Kenneth Jeyaretnum

It seems the Reform Party (RP) Chief, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, misquoted the Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, during a political rally that took place on Saturday 30 April.  Mr. Jeyaretnam told the rally audience that the PM had written in his condolence letter to the family following the death of Mr. Jeyaretnam’s father, Joshua Benjamin Jeraretnam, that JB Jeraretnam ‘had to be destroyed’.  Of course, the PM wrote no such thing, and his letter was reproduced in at least one newspaper in facsimile to prove it.  The letter reads as follows:

‘I was sad to learn that your father, Mr Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, has passed away.

‘Mr J B Jeyaretnam was a Member of Parliament for Anson constituency from 1981 till 1986, and a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament from 1997 till 2001.  He used to engage in heated debates in the House.  Perhaps because it was because he and the PAP never saw eye to eye on any major political issues and he sought by all means to demolish the PAP and our system of government.  Unfortunately, this helped neither to build up a constructive opposition nor our Parliamentary tradition.  Nevertheless, one had to respect MR JB Jeyaretnam’s dogged tenacity to be active in politics at his age.

‘However, our differences were not personal.  In 1993, one of you (Kenneth) wrote to Goh Chek Tong, who was then Prime Minister, to say that you found employers in Singapore reluctant to offer you a job and your only explanation was that the employers felt the authorities would not welcome your employment because of your name.  Mr Goh replied with a letter which could be shown to prospective employers to say that the government did not hold anything against you and that employers should evaluate you fairly on your own merits, like any other candidate, because Singapore needed every talented person that it could find.  Mr Goh had previously made the same point to your brother Philip, whom he had invited to lunch.  I am therefore happy that both of you have established yourselves in Singapore.

‘Please accept my deepest condolences.’

As long ago at January 5^th, JB’s elder son, Kenneth, described this letter during a JBJ Birthday Memorial as ‘appallingly misjudged’.  ‘[It] characterised JBJ as a man out to destroy the PAP and our whole system of government,’ he said. 

In at least one report, Kenneth is described as having said the following:  ‘[It] characterised JBJ as “a man out to destroy the PAP and our whole system of government”.’ 

Did Kenneth include those quotation marks, I wonder, or were they added in by some reporter who never saw the written version of Kenneth’s speech?

Meanwhile, I have not been able to find any video or written version of Kenneth’s rally speech that includes any reference to the PM’s letter of condolence.