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Singapore Singapore as Part of Malaysia
The leaders of Singapore, Malaya, Sabah, and Sarawak
signed the
Malaysia Agreement on July 9, 1963, under which the
Federation of
Malaysia was scheduled to come into being on August 31.
Tengku
Abdul Rahman changed the date to September 16, however, to
allow
the UN time to complete its survey. On August 31, Lee
declared
Singapore to be independent with the PAP government to act
as
trustees for fifteen days until the formation of Malaysia
on
September 16. On September 3, Lee dissolved the
Legislative
Assembly and called for a new election on September 21, to
obtain
a new mandate for the PAP government. In a bitterly
contested
campaign, the Barisan Sosialis denounced the merger as a
"sell-out"
and pledged increased support for Chinese education and
culture.
About half of Barisan's Central Executive Committee,
including Lim
Chin Siong, were in jail, however, following mass arrests
the
previous February by the Internal Security Council of
political,
labor, and student leaders who had supported a rebellion
in Brunei.
The mass arrests, although undertaken by the British and
Malayans,
benefited the PAP because there was less opposition. The
party
campaigned on its economic and social achievements and the
achievement of merger. Lee visited every corner of the
island in
search of votes, and the PAP won thirty-seven of the
fifty-one
seats while the Barisan Sosialis won only thirteen.
On September 14, the UN mission had reported that the
majority
of the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak were in favor of
joining
Malaysia. Sukarno immediately broke off diplomatic and
trade
relations between Indonesia and Malaysia, and Indonesia
intensified
its Confrontation operations. Singapore was particularly
hard hit
by the loss of its Indonesian barter trade. Indonesian
commandos
conducted armed raids into Sabah and Sarawak, and
Singaporean
fishing boats were seized by Indonesian gunboats.
Indonesian
terrorists bombed the Ambassador Hotel on September 24,
beginning
a year of terrorism and propaganda aimed at creating
communal
unrest in Singapore. The propaganda campaign was effective
among
Singapore Malays who had hoped that merger with Malaysia
would
bring them the same preferences in employment and
obtaining
business licenses that were given Malays in the
Federation. When
the PAP government refused to grant any economic
advantages other
than financial aid for education, extremist UMNO leaders
from Kuala
Lumpur and the Malay press whipped up antigovernment
sentiment and
racial and religious tension. On July 21, 1964, fighting
between
Malay and Chinese youths during a Muslim procession
celebrating the
Prophet Muhammad's birthday erupted into racial riots, in
which
twenty-three people were killed and hundreds injured. In
September
Indonesian agents provoked communal violence in which 12
people
were killed and 100 were injured. In Singapore, which
normally
prided itself on the peace and harmony among its various
ethnic
groups, shock and disbelief followed in the wake of the
violence.
Both Lee Kuan Yew and Tengku Abdul Rahman toured the
island in an
effort to restore calm, and they agreed to avoid wrangling
over
sensitive issues for two years.
The first year of merger was also disappointing for
Singapore
in the financial arena. No progress was made toward
establishing a
common market, which the four parties had agreed would
take place
over a twelve-year period in return for Singapore's making
a
substantial development loan to Sabah and Sarawak. Each
side
accused the other of delaying on carrying out the terms of
the
agreement. In December 1964, Kuala Lumpur demanded a
higher
percentage of Singapore's revenue in order to meet defense
expenditures incurred fighting Confrontation and also
threatened to
close the Singapore branch of the Bank of China, which
handled the
financial arrangements for trade between Singapore and
China as
well as remittances.
Political tensions between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur
also
escalated as each began getting involved in the politics
of the
other. UMNO ran candidates in Singapore's September 1963
elections,
and PAP challenged MCA Alliance candidates in the
Malaysian general
election in April 1964. UMNO was unable to win any seats
in the
Singapore election, and PAP won only one seat on the
peninsula. The
main result was increased suspicion and animosity between
UMNO and
PAP and their respective leaders. In April 1965, the four
Alliance
parties of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak merged to
form a
Malaysian National Alliance Party. The following month,
the PAP and
four opposition parties from Malaya and Sarawak formed the
Malaysian Solidarity Convention, most of whose members
were ethnic
Chinese. Although the Malaysian Solidarity Convention
claimed to be
noncommunal, right-wing UMNO leaders saw it as a Chinese
plot to
take over control of Malaysia. In the following months,
the
situation worsened increasingly, with abusive speeches and
writings
on both sides. Faced with demands for the arrest of Lee
Kuan Yew
and other PAP leaders by UMNO extremists, and fearing
further
outbreaks of communal violence, Tengku Abdul Rahman
decided to
separate Singapore from Malaysia. Informed of his decision
on
August 6, Lee tried to work out some sort of compromise,
without
success. On August 9, with the Singapore delegates not
attending,
the Malaysian parliament passed a bill favoring separation
126 to
0. That afternoon, in a televised press conference, Lee
declared
Singapore a sovereign, democratic, and independent state.
In tears
he told his audience, "For me, it is a moment of anguish.
All my
life, my whole adult life, I have believed in merger and
unity of
the two territories."
Data as of December 1989
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