Fifty years have passed since the dreaded Singapore ‘Operation Cold Store’ placed 133 people in prison, but activists could well learn from it on how to form and sustain a united front against their oppressors, said one of its longest serving prisoners, Poh Soo Kai.

Reflecting deeply on the incident at a forum in Penang recently, the former assistant secretary of the defeated Barisan Sosialis, Singapore’s main opposition front formed in 1961, said other than being made aware of the island state’s dark history, one can learn how a young, left-wing and small force grew big during the country’s pre-Independence era.

But Poh ( left ), who suffered two lengthy periods of imprisonment totalling 18 years, also questioned if he and his comrades had managed the front well.

“If we managed it well and still ended up with Operation Cold Store, we may not feel so badly defeated,” Poh admitted at the Operation Cold Store book event at the Caring Society Complex that night.

“If we had managed it well, we might still have had an ‘Operation Cold Store but would we have been defeated so badly?” he asked, almost regretfully.

“The British were ruthless before 1955, people were arrested and deported but we still existed,” he stressed.

Brainchild of Singapore’s most prominent leader, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, in one scoop, Operation Cold Store crippled the progressive united front which comprised of opposition parties, trade unions, rural organisations, student activists and alumni associations.

Similar to Malaysia’s Operasi Lalang in 1987 under former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the Singaporeans were thrown behind bars without trial and accused of communist subversion for varying lengths of time.

Singapore’s search for “political pluralism” disintegrated then, and the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance and it’s successor, the Internal Security Act, similar to the one in Malaysia, before it was replaced with the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act in 2012, has continued to silence dissidents.

Poh said the truth is Operation Cold Store was a dividing line which separated Singapore from its closest neighbour, Malaysia, in 1965.

He opined that the situation for both countries would have been “very different” should the two have stayed as one.

‘Back to square one’

“Now we are back to square one, two different countries with very different cultures and it would take a longer time to come together again, what more with Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia now,” Poh said, with hope still lingering in his voice.

“I hope we can come together again as part of the lesson to learn from this Operation is how to bring Singapore back again into Malaysia,” he added.

Accompanying Poh on the panel of speakers were veteran historian Tan Kim Hong and veteran lawyer T Rajamoorthy, while well-known social activist, former Gerakan politician and now Bersih’s northern region coordinator Toh Kin Woon moderated the event.

About 100 people, mostly veterans familiar with the country’s struggle against the Communist insurgency and witch-hunt against left-wingers since 1948, attended the talk where the 431-page book titled ‘The 1963 Operation Cold Store in Singapore: Commemorating 50 years’, published by the Strategic Information and Research Development Centre and Pusat Sejarah Rakyat, and edited by Poh, Tan Kok Fang and Hong Lysa, was sold.

Poh, now in his 70s, and former co-editor of the progressive publication ‘The Fajar Generation: the University Socialist Club and the Politics of Postwar Malaya and Singapore’ (2010), currently lives in Kuala Lumpur, working with the People’s History Centre, an independent historical archive of the people’s struggle in Malaysia and Singapore.

Meanwhile, Toh urged the people, especially youths, to read the alternative history available in the country, engage in dialogues and exchanges of the past because that was important if one wants to look forward and plan for the future of the country.

Toh echoed Poh’s suggestions on learning how to form a united front to achieve targets and goals by taking lessons from Operations Cold Store, where those incarcerated kept silent for more than 30 years and only started sharing their experiences in the mid-1990s.

However, he seem not too happy about the situation of the alternative front in the country today, saying, “This question has been haunting us until today.”

“This includes our failure to forge a united from even among ourselves, be it Chinese education activists or among former left groups, or in people wanting to challenge the BN government,” he said.

“We find there is so much division. So much disunity and that arises from the fact that we have not learnt much from history on the importance of a broad united front and how to forge it,” the former Machang Bubuk assemblyperson stressed.