PETALING JAYA: Singapore has agreed to declassify and release documents containing top-level discussions among its leaders and those from Malaysia before its decision to secede from the federation.
Singapore’s minister of communication and information, Dr Janil Puthucheary, said the documents kept in the “Albatross file” will be released in a book on the Separation Agreement, Today Online reported.
The file belonged to Dr Goh Keng Swee, who is considered one of Singapore’s founding fathers.
Puthucheary said a subset of the material was part of a public exhibition.
“A larger set of declassified documents will be released in a book to be published later this year,” he was quoted as saying.
The documents will include cabinet papers and notes on conversations that Goh, who was Singapore’s deputy prime minister from 1973 to 1984, had with Malaysian political leaders.
The “Albatross file” offered insights into the negotiations, some of which involved Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and his Malaysian counterpart, Tunku Abdul Rahman, which culminated in the decision for Singapore to leave the federation on Aug 9,1965.
In 1980, Goh revealed that the albatross – a chiefly white oceanic bird – referred to Malaysia.
He reportedly said there was great expectation that Malaysia would bring prosperity, a common market, peace and harmony before disillusion set in.
“And it became an albatross round our necks,” he was quoted as saying.
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