And the mine explodes!

In my previous post, (http://article14.blogspot.hk/2012/09/mha-walks-into-minefield-when-didnt.html) I was questioning the wisdom of MHA wading into the saga of the Archbishop's letter.  They could have stayed away and avoided embarrassment.  They didn't.  And now they have stepped on a mine. 

Function 8 (evidently riled up by MHA's press statement) has released a letter written by them to the Archbishop after the latter's withdrawal of his first letter.  This is Function8's letter:

1 June 2012

Dear Monsignor Nicholas Chia

May we first say that we were very happy to receive your lett er of 25th May 2012 in support of the commemorati on event of Operation Spectrum to be held on 2 June 2012 and your wish (parts blacked out by F8 to protect the direct contents of the Archbishop's original letter). We received and appreciated it as a gesture on the part of the Catholic Church in Singapore to recognize truth and acknowledge the injustice suffered by the former detainees of Operation Spectrum and their families.

Needless to say, we are deeply disappointed and puzzled to receive your letter of withdrawal, just five days later.

Whatever might have transpired to pressurize the head of the Catholic Church in Singapore to withdraw the letter, we would like to think that you can now understand why the detainees had to make their "confessions" under the duress of torture and the threat of indefinite detention without trial.

We do not regard the event we are organizing as "political activities", but as an effort to achieve restorative justice. This is a human and necessary stage in the healing process for the former detainees of Operation Spectrum, their families and friends. We are somewhat amazed and dismayed that you seem to suspect - without giving any reason (and indeed there is none) - that there is any ulterior motive to use your letter outside of the event, in any way at all.

How did you come to this conclusion? We had not even solicited the letter from you in the first place.

We note that you have copied a Mr (parts blacked out by F8 to protect the identity of the person) in your letter of withdrawal and are puzzled as to his role in this matter when he was not copied in the fi rst letter. Should we also copy this response to Mr (parts blacked out by F8 to protect the identity of the person)? Out of courtesy, we will await your response.

Lastly, while we can understand that Christians are obliged to "render to Caesar what is Caesar's", in the context of Singapore, we are curious to know what you think they should "render to God" in this same context.

Yours sincerely,

The Organisers

The first paragraph is sufficient (despite the blanked out portions) to indicate that the Archbishop had expressed support for the event. 

Someone has been copied into the letter of retraction.  One wonders who that might be.  Someone from the Church?  Someone from the government?  Why would that person be copied into the letter?  More questions. 

Let us not get sidetracked from the key issue.  Whatever might have transpired between Function 8 and the Archbishop and however any party may be alleged to have acted irresponsibly, is irrelevant for the rest of us.  What is relevant is whether government officials had brought pressure upon the Archbishop to retract his letter of support. 

If such pressure was placed on the Archbishop, how did the officials come to know of the letter?  Were the members of Function 8 and their meetings subject to surveillance by the ISD?  If as is repeatedly alleged, the ISD's function is to prevent terror attacks, why would their efforts be directed at the activities of a civil society group?  (Although many of us in my generation and those older than me have taken it for granted that the ISD may have done routine surveillance on citizens for political purposes, I have increasingly heard from a younger generation of PAP apologists that the ISD and the ISA is necessary for the prevention of terrorist activity.  These persons ought to consider whether the surveillance activities of our state is limited to crime prevention and prevention of terror or such surveillance activities are extended to political activities of persons seen as being unfriendly towards the ruling party.)

Of course, I am speculating a fair bit here. 

The following scenario is also entirely probable:
Archbishop writes a letter to Function 8.  A few days later, Minister has a routine meeting with the Archbishop where the latter frankly reveals the fact of the letter written to Function 8.  Minister suggests that it is not advisable to have the letter released to the public and persuades the Achbishop to withdraw the letter.  On day 5, Archbishop writes to Function 8 to withdraw the letter. 

We will never know the truth.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A short aside...  I just saw the scanned image of Function 8's letter. 

Let me make a guess as to the missing bit.  I typed out the text on a Word document and the following words fit in perfectly into the blacked out portion....   "truth to be established and justice to prevail."    So, that first sentence might have read as follows:  "May we first say that we were very happy to receive your letter of 25^th May 2012 in support of the commemoration event of Operation Spectrum to be held on 2 June 2012 and your wish for truth to be established and justice to prevail."  

Of Care and Complacency

A couple of months ago I was returning from a trip to Hong Kong. I enjoy the convenience of going through the automated lane at the airport. Place your passport on the reader; make your way through; place your thumb on the second reader; you are cleared. Very efficient. Very fast. And foolproof.

On that occasion, there was a queue at the automated lane. But, I figured it would move fast and definitely faster than the manual lanes and besides that day there were long queues in all the lanes. So, I joined the automated lane. It was taking a while for each person to get through. A chap standing in front of me remarked to the officer who was trying to assist something along the following lines.... Wah! Nowadays the security is so tight ah? Singapore passport also the machine is taking so long to check.
Obviously it was a snide remark about the glitches in the device that did the scanning. It drew chuckles and smiles from the rest of us in the queue. The officer obviously treated it rather seriously. He said something to the following effect..... Singapore must be careful now. We cannot afford to make any more mistakes.

I'm not quoting verbatim. My memory is not that perfect. But, I must say that it is pretty ironic that all those claims of being careful gave way to a lapse. To be fair, the lapse took place at the budget terminal.
Budget terminal = budget service = budget security
:-)

Any lapse by any department in the Home Team is a failure which all in the Home Team family must bear

I'm sure the Home Minister did not mean it when he said, 'Any lapse by any department in the Home Team is a failure which all in the Home Team family must bear'. If he did mean it and if this was not a rapidly and loosely drafted statement, then the following meanings are possible:

a) The 61 year old gentleman slipping through immigration (of all the places I would have thought this would be the most secure and in all honesty I have been complacent about the level of security there) using his son's passport was not a lapse;

or

b) The incident was a lapse but not a lapse by the ICA;

or

c) It was a lapse by the ICA but the department is not part of the Home Team

or

d) The ICA is part of the Home Team but the Home Minister is not as his is a political office and he is himself not a member of the civil service

or

e) The Home Minister is acknowledging that as a member of the Home Team family he is going to bear the responsibility for the lapse of a 'family member'.


Given the fact that the five possible interpretations are unlikely to constitute the intended consequence of what he said, I would venture that the Home Minister did not mean it when he said, "Any lapse by any department in the Home Team is a failure which all in the Home Team family must bear"
(Unless, of course there is a different sense in which he said it and my plebian brain is unable to logicaly process that meaning out of the statement). :-)

I don't envy the Home Minister. This has been his annus horribilis... and we are just reaching the halfway mark.