selvam. Doing his dirty work to please his master Lee, Selvam completely went flat out to finish him off. He ordered Tang to pay in total, no less than $8.075 million dollars in all (about $6 million in US dollars). In order that he actually pay this, Selvam ordered the seizure of not only all his bank assets, but also those of Tang's wife who had nothing to do with it. The properties which were seized to pay the Lees were both in Singapore and in Malaysia. Today Tang is impoverished and lives in exile with his wife in Melbourne Australia. Selvam destroyed him to please his master.

24. As for Selvam, he shamelessly lives in Singapore driving around his expensive cars and flaunting his money.

Question: Is Selvam a suitable person for such an inquiry?

25. He is clearly not a suitable person. In his entire life both as a lawyer and as a judge he has had no concern for Singapore, but to enrich himself by doing anything that his master desires. Had he been living in Nazi Germany, he would have extolled the virtues of Hitler, or Mussolini or Franco. In today’s age, he would have been very comfortable serving Mugabe in Zimbabwe or the North Korean dictator.

26. He has 2 daughters, both of whom live comfortably from the rewards of his dirty work. One daughter just sits at home while her husband works as a lawyer in the firm he set up. Another daughter is a veterinary doctor. Both live quietly and away from the public eye.

27. A person such as Selvam who is prepared to destroy his fellow human beings to further his own career I believe has to be someone who lacks self confidence, is completely ruthless and thoroughly unconscionable and someone who is incapable of realizing the misery that he causes to others. One has to be sick in the mind to be a person like that.

28. Question:  Is he trying to cover up some scandal?

29. This is a question I am unable to answer because I do not have any facts. The Singapore press is state controlled and there is no investigative journalism.

Please proceed to publish this interview and kindly attach a picture of myself which is available on the Internet. Also please notify me and send me a copy of your article. I was happy to be of assistance. Please let me know if I could be of any further help.

Also if you need me there for an interview I would be pleased to come subject to my expenses being paid.

Gopalan Nair

Attorney at Law

Fremont, California

Singapore. Living under the Ming Emperor

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Living under the government of Singapore’s Lee Ruling Family, father Lee, self appointed Minister Mentor, a somewhat unusual title he gave himself, like as if he is daily mentoring the others whom he has appointed in office; and his son, whom he appointed the Prime Minister.

In fact, if you look at it carefully, there is no one and nothing that he has not appointed in the island which literally belongs to him, just as China belonged to the Ming Emperor.

It is no secret that Lee Kuan Yew has total disdain for the idea of democracy. He has repeatedly said, very frankly, that he would be able to do much better for Singapore Island if he had a free reign on running the island.

Unfortunately for him, the island came with the trappings of a British parliamentary democracy, with its requirement for the rule of law, a free press, free trade unions and free speech and assembly. These were for him an impediment, without which he could, he claims to believe, that he could do much more, much better.

And to add to this fanciful thought, he has an altogether inflated opinion of himself. He has reminded everyone that he had studied at a British University, Cambridge and he considered the ordinary citizen nothing more than a "digit" (his own word).

His idea of government is like this. Every 5 years or so, you conduct an election in the island which is completely rigged. The rigging is done this way. He instills fear into every person not to challenge his rule. So no one truly capable, qualified and sincere would dare to stand for election because he knows that if he did, he would be imprisoned and bankrupted.

In order to do this he makes examples of a few. One such person in the past was JB Jeyaretnam who has since died. He had the temerity (in Lee's opinion) of thinking he was smarter than him. To punish the poor man, he was repeatedly sued in his Kangaroo courts, ordered to pay millions and promptly bankrupted and as a result disqualified from Parliament.

The other victim was Chee Soon Juan. He unlike Jeyaretnam is still alive. He has lost everything. Today he sells books on the streets in the island. He was a university professor before he challenged Singapore’s Ming Emperor. With such dire consequences you have to be a madman to stand against him.

And as for the other pillars of democracy, he simply denies them. The papers are all owned and controlled by him. Free speech, expression and assembly are all outlawed. The courts are misused through compliant corrupt judges. One such disgraceful judge is the woman Belinda Ang Saw Ean.

His newspapers publish daily propaganda claiming Singapore has become a legal hub, that it has become a communications hub or that it has become an arts hub. In order to tell that lie, he will have pictures of lawyers in black robes talking to some European lawyers who say that Singapore has the best legal system in the world.

He will publish reports that Singapore is the best place to live with pictures of Eduardo Saverin, Facebook Vice President, in Singapore stating he has made his home there. The truth which he will not say is that Saverin is a dead beat US tax avoider who has chosen Singapore because it is a money laundering center. Saverin has given up his US citizenship to escape paying taxes. Not such a model citizen really, but useful to hoodwink the Singaporean dumb "digit".

Make no mistake; this is how it is done. He is determined to rule. In his book, just like the Ming Emperor did, there are 2 kinds of people. Those destined to rule, like him and his son, and those who will be ruled, the "digits". So the rulers rule, and like good "digits" the citizens should be grateful. Under his enlightened rule, he will bring prosperity to his people. He will provide jobs, provide housing, build infra structure and put criminals away and bring peace and harmony. The problem is, he is finding it more and more difficult in this day and age to do any of this.

As for the "digits" they should do as they are told, because they know no better. After all they don't have a British university degree like he has. They, the Singaporeans are just dumb. And being dummies what business is theirs to be going around complaining and acting as if they were too big for their shoes.

If they had any brains in their heads, they would realize what they would miss without their Ming Emperor, none other than the Lee Ruling Family, and their wisdom.

This is how Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore thinks.

The problem of course is that his ideas are totally out of place. Today there are no "digits" any more. True, there may be a few uneducated dummies but more and more people are not only well educated, they are also well travelled. One of them is myself, Gopalan Nair. For them, it is not acceptable to sit around waiting for the goodies that our good old Lee Kuan Yew will throw at us, in fact there are many who believe that we know a thing or two.

Since no one of such men who know, are prepared to waste their time in Lee Kuan Yew's nonsense of an island, they simply pack up and leave which is why the island has the highest rate of overseas migration in the world. Not to mention the highest rate of suicide, the lowest birth rate and the fastest aging population.

But being incapable of anything else other than being Singapore’s Ming Emperor, he continues to control the media, he continues to ban free speech and expression and he continues to plunder the island's wealth through astronomical salaries which he pays himself. The poor senile dementia  inflicted man is simply in blinkers. Hey, wake up. It is not 1959!

A stupid man, don't you think? More a Nero who fiddled while Rome burnt rather than a Ming Emperor. The Ming Emperor of China had more sense. It least he acted according to his times.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California
Tel: 510 657 6107 or 510 491 4375

Singapore's lack of a free press, repulsive.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The one principle factor in Singapore which makes life boring, uninteresting and thoroughly disagreeable in their lack of a free press. The Lee Ruling Family's subjects are forced to read only what is printed in their state controlled newspapers. The island does not allow independent news media of any sort.

This is the case as far as domestic news is concerned.

Knowing this you can imagine why life there is shunned by many. Every newspaper has to be licensed by the government, which means you can only publish if willing to tow the government line. They decide what you are allowed to read on a daily basis. News which does not further the government interests is not published. Each day you know that you are being treated like a child who is told what he should read and what he shouldn’t.

And this is the result.

You will never know that Lee Kuan Yew's son the Prime Minister had raped 2 women in broad daylight along Singapore’s Bugis Street in full view of 4 Bangaldesis last week. This news is not published because it will ruin the Prime Ministers reputation.

You will never know that the Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean had assaulted 2 bouncers at the Flying Pig Bar at No. 3 Boat Quay at 3 am in the morning dead drunk. This too is suppressed because it is once again not in the government’s interest for you to know.

Did you know that only yesterday Lee Kuan Yew had ordered his minions at Temasek Holdings, the state wealth fund to divert $3.5 million dollars into his bank account in Geneva? This is a crime. But once again you will not be told about it because it is not in their interest for this to be made public.

I am not sure if any of the above is true or they are not. Frankly it does not matter because we will never know one way or the other.

A state which censors and suppresses news, tells lies and half truths or even outright lies such as that of Singapore in the end suppresses wisdom and keeps the people ignorant, and makes them fools. It insults the people and makes them dwarfs, not men.

Which is why Singaporeans flee from their island abroad, one of whom is Gopalan Nair, the author of this blog.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California
Tel 510 657 6107 or 510 491 4375

Singapore Island. Education, better living, greater travel and computer literacy does not go hand in hand with dictatorships.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The ways of Singapore Island's Lee ruling family presently appears mysterious. In fact, it is simply self destructive. On the one hand, the Lee ruling Family who have monopolized the island for the last 52 years and whose head of the family, Lee Kuan Yew has demanded to be treated as if he was a God; for some unknown reason appears to be determined to self destruct given the completely changed social and economic climate in the island.  

And Lees ways up till now is this. One, controlling the media to allow only what they consider palatable to be read by anyone. Two, by abusing the legal system through corrupt judges to destroy any political critic. One such disgraceful woman is his judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean whom he used against his critic Chee Soon Juan not too long ago. Three, although he severely punishes anyone who is corrupt, he and his family have a monopoly on corruption which he legalizes in his case. An example of this is his paying himself millions of dollars of tax payers’ money which he calls his "salary" and if anyone dares to question this, he sues them through his willing judges. Four, he criminalizes free speech and expression and throws anyone who dares to criticize him openly in jail or through threats of defamation action by what is known in the island as "lawyer’s letters".

Through these clever dirty tricks  he has managed to subjugate and suppress his people for the last 52 yeas enabling his family members and his cronies to get very very rich.

But one would have thought that he would have known, to make such dirty tactics work, you have to have a helpless ignorant and miserable population who are imprisoned in the island, so that they would not know better thus effectively preventing them from any opposition. In North Korea the dictator continues on the throne because the people are poor ignorant and unable to get out of their country. The same in Cuba.

But what I cannot understand is why the Lee Ruling Family does not appear to understand this. Today almost everyone in Singapore both young and old are literate. Many are able to make trips aboard and see the freedoms that the rest of the world enjoy. Also the island has one of the world's highest computer literate populations.  

The Lee Ruling Family by continuing to provide an education to its people is literally shooting themselves in the foot. Young Singaporeans who travel abroad suddenly see the vastly superior lifestyles of their foreign friends; a life of liberty and freedom, something  they are denied at home.

And we all know that the human being naturally desires freedom over anything else.  

And what is even more threatening to the Lee Ruling Family who seem to appear to want to continue ruling the island in perpetuity is the fact that revolutions really do not needs thousands to succeed. Provided the ground is sufficiently unhappy with their lives, all it needs is a handful of young men and women to publicly demand change for the entire island to follow.

I believe Singapore is now on the threshold of a major upheaval and political change. The ground is not only unhappy they are outraged. Recently it was reported of a young student who yelled four letter words and abuse at Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean who had been making his rounds in the schools to ask support from students, because the Deputy was refusing to answer his questions. This sort of reaction from a student would be unthinkable in the past.

The young demand a life like the young have in Australia, not having to kowtow everyday to Lee and his family nor even their own parents.

The tiny island is a powder keg on a short fuse. It is not going to be long for that explosion. And the other good news is the Singapore strongman is no younger than 91, unable to walk himself and spending half the time in the hospital. As time goes on, he will be spending even more time there and after that permanently in the grave. Which will be another detonator going off for change in the island.

We have to thank the Lee ruling family for working at cross purposes to their own interests. And let us hope he continues that way. Frankly, since Singapore has modernized to the extent it has, I don't think the Lee Ruling Family have any choice in making any changes. Their cancer is simply terminal.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California
Tel 510 657 6107 or 510 491 4375

Singapore. Asian values and repression

Ladies and Gentlemen,

An observation of an average Singaporean will show a very different specimen from citizens of the West. Generally a quiet individual, self effacing and an introvert. Afraid to be different form others. Pack mentality and ever mindful not to step out of line from the general mindset.

An Australian on the other hand is more individualistic, self confident and not afraid to be different from everybody else. He follows his own mind.

Many reasons for Singaporeans submissive mentality. First it is Asian values. In Asian culture obeying parents or elders is mandatory, regardless of their ignorance. Speaking back is considered impolite. Better to be quiet and obey. A quiet boy is a good boy. A boy who does what he wants is a bad boy.

Asian children spend all their time reading books and passing exams because their parents demand it. But having read the books, acting on that knowledge and travelling the untrodden road is discouraged. Just pass the exams, get a good job, get more money; That’s all that matters for Asian parents with the Asian values. Not going round the world in a bicycle, not climbing the mountain and falling off or nothing unusual. Boring predictable people like their parents.  

If this is not damaging enough, you have the Singapore island strongman Lee Kuan Yew and his repression. He demands that everyone conform and sing the PAP tune under pain of arrest, defamation action or bankruptcy.

With the Asian values breathing down the necks of Singapore boys which is made worse by Lee Kuan Yew's threats of punishment if you did not listen, the end result; the Singaporean is a total bore. He is not spontaneous, he does not appear to have life, and he becomes a person who is almost incapable of anger or outrage.

He will take anything sitting down. You can deprive him of his right to free speech, expression, you can steal his money (Lee pays himself several millions in tax payers money) or you can send him to jail through corrupt judges. Yet he will not complain one bit. He will willingly accept any abuse and repression, and stay fro even more.  

This is the Singaporean. Men and women consumed by fear and thoroughly conforming through a lifetime of character training, are in the end, uninteresting people entirely. They have almost lost their life and walk around like automatons accepting everything thrown at them.

Lee does not realize that it is too late to undo the damage done to them. There are no leaders but only followers. It is impossible to accomplish greatness.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, CA USA
Tel: 510 657 6107 or 510 491 4375

Singapore. Of mice and men

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Juan Stuart Mill once wrote that a tyrant who subjugates his people produce "dwarfs" and dwarfs are never capable of achieving anything great.

Lee Kuan Yew the Singapore strongman has indeed managed to subjugate his people through fear; fear of arrest, fear of defamation action and fear of bankruptcy.

Today there is not a single person who dares to publicly challenge him or his ruling family. And indeed he has managed to create a society of dwarfs or mice. And being as afraid as mice they are indeed incapable of anything stupendous, because to be stupendous, you need creativity and for creativity, you need an independent mind, which a Singaporean simply cannot have if you always have to tailor your actions according to the Lee Family's tastes.

What Singapore has is a hierarchy, every stratum equally afraid. Those at the top of the hierarchy know they are hurting Singapore by their complicity but they do it nevertheless because of their corruption, receiving huge incomes totally beyond ordinarily acceptable norms of emoluments.

In the middle are the ordinary civil servants and clerks who work for the government. They conform because they for a variety of reasons are unable or incapable of migration to the West.

Then you have the lower strata of society, the ubiquitous food sellers, taxi drivers and office boys. They don't understand their rights under the law because they were never told by the Lee Ruling Family that they had any. So they and their children stay behind and try to make a living one way or the other, since what you do not know cannot really hurt you.

But despite all their trying, the Lee Ruling Family is hurting in more ways than you can imagine. The Lee Kuan Yew model which is no different from the prior Stalinist one party state system worked very well as long as you can continue keeping your citizens in the dark. Vladimir Lenin would never have embarked on a revolution in 1917 had there been the Internet. It would have been impossible to keep the truth under wraps and Izvestia and Pravda would have been laughed at with all that propaganda dished out on a daily basis.

No difference in Lee's case when he thought that by nationalizing and controlling the entire media, he too could dish out that rubbish on a daily basis for the citizens consumption.

But suddenly comes the Internet and all of a sudden, the 6 inch tall Lee Kuan Yew no longer looks the 10 feet superhuman. In fact he looks a buffoon who thinks he can get away with his bullying and the people will just roll over and act dead. Sorry pal, those days are over. This sort of double talk does not work anymore.

We know and the world knows that the Singapore media is nothing short of garbage propaganda, in the same ranking as Sudan. If Singapore don't want to mention it, it does not make a difference. We know.

Second your paying yourself millions and even more under the table is theft, because we know.

Third your courts with their judges are nothing but attack dogs which you use to demolish your opposition. We know that too. And the fact that you pay these judges millions for the dirty work they do, such as that of Belinda Ang Saw Ean to bankrupt and jail Chee Soon Juan is legal abuse. We know that too.

And we also know that these ministers and senior civil servants that you have to serve you and maintain the dictatorship that you impose on your citizens is not only wrong, it is illegal. By the way we know that too.

Which is why you are surrounded and propped up by men who have no scruples, who would do anything for money; the worst sort of human beings that one can imagine, the same sort as Himmler, Hess and Goebbels who supported and propped up Adolf Hitler to continue his barbaric regime.

These disgraceful fact about your regime is not something you can hide through your state controlled press, because those days are gone and today is the Internet age. People know. And when they do it becomes uncomfortable not only to work for you, it becomes so even to live in your Island or bring up families there.

Because of the violence you can inflict upon your people by the attack dog judges and the running dogs police who are willing to carry out your orders, Singaporeans feel helpless to protest. As a result they protest in another way. They pack up and leave. They emigrate. They refuse to marry. They refuse to have children.

You are already aware that the island has the highest rates of outward migration in the world, the lowest rates of fertility and highest rates of aging.

The hundreds and thousands of ignorant Mandarin speaking peasants who are brought in wholesale to make up the numbers are incapable of contributing anything. What is worse, they have no intention of settling in Singapore in fact. Which means the Communist Chinese who have no sense of democracy or the English language will come and go on a revolving basis, doing no good for Singapore.

In order to mitigate the unbearable brain drain, Lee dishes out thousands of scholarships to mainly Communist Chinese students in the hope they will serve the dictatorship after graduation. But unfortunately for Lee, the vast majority of them simply leave for the West when they find out sooner or later that Singapore living is no different than living under the Communist Party in China. If they have an opportunity in the West with an education, why waste your time with this silly fellow and his silly island.

And to make matters worse we have the impending death of the strongman Lee, 90 years old, himself. He is not going to live forever. As to whether he lives next week, your guess is as good as mine.

Fearing the inevitable collapse in confidence that will follow, people have already begun to ship their assets and themselves abroad. There is anecdotal evidence that since the last few years, the numbers leaving the island has taken a sharp hike upwards and more and more people are leaving with their families and their assets. The reasons are obvious. If Lee dies the confidence in the markets, already weak as it is, will take a dive; the currency will lose it's value and the stock market will fall. With the island dangerously dependent on foreign workers, with their leaving, the island to use a German word will simply be "Kaput".

Lee Kuan Yew has not managed to block this blog, Singapore Dissident from being read in the island because of the embarrassment they will face in demanding such action from Google, the host. If they did, they will be reduced to the level of Communist China who block anything on the Internet they do not like. Singapore on the other hands pretends to the outside world that it is a free market of ideas and to continue that pretence, they become helpless to stop the troublesome Gopalan Nair and his Singapore Dissident.

As long as this blog is being read in the island, these articles will continue to be written and even more Singaporeans would be persuaded to leave the island.

I am not sure whether Lee does not realize his model of suppression simply does not work anymore or has he run out of ideas and realizes that any attempt to liberalize would result in his overthrow. Either way as long as he continues by suppressing his people's rights, he continues further and further into the hole which he has dug from which there is simply no escape.

Gopalan Nair
Fremont, CA, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107 or 510 491 4375