Not long after this problem, at 4pm on Tuesday, Feb 1, 1966, Goh Keng
Swee suddenly came to my office at City Hall with the troubling news
that rioting had broken out at an army training depot at Shenton Way,
next to the Singapore Polytechnic.
When he learnt to his astonishment that 80 per cent of recent recruits
to all units were Malays, Keng Swee had given instructions that all
recruitment and training should cease and the position be frozen.
The major assembled everyone in the parade square, asked the
non-Malays to fall out and told the Malays that they were dismissed.
For a few minutes the Malays were dumbfounded at this discrimination.
When they had recovered from the shock, bedlam broke out as they
attacked the non-Malays with poles, sticks and aerated water bottles,
burnt two motorcycles, damaged a scooter and overturned a van.
A police patrol car, responding to an emergency call, drove into a
barrage of bottles and could not get past the overturned van.
A fire-engine that arrived later was similarly attacked.
A huge crowd gathered along Shenton Way to watch.
Polytechnic students left their classes for a bird's-eye view of the
melee from the balconies and rooftop.
At about 2.45pm, the riot squad arrived in their vans and lobbed
tear-gas canisters into the crowd.
Then, specially-trained riot police moved in, captured the rioters,
bundled them into police vans, and took them across the road to the
CID (Criminal Investigation Department) building.
They were held at the CID quadrangle pending instrucions on whether to
charge them and refuse bail, or to let them off on bail.
Keng Swee feared that if they were allowed to go, they would start a
riot between Malays and Chinese when they got home to Geylang Serai
and other Malay areas and spread the story of how they had been
dismissed.
I immediately called the British High Commissioner, John Robb, to my
office.
I asked him to alert the British military commander in case
inter-communal riots got out of hand as the Singapore police and army
were still nearly all Malays who would sympathise with the rioters.
I told him that I intended to go to the CID building to sort out the
problem myself.
If it was possible to defuse it, I would let them go home, otherwise,
they might have to be charged and held on remand.
In that case, some 365 families would miss their sons that night and
rumorswould spread throughout Singapore of the Malays being
oppressed.
John Robb said he would report the matter but was careful to point out
that British forces could not interfere in an internal security
problem.
I said the commander-in-chief or the officer in charge of the British
garrison should ensure that British troops were ready to prevent
rioters from becoming uncontrollable and turning against the white
families, as they had in the religious riot involving a Dutch girl in
1950.
Or are they?
Let hear it from the dumfuck forum moderator Jah_rasta_far_I.
