Opinion
Is this a black operation?
In his piece, Yoong Siew Wah, former director of Singapore’s Internal Security Department explores the recent political scandal in Singapore involving the Workers’ Party members and suggests that the events might be part of a sophisticated, clandestine character assassination plot, given that ISD isn’t daft enough to have carried out such an operation with or without higher orders.

by Yoong Siew Wah
I thought it was an Agatha Christie novel that vividly displayed a sensational video showing the romantic rendezvous in the intimate ambience of two Workers’ Party senior party lovebirds, Leon Perera and Nicole Seah, which obviously brought them to the disastrous termination of their career.
That this happened at the same time that a confounded Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was desperately grabbling with the extra-marital scandal of Tan Chuan Jin and Cheng Li Hui, could not really be a coincidence?
No one, who is not politically connected with the State apparatus or some foreign clandestine espionage agencies, can have the resources and expertise to carry out recklessly these clandestine activities of character assassination undertaking.
The objective of the clandestine video is intended to cause an earthquake in WP, and true enough they are now burdened with the enormous task of damage control.
Aside from Internal Security Department and foreign clandestine espionage organisation, no other individual or outfit can have the resources and expertise to carry out such black operation.
ISD could not be daft enough to have carried out this operation with or without higher orders. This is definitely a black operation, and a clandestine individual or outfit other than ISD had carried out this operation in Singapore is something that ISD need to look deeply into to prevent any disreputable backlash to the ISD in particular and the PAP government in general.
Asia One and one Edmund Chua had been mentioned but nothing conclusive. Home Minister K. Shanmugam swore that he had nothing to do with it, and there is no reason to disbelieve him.
The operator was able to know the date, time and venue of the romantic rencontre shows the sophistication of the operator. The Russians were running circles around the British in Singapore after the war.
Who are running circles around the ISD should be something the ISD cannot afford to overlook for its redoubtable identity and something they want to know if they do not already.
It will be the most grotesque scenario if either the free-and-easy PM Lee Hsien Loong or his successor gets screwed up by the clandestine operators assuming that they are foreigners. Singapore is really like a Hollywood style metropolis.
Mr Yoong Siew Wah, was the Director of Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) from 1971 to 1974. He was Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in the 1960s, and had a distinguished career in the Singapore Special Branch in the 1950s. Mr Yoong, who is in his 90s, keeps a blog called Singapore Recalcitrant.

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