PULAU BATU PUTIH NO MORE

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has made its ruling on Pulau Batu Putih in favour of Singapore. Now Pulau Batu Putih is history and only Pedra Branca will remain. This is a bitter lesson to be learn by those in power and the civil service, and never to forget. They should never take things lightly when it comes to territorial matters, especially international borders. The whole complete process which took 29 years to compile and took the case researchers all over the world in search of historical documents related to the case. This process must be documented and all case documents be kept in archive for reference by our future generation. The National Archive must take pro-active steps not only to get all these documents now but to have a recorded interviews with all persons involved in preparing the case. Even photograph the people and the places they visited. I am sure they (the researchers) must have taken lots of photographs while overseas.

This stinging experience can be attributed to carelessness by the senior civil servants who did not check and double check the facts before making his decision. By taking things for granted, they could make the wrong assumptions and decisions not base on researched data and facts. Bureaucracy could have played a part in this fiasco as the heads of government departments in those days keep inter-department contacts to the minimum and they act more than mini-Napoleons. More likely it was 'you do your job and I'll do mine and what I do is right! '.

These are not the only islands that are being disputed and there are also land boundaries that need to be clearly defined with our neighbours. This can be potentially explosive issues if we do not coordinate our actions. Even our maps must be thoroughly check to be sure we do not give away any parts of our country, again! Leaving it to the authorities on the ground to make decisions without proper research and cross checks will bring more territorial lost and this translates into lost of our natural assets. Maybe it is wise to set up a specialised division in the Prime Minister's department to deal, monitor and coordinate action related to all disputed borders. The special division should give reports to the Cabinet which will decide on the course of action. This will give the Government a better view and more in depth understanding of the issues to enable it to take more effective action.