SINGAPORE HYPOCRISY: HANG THE DRUG COURIERS WHILE INVESTING WITH THE DRUG BARONS

Elizabeth Krantz – 8 December 2005, Australian News Commentary

The net effect of the Singapore government’s barbaric hanging of drug
courier Van Nguyen will be to increase profits for the government’s trading
partner, Burmese drug lord Lo Hsing Han.  While the high-profile execution
will no doubt reduce the supply of heroin somewhat, the inelastic demand
by addicts will just increase the margin to the wholesaler, Lo.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his authoritarian
government display extreme hypocrisy in executing dozens of drug couriers
while at the same time going into business ventures with drug trafficker Lo.
The former US Assistant of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Affairs, declared in 1997, “Since 1988 over half of the
$US1 billion investments from Singapore have been tied to the family of
narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han”.
The Singapore government, in cooperation with Morgan Guaranty Trust
Company, is directly connected to key business ventures of drug kingpin Lo
through an investment group called the Myanmar Fund. The fund, which
provides investors “with long term capital appreciation from direct or
indirect investments in Myanmar (Burma),” is registered as a tax-free fund
in Jersey, Channel Islands, according to documents provided to the Irish
Stock Exchange.

Singapore’s largest government-controlled financial institution – the
Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) – is listed in the
documents along with Morgan Guaranty Trust Bank (a J.P. Morgan
subsidiary separate from the Trust Company) as a core shareholder in the
Myanmar Fund. A September 1996 GIC business profile from the Registry of
Companies and Businesses in Singapore shows that high-level Singaporean
politicians were officers and directors of the GIC, including senior minister
Lee Kuan Yew; his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong; and finance minister
Dr Richard Hu. As a core shareholder, the GIC helps determine how the
fund’s money is invested in Burma.

Singapore’s economic linkage with Burma is one of the most vital factors for
the survival of Burma’s military regime,” says Professor Mya Maung, a
Burmese economist based in Boston. This link, he continues, is also central
to “the expansion of the heroin trade.” Singapore has achieved the
distinction of being the Burmese junta’s number one business partner -both
largest trading partner and largest foreign investor. More than half these investments, totaling upwards of US$1.3 billion, are in partnership with
Burma’s infamous heroin kingpin Lo Hsing Han, who now controls a
substantial portion of the world’s opium trade. The close political, economic,
and military relationship between the two countries facilitates the weaving
of millions of narco-dollars into the legitimate world economy.
The Burmese military dictatorship- known by the acronym SLORC for State
Law and Order Restoration Council until it changed its name to the State
Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997-depends on the resources
of Burma’s drug barons for its financial survival. Since it seized power in
1988, opium production has doubled, equaling all legal exports and making
the country the world’s biggest heroin supplier.  With 50 percent of the
economy unaccounted for, drug traffickers, businessmen and government
officials are able to integrate spectacular profits throughout Burma’s
permanent economy.

Both the Burmese generals and drug lords have been able to take advantage
of Singapore’s liberal banking laws and money laundering opportunities. In
1991, for example, the SLORC laundered US$400 million through a
Singapore bank which it used as a down payment for Chinese arms.  With no
laws to prevent money laundering, Singapore is widely reported to be a
financial haven for Burma’s elite, including its two most notorious
traffickers, Lo Hsing Han and Khun Sa (also known by his Chinese name Lo Hsing Han is chairman of Burma’s biggest conglomerate, Asia World,
founded in 1992. His son, Steven Law, is managing director and also runs
three companies in Singapore which are “overseas branches” of Asia World.
Although Singapore is proud of its mandatory death penalty for small-time
narcotics smugglers and heroin addicts, both father and son travel freely in
and out of the friendly (to them) island-nation.

In 1996, when Law married his Singaporean business partner in a lavish,
well-publicized Rangoon wedding, guests from Singapore were flown in on
two chartered planes. According to a high-level US government official
familiar with the situation, Law’s wife Cecilia Ng operates an underground
banking system, and “is a contact for people in Burma to get their drug
money into Singapore, because she has a connection to the government.”
According to the official, Ng spends half her time in Rangoon, half in
Chang Qifu), half in Singapore; when in Rangoon, she is headquartered at Asia Lite, a subsidiary of Asia World.

The husband-wife teams are also the sole officers and shareholders of Asia World subsidiary, Kokang Singapore Pte Ltd. Founded in Singapore in 1993
with $4.6 million, the company “engages in general trading activities in
goods/products of all kinds/descriptions.

The Burmese junta’s control of its impoverished population through crude
methods such as torture, forced labor, and mass killings leaves it open to
international condemnation. In contrast, Singapore takes a more
sophisticated approach to repression, both at home and abroad. While the
island-nations citizens have material benefits and the appearance of rule of
law, they live in fear of an Orwellian government that closely monitors every
aspect of their lives. The ruling party often sues those who dare to oppose it
on trumped up defamation charges, forcing many into bankruptcy or exile.

Editor’s Note:  JP Morgan is part of the Rothschild Consortium, and opium
trafficking by Raffles et alia (East India Co.) is old news that everyone
conveniently sets aside.  The Raffles Group has just built the Raffles Hotel in
Dubai, another Pyramid in honor of Pharaoh and ancient Egyptian magic, a
Freemasonic and Illuminati specialty. – oz

An Excerpt from Wiki

In 1818, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was appointed as the Lieutenant Governor of the British colony at Bencoolen. He was determined that Great Britain should replace the Netherlands as the dominant power in the archipelago, since the trade route between China and British India, which had become vitally important with the institution of the opium trade with China, passed through the archipelago. The Dutch had been stifling British trade in the region by prohibiting the British from operating in Dutch-controlled ports or by subjecting them to a high tariff. Raffles hoped to challenge the Dutch by establishing a new port along the Straits of Malacca, the main ship passageway for the India–China trade. He convinced Lord Hastings, the Governor-General of India and his superior at the British East India Company, to fund an expedition to seek a new British base in the region.^[9]

[Though Raffles tried to oppose the trade, which he saw personally as an evil, and despite his re-organization of the Colony according to ethnic subgroups.  The decadence continued. as is the case today, his very superiors were the ones profiting most from the trade. As with the Triads (Freemasons actually) so it is/was with the Yakuzza in Japan, who profited mostly from the same vices with cocaine as a primary product — think Iwo Jima, that’s where their largest plantations were. – oz]

Wiki Con’t…

Despite Singapore’s growing importance, the administration governing the island was understaffed, ineffectual and unconcerned with the welfare of the populace. Administrators were usually posted from India and were unfamiliar with local culture and languages. While the population had quadrupled during 1830 to 1867, the size of the civil service in Singapore had remained unchanged. Most people had no access to public health services and diseases such as cholera and smallpox caused severe health problems, especially in overcrowded working-class areas.^[16] As a result of the administration’s ineffectiveness and the predominantly male, transient, and uneducated nature of the population, the society was lawless and chaotic. In 1850 there were only twelve police officers in the city of nearly 60,000 people. Prostitution, gambling, and drug abuse (particularly of opium) were widespread. Chinese criminal secret societies (analogous to modern-day triads) were extremely powerful, and some had tens of thousands of members. Turf wars between rival societies occasionally led to hundreds of deaths and attempts to suppress them had limited success.^[19]

The situation created deep concern in the European population of the island. In 1854 the Singapore Free Press complained that Singapore was a “small island” full of the “very dregs of the population of south eastern Asia”.^[20]