Lee Wei Ling's post on Janadas Devan's email on Oxley home draws scathing response
[UPDATED 1:11pm 30 June 2017 to provide more context to the Facebook posts.]
Lee Wei Ling on Friday posted on Facebook an email showing that then Straits Times associate editor Janadas Devan said it was “obvious” from his meeting with Lee Kuan Yew in 2011 that the late former Singapore Prime Minister wanted his home demolished.
In her Facebook post, Lee Wei Ling said that while her brother, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, claimed that their father Lee Kuan Yew “came to accept” the house should be preserved after July 2011, “We thought Singaporeans should hear directly from Janadas Devan, Chief of Government Communications at the Ministry of Communication and Information.”
In an email to Lee Wei Ling dated 28 July 2011, Janadas, who became Chief of Government Communications in July the following year, told her that he saw Lee Kuan Yew that day.
“Saw MM today. First meeting on Oxley book, together with team. He was in good form. He said house will be torn down. It is obvious that is what he wants,” Janadas said.
“It will be a small minded people that denies him this personal wish. I think he is wrong wishing it, but I’d feel awful denying him what he obviously wants,” he added.
Aside from the screenshot of Janadas’ email, Lee Wei Ling also posted a screenshot of an excerpt from her brother’s statutory declaration.
Based on the screenshot, Lee Hsien Loong wrote, “Given the strong views expressed by the Ministers during the Cabinet meeting of 21 July 2011, which also tied in with my own assessment of the public sentiment, I told Mr Lee that I felt that the Cabinet was unlikely to agree to demolish the House after he died.”
“Mr Lee then took a number of steps which put beyond any doubt that he came to accept Cabinet’s position,” he said.
In April last year, Wei Ling said she would no longer contribute columns to the Straits Times due to what she claimed were editorial curbs, after she spoke out last week against the “hero worship” of her late father and Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew on his death anniversary.
‘Tabloid-style, misleading information’
Janadas responded to Wei Ling’s post in a comment on Lee Hsien Yang’s Facebook page on the same day. Describing Wei Ling’s post as “tabloid-style, misleading information”, he elaborated on the timeline of events Wei Ling referred to.
He wrote, “When he (Lee Kuan Yew) met us in July 2011, he made plain that he wanted the house to be demolished. But as the months and years passed, the nature of the project changed as it became less definitive whether the house would be demolished – and if so, when.
“For example, we were told that you will be staying in the house for as long as you live. Then I learnt plans to build a model of the interior of 38 Oxley Rd was dropped – because, I gathered, Mr Lee was considering plans to gut the interior of the house altogether to remove traces of the private space.
“There was no doubt then or now that Mr Lee’s preference was to demolish the house. But as the shifting instructions we heard from the family in 2011-12 – including from you – indicated, the fate of the house had by no means been decided at that point.”
He said that he stopped being involved in the Oxley Rd book project in July 2012 after he left the publication. He added, “My personal view remains that Mr Lee’s wish to demolish 38 Oxley Rd should be granted the moment you are no longer living in it, which may be 20, 30 or more years in the future.”
This is the latest development in the Lee family feud that has gripped Singapore since 14 June, when Hsien Yang and his sister Wei Ling issued a statement denouncing their older brother and accusing him of pursuing a personal agenda with regard to their former family home at 38 Oxley Road.
PM Lee has denied their “baseless allegations” and pledged to make a Ministerial Statement to refute their charges at the next sitting of Parliament on 3 July. He has instructed that the party whip be lifted for the session.
In reference to the public spat, Janadas said, “In the meantime, I am as baffled as most Singaporeans why Hsien Yang and you wish to consume all of us in your personal family matters.
“Please: Think of Singapore, and forget the rest.”
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