A case of blackmail?

By Chua Lee Hoong

IT IS not, of course, but it could almost be -- that is, an anniversary celebration by Johor Customs officials. Eight years ago, on exactly the same day -- Oct 3 -- Johor Customs officials started a campaign of meticulous checks on lorries, ostensibly to prove they were doing their jobs.

The result? Queues stretching back several kilometres from the Causeway. Some lorries even stopped sending goods to Singapore.

But there is one marked difference between 1989 and now. Then, the initiative was purely private. Customs officers decided on the go-slow themselves, in retaliation against some lorry drivers who had complained to the authorities about their more avaricious ways.

Just a few days before, acting on tip-offs, the Anti-Corruption Agency had hauled up six of their colleagues after finding some $300 in small denominations at their counters. They were not supposed to have more than a few dollars there.

Now, the initiative is from the federal authorities in Kuala Lumpur. Even the Johor Customs chief, Mr Lasa Mohamad Desa, does not know when he can call off the checks. He has to wait for instructions from Kuala Lumpur.

The motivation this time is less apparent. The ostensible reason, to weed out smugglers and tax evaders, does not stand up to scrutiny.

If indeed there are smugglers and tax evaders, the proper thing to do is to get more informed intelligence and then mount a more focused operation.

The theory that the jams are a form of "arm-twisting", to get lorries to use Port Klang instead, is more plausible.

The Malaysian government has made no secret of its intention to get companies in Malaysia to import and export through domestic ports, instead of using Singapore's. Their belief: they are only taking back what is theirs.

Similar jams have occurred before. Sometimes the modus operandi vary, but the objectives can be depressingly familiar.

In 1977 -- the year the Pasir Gudang port near Desaru opened -- the Johor Customs department shortened its opening hours to such an extent that lorry operators complained of losses of as much as M$1,000 a day, in 1977 dollars.

But instead of moving operations to Pasir Gudang, these canny operators upped their rates by as much as 60 per cent, and passed costs on to the companies hiring their services.

Innocent jams

NOT all Causeway jams have had such devious roots, of course. Some have been innocuous, such as one in 1977 when the Johor Customs moved its premises.

Others occurred for reasons that had nothing to do with Singapore.

In October 1981, again following a bribery crackdown, Customs officers embarked on an elaborate examination of items Malaysians brought back after shopping in Singapore.

They even acquired a weighing machine to weigh the fruits they brought back. Declaration forms were subject to excruciatingly careful scrutiny.

An exasperated editorial in the New Straits Times said: "It's all according to the book, we are told. But mile-long jams at the checkpoints? Can't the Customs officers at least speed-read?"

In January 1982, an even bigger jam occurred, but for a different reason.

More than 1,000 lorries queued for hours, some overnight, to get back to Malaysia. Part of the reason was the usual pre-Chinese New Year rush, but the larger reason was a recent relaxation of duty-free laws.

The Malaysian government had just exempted from duty consumer goods such as cameras, watches, pens and lighters, and abolished excise duties on household appliances such as cookers, lamps and ovens.

Its intention was to encourage companies to import these items directly from their manufacturing countries. Many Malaysians, however, preferred the short cut -- they trooped to Singapore to buy up these items by the lorry loads.

That incident ended positively, with Johor Customs extending its daily operating hours from 12 to 15, to clear the jams.

This was at the suggestion of Datuk Musa Hitam, then the deputy prime minister, who also suggested more parking for lorries which arrived at the checkpoint after closing time, so that they would not clog up the roads.

Stops and starts

BUT other snarls at the Causeway have been far from amusing.

Some are a mirror of the complex relationship between the countries at its two ends, which, like the traffic, has been a long series of stops and starts.

The first big jam was clearly political. It occurred on April 17, 1966, just as Indonesia -- then Malaysia's arch-enemy, following the 1965 Confrontation -- indicated it was going to recognise Singapore as an independent, sovereign nation.

According to newspaper reports, the Malaysian Home Affairs ministry ordered a check on all vehicles using the Causeway.

None was spared. Even the trains, carrying hundreds of people, were stopped and their passengers checked. Those holding Singapore identity cards were questioned.

Two days later, home affairs minister Tun Ismail bin Abdul Rahman announced that all Singapore identity card holders would have to report to the nearest Johor police station whenever they entered the country.

He told reporters the move was to ensure the internal security of Malaysia. Singapore's then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, he said, had been reported as "welcoming the Jakarta regime's intention to recognise Singapore".

"He has been reported as saying that he likes to be friends of friends, and not an enemy of friends' enemies," he said, adding that he had to take such a statement "seriously".

What Mr Lee had said to reporters while on a trip to Bangkok was: "Our friends may be your friends, but your foes may not necessarily be our foes."

The following year, Singapore and Malaysia introduced formal immigration controls on people crossing the road link.

The Johor Causeway had become, in the words of Mr C. V. Devan Nair, a "Johor Wall", like the Berlin Wall. Sir Winston Churchill, Britain's prime minister during the war years, wrote to the London Times to lament the fact.

Demolish the Causeway

AS IF separate immigration controls were not enough, many Malaysians have over the years demanded that the separation go one step further -- demolish the Causeway.

Like calls to cut off the supply of water to Singapore, these calls erupt whenever northern tempers flare against its southern neighbour.

In 1966, after Indonesia recognised Singapore, the speaker of the Johor legislative assembly, Haji Ali bin Haji RayaSingapore, reflecting a popular sentiment, said the Causeway was "more a hindrance than anything else", and was of no use to Malaysia at all, politically or economically.

If it was demolished, he said, a port could be built around Johor Baru and ships could call there.

His call was echoed by activists in Umno.

In 1986, the visit of Israeli president Chaim Herzog to Singapore resulted in another bout of such demands.

A letter writer to the Malaysian Berita Harian, Mr Awang bin Noh, said it was because of the Causeway that Johor Baru became a "ghost town" while Singapore prospered.

"If we just demolish the Causeway, Johor Baru will thrive as it used to in the past."

He added: "Singapore has an ambition to make Johor like the West Bank in Jordan. We should hold military exercises in Johor Baru and its surrounding areas as a warning to Singapore that any country which dares to cross the Straits of Johor will be severely dealt with."

There was also a demonstration at the Causeway, led by lawyer Abdul Razak Ahmad, deputy president of the People's Socialist Party.

(This is the same Abdul Razak of Tang Liang Hong fame -- the lawyer-friend who highlighted Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's remarks on Johor to the media earlier this year.

(Interestingly, he was also the lawyer acting for a group of residents in Gelang Patah in south-west Johor in 1991, wanting compensation from the Malaysian government for having to move to make way for the building of the second link between Tuas and Gelang Patah.)

So far, calls to demolish the Causeway have never received any official endorsement from Kuala Lumpur, although there can be no doubt they are allowed, and even encouraged, for their value in getting a point across to the southern neighbour, without breaching diplomatic etiquette.

Even as some quarters called for the Causeway to be blown up, the federal government was going ahead with plans to expand it, ahead of its drive to promote Malaysia as a tourist destination.

In August 1988, it revealed a M$300 million blueprint to upgrade the link, including increasing the number of lanes from 14 to 22, and the number of bays from 22 to 55.

It was targeted for completion in 18 months, in time for a "Visit Malaysia" year in 1990.

As a run-up, 1989 was declared "Visit Johor" year.

A "hundred flowers" in Singapore-Johor relations bloomed that year, as the state looked to Singapore actively for investments. Under Mentri Besar Muhyiddin Yasin, Singapore was no longer seen as a threat, but as an opportunity.

More hotels and shopping centres were built to woo Singaporeans. A joint Singapore-Johor economic committee was set up. As the state's economic chief, Datuk Ali Hashim noted, both sides now realised there was much to gain by working together.

Previously, he said, they had feared that development in Singapore would dominate, and Johor would become a "client state".

On the Singapore side, then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew gave an interview to the Nanyang Siang Pau, saying that the Causeway must be a bridge, not a barrier, between the two countries.

The trade and industry ministry gave incentives to companies to relocate to Johor. The Straits Times editorialised: "Where else in the world does a government actually grant tax incentives to companies to invest in a neighbouring country?"

Even when the half-tank rule, which requires Singapore cars to have half a tank of petrol before going to Johor, was introduced, the reaction from Johor politicians was equable.

State tourism chief Jimmy Low assured Johoreans that the rule would not affect their businesses.

But the reaction up in Kuala Lumpur was markedly different. In a classic example of shadow play, unnamed "official sources" were quoted in the New Straits Times in May as saying that Malaysia was "not keen" on building the second link.

The anonymous sources said the decision was not influenced by the half-tank rule, as Malaysia "had always been tolerant of shows of trade protectionism" by its southern neighbour.

Six weeks later, newspaper headlines splashed news of the second link being a firm reality.

Concrete action

IF INDEED it was an act of protectionism, Singapore's half-tank rule counts as very feeble compared to Malaysia's own examples.

There have been periodic calls to cut Singapore out of the entrepot trade. During the Herzog incident, for example, a Johor MP called for imports and exports going through Singapore to be diverted to Malaysian ports.

Malaysia has yet to heed calls to demolish the Causeway, but on the trade front, some calls have been translated into action.

In 1980, under the pretext of a domestic shortage, Malaysia banned the export of building materials -- bricks, granite, clay, glass, sand and cement -- to Singapore. This was despite appeals by the Johor Quarry Association, which noted that some quarries were in danger of closing because of idle capacity.

The ban was eventually lifted two years later, but not before six of the 11 quarry firms in the state closed down and hundreds of workers were laid off.

In January 1984, Malaysia imposed a hefty M$100 levy on all lorries using the Causeway - even empty ones - to deter companies from exporting through Singapore.

Six months later leveis were imposed on all cars. The pretext given for the M$1 toll was to recover the costs of building the Senai highway, but motorists - all of them, regardless of whether they were headed for the highway or a satay meal by the roadside - had to pay it at the checkpoint.

With some 300,000 cars using the Causeway each day, the Johor state goverment decided to ask the federal authorities for a share of the revenue, as, it argued, the Causeway had been a gift to the state from Sultan Ibrahim and the federal government had never had any part in the building of the Causeway.

Hard on the heels of the toll shock came a surprise import tax on cement.

Without warning on July 1, 1984, Singaporean firms selling cement to Malaysia found they had to pay M$80 for each tonne of cement. This worked out to between M$800 and M$1600 per trip.

The move was in response to complaints from Malaysian cement manufacturers who alleged that Singapore was dumping cement in the Peninsula. Singapore cement was selling at a price 30 per cent cheaper.

The Master Builders Association of Malaysia appealed to the federal government , saying it should not encourage the use of local materials "at the expense of efficiency and competitiveness". But even before the dust from the cement war had settled, another war started, this time over mandarin oranges.

A consignment of the fruit, which had come from China was held up by Johor Cutoms for five days in January 1985, apparently over some discrepancy in its declaration form.

The Malaysian trade and industry minister, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, said all the government wanted was to encourage its companies to import directly from China.

There would be no discrimination against those which went through third parties, he said.

But SIngaporeans were unconvinced. One said: "It is precisely this kind of bureaucratic delay that can be used to create non-tarriff barriers."

Blackmail

The current lorry jam at the Cuaseway is certainly another form of non-tarriff barrier.

Eight years ago, Customs officers who took their anger out on lorry drivers following an anti-corruption crackdown were criticised by many as blackmailers.

This time, the Customs officials appear mere pawns in a larger federal game. COuld the federal government be the blackmailers now? They were the ones who issued instructions to the Customs department to check all lorries.

The objective appears to be the age old one of getting companies to ship their goods through malaysian ports. Even though, as one company manger said, the infrastructure is "not good" and the clearing times "much longer".

Will the arm-twisting succeed? Will companies knuckle under the pressure?

Whatever the outcome of the present jam, one thing is certain: the Causeway will continue to be used by KL as an instrument of its policies whenever it suits its purpose.

It has had a long history of doing so.

Singapore has stood up to the challenge in the past and should be able to counter the current move. After all, it does have one, not insignificant, factor in its favour: the Singapore port, which has an even longer history of being one of the most efficient in the world. That should count for quite a bit in this long drawn saga.