One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

CREATING THE SINGAPORE ARMED FORCES

THREE

‘obligatory’ for Singapore to allow Malaysian troops to remain in Singapore and “the exercise

of this right depends solely on the judgement of the Malaysian Government.”

The Malaysians

went further: they claimed that Singapore had to allow Malaysian troops to stay in the present

bases or provide suitable alternative accommodation. Singapore rejected this interpretation

and offered to refer the issue to an independent international or Commonwealth tribunal on

the grounds that troops of one state could not be stationed in the territory of another without

the latter’s consent.

Fortunately, the issue was defused when the British vacated Khatib Camp

in mid-March 1966 and 5 RMR moved into it. However, it was 18 months later before 5 RMR

returned to Malaysia in November 1967.

These developments added a sense of vulnerability for Singapore. Moreover, in 1965, at the

height of the Cold War, South East Asia was a proxy no-man’s land. Claiming that North

Vietnam attacked US naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964, President Lyndon

Johnson had invoked the South East Asia Collective Defence Treaty to support a wobbly

South Vietnamese dictatorship against the communist North Vietnamese regime backed by the

Soviet Union and China. In keeping with the then popular domino theory, continental South

East Asia was seen to be in real danger of communist domination if South Vietnam fell to the

North Vietnamese.

But, one of the motivations for rapidly building up Singapore’s own military capability was the

worry that Malaysia would seek to dominate Singapore in military matters. Referring to the

refusal by the MAF to relinquish Holland Road Camp to 2 SIR on its return, Mr. Lee Kuan

Yew said “Their unreasonableness only made us more determined to build up the SAF so that

Holland Road Camp in 1965.