Canberra, 11 June 1965
Secret
Singapore/Kuala Lumpur Relations
As you will see from Critchley’s latest telegram No. 1352,1 the Commonwealth High Commissions in Kuala Lumpur are not able to make any really useful suggestions about how to deal with the current situation. Head seems to have bungled his interviews with the Tunku. In the Department, we have little to suggest of a constructive nature at this stage, but the following two or three observations might be of some use to you in considering how to tackle the matter in London.2
2. I myself do not particularly like the suggestions in paragraphs 8 and 9 of Critchley’s telegram about organising mass meetings of racial communities in support of the Tunku and existing friendly relations between races. I have the feeling that this is playing the game in a way that only benefits Lee. It is Lee who wishes to heighten the political atmosphere and who is in search of issues on which to campaign. Ministers had to meet the challenge in Parliament and they did so. But, as a general principle, I should have thought it was in the interests of the Malaysian Government that his efforts should fall as flat as possible and that he should not be assisted to generate an atmosphere of political tension.
3. Pursuing this line of thought, I have read the speech which Lee delivered in the Malaysian Parliament and it is clear that his main attacking points came not from Government policy but from his use of extremist statements which elements of UMNO have made. He makes effective use of material drawn from the bitter campaign against him by Ja’afar Albar, the Secretary-General UMNO, and Malay journals. He quotes Ja’afar Albar as propounding the view that ‘Wherever I am, I am a Malay. If the Malays were split the Malays would perish from this earth’.3 The point is that men like Ja’afar Albar, and the Malay language newspapers under the control of UMNO, are giving Lee ready-made ammunition for his campaign that elements among the Malays are determined to ensure Malay domination. What concerns me is that, as the Alliance leaders are now committed to a political struggle with Lee, they will allow these elements to continue with a virulent anti-Lee campaign without restraint. In turn, Lee—with effect—exploits this material as evidence of Malay obscurantism and will to dominate. Lee can also say that the Government leaders, whose party is involved, are not disassociating themselves. In this way he can damage the Tunku, Razak and company.
4. What worries me in the present situation is not so much that the Alliance Government will take a decision in calm circumstances to detain Lee, but that elements in UMNO, versed in agitation and conspiracy, will get out ahead of the moderate politicians and bring about a communal crisis. We should remind ourselves that such a group, led by Ja’afar Albar, had much to do with the situation in Singapore which led to the communal riots last year.4 Ja’afar Albar was reported to have been disciplined by the Alliance leaders, but can we be confident about the future? It seems to me that there would be people in UMNO, so aroused by Lee, that they might be prepared to provoke another communal crisis and use it as the occasion for demanding Lee’s detention—unless there is strong and firm leadership.
5. It may be that effective contact with the Tunku on the whole problem is best achieved through discussion of the practical politics of the situation, as above, rather than through admonition or gratuitous advice.
6. So far as Lee is concerned, I think that, in the present circumstances, my view would be that the Central Government should not contemplate any new arrangement with Singapore that Lee could represent as concessions and as success for his current campaign of deliberate and controlled provocation. It seems to me that Lee should be allowed to go through a period of time in which it becomes apparent to him that his tactics are getting him nowhere. There might even be merit in the Tunku warning Lee privately that the Central Government remains strong, undisturbed and firmly in control of the situation.
[NAA: A 1838, 3027/2/1 part 23]
1 Document 274.
2 Hasluck was to accompany Menzies to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London, 17– 25 June.
3 See Document 271, and footnote 2 and paragraph 5, Document 272.
4 See Documents 193 and 194, and footnote 1, Document 261.