Questioning the fairness: SM Teo's remarks on Lee Hsien Yang amid leadership praise

by Michael Han

Alas, the issues came up again.

After 7 years since that day when his two siblings rocked this little red dot with a statement in June 2017, sent out in the wee hours of the morning, Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean said that he was “quite saddened” by change in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s younger brother, Lee Hsien Yang.

This came out of nowhere, especially when PM Lee has full-page coverage in the Straits Times today dedicated to his leadership of 20 years. The accolades poured in, on how he had steered the country and stood stalwart for decades.

Timing notwithstanding, SM Teo didn’t say much about the specific of his expressed sadness. It’s a combination of events I guess, that is, the Oxley fall out, the serious accusations, the demolition clause, the change of political party allegiance, the online vitriolic, and many more.

Or, maybe it was the fact that the de facto first family has gone their separate ways, with one family, parents and son, living abroad, with what seems like a legal Damocles’ sword still hanging over their heads.

SM Teo said: “We worked in the armed forces in the joint staff. Which (LHY) left the (Singapore) Armed Forces. I encouraged him to stay to contribute to Singapore. He’s a very able man. But what I can say is…I was saddened to see the change in Hsien Yang.”

That was how he ended, or at least, how it was reported.

Sadness aside, he went on to exhume three issues about Oxley-gate.

First, he talked about PM Lee’s steadfastness in keeping an arm’s length over the personal family dispute.

“I’ve known him for a very long time. And he was able to separate the personal from what is right for the country. And so he recused himself. He asked me to oversee the matter,” he said.

The issue with that is, and has always been, that PM Lee had appointed someone who was reporting to him, and they have been close friends since Army days, just like his closeness with LHY. Both sides are brothers-in-arms, yet one side was also his boss.

I wonder, should someone as close as family be tasked to oversee, and risks him maintaining one friendship and losing another?

Maybe at that time, the gravity of the consequences were not readily foreseen? As such, you want someone you trust fully to hopefully find closure?

Second, SM Teo mentioned the vindication at parliament specially set up for the dispute. “(SM Teo) said his siblings’ baseless allegations had touched on the conduct of his office and the Government’s integrity, which made it necessary for the issue to have a full public airing.”

Full public airing? But his siblings were not invited to publicly air theirs, apart from their statement. What is hung in public for airing in parliament is largely one-sided, though it is in rebuttal to the statement.

You can say that this is one clothes-peg missing the other interlocking wooden prong. Or, as X-file would have put it, with a twist of mine - the truth is still finding its way back home.

I don’t doubt that PM Lee deserved to be heard, and he was nevertheless heard in full with an official online preview before the parliamentary airing with unanimous support.

And lastly, it was the disciplinary tribunal set up in 2019, where LHY’s wife was found guilty of misconduct unbefitting of a lawyer. She was suspended for 15 months. The ST article reports that PM Lee “had also raised concerns about the preparation of his father’s last will.”

What lingers is this: If PM Lee had known about the will right after his father’s passing in March 2015, he should also have known about the identity of the one who had prepared it. In any event, probate was duly completed. If so, it makes the timing of that concern rather curious.

One thus wonders, if not for the siblings’ statement in June 2017, would that concern still be a live concern?

After all, that said, and particularly after the total damages of S$297k that Terry Xu was ordered to pay in 2021, we all know where the OB marker is. Privacy is privacy. It’s still a personal family matter.

The message is clear: Let dead dogs lie.

This was first published on Michael Han's Facebook page and reproduced with permission.