1. The British saw them as Communist but "peaceful communist. "
Again you attempt rather sneakily to present a false dilemma: the 111 are either ALL commies or ALL non-commies.
I believe I've addressed your question in the previous posts. Wade did not say that the "British saw them as Communist". He only used the word 'communist' on LCS:
In July 1962, the British noted that that while they accepted that Lim Chin Siong was a Communist, there was no evidence that he was receiving directions from the C.P.M., Peking or Moscow.
(I also cited Greg Poulgrain, also having access to the papers, as having come to the opposite conclusion: that there was no evidence LCS had ever been a communist.)
Throughout his paper Wade used the word 'Leftists'. Even if we take Wade's interpretation at face value, that LCS was a communist, it does not make the other 110 communists, 'peaceful' or otherwise.
2. The papers and quotations were limited to the context of Singapore alone.
Yes. And the arrests were carried out in Singapore.
3. Would you like to discuss the CPM up North or is that not part of the context and historical narrative.
CPM was definitely part of the historical context and narrative, but your attempt to bring in the CPM to justify the
legitimacy of Cold Store is spurious.
Because the legitimacy of the arrests did not depend on what Chin Peng's plans were: whether he had networks here, whether he intended to use violence, whether he wanted to influence Barisan.
The legitimacy depended on:
1. Whether
the British had any evidence at the time of impending violence from the detainees. Remember, Chin Peng didn't make the arrests; the Brits did. If Chin Peng had evidence to the contrary about the 111, he certainly didn't present it to the Brits to legitimise the arrests.
2. Whether
the British had any evidence that those arrested were acting under the instructions of CPM or were bona fide CPM members?
The answer to both questions is no.
Your Chin Peng excerpts confirmed as much: though he had networks here, was trying work through the unions and leftist parties here, he conceded that the key guys in Barisan, LCS included, were not at his beck-and-call, were not taking instructions from him — they were working independently.
If he had wanted to use Barisan as a front, he failed miserably.
And I also alluded to the present-day academic consensus that not only was the Cold Store the single decisive factor for the demise of left-wing politics in Singapore, it achieved this by ironically arresting the moderate leftists, while leaving out the more hardcore guys who went on to radicalise their cause and boycott the electoral platform.
If Cold Store's real aim was to wipe out the hardcore commies, it obviously ended up targeting the wrong guys.