Lee Kuan Yew visits Suharto in Jakarta

Like history revisited, a couple of old buddies got to rub up against each other yesterday. Lee Kuan Yew, who led Singapore to become the most successful economy in SE Asia, met up with his old playmate Suharto, who is still alive and kicking in Jakarta.

Lee Kuan Yew was a Communist who led Singapore to independence. He famously said that after doing so, he took a long hard long at the task in front of him and realized only capitalism was going to work. Acting as Singapore’s Prime Minister for 31 years (1959-1990), he ruled with a iron hand and turned a small island with no natural resources into a manufacturing and business center.

Singapore is 75% Chinese and Lee Kuan Yew realized there was a short term threat from Malaysia and a longer term threat from Indonesia, that Singapore might be taken over (Indonesia having a habit of grabbing land – E.Timor, Papua).

Suharto also ruled with an iron fist until 1998, after a 30 year run as Pres. Lee Kuan Yew also met with SBY on Tuesday. Critics have said that SBY is too close to the Suharto clan and that Suharto will never be prosecuted for his dealings. My attitude is who cares. Suharto’s days are over, he made an enormous amount of money, killed a lot of people, but the future is the things that SBY is working on.

Love him of hate him, Lee Kuan Yew hacked out a stake for Singapore which will last for a long time.