Making Singapore a Peace Centre

by Ho Juan Thai

The Trump-Kim summit has successfully concluded and I hope it is now clear that Singapore should promote itself as a peace centre, encouraging peace and peace settlements among conflicting parties within or among nations. By doing this it will bring peace and relief to the suffering of many innocent people living in conflict zones and benefit everyone in the world, including Singapore at large.  A rare win-win opportunity to pursue.

It is time that Singapore as an affluent first world country takes on some international responsibility by helping to resolve the conflicts around us.  I do believe we could help in many meaningful ways.  Helping others is not just an obligation or natural instinct from one human being towards another fellow human being, it can also bring happiness, social stability and economic success to all.

What diplomat or political activist around the world has not now heard about Singapore and tried to find out more about who we are?  What is happening now is not that we are lucky to have been chosen as the venue for the Trump-Kim summit.  It is our ignorance to date that we have not capitalised on the potential we have had to promote ourselves as an all round peacemaker much earlier.  Seven years ago I wrote a piece calling for Making Singapore a Peace Centre but it attracted no interest. I hope this time this idea will be taken up seriously.

For those who are business minded it is not hard to see the amount of money coming from the thousands of diplomats, journalists, correspondents, observers, spies, etc., spending in Singapore and the number of quality temporary and long term jobs that may be created from the summit.

Many tourists will now be taking more interest in this almost invisible red dot on the world atlas and come to visit us. The visitors immediate and short term spending flowing into our economy, together with the goodwill it has generated for Singapore, can easily offset the S$ 20 million the government has spent on the summit.  What this brings us is clear to see but you may ask will this positive ripple effect last?

You may quite rightly say the economic benefit we can draw from this summit alone is limited, as a few months after the Trump-Kim summit the positive ripples will soon reduce to nothing. However, if we put our efforts into setting ourselves up as a centre for promoting peace and peace settlements, we will be able to continue the benefits generated from peace activities.  The peace activities need not always be at the same high level and as successful as the Trump-Kim submit. They could be from very small almost unknown conflicts to internationally renowned unresolved problems.  These continual peace activities will eventually develop into a well planned and managed  "peace industry" creating jobs and improving the GDP just like any other service industry we try to promote. Perhaps this one could be considered as having more qualities and meaningful long term implications.

For a while we have been struggling to find what is the next meaningful thing for Singapore to do in view of the fact that we have been out competed in export orientated industries, financial outsource services, educational centres, etc.  Even our traditional entrepot business is facing a serious challenge from the new silk route/OBOR  and other neighbouring economic initiatives.

What is the next best thing for us to do and at the same time what can we potentially do well? Should it not be setting ourselves up as a professional peace centre for big and small conflicts of all kinds and of all natures to talk of peace and peace settlements in Singapore?  We should work hand in hand with the internationally established peace making centres providing alternative and complementary peace activities.

The Swiss, USA or Scandinavia countries do not always offer free meeting facilities to those who come to Geneva, New York or Helsinki, etc., for peace talks.  It is quite a financial burden to many who wish to have peace settlements, flying all the way to these often quite climatically cold peace centres.  We should be able to complement these peace centres with cheaper costs and an all year round warm weather peace centre. For Asian and African conflicting parties coming to Singapore will mean much shorter flying times with weather which is more agreeable to them.  After all most conflicts these days are nearer to Singapore rather than the traditional peace centres.

Reducing suffering, enhancing Singapore's image and goodwill and creating economic opportunities for all are only a few of the positive things being mentioned.  With your imagination, you can probably name far more goodies that can be generated from such a peace centre in Singapore.

However, I do wish to highlight one other particular item regarding the peace centre - defending Singapore. We have been spending an enormous amount of money to keep us safe.  I believe being a successful peace centre will make us safer.  What country would venture to bomb the island state where many world leading diplomats are located.  The consequences of hitting a diplomat who happens to belong to a member of the security council would be incalculable.  What unfriendly force will come to Singapore only to confront many UN peace keeping forces which constantly use many of our army camps we provide them for transit?  By contributing a small part of Singapore's defence spending and opening up our army camps to the UN peace keeping forces will give us and others greater stability. It is time for us to look at things from a completely different perspective.

What we need to do to be a Peace Centre

Not every country can set itself up as a peace centre.  Only countries that are politically neutral, free from a particular religious or ideological domination, socially stable, have an advanced communication infrastructure and a locality shorter to reach, can be considered as a good peace settlement centre. How many countries in Asia or Africa can be considered to have these qualities?  These exceptional  "competitive advantages"  which Singapore has should be capitalised on to develop it into a peace services centre on an industrial scale.

Of course and most importantly, for us to be a successful peace centre there must be a strong will for promoting this peace initiative with positive complementary policies backing it up.  Just like any venture, without a vision and determination it will end up as nothing much.

A few points we may wish to consider when setting up our peace centre are:

Proactive in promoting Peace Settlements

We should be proactive in promoting peace and peace settlements regardless of whether the conflicts are well known or not.  Unlike many conflict resolution activities which focus mainly on reporting, analysing and recommending when to intervene and what needs to be done, ours should simply be to go to ground talking to all conflicting parties regardless of what nature and stage of conflict they are in. So long as there is the slightest chance of negotiating a peace settlement we should do our work professionally and with full sincerity to help cultivate structured negotiations and hopefully end up with a formal peace settlement.

We should not wait for conflicting parties to look for us, we should go out to look for them on a mission to promote peace.

Restricted Peace Negotiation Haven

We should be a bit more flexible in accepting anyone coming to Singapore to talk peace, regardless of who the person is and what the person has done previously.  Our airport should extend its international territory, which is big enough to have comprehensive meeting and resting facilities, to accommodate anyone to come within the Restricted Peace Negotiation Haven to talk peace.  Only those who are proven not to pose any security risk to us may be allowed to pass through the restricted haven to come into Singapore.

Six months back Kim Jung Un was generally regarded as a dangerous inhumane international pariah.  Singapore avoided him then. Today, according to Trump, Kim can be an effective peace maker and improve the quality of lives for many.  We should learn from the fact that people do change and are capable of changing quickly and we should be more flexible in accepting anyone for peace settlement purposes.

Utilization of 38 Oxley Road, 

If the Singapore Peace Centre proposition is accepted I do hope the stakeholders of 38 Oxley Road could donate their site for this meaningful pursuit.  The peace researchers, coordinators, negotiators, trainers, planners, advisors and administrators, etc., do need a place to operate from.  Conflicting parties of non international figures could use it as a peace negotiation space. Part of the UN or the permanent Asia Disaster or Economic Recovery team could also use the complex.

It is commonly expressed that something meaningful should be done at 38 Oxley Road which will bring everyone concerned happily together to build something that will benefit all people around the world.  Should the peace centre idea be accepted we should go for open consultation on what building would best suit its purpose and at the same time respect the wishes of our respected founding prime minister.  No doubt, setting up the historic premises for the peace movement will bring peace and happiness to all, not least the donors themselves.

Open to all ideas
The Trump-Kim summit has been a great success.  Hopefully it gives us the impetus for considering the 'Making Singapore A Peace Centre'  proposition seriously. There are more ideas which can be added on top of setting ourselves up as a centre for conflict resolution of all kinds.   It is something concerning everyone for the good of everyone.  Let us all contribute our ideas to make it a really successful one.

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This entry was posted in Opinion.

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