Cold Blooded Murders (22 page)

He continued to be confident after sentence,
while in prison. He read books in German, French, Chinese and English. He
continued to give advice to his brothers in Singapore and in England, on how to
improve their studies. The only time he was known to have shown emotion was
when his father went to the prison in November 1966 (for the first time since
Ang’s arrest in December, 1964) to tell him that the Privy Council had rejected
his appeal. Ang burst into tears. But he soon recovered and quickly regained
his confidence that, somehow, his concept of justice would eventually emerge
triumphant: after all ‘they’ had not found out how exactly he had caused
Jenny’s death, so ‘they’ were not entitled to claim the supreme forfeit.

***

In his last speech from the Singapore Bench
in 1968, Justice Buttrose stressed the importance of maintaining and
administering justice. He was mindful that ‘justice, like lightning, should
ever appear to few men’s ruin but all men’s fear’.

He considered himself privileged to have
offered the greater part of his working life, some 23 years, to the cause of
justice according to law, the rule of law, the cornerstone of human rights and
human freedom.

Justice Buttrose said, “It is more than ever
essential in this present day and age that the rule of law should be preserved
inviolate: that those who respect and obey it shall live in freedom and
security under it; that those who flout it and seek to set it at nought shall
be brought to book and punished.”

He said that the interpretation of the law
was a different matter and each court also had a different atmosphere—with each
judge bringing to his court the aura of his own personality.

“I must admit I have in my time been the
author and at times the beleaguered recipient of some animated controversial opinions
regarding the interpretation of laws.” Justice Buttrose added, “It is perhaps
inevitable that our human nature gives birth on such occasions to passing
feelings of disagreement and criticism, or irritability and impatience.

This is a true story,
although parts may read
like fictional horror.

It happened in the 1960s in the
newly self-governing state of Singapore, a small tropical island of some two
million people. Having thrown off the shackles of British colonialism, the
democratic nationalists confronted the communists and narrowly defeated them in
a bloodless battle. Almost at once, the new government had to face a serious
secret society menace. Hundreds of gangsters were arrested and thrown into jail
without trial. Hopefully believing that most men could change their way of life
if given a chance, the Government bravely experimented with a scheme to
rehabilitate these gangsters, all of whom had sworn oaths of loyalty to their
secret societies. The idea was to make an islet off the main island a prison
without bars, to be supervised by Daniel Dutton, a God-fearing, fist-swinging,
wild Irishman devoutly dedicated to the belief that man’s inherent evil could
be exorcised by hard work. Under his active direction, the gangsters created an
island paradise. But they soon turned on Dutton and murdered him and his
assistants, and in less than an hour, savagely destroyed all they had sweated
so long to build. Why? The question has never been satisfactorily answered.

In a massive trial before an Australian-born
judge and a seven-men jury, more than 60 gangsters were charged with rioting
and murder. Never before in Asia, or since, has there been such a trial.
Eighteen criminals, most of them in their 20s, were found guilty and hanged.

Many decades later, remnants of secret
societies still exist, but Singapore by now has become a state where law and
order is firmly established. The government practises its own form of socialism
which works well. Free enterprise is encouraged. The State subsidises
health-care, education and housing. Drug addicts are patiently helped, so are
selected secret society gangsters. But the bold experiment that failed was
never repeated. Once was enough.

—May 1980

This is the true story of an
idealistic belief, translated into actuality for a short while in the early
1960s, that violent, lawless men could find their own way back to decent
society were they given a proper chance to work and create. The argument was that
these men had drifted into crime because they’d never had an opportunity to
know disciplined creative work.

Hundreds of them in Singapore were given
this chance in 1960. Inside a few months, hitherto work-shy gangsters (hardened
criminals most of them, unproven murderers, extortioners, callous robbers,
psychopaths, rapists), transformed a deserted tropical island into an
attractive, busy settlement with roads and water supply, huts, workshops,
canteen, dormitories, laundry, community hall. Practically all the criminals
were members of secret societies. Having built a comfortable settlement with
their own hands, within forty minutes one sunny afternoon, they deliberately
destroyed it and murdered the man largely responsible for making the scheme
possible. With him died three of his assistants.

The island was called Pulau Senang. In the
Malay language this means ‘the island of ease’. As a rehabilitation settlement,
it was a noble experiment that failed. Why? Why did the gangsters destroy it,
having toiled and sweated in the tropical sun to build it? No
completely satisfactory explanation has been
forthcoming. One belief is that the leading secret society chief on the island
ordered the destruction of the settlement to prove that he was more powerful
than the government. During the trial of this man, Tan Kheng Ann, alias Robert,
alias Robert Black alias Ang Chuar (and 58 others), witnesses said that the
decision to kill the man in charge, 39-year-old Prison Officer Daniel Stanley
Dutton, was because Dutton had tormented them beyond endurance. Breaking point
had been reached when he ordered 13 carpenters to work overtime to complete the
construction of a pier which could be worked on only during certain tides. When
the carpenters refused, Dutton ordered them back to Changi jail, thus blighting
their hopes for rehabilitation. Witnesses said this decision inflamed the rest
of the men and triggered off the revolt. Another belief is that the secret
society chief had tormented the opposition to Dutton and had been waiting for
just such an opportunity before giving the order to attack and burn the
settlement to the ground.

Pulau Senang Rehabilitation Settlement
originated in the mind of a political prisoner of the British. Though he
admitted that he was well-treated himself in detention as a pro-communist
subscribing to the violent overthrow of colonialism, Devan Nair was horrified
at the conditions in the prisons for convicted criminals, and for criminal
suspects detained indefinitely without trial. He was determined one day to do
something about this.

In
Singapore at the time was Prison Officer
Dutton, a
strong man who believed that work was the salvation of all. Dutton’s stubborn
faith was that even hardened criminals, secret-society gangsters, could be
saved, brought back into the community again to become useful citizens. His
almost fanatical belief was that men usually went astray through idleness. They
needed a chance to work, to create. Given this opportunity, with persuasion,
guidance, supervision, and helpful discipline, they could find their own way
back to decency. Dutton believed this: few men were naturally evil: they wanted
a chance to create. Dutton died a terrible death trying to prove he was right.
“All our evils can be conquered by hard work: we can sweat the evil out of us,”
he told me. I knew him well. He was an Irishman born in Walthamstow, London. On
Pulau Senang they called him the ‘Laughing Tiger’. In the East, everyone,
including gangsters, respects a tiger. Dutton refused to arm any of his staff.
He was a powerful man and ruled with his fist. If a prisoner was insolent, he
would knock him down with a blow. “If I report him for insubordination, he
knows he will have to go back to Changi and that will be the end of him. He’ll
rot there. So he takes my punishment and behaves himself.”

Dutton showed me round the island a few
weeks before he was murdered. He reckoned that 63 of the 440 men then on the
island were murderers, though none of them was convicted in court because witnesses
were too frightened to come forward. Secret society men were feared. Dutton
knew that if these men—Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians—decided to attack
him and his staff (never more than 20 strong), they could organise a
mass-escape.

“They don’t want to escape,” Dutton told me
with confidence. “They volunteered to come here, to get away from prison
routine. For the first time in their lives they’ve got a steady job. There are
no cells here. Everybody does a full eight hours’ work, gets twice as much grub
as they would in jail, and goes to bed healthily tired. They are too busy to
scheme. We keep them too occupied in interesting work, and in leisure, for them
to have either the time or inclination to plot revolt. They wouldn’t get very
far anyhow. This island is 15 miles off Singapore, remember?”

Dutton’s fatal blunder was in overlooking
the possibility that the 400 men on Pulau Senang, or at least a militant group
of them, did not follow the usual pattern of logic either in thinking, or in
response to their own actions. They plotted to destroy Dutton and the
settlement, but few of them made any attempt to flee the island. Instead, they
stayed to celebrate, sang songs and awaited their inevitable fate.

Dutton landed on the island (227 acres) in
June 1960, with 50 prisoners. Each man had food rations and two blankets. They
brought a few tools. Pulau Senang then was no more than a
tree-and-scrub-covered rock in the China Sea which had a reasonable layer of
fertile soil and two or three fresh-water wells. “Let’s see you sweat your way
to respectability,” demanded Daniel Dutton. He worked with them as they hacked
their way through the undergrowth. Within a short while, Pulau Senang was a
busy, orderly island with hard-surfaced roads carrying jeeps and small trucks,
drainage, workshops, reservoirs, farms, pig-sties, sports ground, a tiny radio
programme. There were showers, a steam laundry, ample electricity and piped
water, fresh vegetables and fruits.

To his fellow prison officials, Dutton was
recognised as an amazing Robinson Crusoe. Gifted with an ability to make
practically anything with his hands, Dutton set out to prove in practical
manner, his contention that creative work can be more interesting and
satisfying than crime. Give Dutton a few wheels, some scrap metal and a piece
of wire and he could make a dynamo, a motorcar, a circular saw, a lathe, or a
steam laundry. A born leader (he was commissioned in Greece when he was 18, and
dropped into occupied Yugoslavia), Dutton had the knack of inspiring enthusiasm.

Showing me round the island, Dutton was
shyly approached by one of the prisoners. The man wore nothing but shorts and
sandals. There were secret society tattoo marks on his body. He wanted Dutton
to inspect a small engine he had built.

“Are you sure it will work?” demanded Dutton
in Chinese. “If not, don’t waste my time.” The prisoner started it up, then
anxiously looked into Dutton’s face, waiting for the Laughing Tiger’s gruff
word of praise. Approval given, he went off happily to connect the engine with
an expansion project. Work on the island had a practical purpose, a meaning.
“He’s one of our best workmen,” remarked Dutton. “He never did a day’s work in
his life before he came here, except beat up old women. He never realised what
he was capable of doing.”