The Thirty Six Strategies

A Unique Collection of Ancient Chinese Proverbs

The Thirty Six Strategies are a unique collection of ancient Chinese proverbs that describe
some of the most cunning and subtle strategies ever devised by man.

Introduction

The Thirty Six Strategies are a unique collection of ancient Chinese proverbs that describe
some of the most cunning and subtle strategies ever devised by man.

Whereas other Chinese military texts such as Sun Tzu The Art of War focus on military
organization, leadership, and battlefield tactics, the Thirty Six Strategies are more suitably
applied in the fields of politics, diplomacy, and espionage.

These proverbs describe not only battlefield strategies, but tactics used in psychological
warfare to undermine both the enemy's will to fight - and his sanity.

Tactics such as the 'double cross', the 'frame job', and the 'bait and switch', can be traced
back through thousands of years of Chinese history to such proverbs as 'Hide the Dagger
Behind a Smile', 'Kill With a Borrowed Sword', and 'Toss out a Brick to Attract Jade'
respectively.

Though other Chinese military works of strategy have at least paid lip service to the
Confucian notion of honour, the Thirty-Six Strategies make no pretence of being anything
but ruthless.

For the western reader the Thirty Six Strategies offers timeless insights into the workings of
human nature under conditions of extreme stress.

Many of the proverbs are based on events that occurred during China's Warring States Era
(403-221 BC).

This was a time so infamous, that a later Emperor banned history books of that era on the
grounds that they contained accounts of such a devious nature, they would morally corrupt
all who read them.

Many of those accounts are presented here along with the exploits of some of the orient's
greatest generals, kings, emperors, and shoguns.

The 36 Strategies
 The Six Winning Strategies
"From the 36 Strategies of China"

1. Deceive the sky to cross the ocean

Moving about in the darkness and shadows, occupying isolated places, or hiding behind
screens will only attract suspicious attention.

To lower an enemy's guard you must act in the open and hide your true intentions under
the guise of common every day activities.

2. Besiege Wi to rescue Zho

When the enemy is too strong to be attacked directly, then attack something he holds dear.
Know that in all things he cannot be superior. Somewhere there is a gap in the armour, a
weakness that can be attacked instead.

The origins of this proverb is from the Warring States Period. The state of Wi attacked
Zhao and laid siege to its capital Handan.

Zho turned to Q for help, but the Q general Sun Bin determined it would be unwise to
meet the army of Wi head on, so he instead attacked their capital at Daliang.

The army of Wi retreated in haste, and they were ambushed and defeated at the Battle of
Guiling, with the Wi general Pang Juan slain on the field.

3. Kill with a borrowed knife

Attack using the strength of another (in a situation where using one's own strength is not
favourable).

Trick an ally into attacking him, bribe an official to turn traitor, or use the enemy's own
strength against him.

4. Substitute leisure for labour

It is an advantage to choose the time and place for battle. In this way you know when and
where the battle will take place, while your enemy does not.

Encourage your enemy to expend his energy in futile quests while you conserve your
strength. When he is exhausted and confused, you attack with energy and purpose.

5. Loot a house on fire

When a country is beset by internal conflicts, when disease and famine ravage the
population, when corruption and crime are rampant, then it will be unable to deal with an
outside threat.

This is the time to attack.

6. Make a sound in the east, then strike in the west

In any battle the element of surprise can provide an overwhelming advantage. Even when
face to face with an enemy, surprise can still be employed by attacking where he least
expects it.

To do this you must create an expectation in the enemy's mind through the use of a feint.

The Six Confrontation Strategies

"From the 36 Strategies of China"

7. Create something from nothing

You use the same feint twice. Having reacted to the first and often the second feint as well,
the enemy will be hesitant to react to a third feint. Therefore the third feint is the actual
attack catching your enemy with his guard down.

8. Sneak through the passage of Chencang

Attack the enemy with two convergent forces. The first is the direct attack, one that is
obvious and for which the enemy prepares his defense.

The second is the indirect, the attack sinister, that the enemy does not expect and which
causes him to divide his forces at the last minute leading to confusion and disaster.

This (confrontation strategies) proverb is literally translated as "openly repair the gallery
roads, but sneak through the passage of Chencang".

The phrase originated from the Chu-Han contention, where Liu Bang retreated to the lands
of Sichuan to prepare for a confrontation with Xiang Yu.

Once he was fully prepared, Liu Bang sent men to openly repair the gallery roads he had
destroyed earlier, while secretly moving his troops towards Guanzhong through the small
town of Chencang instead.

When Xiang Yu received news of Liu Bang repairing the gallery roads, he dismissed the
threat since he knew the repairs would take years to complete.
This allowed Liu Bang to retake Guanzhong by surprise, and eventually led to his victory
over Xiang Yu and the birth of the Han Dynasty.

9. Watch the fires burning across the river

Delay entering the field of battle until all the other players have become exhausted fighting
amongst themselves. Then go in full strength and pick up the pieces.

10. Hide a knife behind a smile

Charm and ingratiate yourself to your enemy. When you have gained his trust, you move
against him in secret.

11. Sacrifices the plum tree to preserve the peach tree

There are circumstances in which you must sacrifice short-term objectives in order to gain
the long-term goal. This is the scapegoat strategy whereby someone else suffers the
consequences so that the rest do not.

Cao Cao of the Three Kingdoms Period demonstrated this strategy. During a siege, Cao
supplies ran low so he called in the supply captain and told him to dilute the rice with water
to save grains.

When the soldiers started to complain, Cao ordered for the captain to be killed. He would
explain to his troops that the captain has been selling supplies to the enemy.

This raises the army morale and they were victorious in a few more days.

12. Take the opportunity to pilfer a goat

While carrying out your plans be flexible enough to take advantage of any opportunity that
presents itself, however small, and avail yourself of any profit, however slight.

The Six Attack Strategies

 "From the Thirty Six Strategies of China"

The Six Attack Strategies

13. Startle the snake by hitting the grass around it.

When preparing for battle, do not alert your enemy to your intentions or give away your
strategy prematurely.

14. Borrow another's corpse to resurrect the soul.

Take an institution, a technology, or a method that has been forgotten or discarded and
appropriate it for your own purpose.

Revive something from the past by giving it a new purpose or to reinterpret and bring to life
old ideas, customs, and traditions.

15. Entice the tiger to leave its mountain lair

Never directly attack an opponent whose advantage is derived from its position. Instead
lure him away from his position thus separating him from his source of strength.

16. In order to capture, one must let loose.

Cornered prey will often mount a final desperate attack. To prevent this you let the enemy
believe he still has a chance for freedom.

His will to fight is thus dampened by his desire to escape.

When in the end the freedom is proven a falsehood the enemy's morale will be defeated and
he will surrender without a fight.

17. Tossing out a brick to get a jade

Prepare a trap then lure your enemy into the trap by using bait.

In war the bait is the illusion of an opportunity for gain.

In life the bait is the illusion of wealth, power, and sex.

This proverb is based on a story involving two famous poets of the Tang Dynasty.

There was a great poet named Zhao Gue and another lesser poet by the name of Chang
Jian. While Chang Jian was traveling in Suzhou, he heard news that Zhao Gu would be
visiting a temple in the area.

Chang Jian wished to learn from the master poet, so he devised a plan and went to the
temple in advance, then wrote a poem on the temple walls with only two of the four lines
completed, hoping Zhao Gu would see it and finish the poem.

Zhao Gu acted as Chang Jian forsaw, and from this story came the proverb.

18. Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief

If the enemy's army is strong but is allied to the commander only by money or threats, then
take aim at the leader.

If the commander falls the rest of the army will disperse or come over to your side. If,
however, they are allied to the leader through loyalty then beware, the army can continue
to fight on after his death out of vengeance.

The Six Chaos Strategies

"For Confused Situations from the thirty Six Strategies of China"

The Six Chaos Strategies

19. Remove the firewood under the cooking pot

When faced with an enemy too powerful to engage directly you must first weaken him by
undermining his foundation and attacking his source of power.

20. Catch a fish while the water is disturbed

Before engaging your enemy's forces create confusion to weaken his perception and
judgement. Do something unusual, strange, and unexpected as this will arouse the enemy's
suspicion and disrupt his thinking. A distracted enemy is thus more vulnerable.

21. Slough off the cicada's shell

When you are in danger of being defeated, and your only chance is to escape and regroup,
then create an illusion. While the enemy's attention is focused on this artifice, secretly
remove your men leaving behind only the facade of your presence.

22. Shut the door to catch the thief

If you have the chance to completely capture the enemy then you should do so thereby
bringing the battle or war to a quick and lasting conclusion.

To allow your enemy to escape plants the seeds for future conflict.

But if they succeed in escaping, be wary of giving chase.

23. Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbour

It is known that nations that border each other become enemies while nations separated by
distance and obstacles make better allies.

When you are the strongest in one field, your greatest threat is from the second strongest
in your field, not the strongest from another field.

24. Obtain safe passage to conquer the State of Guo

Borrow the resources of an ally to attack a common enemy. Once the enemy is defeated,
use those resources to turn on the ally that lent you them in the first place.

The Six Advance Strategies

"From the 36 Strategies of China"

The Six Advance Strategies from the 36 strategies of China

25. Replace the beams with rotten timbers

Disrupt the enemy's formations, interfere with their methods of operations, change the rules
in which they are used to following, go contrary to their standard training.

In this way you remove the supporting pillar, the common link that makes a group of men
an effective fighting force.

26. Point at the mulberry tree while cursing the locust tree

To discipline, control, or warn others whose status or position excludes them from direct
confrontation; use analogy and innuendo. Without directly naming names, those accused
cannot retaliate without revealing their complicity.

27. Play dumb

Hide behind the mask of a fool, a drunk, or a madman to create confusion about your
intentions and motivations. Lure your opponent into underestimating your ability until,
overconfident, he drops his guard. Then you may attack.

28. Remove the ladder when the enemy has ascended to the roof.

With baits and deceptions lure your enemy into treacherous terrain. Then cut off his lines of
communication and avenue of escape.

To save himself he must fight both your own forces and the elements of nature.

29. Deck the tree with false blossoms

Tying silk blossoms on a dead tree gives the illusion that the tree is healthy. Through the
use of artifice and disguise make something of no value appear valuable; of no threat
appear dangerous; of no use appear useful.

30. Make the host and the guest exchange roles

Defeat the enemy from within by infiltrating the enemy's camp under the guise of
cooperation, surrender, or peace treaties.

In this way you can discover his weakness and then, when the enemy's guard is relaxed,
strike directly at the source of his strength.

Desperate Situations Strategies

"From the 36 Strategies of China"

31. The honey trap

Send your enemy beautiful women to cause discord within his camp.

This strategy can work on three levels.

First, the ruler becomes so enamoured with the beauty that he neglects his duties and
allows his vigilance to wane.

Second, other males at court will begin to display aggressive behaviour that inflames minor
differences hindering co-operation and destroying morale.

Third, other females at court, motivated by jealousy and envy, begin to plot intrigues
further exasperating the situation. Even though this has been done many times, perhaps
the most famous historical example is Xi Shi who was sent to the State of Wu during the
Spring and Autumn Period.

32. The empty fort strategy

When the enemy is superior in numbers and your situation is such that you expect to be
overrun at any moment, then drop all pretence of military preparedness and act casually.

Unless the enemy has an accurate description of your situation this unusual behaviour will
arouse suspicions.

With luck he will be dissuaded from attacking.

From Desperate Situations Strategies.

33. Let the enemy's own spy sow discord in the enemy camp

Undermine your enemy's ability to fight by secretly causing discord between him and his
friends, allies, advisors, family, commanders, soldiers, and population. While he is
preoccupied settling internal disputes his ability to attack or defend, is compromised.

34. Inflict injury on one's self to win the enemy's trust

Pretending to be injured has two possible applications. In the first, the enemy is lulled into
relaxing his guard since he no longer considers you to be an immediate threat. The second
is a way of ingratiating yourself to your enemy by pretending the injury was caused by a
mutual enemy.

This strategy was perhaps best demonstrated during the Spring and Autumn Period.

After his defeat by King Fu Chai of Wu, King Gou Jian of Yue pretended to go to Wu to
become a servant of Fu Chai.

After gaining Fu Chai's trust, Guo Jian was allow back to Yue. There he strengthen his
military and in 482 BC while Fu Chai was trying to gain hegemony, he attacked and
conquered the capital. Some years later in 478 BC, he annexed Wu and forced Fu Chai to
commit suicide.
35. The strategy of combining tactics

In important matters one should use several strategies applied simultaneously. Keep
different plans operating in an overall scheme; in this manner if any one strategy fails you
would still have several others to fall back on.

36. If all else fails, retreat

If it becomes obvious that your current course of action will lead to defeat then retreat and
regroup. When your side is losing there are only three choices remaining: surrender,
compromise, or escape. Surrender is complete defeat, compromise is half defeat, but
escape is not defeat.

As long as you are not defeated, you still have a chance.

This is the most famous one of the 36th strategy, immortalized in the form of a Chinese
idiom: "Of the Thirty-Six Strategies, fleeing is best."

History of the 36 Strategies

The origins of the Thirty Six Strategies are unknown.

No author or compiler has ever been mentioned, and no date as to when it may have been
written has been ascertained.

The first historical mention of the Thirty-Six Strategies dates back to the Southern Chi
dynasty (AD 489-537) where it is mentioned in the Nan Chi Shi (History of the Southern Chi
Dynasty).

It briefly records, "Of the 36 stratagems of Master Tan, "running away is the
best." Master Tan may be the famous general Tan Daoji (d. AD 436) but there is no
evidence to either prove or disprove his authorship.

While this is the first recorded mention of Thirty Six Strategies, some of the proverbs
themselves are based on events that occurred up to seven hundred years earlier. For
example, the strategy 'Openly Repair the Walkway, Secretly March to Chencang' is
based on a tactic allegedly used by the founder of the Han dynasty, Gaozu, to escape from
Szechwan in 223 BC.

The strategy `Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao' is named after an incident that took place
even earlier in 352 BC and is attributed to the famous strategist Sun Bin.

All modern versions of the Thirty Six Strategies are derived from a tattered book discovered
at a roadside vendor's stall in Szechwan in 1941. It turned out to be a reprint of an earlier
book dating back to the late Ming or early Ching dynasty entitled, The Secret Art of War,
The Thirty-Six Strategies.

There was no mention of who the authors or compilers were or when it was originally
published. A reprint was first published for the general public in Beijing in 1979.
Since then several Chinese and English language versions have been published in China,
Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Without any other information, current speculations about the origins of the Thirty-Six
Strategies suggest that there was no single author.

More likely they were simply a collection of idiomatic expressions taken from popular
Chinese folklore, history, and myths.

They may have first been recorded by general Tan and handed down verbally or in
manuscript form for centuries.

It is believed that sometime in the early Ching dynasty some enterprising editor collected
them together and published them in the form that comes down to us today.

How to Be Cunning
Merriam-Websters Online Dictionary defines cunning as an adjective meaning getting what is
wanted in a clever and often deceptive way.[1] A cunning person is willing to use subtlety,
subterfuge, and trickery to manipulate others and get what she wants. She is able to perceive
the intentions of others and use this information for personal betterment. Being cunning is a
great way to ensure you manage the people and forces in your life so that you always end up on
top. As your first act of cunning, read this article! See Step 1 below to get started.
Part 1 of 3: Being Perceptive

Part 1 of 3: Being Perceptive

1 Always seek more information. Cunning people perceive things that others miss. They see
lifes hidden machinery - the real motives that drive interactions, rather than the stated motives.
The first, most important step to seeing things as they actually are is to always get as much
information as possible before making your decisions. This can be as simple as taking the time
to look around before dropping an anonymous love note into someones locker so that you dont
get spotted or as complex and involved as doing hours of research on the person youre about
to interview so that you can surprise him with particularly biting questions. When approaching all
major decisions, keep your eyes peeled and have a voracious thirst for more information. You
can never be too well-informed.

2 Question others motives. Cunning people are renowned for their ability to see
through others facades. Almost everyone tells white lies on a daily basis - its perfectly
natural. A cunning person sees a persons true intentions - he does this because hes
able to read people and also because hes done his homework (see above.) Never
assume someones telling you the truth until you have supporting evidence. However,
it's also not wise to instantly assume everyone is lying. Use the information available to
you to make your best guess at someones true motivation.
Try to build your ability to read others faces. Most people are good liars, but not great
ones. With practice, you may find that youre able to notice when the emotion on a
persons face doesnt match with what he or she is saying.

3 Look for small details. Cunning people never balk at the prospect of closely
scrutinizing people and things for small details that may be manipulated for their benefit.
Try to be a stickler for details, within reason. For instance, read every line of your
contract rather than glossing over the entire thing. If you pay attention to lifes details,
youll find yourself better-equipped to exploit opportunities when they present
themselves.
Paying attention to details isnt only useful for grim, serious purposes. If youre in a
prank war with friends, for example, pay attention to your surroundings when you a
enter your room - if you see any small detail thats out of the ordinary, you have reason
to be suspicious.

4 Be alert. A person cant be cunning if she is too tired, unfocused, or distracted to

notice whats going on. An important part of being cunning is being active and alert
when its most important. Much of this a matter of fulfilling some of your basic biological
needs - try, for example, to get a good nights rest before important events and to rid
yourself of distractions like hunger, restlessness from lack of exercise, etc.
If youre running on fumes, you may want to use a moderate amount of caffeine in the
form of coffee, tea, or an energy drink to perk yourself up. However, use caution - some
people find it harder to focus on a caffeine high. Also, be sure to control your level of
use, as becoming a caffeine addict will eventually rob your caffeine source of most of its
alertness-boosting benefits.

5 Take an objective point of view. Cunning people try not to let their perception and decision-
making be clouded by emotion or prejudice. Instead, they prefer objective, factual truths. Its
easy to tell yourself to take an objective point of view, but its a much harder matter to set about
doing it. Try to detach yourself from, or, at the very least, control, your emotions when you're
faced with difficult decisions. No one has ever made a better decision because he was angry.

6 Make note of others strengths and weaknesses. This step is crucial. Cunning
people better themselves by fooling, tricking, or otherwise deceiving other people. A
given person is much easier for a cunning person to trick when his strengths and
weaknesses are known, rather than unknown. Knowing a persons weaknesses is
especially useful - these can be used to sway a person into making rash decisions or
doing things that benefit you. Similarly, a persons strengths are to be avoided when
possible - a cunning person wont try to outfox someone in an area that he excels in.
Lets use an example. Say that youre trying to convince a reluctant friend to buy a ticket
to a fundraiser youre throwing. You know your friend is normally pretty stubborn, but
you also know hes got a tremendous sweet tooth and that he also likes to be thought of
as a gracious guest. You might casually invite him over to hang out, making sure theres
a tray of warm cookies on the counter as he walks in. Let him eat as many as he
wants, then ask him to buy a ticket. Hes just enjoyed your hospitality and he doesnt
want to appear rude, so hes much more likely to agree.

Part 2 of 3: Building Your Intelligence

1 Practice, practice, practice. If you were born perfectly cunning and ruthless, you
may be a psychopath. Like any other skill, cunning is something that most people have
to work at. Some people are naturally more cunning than others, while others are more
gullible. Regardless of your starting point, know that you can always improve your ability
to be cunning through practice.
Try to find low-stakes opportunities for practice so that youre well-prepared when the
time comes to be cunning in a serious situation. Performing good-natured pranks and
practical jokes are a good way to build many of the skills youll need to be cunning
without exposing yourself to much risk. For example, many pranks require you to act,
lie, suppress your emotions, and ascertain others true motives if you want the prank to
go off without a hitch.

2 Never take anything at face value. Cunning people are skeptics at heart. Never
accept the information youre supplied with or the impression someone gives you
without thinking about it first. Constantly ask yourself whether the people you interact
with seem genuine. Look for ways that these people may be distorting the truth or
outright lying in order to advance their agenda.
Investigative journalists routinely cut through mountains of lies and pretense to get to
the truth. If youre looking to sharpen your skeptics eye, you probably dont need to go
to journalism school, but you may benefit from researching and watching how journalists
coax facts from their subjects in one-on-one interviews.

3 Consider all possible outcomes. The great British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
was noted for his cunning wit, among many other things. He had a reputation for
crafting clever, biting quips and one-liners out of thin air. In fact, because of a speech
impediment, he actually crafted most of his witty responses beforehand by trying to
consider every possible objection he might face.[2] Take Churchills success to heart.
Before important situations, take time to imagine every possible way the situation may
play out and have your responses planned.
The worst case scenario with this approach is that things will turn out in a way you didnt
anticipate. However, in the rare occasion that this happens, you wont be any worse off
than if you hadnt considered any outcomes at all.

4 Learn from your mistakes. Even the most experienced swindlers get caught every once in a
while. If youre looking to become confident, youre bound to make eventual mistakes. Your
schemes will be uncovered, youll be embarrassed, and you may have to apologize. Use your
failures as learning experiences. Make note of exactly when and how your plans went wrong,
then try never to make that mistake again.

5 Know yourself. The French theologian Pierre Charron once famously said, the easiest way
to be cheated is to believe yourself to be more cunning than others.[3] A cunning person should
certainly be able to find others' strengths and weakness, but it's almost as important that she
also be able to find her own. Give yourself a brutally frank evaluation. What are you good at?
What are you bad at? What makes you nervous? When are you most confident? Be honest with
yourself about your abilities. If you are, you'll know which of your strengths you should play to
and which of your weaknesses you need to work on.

Part 3 of 3: Deceiving Others

1 Perfect your poker face. Just as cunning people need to be able to read others
faces, they must be able to keep others from reading their own. Pulling a trick on
someone can naturally make you feel excited or antsy. Its important to make sure your
face doesnt betray this information. Obviously, try not to grin or giggle when youre
deceiving someone. Instead, relax. Take deep breaths. Picture yourself doing
something calming that you love. Do anything you can to stay (externally) cool as a
cucumber.
Appropriately, the actual game of poker is a great place to practice your poker face. In
poker, if you want to win, youll need to keep your external facade completely calm
when you have winning hands. Youll also need to appear confident when you have
awful hands. Practicing both of these skills will help you hone your cunning.

2 Be confident and decisive. People are more likely to believe others who appear
confident in their decision making. If youre cunning, you should be ready to exploit this.
Make your moves with firm confidence. Never second guess yourself. Try to view the
trick youre playing on someone as no big deal or as something youll be able to do
perfectly without too much effort, even if this might not be 100% true. If you believe that
you can do something, most other people will too, and youll be able to use this to
deceive them.
Basic confidence-building tips include:
Pay attention to your physical appearance - dress well and groom yourself
Have friendly body language - stand up straight, smile, and look people in the eye
Feed your interests - pick hobbies youre good at and excel at them
Be gracious - strive for politeness and friendliness, but never pretend to agree with
someone just to appease him or her.

3 Learn to lie. Lies are the cunning persons best friend. Good lies are plausible, or at
least hard to disprove. Lying well requires a great deal of intelligence and emotional
control - not only must the liar tell lies that make logical sense, but she must also sell
them through her voice and body language and keep her lies straight after shes made
them. As with many of the skills a cunning person uses, lying can be improved with
plenty of practice and smart planning.
Not only can a cunning person lie to other people - she can also lie to herself. This may
seem minor, but its an important ability for a cunning person to have at her disposal, as
it allows her to mentally convince herself that shes confident, that shes not likely to be
caught, etc., which in turn makes her appear externally calm and relaxed.

4 Set (metaphorical) traps. An old saying describes cunning as finding the path that
your enemy has chosen, then digging holes along that path. Though its highly unlikely
that youll ever have to set real traps for anyone, take the metaphor to heart. By judging
another's strengths, weaknesses, and motivations, you can ascertain the path they are
on and sabotage it for your personal benefit. Look for ways to exploit your enemys
weaknesses while rendering their strengths useless. Try to put your enemies in
situations where theyre likely to mess up.
Lets say youre competing with a coworker you hate for a promotion. If, for instance,
you know that this person is bad at giving presentations, you might try to volunteer to
give an important joint presentation with him so that hell look bad in comparison to you.

5 Stay out of the spotlight. A cunning person never draws more attention to himself
than is necessary. If youre deceiving someone, interact with the person just as much as
you normally would - no more, no less - or you may creep your subject out or clue him
in to the fact that something is out of the ordinary. When you see someone begin to fall
for your plan, dont push too hard or he may realize hes been duped. Instead, give your
mark just enough rope to hang himself, then simply stand back until its all over.
Though it can be tempting to gloat after youve successfully deceived someone, dont.
You gain nothing other than a momentary feeling of superiority and you risk starting a
long-term grudge with the person you lord your victory over.
 6 Have an out. Cunning people consider all the possible outcomes for their schemes
- even the outcomes that arent favorable. Always account for the possibility that your
sense of cunning, however sharp, may fail you. Have a backup plan in place if things
dont go according to plan. Know what youll do to recover from a failure ahead of time.
Have a story worked out in your head that allows you to plausibly deny any wrongdoing.
Lets say youre sneaking around backstage at a concert without backstage passes
when a security guard stops you and asks what youre doing. To avoid trouble, you've
planned beforehand to play dumb. Pretend that youre lost and that youre looking for
the bathroom, or that your friend told you that the best place to watch the show was
from back here. Pretend to be surprised at the news that youve broken a rule -
you probably wont get in any serious trouble if it seems like you stumbled backstage by
accident.

Warnings

Never over do it, or you could get in to trouble.

The High Art Of Low Cunning

You want to be rich. You want to be very rich. You want to be able to derive
significant monetary benefit from your business accomplishments.

One way this happens is if the people you do business with make their own
decisions, and these work beautifully for you even as they prove unproductive
for them. During high-stakes negotiations, for example, you want your
adversaries to see things your way and believe its in theirnot yourbest
interests. Another example: You want competitors, even though youre doing
better at the moment, to believe that theyll soon blow by you if they adopt a
certain strategyone that, if truth be told, will only have them speeding up as
they go over the cliff.

Self-made millionaires are often very capable at crafting business scenarios

that produce these results. Specifically, were talking about how self-made
millionaires structure situations so the business people theyre dealing with
ardently believe theyre getting the best of the deal, which turns out to be not
at all the case. One of the more capable self-made millionaires we asked about
this approach explained that its about getting inside your opponents head
and feeding his or her fantasies, which when acted upon tend to benefit the
self-made millionaire.

A critical assessment of the actions of self-made millionaires who advocate

this approach shows some consistent patterns. Topping the list is mastery of
the high art of low cunning. Being cunning entails being clever and crafty, and
whenever possible, wrapping ingenuity in subtlety.
Low cunning takes that up a few levels: Youre more guarded and wily, as well
as much more imaginative. Taking low cunning to an intense level of
proficiency transforms it into high art. As high art, low cunning is all about
gift-wrapping and presenting someones business fallacies and delusions
their hearts desires for your own benefit.

When they employ low cunning, self-made millionaires step back from the
limelight and actually fade into the void. Theyre not in business to feed their
egos, but to grow their bank accounts. They absolutely dont want credit for
sending their adversaries astray. They avoid unfavorable repercussions so they
can employ this approach again and again. In fact, low cunning at this level of
proficiency produces a virtuous cycle with usually superb results.

Operationally, low cunning in these contexts is nothing more than a

meticulous, goal-driven process of facilitating the actualization and
amplification of someone elses bad business ideas. Its often not so much an
outright endorsement of these errors in judgment as much as an open and
pronounced recognition of their potential high-return possibilities. Its all a
matter of letting a foolish business decision gain traction, and sometimes even
facilitating that trend, and hence depleting your oppositions resources. Most
important, it prevents your opponent from getting onto a more constructive
track.

Other approaches predicated on low cunning can also produce spectacular

results. Low cunning is certainly not characteristic of all self-made
millionaires, and those who resort to this approach predominantly do so very
selectively. However, the high art of low cunning characterizes some of the
wealthiest self-made millionaires.

So, how clever and crafty can you be?

Everyone Needs a Little Rat-Like
Cunning
So what is Rat-Like Cunning (RLC)? Or what some of us call, more politely
but less accurately, street smarts? I think the skills of RLC fall into five
general areas.

1. Enjoying Sales
People with RLC love to sell. One of my best friends, a master of RLC, says Dr.
Seusss Green Eggs and Ham, is the best book ever written about sales. In the
book, Sam, a pesky protagonist keeps hounding his nameless friend with Sam
I am, would you like green eggs and ham? The friend says no again and again.
Sam doesnt give up until he convinces his friend to try the dish.

Every great salesman knows that no really means maybe, and that you cant
give up until you close the deal.

2. Reading People
People with RLC naturally ask Whats in it for the other person? when they
approach any sale or negotiation. Most of us spend far too much time
worrying about what we want or our own hurt feelings.

Those with RLC have a natural tendency to focus on the self-interest of others,
and how it can be satisfied to make a better trade for all.

3. Haggling
Most of us shirk from bargaining. It makes us feel as if we are chiselers or
penny pinchers. Masters of RLC love to bargain. They know that many
products have a large contribution margin, and there is lots of room to
compromise to keep from losing a sale.
4. Not Paying CashFor Anything
People who have RLC just hate paying cash. They would rather trade
something instead.
Masters of RLC would rather make the pie bigger for themselves by trading
something they no longer want for something they now need.

5. A Healthy Dose of Skepticism

Skeptics express doubt and question everything. They want to know the
evidence that supports a position. Most masters of RLC seem to be skeptics.
Is RLC an Inherent Trait or Can it Be Learned?
In my opinion, while some of us undoubtedly have more tendencies towards
RLC, I believe it can be learned through diligent practice.

The main impediment to developing RLC is a fear of being judged by others.

We fear if we believe that others act out of self-interest, we may become cynics
in the long run. We fear being rejected by a customer. We fear that a
salesperson or family member will think were cheap for haggling or trading.

It is our fear and pride that are foolish.

The secret to developing RLC is intentional and relentless practice. Day after
day. Make it a game so you can take your ego out of the picture.

Practice Ferreting Out Self-Interest

Promise yourself that in the next fifty encounters, you will ask questions until
you have uncovered someones real self-interest in a decision. (Learning to ask
the right questions, which we practice at the Acton School of Business every
single day, will also make you a much more successful salesman.)
Practice Being Told No When Selling
To improve your RLC skills, just start selling. Once youve been told no a
hundred times while selling door-to-door, the hundred and first wont hurt as
much.
Practice Haggling
How do you become a master haggler? Next time you are in a store, just ask:
Is that the best you can do? Pause. Dont say a word. Once you get an
answer, repeat the question with more emphasis. Are you sure thats the best
you can do? If affirmed, say Thank You and make a move for the door. (You
can always come back later.)
Practice Not Paying Cash
This one is a little harder to practice. But gather up some things you dont
want and head for a flea market. Spend a few hours finding things you like
better than what you have and try to negotiate a trade. Youll be surprised at
what you can accomplish.
Practice Being Skeptical
Next time you are tempted to take a position based on emotion, pause.
Suspend judgment. Ask Why? the person on the other side if taking a
position. Listen. Request concrete evidence, then ask Why? again and again
as you drill towards the truth.

Once you have mastered this with others, practice on yourself. Thats where
the real breakthroughs will come.

Summary
Does all this make you feel a little dirty? Mostly, its your pride talking.

But Rat-Like Cunning can be taken too far. Every relationship isnt a sale to be
made. You must be careful to sell when appropriate and stop selling when
theres more at stake.

Sometimes haggling and not paying cash can waste valuable time and energy
better spent somewhere else. Haggling over small items is great training, but
you must learn when haggling over pennies isnt worth the effort.

If you were lucky, you learned the skills of RLC at the knee of a parent or
mentor. If not, its not too late. Just set aside your pride long enough to gather
the experiences you need to practice the exercises above. Youll soon feel your
rat-like tendencies begin to blossom.
HOW LEE KUAN YEW STOLE DEMOCRACY FROM LIM CHIN SIONG AND THE PEOPLE OF SINGAPORE

Lim Chin Siong was really Singapore's true leader and should have become Prime Minister in 1959 - it is ironic that Lee

Kuan Yew once introduced Lim Chin Siong as "our future Prime Minister" - instead the dictator Lee Kuan Yew stole power

away from Chin Siong, who was bullied and conspired against by Lee,Lim Yew Hock and the British

authorities. Lim Chin Siong was a great populist, a champion of Singapore students and workers - a Singapore nationalist -

the George Washington of Singapore who wanted freedom from British rule and Democracy for Singapore's people.

Declassified British documents reveal that he was not a communist as Lee Kwan Yew said he was, as is taught out of Lee's

People's Action Party approved textbooks to Singapore school children.In a startling and revisionist essay, Dr
GregPoulgrain of Griffiths University observes that the British Governor of Singapore and his Chief Secretary in their reports

to London had admitted that the police could find no evidence to establish that Lim was a communist.

The British and Singapore Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock had deliberately provoked the students and unionists into riots at

rallies that Lim Chin Siong was attending. Lee Kuan Yew later opportunistically used these incidents to persecute and

imprison Lim as a communist (after Lim had formed his own political party because Lee had marginalized Lim and his

supporters in the PAP) and then banish him to England after first courting Lim to be a co-founder of the People's Action

Party because of Lim's immense popularity with the Singapore people.

Chin Peng the leader of the Malaya Communist Party said thatLim Chin Siong never admitted he was a Communist Party

member and that the Malaya Communist Party did not controlLim Chin Siong and his Barisan Socialis party as

Lee Kuan Yew stated they did.

While under detention and most likely torture (according to Amnesty International) in Singapore under Lee's rule he became

depressed and tried to hang himself. He died of heart failure, a broken and disillusioned man in 1996. This is one of

Singapore'ssadest stories. A movie could be made from this, although it would be banned in Singapore under the rule of the

Lee family and the corrupt People's Action Party.

Lee Kuan Yew should be prosecuted for TREASON against Singapore for subverting the Democractic system put in place

by the British and used by Lee Kuan Yew to come to power. Lee should then have to suffer the consequences as set out by

current law for treason in Singapore.

If the Attorney General of Singapore truly stood up for law he would act against Lee and his son who have turned Singapore

into a dictatorship, the fact that the Attorney General does not prosecute Lee makes him guilty of not upholding the

Democratic Constitution of Singapore.

Lee Kuan Yew subverted a functional democratic system with a strong opposition that actually could win an election if:

1) Gerrymandering of ridings and vote counting irregularities (as has been claimed by many sources) were not practiced by

Lee and the People's Action Party.

2) The public was not threatened with withdrawal of financial support for their electoral riding as is done under the PAP's rule

3) Strong opposition leaders that made serious attempts to win a majority election for their party were not jailed and or

bankrupted as Lee was not back in the 1950's when he came to power under the original British Parliamentary Democratic

system.
4) The Singapore Media was not owned and controlled by the Singapore People's Action Party majority government -

essentially making the main Singapore media a branch of the People's Action Party.

Any real democratic court in the world would rule that Lee KuanYew is a dictator that has demolished the original British

Democratic system that was in place when he used it to attain power in 1959.

Singapore Elections Act states:

Undue influence

59. Every person who

(a) directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf, makes use of or threatens to make use of any force,

violence or restraint, or inflicts or threatens to inflict, by himself or by any other person, any temporal or spiritual injury,

damage, harm or loss upon or against any person in order to induce or compel that person to vote or refrain from voting, or

on account of that person having voted or refrained from voting at any election; or

(b) by abduction, duress or any fraudulent device or contrivance, impedes or prevents the free exercise of the franchise of

any elector or voter, or thereby compels, induces or prevails upon any elector or voter either to vote or refrain from voting at

any election, shall be guilty of the offence of undue influence.

Lee Kuan Yew and his Prime Minister Son Lee Hsien Loong are guilty of using Undue Influence in the Singapore

Parliamentary Elections Act by threatening to withhold money to constituents who vote in an opposition politician and also by

bankrupting and or imprisoning Singapore political leaders who make a serious attempt at winning a majority of seats from

an election for members of Singapore's Parliament.

Lee Kuan Yew on Singapore's Criminal Law Legislation:

"The basic difference in our approach springs from our traditional Asian value system which places the interests of the

community over and above that of the individual," Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said in a speech.

"In criminal law legislation, our priority is the security and well being of law-abiding citizens rather than the rights of the

criminal to be protected from incriminating evidence."

By deceiving Singaporeans in order to gain political power LeeKuan Yew has placed his own interests above those of the

communities Democratic rights. This makes his statement about his Asian values outrageous!
At the recent court trial against Dr. Chee Soon Juan, the judge and LeeKuan Yew's lawyer forcefully attempted to stop the

information about the declassified British documents on what really went on in Singapore politics in the 1950's and early

1960's, this article contains much of what Dr. Cheetried to bring to light in Lee's corrupt court.

http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articlelimchinsionghistory_intro.html

Introduction

08 Jul 07

Schools teach Singapore children that Lee Kuan Yew heroically delivered Singapore from the evil clutches of the

communists and gave us what we have today.

Whether such an assertion is historically accurate or not, the Government seems intent to seal this version in the annals of

Singapore. When filmmaker, Mr Martyn See, released Zahari's 17 Years in which Mr SaidZahari talked about his 17-year

detention, the Government promptly banned it.

It, it stated, "will not allow people who had posed a security threat to the country in the past to exploit the use of films to

purvey a false and distorted portrayal of their past actions and detention by the government."

When Lim Chin Siong, another of Lee Kuan Yew's prisoners, died in 1996, the PAP was equally anxious to make sure

that Lim's portrayal as a revolutionary communist remained etched in the minds of the people.

In response to a tribute that the SDP had written about Lim, the PAP through then MP Dr Ow Chin Hock, said that

the Barisan Sosialis(Socilaist Front), of which Lim was its leader, fought the Government in 1966 "on the streets, according

to the teachings of Mao Zedong in the Cultural Revolution."

It was a bald-faced lie. Lim was already in prison under ISA detention in 1966 and could not have led his party in anything.

This, it seems, was not the only untruth that the PAP has been telling us.

For example, Dr Ow pointed out that Lim was not fighting for a democratic Singapore (the cheek) but a communist

one. Lim would have turned Singapore into "Mao's China or Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam", the PAP insisted.

Besides, it was the Internal Security Council (ISC) under the command of the British and not the PAP Government, who

ordered the arrest and detention of Lim and colleagues.

This was because there were only three PAP representatives on the ISC and they were "outnumbered" by the other four

members on the Council, three British and one Malaysian.

Nothing could be more untrue.

Top-secret documents held by the British Government, now declassified, reveal some jaw-dropping facts about

Lee Kuan Yew and how he came to power.

Two history scholars studied these papers and presented their findings in the book Comet In Our Sky (available at Select

Books at the TanglinShopping Centre).

The first is Tim Harper who teaches Southeast Asian history and the history of the British empire at the University of

Cambridge in London.

The second is Greg Poulgrain, a professor at Griffiths University in Australia who has been researching Southeast Asian

history for more than 20 years.

This SDP feature presents a summary of Dr Harper's and Dr Poulgrain'schapters. It contains some shocking archival

material.

It also attempts to answer questions like who were people like Lim ChinSiong and Said Zahari? Did they really pose a

security threat to the country? Were they communists hell-bent on undermining constitutional/democratic means of

governance in Singapore? Was it really the ISC that was responsible for their arrest and imprisonment? Most important, is

the PAP's version of history based on fact?

Remember, this narration is not the SDP's rendition of events past. It is a collective summary of the research done by two

historians.

To ensure that this present essay remains faithful to Professors Harper's and Poulgrain's works, quotes from the historians'

chapters are used liberally.

Still, don't take our word for it. Get a copy of Comet In Our Sky and read for yourself the real history of the PAP

and Barisan Sosialis.

Why bother?
But why is this important? Why should Lim Chin Siong, a man who died more than ten years ago and who led a party which

is now defunct, be relevant to the world in which we now live?

First, because those events are part of our history, and history defines who we are as a people and, more important, shapes

the way we plan our future.

The textbooks that the Ministry of Education writes for our kids are not history but rather fables, starring Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

We have a duty to teach our youths the truth.

Also, what happened in the 1950s and 60s continue to be relevant because many of Lim's colleagues are still alive and the

sacrifices they made for the independence of Singapore have been all but erased. Their stories must be told and their

honour restored.

Third, and perhaps most important, not only is the PAP's cloroxed account used to mentally condition (brainwash, if you

prefer) our children, it continues to be used as a weapon to intimidate and silence voices of dissent.

If Lee Kuan Yew can manipulate the security apparatus for his own political ends in the 1950s and 60 as you will note from

Dr Harper's and Dr Poulgrain's revelations, what does that say about the present use of the ISD to detain other

Singaporeans?

More ominously, what if the PAP feels sufficiently threatened politically and resorts to concocting another conspiracy to

detain without trial more Singaporeans and opposition politicians like it did to a group of professionals in 1987?

Hard, historical facts are the greatest antidote to fear mongering by the state and to the use of national security as a bogey

to suppress freedom and democracy.

Knowledgeable citizens with a keen sense of history are the best protection against acts of repression in the future.

So if you are a discerning Singaporean unwilling to let the authorities tell you what to think and how to think it, if you are one

of those who don't want your mind raped, then introduce yourself to this four-part Special Feature and take part in the forum

discussion.

Part I: Our man

08 Jul 07 -

from - http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articlelimchinsionghistory_part1.html
"The men who led Singapore to self-government and independence were swift to produce an authorized version of their

struggle, historian T N Harper observes, "it began with Lee Kuan Yew's dramatic broadcasts as Prime Minister on Radio

Malaya in 1961. The plot and the moral of this story are clear: by the political resolve and tactical acumen of its leaders, the

fragile city-state weathers the perils of a volatile age and emerges into an era of stability and prosperity."

However, much to the discomfort of the Minister Mentor who hitherto has had a relatively free reign in portraying "the period

as one in which LimChin Siong and the left were outmanoeuvred by the tactically more astute Lee Kuan Yew," Harper

cautions that "authoritative new archival research sheds new light on the high politics of the period."

In other words, Lee's bravado with which he presently speaks covers up much that took place during those years.

In truth, Lim Chin Siong's fate was sealed right from the very beginning by the power of the British colonialists and not

Lee Kuan's political prowess. Lim Chin Siong was really the George Washington of Singapore, the revolutionary Singapore

nationalist that wanted freedom from the British rulers and Democracy for his people.Lee Kuan Yew was nowheresin site at

those public rallies because he did not want power for the people, he wanted it for himself and would go onto

lure Lim Chin Siong into his clutches so as to ride on his popularity. Lee Kuan Yew is a clever and

cunning sociopathic power monger that has proven that he has no conscience about destroying anyone who stands in his

way. The British are to be blamed for letting their sociopath come to power and in the end they lost Singapore anyways.

At that time British authorities were already devising ways on how to stopLim's ascent in Singapore's politics. Southeast Asia

historian, GregPoulgrain, writes that "In the Public Record Office in London are some of the observations and stratagems

pursued by both the Colonial and Foreign Office revealed now more than thirty years after the events on how to deal

with this rising star, Lim Siong Chin."

With Singaporeans becoming more educated and the advent of the Internet, events surrounding the heroics of Lee and his

PAP during the period of independence and merger with Malaya "no longer looks so unilinear and uncontested."

The emergence of Lim Chin Siong

Harper recounts the "meteoric" rise of Lim Chin Siong as a student and trade union leader in the early 1950s who was at the

heart of the anti-colonial politics that had erupted all over Asia following World War II.

By unifying the labour movement and galvanizing the overwhelmingly Chinese-speaking electorate through his formidable

oratorical skills (he once told his massive audience: "Saya masuk first gear, lu jangan gostan!" "When I go into the first

gear, don't you go into reverse!"), Limcaptured the attention of the masses, and Lee Kuan Yew's too. This led to an

association between the two men and the subsequent formation of the PAP. The anglophile Lee (Harry, as he once wanted

to be called as his father pushed him to learn the rules of the white man's world, he later went back to using his Chinese

name when it became apparent that his power would no longer be coming from the British) saw the power of his younger

Chinese-educated comrade.

Lim Chin Siong meets the Devil who would later go onto torture him by

imprisonment.
As Chin Siong said, The fact is that all of us were detained, without trial for ages. Not knowing when we would be coming

out. That, I would say is a torture. A torture. You are detained for years, until such a time that you are willing to humiliate our

own integrity. Until you are humiliated publicly. So much so, when you come out, you cannot put your head up, you cannot

see your friends. Alright, then they may release you. It is a very cruel torture. It is worse than in Japanese time, when with a

knife, they slaughter you. One shot, you die. But this humiliation will carry on for life. It is very cruel.

From the above quote of Chin Siong you can see that what he meant is that after being locked away in a cell for years

without trial, then it gets to the point that you will admit what the system wants you to admit in the hope that you can be set

free. So he admitted back then that he was giving up politics for good and had repudiated "international communism" - he

'humiliated his own integrity' - meaning that he never was a communist to begin with and would not have given up politics if

Lee Kuan Yew had not forced him to.

He died a broken man, 23 days short of his 63rd birthday in 1996 and forgotten by Singaporeans today.

"Arthur S.W.Lim, the well-known eye surgeon, recounted another experience of the youthful charisma and the powerful

impact of ChinSiong's oratory of the period.

'There were 40, 000 people, each mesmerised by Lim ChinSiong's oratory. "The British say you cannot stand on your own

two feet", he jeered, "Show them how you can stand!" And 40, 000 people leapt up - shining with sweat, fists in the air -
shouting, Merdeka'..."

- Tan Jing Quee - From the book: Comet In Our Sky.

"My neighbour who was in her early 80's remembered Lim vividly. When I showed her the book, she immediately recognises

him as Lim Chin Siong.She was telling me about the crowd that turned up at his rally, how hundreds and thousands of

people waited along the road for his release from the prison."

"Lim Chin Siong would have been our Prime Minister if not for Lee KuanYew, I should say. However, if Lim were to become

our PM instead of Lee, what will Singapore be? Is it going to be better or worse? Are we going to be more democratic as

what we were deemed to be." Lee Lilianhttp://leelilian.blogspot.com/2007/09/lim-chin-siong-man-who-was-nearly-...

Even within the PAP, "Lim eclipsed Lee Kuan Yew and other leaders in the popular following he commanded..."

But in his memoirs, The Singapore Story, published in 1998 Lee Kuan Yew condescendingly described Lim as "modest,

humble and well-behaved, with a dedication to his cause that won my reluctant admiration and respect."

The truth is that Lee didn't have much of a choice. Lim Chin Siong was at the front, back and center of a political movement

that commanded national attention. From all accounts, Lee would have been marginalized if his parasitic instincts had not

been so acute.

Popular as he was locally, Lim Chin Siong did not confine his politics to within Singapore. Despite British efforts to isolate

the island from anti-imperial movements that engulfed much of Empire, Lim would draw inspiration from liberation

movements elsewhere in Africa and Asia.

His speeches in the early 1960s repeatedly made reference to events in the colonial world as well as to South Africa, Korea,

and Turkey. This sense of internationalism had a "deep resonance" in Singapore.

The colonial government countered by censoring imported reading material. "This," writes Harper, "would continue, even

intensify, after self-government as the PAP government increasingly saw itself as pitted against what Lee Kuan Yew was to

term the anti-colonialism' of global liberation movements."

In other words, Lee was not the hero who led the fight for Singapore's freedom. This might come as a shock to some but as

declassified documents reveal, it was Lim Chin Siong who insisted that Singaporeans' freedom and independence were not

for compromise.

It was also "what really caused the British authorities to consider [Lim] such a threat."

The talks collapse

When David Marshall became the chief minister after his Labour Front won the elections in 1955, he organised a delegation

to London the following year to negotiate independence from the British. Marshall included both Lim Chin Siong and Lee

Kuan Yew in his team.

The chief minister fought hard, some say too hard, to wrest power from the British in the internal affairs of Singapore. He

opposed Britain's power to appoint the police chief who in turn had power over the Special Branch, as it was then known. It

was the Special Branch that gave the authorities the power of detention without trial.

The idea of retaining the power of internal security whilst granting self-government, Marshall accused the British, was like

serving "Christmas pudding and arsenic sauce."

Lim Chin Siong supported the chief minister on this and demanded a constitution that transferred power to the local

government with only defence and foreign relations left in British hands.

The British refused the demand and the talks collapsed. Marshall returned to Singapore frustrated and, amidst

condemnation by Lee Kuan Yew, resigned as chief minister.

...Lim Chin Siong is detained

Lim Yew Hock took over the position and led another visit to London the following year, which again included Lee Kuan

Yew. But this time, Marshall and Lim Chin Siong were not part of the negotiating team.

More accurately, Lim Chin Siong could not go because Lim Yew Hock, as chief minister, had placed him under arrest,

ostensibly for instigating a riot.

The episode began when Chief Minister Lim closed down a Chinese women's group and a musical association. A week

later, he banned the Chinese Middle School Union which provoked further unhappiness with the locals.

Undeterred he arrested Chinese student leaders and shut down more organizations and schools, including the Chinese High

School and the Chung Cheng High School. Given the already tense situation between the Chinese-speaking people and the

colonial authorities, this was a highly provocative act.

At that time any Singaporean leader worth his salt could not have sat by idly. And so Lim Chin Siong came to the fore and

spoke up for the students. The late Devan Nair, former Singapore president, joined in.

A 12-day stay-in was organised at one of the schools and Lim Chin Siong was scheduled to speak at a nearby park one

evening.
It wasn't long before the police appeared and ringed the crowd. Suddenly a mob started throwing stones at the police who

then charged with batons and tear-gas.

Violence erupted and spread, with police stations being attacked and cars burned. By the end of the chaos 2,346 people

were arrested and more than a dozen Singaporeans were killed.

The blame was squarely pinned on Lim Chin Siong who was arrested.

But did Lim Chin Siong really cause the mayhem? Who was the "mob" that started attacking the police?

At that time, Chief Minister Lim made no bones that the Lim Chin Siong was the front man for the communists who had

started the violence. Lim was arrested by the Special Branch the following day. Lim vehemently denied this accusation and

countered that the chief minister was a colonial stooge. As declassified documents now reveal, Lim Chin Siong was largely

right.

Entitled Extract from a note of a meeting between Secretary of State and Singapore Chief Minister, 12 December 1956, the

archival note recorded that it was Chief Minister Lim who "had provoked the riots and this had enabled the detention of Lim

Chin Siong."

Poulgrain even documents that full-scale military assistance was requested by prior arrangement. Singapore Governor,

William Goode, acknowledged that the colonial government was not beyond employing the tactic of provoking a riot and

then using the outcome to "achieve a desired political result."

Indeed, Poulgrain noted that "[Public Record Office] documents show these were the tactics of provocation that were

employed in the 1956 riots that led to Lim Chin Siong's arrest."

A few weeks after Lim Chin Siong was behind bars, Lim Yew Hock visited London in December 1956 and was "warmly

congratulated on the outcome by Alan Lennox-Boyd, Secretary of State for the Colonies."

And yet, in his memoirs, the Minister Mentor concludes that the Malayan Communist Party "in charge of Lim Chin Siong"

were behind the whole affair and that Lim Yew Hock had purged Singapore of the communist ringleaders.

and the (Singapore Independence) talks in Britain were resurrected.

Malayan Communist Party leader Chin Peng's testimony contradicts Lee Kuan Yew's assertion that the Malayan Communist

Party was "in charge of Lim Chin Siong"...

Harold Crouch: What sort of relationship did the people who became the Barisan Socialis in Singapore have with your

people in southern Thailand at that time? Had there been any contact at all?

Chin Peng: I think among them, there were some communists, there were some non communists, for example, Lee Siew

Choh. We considered him as radical left.

Anthony Short: Lim Chin Siong never had any contact with the Party in southern Thailand, did he?

Chin Peng: I dont think so. I dont think so. Lim Chin Siong never admitted he was Communist Party member.

Anthony Reid: Was the Barisan Socialis under the control of the CPM (Communist Party of Malaya)?

Chin Peng: I dont think we can control it from far away. It would depend on the man on the spot. They discussed among

themselves and they coordinated their activities, not controlled from the Central. Take the case of the Singapore left wing, I

dont think they used the name of communists. They all regarded each other as left-wing figures, and then they discussed

themselves, they coordinated their policy, and they decided.

Chin & Hack (eds)., Dialogues with Chin Peng,

(Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2004), pp. 190 192.

Chin Peng was the head of the Communist Party of Malaya

The above provides high level direct witness testimony that contradicts Lee Kuan Yew's assertion that: "The Malayan

Communist Party in charge of Lim Chin Siong were behind the whole affair and that Lim Yew Hock had purged Singapore of

the communist ringleaders."

And so in the 1957 with Lim Chin Siong under detention, Lim Yew Hock led the delegation to London. But during the

negotiations, it was Lee who "played a crucial role in sweeping away the earlier obstacles to agreement on internal security

by resurrecting the proposal for an Internal Security Council (ISC)."

The ISC was structured in a way that Britain and Malaya outweighed Singapore in the outfit. Why was the PAP supportive of

such an arrangement?

Historian Simon Ball said it best: "Lee wanted an elected government but not one that could be blamed for suppressing its

own citizens."

Even more damning was an archival "Top Secret" document that recorded: "Lee was confidentially said that he values the

[Internal Security] Council as a potential scape-goat' for unpopular measures he will wish to take against subversive
activities."But the PAP continues the charade. Recall what Dr Ow Chin Hock wrote in his letter in 1996 about the arrest of

Lim Chin Siong and other Barisan leaders: "The [ISC] had a British chairman, two British members, one Malaysian members

and three Singaporean members. Together these four non-Singaporeans outnumbered the three Singaporeans on the

council."

In any event, unlike the one led by David Marshall, the negotiations in 1957 had little spine and gave away too much of

Singaporeans' rights. As a result, both sides expeditiously reached an agreement for self-government, an agreement that

Marshall called "tiga suku busok merdeka" (three-quarters rotten independence).

But self-government was not the only subject being discussed. On the side, the British also wanted to introduce a clause

that would bar ex-detainees, or subversives as the authorities called them, from standing for elections.

Lee supported such a move one that he would surely have known would cripple party comrade Lim Chin Siong's political

career.

In his memoirs, however, Lee Kuan Yew wrote: "I objected to [the introduction of the clause] saying that the condition is

disturbing both because it is a departure from the democratic practice and because there is no guarantee that the

government in power will not use this procedure to prevent not only the communist but also democratic opponents of their

policy from standing for elections'."

A declassified British memo contradicts this: "Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock in urging the Colonial

Secretary to impose the subversives ban'."Perhaps this is not surprising as the British had noted that the "present

leadership of the PAP is obsessed with the need to persuade the politically unsophisticated masses that the PAP is on their

side' and this involves demonstrating that the PAP is not a friend of the foreigner"

And this is perhaps the reason why Lee told Britain's Secretary of State, Alan Lennox-Boyd: "I will have to denounce [the

clause]. You will have to take responsibility."

London to the rescueagain

A few months after Lee returned from the constitutional talks in London in March 1957, the PAP conducted elections of its

executive council. Lim Chin Siong was still under detention and could not challenge Lee for the party's leadership.

Lim's supporters, however, outnumbered Lee's rightwing faction and were elected to the executive council of the PAP. The

British, through Lim Yew Hock who was by then "viewed as an altogether more compliant tool of the security apparatus,"

ordered the arrest of Lim Chin Siong's supporters, thereby securing Lee Kuan Yew's continued control of the party.
Harper records, that despite Lee's protests against the crackdown of his party's leftwing, "not all were convinced of his

innocence in the matter."

In his 1998 memoirs, Lee Kuan Yew describes the fateful detention of the PAP's leftwing leaders by giving much

prominence to Lim Yew Hock's decision while adroitly playing down the role of the British.

After the talks in 1957, and given the stubbornness of Marshall and Lim in the 1956 talks, the British were persuaded that

Lee was their man.

Another set of talks were arranged in May 1958 and thereafter "there was an unspoken assumption that the PAP would

govern after the 1959 elections."

Writer T J S George repeated this observation that "repeated [British] intervention to ensure Lee Kuan Yew's political

survival confirmed the feeling that Lee was by now Britain's chosen man for Singapore."

Poulgrain recounted his own experience with British intelligence officers who were operating in Singapore in the early 1960s.

One told him about a group of officers who were listening in on Lee Kuan Yew making a speech, railing against British

imperialism.

"The diatribe," Poulgrain writes, "brought only a jocular response from this group, one of whom openly commented that Lee

was going a bit over the top' considering that he was actually working with us.'"

The historian states plainly that Lee Kuan Yew personified the essential long-term interests of the United Kingdom in

Singapore.

Lee himself played up this position when he told the British government that the PAP was really London's "best ally."

The British agreed. Secret documents now show that London's assessment was that Lim Chin Siong was increasingly

bringing pressure to bear on Her Majesty's Government and "unless forestalled by Lee, may well be able to make the

pressure decisive."

Lee was grateful. He indicated that "he and his other reputed moderates in the PAP regard the continued presence of the

British in Singapore as an assurance for themselves."

From then on, despite the British concerns of Lee's "totalitarian streak that rides roughshod over all opposition or criticism",

Lee's PAP and London "became locked closer together."

The section below provides great detail of what happened within the PAP as the split between the right and left wing was

happening, this section is taken from:

http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com/2006/01/part-1-history-and-founding-of...

(some of the original English grammar has been improved in this version)

The Dilemma and Shrewdness of LKY

In the run-up to 1959 elections, the PAP was in a dilemma. The Party was to be led into the elections by LKY and his Right

Wong colleagues. But they needed the Left Wing leaders, who were in prison to attract the following of the masses.

It was at that point that Kuan Yew played his political cards superbly, remembers Devan Nair. It was masterly. He is

politically very, very shrewd. He came to the jail and told us, look, Im not gong to stand for elections unless I am satisfied

that you are really committed to the ideal of a free, democratic, socialist and non-communist Malaya. And you are committed

to the policies of the PAP. So Chin Siong, Woodhull, Fong and so on, gave verbal assurances. We knew that if the PAP

didnt form the next government we would continue to be in the jug (aka jail). But if the PAP did win, in 1959 and if PAP

formed the next government, then we would be released and we could start our union work again.

But Kuan Yew was too smart. He said, No, put it down in writing. And I (Devan Nair) told them, Yes, if we are sincere, we

ought to put it down in writing. And the more important of which was The Ends and Means of Malayan Socialism, said

Devan. They all signed and committed themselves to the PAP. This enabled LKY to run for office on a platform which

demanded their immediate release. The trade unions mobilized their mass muscles, putting the PAP into power by a

landslide. The PAP formed the government with LKY as the Prime Minister.

Lim Chin Siong and his colleagues, released from jail amidst a flurry of doves, were tucked into obscurity as Political

Secretaries in the Ministries.

Cracks and Split in PAP

As the PAP government settled into power, the uneasy union between the Left and Right continued. The first sign of trouble

was Devan Nairs resignation from the Education Ministry. I went to Kuan Yew and told him, Look, I meant every word of

The Ends and Means of Malayan Socialism. But I am afraid that my friends are not sincere. I dont want to be caught in a

situation where Ill be fighting with my friends. So I want to leave. Im resigning. He went to St Andrews School where he

became a teacher there instead.

The next crack came when one of the most powerful members in PAP, Ong Eng Guan, the Minister of National

Development and one of the three representatives on the Internal Security Council, published an attack on PAP. He
accused the party leadership of being undemocratic and dictatorial. The Party responded by sacking him from the PAP

and he was stripped of his seat in Hong Lim and all his other positions.

He defiantly stood as an Independent in the Hong Lim by-elections and gave the PAP candidate, Jek Yuen Thong, a sound

beating. Ong was fluent in dialect and Mandarin; a rarity amongst the English educated. Despite the PAP sending the

charismatic Lim Chin Siong to speak at the mass rally at Hong Lim, Ong Eng Guan still won.

This is not the end of the crisis for PAP. On June 1961, Lim Chin Siong wrote to Dr Toh, demanding the release of their Left

Wing political colleagues. PAP could not agree to this with their prior agreements with the British. The beginning of the split

between Left and Right was the Anson By-elections on July 1961. The Left demanded internal democracy in the PAP and

the release of all political prisoners from detention. They were refused. The Left then threw their support to the rival

candidate, David Marshall and he won.

The final split came just a few days later in the Legislative Assembly. Thirteen Left Wing PAP Assemblymen abstained from

voting with the party line. They were dismissed from the PAP. In August 1961, they formed a rival party, the Barisan

Sosialis, led by Dr Lee Siew Choh and Lim Chin Siong. They took 35 branch committees, 19 of the 23 organizing secretaries

and an estimated 80 percent of the membership. PAP under LKY was a mere shell, according to Dr Lee.

The Last Breathe of Hope for PAP

The Singapore government was on the verged of being toppled. Every session, the opposition would motion of no

confidence. But across the shores, the Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya, Tengku Abdul Rahman, watched the

events and feared that Singapore was about to become a Communist State, a second Cuba and a danger to Malaya.

Thus, this was the start of the intense and frantic, Battle for Merger.

Barisan Sosialis held sway in Singapore but it knew that in a wider Malaysia they would be crushed. On the other hand, PAP

needed Malaysia to break the Barisans hold on the Singapore Electorate. Thus, they enlisted Malayan Tengku and the

British as allies, playing on their long standing fear of Communism.

On July 1962, the Barisan Sosialis, led by David Marshall and Dr Lee Siew Choh, appealed against the merger in the United

Nations in New York. The Merger Referendum, issued in 1962, was testimony to the murkiness of the Battle. It was

deliberately ambiguous. It asked voters to choose what kind of merger they wanted, not whether indeed they wished for a

merger. All spoilt votes were to be counted as votes in favour of merger. With this controversial tactic, the PAP won the

Battle for Merger.

Tengku then decided to clean out 'Communism' with Operation Cold Store. Hundreds of arrests were made and effectively

decapitated the Left Wing Barisan Sosialis. A snap election was called, under the protection of the Malaysian Security
Council,it produced a clear PAP victory. The Barisan, with most of their leaders in prison, garnered only 13 out of 51 seats.

On September 1963, the PAP government had won its battle against the Left.

Part II: Get him!

In the next instalment read how an emboldened Lee Kuan Yew, with British backing, officially breaks with Lim Chin Siong.

Preview:

In his memoirs, Lee wrote that "Lim Chin Siong wanted to eliminate the Internal Security Council because he knew thatif it

ordered the arrest and detention of the communist leaders, the Singapore government could not be held responsible and be

stigmatized a colonial stooge."

What the Minister Mentor did not say, but what Harper reveals in his chapter, is shockingly contradictory: "In mid-1961,

therefore, to seek a way out, Lee suggested to the British that his government should order the release of all [the remaining]

detainees, but then have that order countermanded in the ISC by Britain and Malaya."

Such a craven act was even rebuffed by the British. The acting Commissioner, Philip Moore, stated that the British should

not be "party to a device for deliberate misrepresentation of responsibility for continuing detentions in order to help the PAP

government remain in power." (emphasis added)

Part II: Get him!

9 Jul 07

After securing control of the PAP with the aid of the British, Lee Kuan Yew was still left with the problem of the detained Lim

Chin Siong and his supporters.

This was a source of embarrassment for him. Seeing this, Lee announced that he would secure the release of his party

comrades before taking office if the PAP won the elections in 1959.

Behind the scenes, Lee negotiated and secured the private agreement of then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan that

the prisoners would be released by promising that he (Lee) would "move against them if they departed from the party line."

In return for promising to secure their release, Lee had secured Lim Chin Siong's and other detainees' pledges of allegiance

to the party's manifesto.

In truth the PAP and the British themselves were playing fast and loose with the law. The affair confirmed suspicions that all

the backroom dealings was for political ends, not national security.

In any event, Lee assigned Lim who, if not for all the machinations, would have been the leader of the PAP and prime

minister the post of political secretary in the ministry of finance, the Siberia of politics at that time.

Following their election victory in 1959, the PAP government released eight left wing leaders, including Lim Chin Siong on 4

June 1959, after ensuring that they were excluded from participation in the parliamentary elections to the central committee.

Five were appointed as political secretaries, but with little real substantial power to initiate or influence polices. More

significantly, none of them were made cadre members, which meant that they would never be in any position to challenge

the leadership in future party elections. When Chin Siong was released, he was only 26 years old.

Question: If Lim Chin Siong had really been the one who started the riots in 1956, shouldn't he have been charged and

imprisoned, rather then released?

As blogger Thrasymachus said, from http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com/2006/07/history-of-pap-part-iv-lim-chi... ,

"Here, LKY played his political cards to perfection. Being the solicitor of the detainees, he was seen as the freer of the

oppressed. Putting Chin Siong and the rest in political office, he could ride their popularity amongst the Chinese population

without giving Chin Siong and the rest any power. In that, LKY would not be threatened by his popular rival, but not for long."

In the meantime, detentions without trial continued under the new Lee government and the ISC continued to be used as a

front for the PAP's acts.

An indecent proposal

Fed-up with Lee's autocratic style and the delay of releasing the remaining detainees, PAP MP and mayor Ong Eng Guan

denounced the government for its dictatorial methods and moved a motion in the Legislative Assembly to abolish the ISC.

Harper wrote that because of the secrecy under which the ISC operated "not all members of Lee's cabinet were aware that

the Singapore government had not pressed for the releases since early 1960."

In his memoirs, Lee wrote that "Lim Chin Siong wanted to eliminate the Internal Security Council because he knew thatif it

ordered the arrest and detention of the communist leaders, the Singapore government could not be held responsible and be

stigmatized a colonial stooge."

What the Minister Mentor did not say, but what Harper reveals in his chapter, is shockingly contradictory: "In mid-1961,

therefore, to seek a way out, Lee suggested to the British that his government should order the release of all [the remaining]

detainees, but then have that order countermanded in the ISC by Britain and Malaya."

Such a craven act was even rebuffed by the British. The acting Commissioner, Philip Moore, stated that the British should

not be "party to a device for deliberate misrepresentation of responsibility for continuing detentions in order to help the PAP

government remain in power." (emphasis added)

Moore suggested that the best solution would be "to release all the detainees forthwith." Lee, however, "was unwilling to

present the left with such a victory."

In a most damning indictment, Moore said that Lee "has lived a lie about the detainees for too long, giving the Party the

impression that he was pressing for their release while, in fact, agreeing in the ISC that they should remain in detention."

And if one thought that Lee Kuan Yew could not sink any lower, he did. He turned to his saviours and warned that should he

lose in an upcoming by-election, he would call for a general election, which he fully expected to lose.

This was because he was facing defections in the Legislative Assembly on his refusal to release the remaining detainees.

And should he lose the elections, he warned the colonial masters, David Marshall, Ong Eng Guan and Lim Chin Siong

would form the next government.

This, he calculated, would be so distasteful to the British that it would rally them to his side.

He presented the scheme at a dinner with Commissioner Lord Selkirk, Philip Moore (Selkirk's deputy), and Goh Keng Swee:

Lee would order the release of the prisoners, the British would stop it through the ISC, and he would then announce a

referendum on merger with Malaya (the story behind merger is explained below).

This would provoke opposition from his party mates as well as Lim's supporters whom he would then banish to Malaya.

A 1961 memo between the then Commission in Singapore and the Colonial Office in London revealed that Lee calculated

that this move "would force Lim Chin Siong to reveal his hand completely and resort to direct action, in which event the

Singapore Government would relinquish power and allow the British or the Federation to take over Singapore."

In short, Lee was willing to sacrifice the efforts to secure the independence of Singapore to achieve his own political ends! As

it turned out, Selkirk wanted to have nothing to do with the "unsavoury" proposal.

Merger on one condition

At about this time, Malaya's Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman revived the idea of a federation of Malaysia consisting of

the Borneo territories (now Sarawak, Sabah, and Brunei), Malaya (now peninsular Malaysia), and Singapore.

In exchange for territorial concessions in Borneo, the Tunku as the head of the federation would allow Britain to maintain a

strategic presence in Singapore.

The proposal was put forward because the Tunku was having problems of his own with the left in Malaya. This was not

helped by the strength of Lim Chin Siong's left in Singapore. Kuala Lumpur saw the necessity of crippling Lim's support and

wanted Lee to be its hit-man.

For the British, the idea of a Malaysian federation was an acceptable compromise because it allowed London to maintain

influence in the region while relinquishing its colony which it was going to lose anyway given the irresistible anti-colonial

sentiment fanning the globe at that time.

As for Lee Kuan Yew, the idea was heaven sent. Harper documents that Lee saw the Tunku's concept of a "Malaysia" as

crucial to his own political survival because of the growing strength of the left.

The left's strength was amply demonstrated when Lee's rightwing faction lost two by-elections in quick succession the first

to Ong Eng Guan in April 1961 (Hong Lim) and the second three months later to David Marshall (Anson).

Lee was rattled. Then PAP chairman, Toh Chin Chye, recalled: "He was quite shocked. He drew me aside after the results

were announced and asked me what to do. I said, 'Hang on!'"

Toh also revealed that Lee had written to him that "the trade unions, the Middle Road crowd wanted him to resign" and that

they wanted him to replace Lee as the prime minister.

Toh did not recommend Lee's resignation. But the reason he gave was that it "would divide the government and it would

appear to the people of Singapore that we were being unsteady," hardly a ringing endorsement of Lee's leadership.

These developments precipitated an open split between Lee and Lim Chin Siong. Lim's group suspected correctly that

Lee was up to no good in his pursuit of merger with Malaysia and they openly called for the abolition of the ISC.

In July 1961, legislative assemblymen, parliamentary/organising secretaries, and members of the PAP split from the party

and formed the Barisan Sosialis. Lee's party was shaved to bare bones.

At the time, Harper writes, "there was an immense political momentum, a sense that the future lay with the Barisan Sosialis."
Even then, Lim Chin Siong never wavered in his commitment to governing Singapore in a democratic way when he wrote in

a press statement that "any constitutional arrangement must not mean a setback for the people in terms of freedom and

democracy."

This contrasts with the PAP's demonisation of Lim as a front for the communist out to destroy the democratic way.

Closing in on Lim

Meanwhile In Malaya the Tunku insisted that Lee re-arrest Lim Chin Siong before he would allow Singapore into the

federation.

One of the reasons was because if the detention was conducted after merger, the Kuala Lumpur government would be

responsible for it and it would be seen as cracking down on the Chinese in Singapore, increasing communal tensions.

As for Lee's part, he saw the detention of Lim as his trump card and wanted to secure the merger first before he moved

against the Barisan leader; Abdul Rahman would have no incentive to proceed with merger once the threat of Lim was

removed.

But the Tunku was firm: No detention of Lim, no merger. Lee knew he had to act.

And so a two-part plan was hatched to bait Lim and colleagues: "In the first phase, the Barisan would be harassed by the

police and the government. This was designed to provoke it into unconstitutional action, which would initiate a second phase

of detentions, restrictions and other actions to be sanctioned by the ISC."

Lim's opposition of allowing the British to retain powers of detention during the constitutional talks in 1956 rang truer than

ever and Marshall's colourful description of "Christmas pudding and arsenic sauce" were beginning to sound very apt.

The diabolical scheme was vehemently opposed by the British Commission in Singapore. Lord Selkirk told his superiors in

London that "in fact I believe that both of them (Abdul Rahman and Lee Kuan Yew) wish to arrest the effective political

opposition and blame us for doing so."

In the months leading up to Lim's arrest, Selkirk wrote to his superiors in London again, imploring them not to cooperate with

Lee:

"Lee is probably very much attracted to the idea of destroying his political opponents. It should be remembered that there is

behind all this a very personal aspecthe claims he wishes to put back in detention the very people who were released at
his insistence people who are intimate acquaintances, who have served in his government, and with whom there is a

strong sense of political rivalry which transcends ideological differences."

Contrast this to what Lee wrote in his memoirs in 1998: "Lim Chin Siongknew that if he went beyond certain limits, [the

ISC] would act"

Lim need not have gone "beyond certain limits" as declassified documents now reveal, Lee was determined to put him in

prison, communist or not, limits or no.

More shamefully, Lee will not admit that he was the one who had pushed for Lim's detention.

Selkirk's deputy, Philip Moore, reviewed intelligence reports and concluded that there were no security reasons to detain Lim

Chin Siong: "Lim is working very much on his own and that his primary objective is not the Communist millennium but to

obtain control of the constitutional government of Singapore."But London was determined not to allow democratic scruples

from getting in the way of its strategic presence in Southeast Asia. It acquiesced to Lee's plan.

Part III: The end of Lim Chin Siong

The next instalment will examine the treatment of Lim Chin Siong in Lee Kuan Yew's hands. More evidence of Lim's

persecution.

Part III: The end of Lim Chin Siong

9 Jul 07

In February 1963 the ISC, under the direction of Lee, ordered Operation Coldstore where 113 opposition leaders, trade

unionists, journalists, and student leaders who supported the left were arrested. Top of the list was, of course, Lim Chin

Siong.

Historian Matthew Jones recorded that the arrests "primarily reflected the imperative felt by the decision-makers in London

to respond to the needs and demands of the nationalist elites."

Not for the first time, the British had come to the rescue of Lee Kuan Yew.

Behind bars, torture and psychological abuse were meted out in liberal doses. Amnesty International documented much of

this in a report in 1981.

The state of Lim Chin Siong under detention makes for sordid reading. According to (the late) Dennis Bloodworth, Lim came
close to taking his own life while in detention. He had gone into depression. In 1965, when he was at the Singapore General

Hospital Lim tried to hang himself from a pipe in the toilet. He was rescued just in time. After he recovered he was sent back

to prison.

His view on detention without trial is very disturbing, showing that Lee Kuan Yew's methods of ruling are barbaric:

The fact is that all of us were detained, without trial for ages. Not knowing when we would be coming out. That, I would say

is a torture. A torture. You are detained for years, until such a time that you are willing to humiliate our own integrity. Until

you are humiliated publicly. So much so, when you come out, you cannot put your head up, you cannot see your friends.

Alright, then they may release you. It is a very cruel torture. It is worse than in Japanese time, when with a knife, they

slaughter you. One shot, you die. But this humiliation will carry on for life. It is very cruel.

Four years later after suffering in Lee's prison, he penned a letter to his former comrade-turned-arch-enemy and capitulated,

saying that he had "finally come to the conclusion to give up politics for good" and repudiated the "international communist

movement."

Siong remained in jail and suffered severe depressions, until physically broken and mentally traumatized. After he

announced his decision to quit politics and was exiled in London (in 28 July 1969), his physical health ruined and his political

life destroyed, he married Wong Chui Wan in London, in 1970,they had two sons. He struggled earning a living doing odd

jobs and would continue to suffer bouts of depression. He never recovered. In 1979, he decided to return to Singapore and

stayed in Serangoon Gardens until his death in 5 February 1996.

Even then, Lee banished Lim to London in 1969 and allowed him to return to Singapore only ten years later.What kind of

treatment Lim received at the hands of his foes that turned him from a spirited and charismatic national leader who walked

tall among his people into a forlorn political non-entity, Singaporeans can only imagine. For Lim is not talking, he passed

away in February 1996, forever carrying his secrets with him to his grave..
 Lim Chin Siong, right, selling fruits in Bayswater, London,

1970s. If he really was a communist why was he working in private enterprise selling fruits and vegetables, why didn't he go

to China and join Mao Tse Tung?

It was not Britain's finest hour. Far from the honest-broker that everyone had expected Britain to be, the UK Government had

actively engineered Lim's downfall and Lee Kuan Yew's capture of the prime ministership.

As it is, the historic account is hardly a heroic tale of the PAP's courageous triumph over the Barisan, as official accounts

would have us believe.

Instead, declassified documents now show that it was a sad tale of private dealings and cowardly machinations for the

attainment of power.

At his funeral which overflowed with his former Barisan comrades and supporters, eulogies recounting Lim's selfless

dedication to a free and democratic Singapore were read. As his casket was pushed into the furnace, a thunderous and

defiant applause resounded.

Referendum: To merger or to merge?

After having fulfilled his promise to Tunku Abdul Rahman to arrest Lim Chin Siong before merger, Lee set his sights on

taking Singapore into Malaysia. He called for a referendum to obtain the people's mandate for the move, a decision that

Britain and the Tunku objected to.

A referendum was hardly necessary as Lim and other Barisan leaders were behind bars. One suspects that a vote was

needed to give the PAP the mandate to move in this direction.

Indeed Lee, with not little false bravado, wrote in his memoirs: "I remained determined that there should be referendum."
Democratic? Hardly. Instead of asking Singaporeans to vote for yes' or no' to merger, Lee proposed a ballot that allowed

the people to vote only for merger under three options:

Do you want merger?

A. in accordance with the white paper, or

B. on the basis of Singapore as a constituent state of the Federation of Malaya, or

C. on terms no less favourable than those given to the three Borneo territories?

And so after the referendum in September 1962, Singapore moved one step closer to becoming a part of an independent

Malaysia.

Regrettable but necessary?

Lee Kuan Yew, would have us believe as he wrote in his memoirs, that the use of detention without trial was "most

regrettable but, from my personal knowledge of the communists, absolutely necessary."

Harper dismisses this argument: "It wasinadmissible to argue, as Lee Kuan Yew did, that the exercise of these powers

was regrettable', but dictated by historical necessity."

The truth is that "through this adversitythe Barisan Sosialis still adhered to constitutional tactics."

Indeed, in the entire campaign to cripple the opposition, Lee Kuan Yew and his rightwing PAP faction has repeatedly

resorted to using desperate measures of detention without trial, brazenly accusing his opponents of being a front for the

communists.

Harper makes it even more explicit:

"After 1959, Lee Kuan Yew had urged the necessity of defeating the radical left through open democratic argument, whilst

trying to provoke them into extra-legal action. The left, however, had not been deflected from constitutional struggle.

Therefore, from mid-1962 at least, Lee concluded that this confrontation could only be resolved by resort to special powers

that lay beyond the democratic process. This merely exposed the extent to which the crisis, as the British argued, a political

one, and not a security one."

The last chapter

Lim Chin Siong's fight for Singapore may have come to a close, but another one is just beginning the fight for history to be

written the way it should be.

Declassified secret papers are beginning to provide a glimpse into what really took place during the 1950s and 60s,

especially in the behind-the-scenes dealings.

Beginning with Comet In Our Sky more will be revealed. But as Harper tells us "many files remain closed and many files that

have been released have had key documents retained' by the original government department." These include key

documents on Lim Chin Siong's detention in Operation Coldstore in 1963.

As the real story emerges, the Singapore Democrats will play our part to urge this process along in cyberspace thus

ensuring that the memory of Lim Chin Siong and what he and his Barisan colleagues did for Singapore will forever remain

with us.

End of a Great Singaporean

This is crucial as our past is still our present. Lim had argued that arbitrary powers of detention without trial, in whoever's

hands be they white or yellow, will continue to make Singapore unfree and our struggle for independence elusive.

"The people ask for fundamental democratic rights," he argued, "but what have they got? They have only got freedom of

firecrackers after seven o'clock in the evening. The people ask for bread and they have been given stones instead."

More than half a century later, can any Singaporeans say with hand on heart that Lim Chin Siong was not right?

Chin Siong - Malaysia 1995 - a few months before he died. At his funeral his children were surprised at government officials

showing up to pay tribute, which shows that Chin Siong never talked to his children about his fame and adornment from the
Singaporean people when he was a young man. Once Lee Kuan Yew's thugs got hold of him for years in prison, they

obviously 'demolished' (a term Lee likes to use in referrence to his treatment of any challengers to his power) his essense,

destroyed his spirit - no doubt through similar methods that lawyer Gopalan Nair experienced in June 2008 when he was put

into Lee's prison where he had to sleep with a bare light on 24 hrs, on a hard cold floor (no bed) and no blanket, leading to

shivering and on top of this, Chin Siong would have had to endure psychologically abusive interrogation and maybe even

physical beatings - the end result was that for the rest of his life he was afraid to even talk to his own children about how

great he had once been. Sad, very sad.

For another very good article on Lim Chin Siong also see: http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com/2006/07/history-of-pap-

part-iv-lim-chi...

Comet in our Sky: Lim Chin Siong in History

Editor: Tan Jing Quee & Jomo K. S.

Publisher: Selangor Darul Ehsan (Malaysia)

170 pp. B&W photos.

Paperback

ISBN: 983-9602-14-4

Available: Select BooksThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

This is a compilation of several efforts to critically understand and appreciate the significant role and legacy of the late Lim

Chin Siong in the political history of Singapore. He was undoubtedly the most prominent left wing leader in Singapore in the

1950's and 60's. Academics and close political friends in Malaysia and Singapore attempt to give a balanced and objective

account of Lim's contribution to post-war history in Singapore and Malaysia.

Comet in our Sky brings together a collection of twelve essays, poems and memorials offering a multi-faceted view of the life

and times of the late Lim Chin Siong, Singapore's former trade unionist and socialist parliamentarian whose political career

was first curtailed and then cut short by arrests and detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

Book Review by Francis Seow: Comet In Our Sky: Lim Chin Siong

Important Book with a Tale to TellBook Review:

by Cheah Boon Kheng

The New Straits Times (Malaysia)

21 Jul 01
Lim Chin Siong, the vanquished other hero of Singapore's political history. A man who stayed true to his cause and an

architect of our struggle against colonialism. In his honour, KS Jomo and Tan Jing Quee have edited a book which is a

collection of essays, poems and speeches in a tribute to a great leader who never got true recognition in our history books.

History will be re-written for you cannot keep the truth from surfacing forever. Read this review and buy the book, we believe

only in Malaysia. But we will try Borders and tell you the results.

Lim Chin Siong - our other hero In place of a full-length biography, these separate individual accounts and memoirs from

Britain, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore represent a composite story of Lim's life and politics, especially when he was a

young rising star in Singapore's political firmament in the 1950's and 1960's.

Lee Kuan Yew, who had founded the People's Action Party with Lim Chin Siong, introduced him to David Marshall, then

Singapore's Chief Minister, as "our future Prime Minister" in 1955. Lim's bright career however, was abruptly destroyed

before he could realise its full potential.

It was during his third imprisonment, says his friend Dr M.K. Rajakumar, that Lim was "destroyed, both psychologically and

politically". He had a nervous breakdown, became depressed and suicidal. In 1969, in this state of depression, he was

released from detention after announcing that he would quit politics.

He was allowed to leave for exile in London, and did not return to Singapore again until 1979. He died of a heart attack in

1996 at the age of 62.

Essays by Lim's close friends, especially Tan Jing Quee and Dr M.K. Rajakumar, add an intimate touch and tell an inspiring

story of his rapid climb to popularity and as undisputed leader of Chinese workers, trade unions and Chinese middle school

students in the 1950s.

He is described as a slim, youthful figure, selfless, dedicated, with a handsome boyish face whose oratory as a speaker in

Hokkien among the Chinese masses was legendary.

In his political memoir The Singapore Story, Lee offered ungrudging praise to Lim's "hypnotic" oratory: "...a ringing voice that

flowed beautifully in his native Hokkien. The girls adored him, especially those in the trade unions. Once he got going after a

cold start at the first two meetings, there was tremendous applause every time he spoke. By the end of the campaign, Lim

Chin Siong was seen as a charismatic figure and a person to be reckoned with in Singapore politics and, what was of more

immediate concern, within the PAP."

In 1955 Lim had been elected as Singapore's youngest parliamentarian. However, a year later, after widespread riots

involving industrial workers and Chinese school students, he was arrested and imprisoned on charges of being one of the

leaders of the "communist united front" alleged to have been behind the riots.

Lim's own reputation was a further casualty to the riots' mayhem and bloodshed, and he was detained without trial. He

denied charges that he was a communist, charges which remain unsubstantiated.

In a startling and revisionist essay, Dr Greg Poulgrain of Griffiths University observes that the British Governor of Singapore

and his Chief Secretary in their reports to London had admitted that the police could find no evidence to establish that Lim

was a communist.

Poulgrain claims it was actually Singapore's then Chief Minister, Lim Yew Hock, who had deliberately "provoked" the bus

and other industrial workers and Chinese middle students to riot in 1956 in order to have Lim Chin Siong arrested.

Lim Yew Hock's own admission to responsibility for the riot appears in an official report to the British Government which

Poulgrain found in the Colonial Office records in London which are now open to researchers.

"Lee Kuan Yew was secretly a party with Lim Yew Hock," adds Poulgrain, "in urging the Colonial Secretary to impose the

subversives ban in making it illegal for former political detainees to stand for election."

In 1959, while Lim was in prison, the PAP won the general elections under which Lee became Prime Minister, and

Singapore was granted self-government by the British in all matters except for internal security, defence and external affairs.

Although Lim and other leftist political detainees were released from prison, their co-operation and alliance with Lee ended

in 1961 due to disagreements over policies and strategies.

Until then the media presented the PAP as a leftwing party, indicating the pervasive and dominant influence of Lim's faction

within and outside the party. Their rivalry was intense and ideological. Lee finally resorted to arrests to remove Lim and his

faction.

When Lim and other political detainees such as Fong Swee Suan and S. Woodhull were released, they were appointed

Political Secretaries. But the honeymoon was soon over.

The PAP split in 1961 saw Lim taking away with him almost the entire PAP branches and personnel to form and lead a new

party, the Barisan Socialis (Socialist Front).

Not long after this, the Barisan campaigned to oppose the formation of Malaysia which involved Singapore's merger with

Sabah, Sarawak and Malaya on the grounds that Lee Kuan Yew had not sought more favourable terms for Singapore.

The Malaysia plan, mooted by Malaya's then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, was endorsed by the British Government

which had agreed to relinquish its rule of the other three territories.

Fearing the increasing communist influence said to be behind the Barisan, Lee and the Tunku put pressure on the British

authorities to arrest Lim and other leftists in Singapore for their opposition to Malaysia. On Feb 2, 1961 the police, under

Operation Cold Store, detained over 100 people, including Lim.

In another essay British historian Dr T.N. Harper discloses that these arrests were initially opposed by top officials in the

British Commission in Singapore during meetings of the tripartite Internal Security Council with representatives from the

governments of Singapore, Malaya and Britain.

The British Commissioner in Singapore, the Earl of Selkirk, and his deputy, Philip Moore, had argued that such arrests

would not only be undemocratic and unfair, but also failed to take into account that Lim and his party had been engaged in

constitutional struggle.

The Commissioner's arguments for democracy and fair play were quite extraordinary and out of line with London's official

thinking, but were eventually rejected by superior officials in London, especially the British Secretary of State.

The mood at the time of Lim's arrest during Operation Cold Store has been likened to "white terror", vividly described in a

dedicatory poem by Tan Jing Quee, a former trade unionist who is now a lawyer and who himself was later detained on

charges of being involved in communist united front activities:

On the second day of February thunder raged through frightened streets lightning blighted all lamps

In essays by other close friends, especially those by Dr M.K. Rajakumar, A. Samad Ismail, A. Mahadeva, Dr Lim Hock Siew

and Said Zahari, details of Lim's personal health, suffering, character and political past are brought to light, especially his

kind, friendly, charming and charismatic qualities.

To most Singaporeans, their memory of Lim is that of a broken man, a rising star that burnt out. But Tan Jing Quee recalls

that Lim "pulled himself out of the depths of despair. Unknown to many people, he made a remarkable recovery."

One cannot help but be moved by Lim Chin Siong's tragic story in Comet in Our Sky, where he appears as Singapore's

alternative hero to Lee Kuan Yew.

The 10 Tell-Tale Signs of Deception
The Words Reveal

PAUL M. CLIKEMAN, PH.D., CFE

January/February 2012

Suspects and witnesses often reveal more than

they intend through their choices of words. Here are
ways to detect possible deception in written and oral
statements.

The manager of a fast food restaurant calls the

police late at night to report that an armed robber
had entered the restaurant while the manager was
alone in the office finishing some paperwork. The
manager said the gunman had stolen the entire
day's cash receipts a little more than $4,000. The
manager had reported a similar robbery at the
restaurant about six months earlier. No other
witnesses were present at either alleged robbery.
The restaurant owner learns from police investigators that armed robbery is extremely unusual in the
surrounding neighborhood. Also, the owner knows that the manager's wages have been garnished for the
last year for nonpayment of child support. The owner hires you, a CFE, to investigate whether the
manager is filing false police reports to cover his thefts. You begin your investigation by asking the
manager to write a description of the evening's events.

DETECTING ANOMALIES

Linguistic text analysis involves studying the language, grammar and syntax a subject uses to describe
an event to detect any anomalies. Experienced investigators are accustomed to studying interview
subjects' nonverbal behavior, such as eye contact and hand movement. Text analysis, on the other hand,
considers only the subject's verbal behavior. Because text analysis evaluates only the subject's words,
investigators can apply it to written as well as oral statements. In fact, many investigators prefer to
analyze suspects' written statements for signs of deception before conducting face-to-face interviews.

Text analysis is based on research originating in the 1970s. Psychologists and linguists studied the
language and word choices of subjects in controlled experiments and found predictable differences
between truthful and deceptive statements. Susan Adams, an instructor who taught text analysis (which
she called statement analysis) at the FBI Academy for many years, described it as a two-part process
("Statement Analysis: What Do Suspects' Words Really Reveal?" FBI Law Enforcement Journal, October
1996). First, investigators determine what is typical of a truthful statement. Secondly, they look for
deviations from the norm.

The following section describes deviations that suggest a subject may be withholding, altering or
fabricating information.
TEN SIGNS OF DECEPTION

1. Lack of self-reference
Truthful people make frequent use of the pronoun "I" to describe their actions: "I arrived home at 6:30.
The phone was ringing as I unlocked the front door, so I walked straight to the kitchen to answer it. I
talked to my mother for 10 minutes before noticing that my TV and computer were missing from the living
room." This brief statement contains the pronoun "I" four times in three sentences.

Deceptive people often use language that minimizes references to themselves. One way to reduce self-
references is to describe events in the passive voice.

"The safe was left unlocked" rather than "I left the safe unlocked."
"The shipment was authorized" rather than "I authorized the shipment."

Another way to reduce self-references is to substitute the pronoun "you" for "I."

Question: "Can you tell me about reconciling the bank statement?"

Answer: "You know, you try to identify all the outstanding checks and deposits in transit, but sometimes
when you're really busy you just post the differences to the suspense account."

In oral statements and informal written statements, deceptive witnesses sometimes simply omit self-
referencing pronouns. Consider this statement by a husband who claims his wife was killed accidently: "I
picked up the gun to clean it. Moved it to the left hand to get the cleaning rod. Something bumped the
trigger. The gun went off, hitting my wife." The husband acknowledges in the first sentence that he picked
up the gun. But the second sentence is grammatically incomplete; "I" has been omitted from the
beginning of the sentence. In the third sentence, "something" rather than "I" bumped the trigger. The
statement also contains few personal possessive pronouns. The witness refers to "the" gun and "the" left
hand where we might expect "my" to be used.

2. Verb tense.
Truthful people usually describe historical events in the past tense. Deceptive people sometimes refer to
past events as if the events were occurring in the present. Describing past events using the present tense
suggests that people are rehearsing the events in their mind. Investigators should pay particular attention
to points in a narrative at which the speaker shifts to inappropriate present tense usage. Consider the
following statement made by an employee claiming that a pouch containing $6,000 in cash was stolen
before she could deposit it at the bank (I have emphasized certain words.):

"After closing the store, I put the cash pouch in my car and drove to the Olympia Bank building on Elm
Street. It was raining hard so I had to drive slowly. I entered the parking lot and drove around back to the
night depository slot. When I stopped the car and rolled down my window, a guy jumps out of the bushes
and yells at me. I can see he has a gun. He grabs the cash pouch and runs away. The last I saw him he
was headed south on Elm Street. After he was gone, I called the police on my cell phone and reported
the theft."

The first three sentences describe the employee's drive to the bank in the past tense. But the next three
sentences describe the alleged theft in the present tense. An alert investigator might suspect that the
employee stole the day's cash receipts, then drove to the bank and called the police from the bank
parking lot to report a phony theft. (See another example in "Antics with Semantics" at bottom.)

3. Answering questions with questions

Even liars prefer not to lie. Outright lies carry the risk of detection. Before answering a question with a lie,
a deceptive person will usually try to avoid answering the question at all. One common method of dodging
questions is to respond with a question of one's own. Investigators should be alert to responses such as:

"Why would I steal from my own brother?"

"Do I seem like the kind of person who would do something like that?"
"Don't you think somebody would have to be pretty stupid to remove cash from their own register
drawer?"

4. Equivocation
The subject avoids an interviewer's questions by filling his or her statements with expressions of
uncertainty, weak modifiers and vague expressions. Investigators should watch for words such as: think,
guess, sort of, maybe, might, perhaps, approximately, about, could. Vague statements and expressions
of uncertainty allow a deceptive person leeway to modify his or her assertions at a later date without
directly contradicting the original statement.

Noncommittal verbs are: think, believe, guess, suppose, figure, assume. Equivocating adjectives and
adverbs are: sort of, almost, mainly, perhaps, maybe, about. Vague qualifiers are: you might say, more or
less.

5. Oaths
Although deceptive subjects attempt to give interviewers as little useful information as possible, they try
very hard to convince interviewers that what they say is true. Deceptive subjects often use mild oaths to
try to make their statements sound more convincing. Deceptive people are more likely than truthful
people to sprinkle their statements with expressions such as: "I swear," "on my honor," "as God is my
witness," "cross my heart." Truthful witnesses are more confident that the facts will prove the veracity of
their statements and feel less need to back their statements with oaths.

6. Euphemisms
Many languages offer alternative terms for almost any action or situation. Statements made by guilty
parties often include mild or vague words rather than their harsher, more explicit synonyms. Euphemisms
portray the subject's behavior in a more favorable light and minimize any harm the subject's actions might
have caused. Investigators should look for euphemistic terms such as: "missing" instead of "stolen,"
"borrowed" instead of "took," "bumped" instead of "hit," and "warned" instead of "threatened."

7. Alluding to actions
People sometimes allude to actions without saying they actually performed them. Consider the following
statement from an employee who was questioned about the loss of some valuable data: "I try to back up
my computer and put away my papers every night before going home. Last Tuesday, I decided to copy
my files onto the network drive and started putting my papers in my desk drawer. I also needed to lock
the customer list in the office safe." Did the employee back up her computer? Did she copy her files onto
the network drive? Did she put her papers in the desk drawer? Did she lock the customer list in the office
safe? The employee alluded to all these actions without saying definitively that she completed any of
them. An attentive investigator should not assume that subjects perform every action they allude to.

8. Lack of Detail
Truthful statements usually contain specific details, some of which may not even be relevant to the
question asked. This happens because truthful subjects are retrieving events from long-term memory,
and our memories store dozens of facts about each experience the new shoes we were wearing, the
song that was playing in the background, the woman at the next table who reminded us of our third-grade
teacher, the conversation that was interrupted when the fire alarm rang. At least some of these details will
show up in a truthful subject's statement.

Those who fabricate a story, however, tend to keep their statements simple and brief. Few liars have
sufficient imagination to make up detailed descriptions of fictitious events. Plus, a deceptive person wants
to minimize the risk that an investigator will discover evidence contradicting any aspect of his or her
statement; the fewer facts that might be proved false, the better. Wendell Rudacille, the author of
"Identifying Lies in Disguise" (Kendall/Hunt, 1994), refers to seemingly inconsequential details as
"tangential verbal data" and considers their presence to be prime indicators that subjects are telling the
truth.

9. Narrative balance
A narrative consists of three parts: prologue, critical event and aftermath. The prologue contains
background information and describes events that took place before the critical event. The critical event is
the most important occurrence in the narrative. The aftermath describes what happened after the critical
event. In a complete and truthful narrative, the balance will be approximately 20 percent to 25 percent
prologue, 40 percent to 60 percent critical event and 25 percent to 35 percent aftermath. If one part of the
narrative is significantly shorter than expected, important information may have been omitted. If one part
of the narrative is significantly longer than expected, it may be padded with false information. The
following statement, filed with an insurance claim, is suspiciously out of balance:

"I was driving east on Elm Street at about 4:00 on Tuesday. I was on my way home from the A&P
supermarket. The traffic light at the intersection of Elm and Patterson was red, so I came to a complete
stop. After the light turned green, I moved slowly into the intersection. All of a sudden, a car ran into me.
The other driver didn't stop, so I drove home and called my insurance agent."

The subject's statement contains four sentences of prologue, only one sentence describing the critical
event, and only one sentence of aftermath. The prologue contains a credible amount of detail: the day
and time of the accident, the driver's destination, and the location of the accident. But the description of
the critical event (i.e., the alleged accident) is suspiciously brief. The claimant did not describe the other
vehicle, which direction it came from, how fast it was going, whether the driver braked to try to avoid the
accident or how the two vehicles made contact.

The aftermath is also shorter than one would expect from a complete and truthful account of a two-car
accident. The claimant does not say which direction the other vehicle went after leaving the scene of the
accident. He does not mention getting out of his vehicle to inspect the damage nor does he say whether
he spoke to any people in the area who may have witnessed the accident. A claims adjuster receiving
such a statement would be wise to investigate whether the policyholder concocted a phony hit-and-run
story to collect for damages caused by the driver's negligence.

10. Mean Length of Utterance

The average number of words per sentence is called the "mean length of utterance" (MLU). The MLU
equals the total number of words in a statement divided by the number of sentences:

Total number of words / Total number of sentences = MLU

Most people tend to speak in sentences of between 10 and 15 words (ACFE Self-Study CPE Course,
"Analyzing Written Statements for Deception and Fraud," 2009). When people feel anxious about an
issue, they tend to speak in sentences that are either significantly longer or significantly shorter than the
norm. Investigators should pay particular attention to sentences whose length differs significantly from the
subject's MLU.
THE WORDS REVEAL

Complete and accurate descriptions of actual events are usually stated in the past tense and tend to have
a predictable balance of prologue, critical event and aftermath. Truthful statements generally contain
numerous self-referencing pronouns and include at least a few seemingly inconsequential details. Truthful
statements rarely contain oaths, equivocation or euphemisms. Investigators should apply extra scrutiny to
written or oral statements that deviate from these norms. Suspects and witnesses often reveal more than
they intend through their choices of words.

Paul M. Clikeman, Ph.D., CFE, is an associate professor in the Robins School of Business at the
University of Richmond.

Sidebar:

Antics with Semantics

It may happen that you inherit a case that someone else opened. Besides financial documents, all you
have are the written statements from witnesses and suspects. Can you tell enough from words alone to
detect evasion, lack of cooperation and the intent to deceive? Yes, you can.

Semantics is a discipline concerned with the meaning of words and the ways that words combine to form
meanings in sentences. The noun "rock," for example, can indicate a stone or a type of music. As a verb,
"to rock" indicates the action of causing something to rock (rock the cradle) or to rock oneself in a chair
(rocking on the front porch) or a form of party-time behavior ("we were rocking last night").

Anytime you interpret someone's words during a conversation, or as part of your professional duties
you are practicing semantics. Here is one example of semantic analysis:

Use of Present Tense when Describing a Past Occurrence

Sometimes deceptive individuals display a reluctance to refer to past events as past, particularly if the
past event is the subject of investigation. They refer to past events as if they were occurring in the
present. You should pay particular attention to those points in the narrative at which the speaker shifts to
this inappropriate present tense usage, as in the following example.

How many times in this written statement does this person switch to the present tense? What seems
significant about the points at which the switch occurs?

"On December 15, 2009, in the late afternoon hours, Don L. Harrington, wife Wanda, and friends Amy
Barr, Judy Partin and Myself, Bob Boone, went to Taylor's to pick up some layaway items. We used two
cars because there was some bulky merchandise such as bicycles and a battery-operated car. Don had
just gotten his paycheck so instead of making a trip to the bank he would pay the balance of the layaway
with his check. Wanda usually handles the finances, so she had Don's check in her purse. So Wanda
hands Don his check, which in turn he gives it to the layaway clerk. The clerk look at the check and said
that she couldn't accept it but it was obvious that clerk was inexperienced, because in fact it was the other
clerk working in layaway that told the clerk that she would have to check with the manager first. So the
clerk takes the check over to the manager, and we all see the manager shake her head no.' By this time
Don sees that he can't use his check, which was a surprise to us because it was a payroll check instead
of a personal check. But instead of causing chaos, Don decided to pay for it in cash, which Wanda had in
her purse. So Don asked her for the money, gave it to the clerk, the clerk gave him the receipt, and we
went to the back to pick up the merchandise. In all the confusion, Don thought that Wanda had the check,
and Wanda thought that Don had it, and by this time we had gotten to Don's house. So Don called ABC
Company and told the payroll dept. that his check was lost."

Bob Boone uses the present tense in three sentences:

"So Wanda hands Don his check which in turn he gives it to the layaway clerk."

"So the clerk takes the check over to the manager, and we all see the manager shake her head no.' "

"By this time Don sees that he can't use his check, which was a surprise to us because it was a payroll
check instead of a personal check."

It is remarkable that the switch to the present tense occurs at key moments in the exchange: as the check
is handed over, as the manager refuses to accept the check and as Don becomes aware he will not be
able to use the payroll check. This indicates the person is sensitive about those moments.

Often, people use the present tense for past events when they are rehearsing the events in their mind. It
is a device for keeping things straight. Maybe the person is just being careful, or maybe he is being
deceptive.

As an investigator, you should note the switches to the present tense, and the point of the narrative at
which these occur. From there, you will decide how to explore the issues further.

Excerpted and adapted from the ACFE Self-Study CPE Course, "Analyzing Written Statements for
Deception and Fraud," 2009. This excerpt is by Don Rabon, CFE.

Further Reading

"Analyzing Written Statements for Deception and Fraud," ACFE Self-Study CPE Course, 2009.
"Investigating Discourse Analysis," by Don Rabon, CFE (Carolina Academic Press, 2003).
"Identifying Lies in Disguise," by Wendell Rudacille (Kendall/Hunt, 1994).
"I Know You Are Lying," by Mark McClish (The Marpa Group, 2001).
"Statement Analysis: What Do Suspects' Words Really Reveal?" by Susan H. Adams, FBI Law
Enforcement Journal (October 1996).

Read more insight and discuss this article in the ACFEs LinkedIn group.

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners assumes sole copyright of any article published
on www.fraud-magazine.com or www.ACFE.com. ACFE follows a policy of exclusive publication.
Permission of the publisher is required before an article can be copied or reproduced. Requests for
reprinting an article in any form must be emailed to FraudMagazine@ACFE.com.