Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move the motion* standing in my name. *The motion reads as follows: That this Assembly expresses its ABHORRENCE at the cold-blooded murder of MrLumumba and his colleagues; and CALLS upon the United Nations Organisation to assist in the investigation of the murder, the apprehension of the criminals and their principals to bring them to justice; and that this Assembly also CONDEMNS the presence of Belgian troops and agents in the Congo and SUPPORT the proposal that all Belgian and foreign troops not under United Nations command should be forthwith expelled from the Congo and that the United Nations Organisation ensures law and order in the Congo so that the Congolese Parliament could be re-summoned for the formation of a Government to represent the Congolese people, to prevent foreign intervention which must inevitably lead to the tragedy of a civil war. Since Wednesday last when the news broke upon the world that Mr Lumumba was said to have escaped and ten nations immediately signed a declaration that they believed that he had been murdered, billions of angry words, indignant words, have been uttered and millions of words have gone over the ether to carry the righteous indignation and anger of people with any sense of decency throughout the whole world. It illustrates in a small way the fact that we live in one world; that there is only one piece and that it is indivisible; and that what happens in the Congo affects everyone of us sooner or later. In a world shrunken in size as a result of man's scientific and technical advances, new problems emerge. In the case of the Algerian conflict, since total war means total annihilation, new forms of combat for partial or complete victory in limited fields have to be evolved. It is the intention of the Government, in bringing this matter up for debate, to state categorically, first, on behalf, I hope, unanimously of the people of Singapore, whether we represent the Government Benches or the Opposition in order that so much more little weight could be put in the balance in favour of what is right and just, and also to set the tone of the talking that has been going on and will be going on in Singapore and around us; and what is more important, to set the pace of the thinking. Sir, I do not know if it is necessary for me to preface my remarks by pointing out that emulation is one of the most important motivations of human behaviour. Every day over the last one week particularly, more in the case of the non-English language newspapers, there have been pictures of people breaking up Belgian embassies in Belgrade, Warsaw, and other places in the world. In some of them, riots; civil commotion even taking place in America itself. Therefore, quite understandably, the people of Singapore and the workers who read of these matters day by day feel that they also should register their protest. Sir, I think it is a natural and an admirable point of view. But for the fact that we are a government entrusted with law and order and that the Minister for Finance is extremely keen to get capital to come in and start factories, I think we would not have the slightest hesitation in allowing massive demonstrations outside the Consular offices of the Belgian Government in order that the right kind of show of what we think of them can be put on. However, because of our somewhat limited and conscribed situation, and in case the demonstration against the Belgians turned, rightly or wrongly, into a demonstration against other Western governments connected or unconnected with the death of Mr Lumumba, I have, as Acting Minister for Home Affairs, advised many an association to restrain theselves from their righteous desire to show the Belgians what they think of them and to do as little damage as possible; and that if we must protest, then let us do it in a civil and unharmful way in order that those who are thinking of putting up new glass windows and putting new things in them need not be unnecessarily frightened away. The effect of the world radio, the world Press, the radio photographs that carry the message of what is happening in other parts of the world will not unnaturally stimulate our own people into wishing to be like what all independent, righteous, decent people all over the world think and do. However, I hope that with this explanation, I will have given them some grounds for consolation why we should not break a few glass windows. I am told the Belgian Consulate is on one of the upper floors of the Asia Building, and I asked them to desist in case a few other windows besides those in the Belgian Consulate got broken and people got hurt unwittingly in a demonstration not meant for them. Sir, there are really very few new things that can be said on the subject of the death of Mr Lumumba. Everything that need be said has been said so well and eloquently by so many other eminent people with more powerful pens and more eloquent voices than our own. All I wish to do is to draw attention, from our point of view, to a few salient facts. There are really two issues: 1. Lumumba the man when he was alive. 2. Lumumba the myth that has been created by his murder. As for Lumumba the man, we never said anything. We stood for the freedom and independence of the Congo, and if the Congolese people chose Mr Lumumba as their Prime Minister, then it is their right to do so and he should have been given the opportunity to carry out his duties as Prime Minister. It is said in some quarters that he had a somewhat different past and so on and so forth. But whatever he was, the stupidest thing that could have been done was to kill him and create the myth; and the myth inevitably grows bigger and bigger and stronger day by day. It is the biggest united front issue on world basis that has been created since the Spanish Civil War. Whether you are a Right-wing, or a Liberal, or a Fabian, or a Social Democrat, or a Democratic Socialist, or a Communist, willy-nilly if you believe in decent behaviour, certain standards of honesty and certain standards of what people should or should not do, then you must be against what has happened. As Mr Nehru said, "Some very evil things must have been done with the active concurrence or connivance of people in high authority." A group of men endowed and vested with authority and recognised by other governments in the world did not have the courage to say that Mr Lumumba had been executed without even a secret trial. It has been said that people in some parts of the world got executed without a proper trial, but at least they were given a trial even though it was in secret. When Mr Beria was executed, nobody heard about the trial, but there was a trial and there was a proper execution. So was the case with Imre Nagy and other people. But here are a group of men who did this man in, and then, knowing full well that what they did was a disreputable and outrageous act against humanity and decent human behaviour, said that he had escaped. And ten nations who had good reasons to know what was happening because they all had representatives there immediately said, "You have done him in." And true enough they said, "Yes, he has been dismembered by Baluba tribesmen in some unknown village and his remains have been scattered in some unknown place in order that he should not be deified." And so we are in the curious position of finding ourselves in complete and absolute unanimity with a lot of people with whom we are often in disagreement. Your Right-wing people with the right sort of conscience — I am quite sure Sunday school teachers who are Members of this Assembly would revolt at the thought of doing in an opponent in that way. I grant them at least that much sense of decency and moral rearmament courage. On the other hand, of course, you have your dreamy-eyed idealists and Liberals. They also, in the name of freedom, of what is right and wrong, must denounce it. And in the extreme, you have your hard-boiled ideological Communists all shouting the same slogan: "Lumumba the myth, Lumumba the statesman." Nobody called him a statesman when he was alive; but I think if for nothing else when he died he became a statesman, and so it must be. But I would like to point out the line and the stand that we have decided to take in this motion. If anybody differs from this line and wants to take another line, let him do so. There are several lines. One is the line taken by the Russians: from the death of Lumumba to down with Hammarskjoeld; withdraw the United Nations troops from the Congo; recognition of Gizenga (the successor to Lumumba), and a host of other things, which would mean another Spanish Civil War or another Korea. It is bound to happen. Then on the other extreme end, there is the American, Ambassador in the United Nations, Mr Adlai Stevenson, who so eloquently put it, "We denounce all that has happened is wrong. Never mind about the past, but let us concentrate on the future. And therefore let us think of some coherent and practical way of resolving it." That is the whole problem. People cannot forget the past. They get angry and they get extremely cussed because some very serious wrongs have just been done. And then there is the line which we are taking — the line which has been charted by people who sincerely believe it to be wise and who are in possession of the facts - to demand the minimum conditions within which to contain the conflict in the Congo, to prevent it from becoming an international arena (either a hot or a cold one), to create the minimum conditions under which some form of representative government can be established, and the will of the Congolese people expressed by their elected representatives. Different problems with different notes and different timbre are being sounded in memory of the same man. They carry different meanings to different people. But for us — the uncommitted - the sound that we respond to the clarion call that we would like to join in, is one which says, "Let us contain the conflict of the civil war in the Congo. Let us prevent more trouble being created by new troops being sent in and recognition of opposing governments inside the Congo, and give the Congolese people a chance to get started with their independence in circumstances which would at least give them a chance of success." That is the purport of this motion. We add our voice to the rousing chorus of indignation and, if for nothing else, we would at least have added one more protest for those who are on Mount Olympia to hear, since they decide our fates. I hope that we in Singapore will give the lead to the thinking that should be done by people in a position to influence public opinion. One could get hysterical over this. One could get very angry. But what I am asking this House to do is soberly, albeit we are angry, to see what this means to us, what it is doing to our people, what ploy and play is being done at this moment, and how we, as the elected representatives of the people, should lead them in expressing their views of what is right and wrong in matters which concern us, although these matters take place some thousands of miles away in some country unknown to us, but so vitally important to the survival of all of us. Question proposed. 5.10 p.m.