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Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?

Asiaweek Time Asia Now Asiaweek story

STICKS AND STONES


WILLIAMS COLLEGE IN THE U.S. offered Singapore's prime minister an honorary doctorate three years ago. So when Goh Chok Tong finally agreed to receive the award from his Massachusetts alma mater at this September's convocation, neither he nor the school anticipated the controversy that erupted.

Williams College political science lecturer George Crane organized a counter-award ceremony at which Singaporean affairs would be debated. Among the controversial panelists invited: American academic Christopher Lingle, who fled Singapore last year when charged with contempt of court for an article published in the International Herald Tribune, and Singapore's former solicitor general Francis Seow, now a fellow at Harvard law school, who was convicted of tax evasion after leaving the island.

Within days, New York Times columnist William Safire got wind of the brouhaha. Safire weighed in with a column challenging Goh to a debate and criticizing Singapore inaccurately as a country that imposed fines for chewing gum and the death penalty for sharing a marijuana cigarette. In the piece he referred to Goh as a "front man" and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew as "the dictator."

Safire's challenge got a swift response from Singapore. Goh, who earned a Master's degree in development economics at Williams in 1967, invited both Safire and Crane to a televised debate at the National University of Singapore, with free passage on Singapore Airlines thrown in. "This is a serious invitation for a serious purpose," said Goh's press secretary Chan Heng Wing, "namely to give Singaporeans a chance to hear American liberals present their case in person on what is wrong in Singapore."

Adding fuel to the cross-fire was the Singapore High Court ruling last month to assess $680,000 in libel damages against the Tribune over an article that alleged "dynastic politics" in Singapore. The recipients of the record sum: Goh Chok Tong, Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Deputy Premier Lee Hsien Loong.

Singapore opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, meanwhile, had a proposal of his own. "Singaporeans are not interested in hearing what Americans have to say about what is wrong about Singapore," said the secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party. "They would rather hear the government and the opposition debate on issues that affect their lives."

That suggestion was quickly slapped down. Deputy PM Lee challenged the SDP to explain why it supported the Western media in attacks against Singapore. The ruling party's organizing secretary Ow Chin Hock said the SDP could debate the government any time it wanted in Parliament.

Meanwhile, the verbal volleys continued. "I'm ready to debate Lee Kuan Yew himself, and the dictator only," wrote Safire, who proposed as the venue the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Mr. Safire hides behind the safety of his column to bluster at Singapore from New York," retorted press secretary Chan in a letter to the Times. "Why does he lack the conviction to face Mr. Goh in person?" As the rhetoric grew more heated, the chance of anyone debating anything seemed remote.

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