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The bombing of MacDonald House by two Indonesian saboteurs might have taken place 48 years
ago, but that event long ago casts a shadow that still falls over today's Singapore. This
explains the intense reaction of Singapore to Indonesia's recent decision to name a navy
ship after the two men executed for the bombing incident. Those old enough remember the shock
of the event when the pair of Indonesian marines bombed the Orchard Road building on March
10, 1965. At 3.07pm, a bomb went off at the 10-storey building. The explosion ripped off
one lift door and shattered windows right up to the ninth floor. The wall separating
the staircase and the adjoining room of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank housed in the building
was completely demolished, exposing a view of the carpark on the other side of Orchard
Road. After the blast, office worker Lim Chin Hin, 45, wiped the blood off his face, picked
up his spectacles which had been knocked off, and groped his way out of the room filled
with twisted steel. Thirty-three people were injured. Three people died. The bodies of
Elizabeth Suzie Choo, 36, private secretary to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank manager,
and Juliet Goh, 23, a clerk in the bank, were found buried in the rubble. The third victim,
Mohammed Yasin Kesit, 45, a driver, slipped into a coma after the blast, and did not come
out of it. Recalling the incident, Barry Desker, dean of the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, said: "At that time, MacDonald House was an iconic building as it was the tallest
in Orchard Road. The other buildings were single- or double-storey buildings and the
land at Ngee Ann city was a burial ground." The choice of MacDonald House for the bombing
was significant as it was about 1.4km from the Istana, the official residence of the
president of Singapore. Lee Khoon Choy, now 90, was even more directly involved. Singapore
had caught and tried the two Indonesian saboteurs, Harun Said, 21, and Osman Mohamed Ali, 23.
They were convicted of *** and hanged in 1968. Tempers in Indonesia were raging after
Singapore turned down appeals for clemency from President Suharto. Lee, who became ambassador
to Indonesia in 1970, used his understanding of Javanese culture to pave the way for smoother
ties. The veteran diplomat persuaded then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to do two things on
an official visit to Indonesia in 1973. One was to wear the Indonesian attire of a batik
shirt, a gesture that surprised his hosts. The other was for PM Lee to scatter flowers
on the graves of the two dead men. The following year, President Suharto visited Singapore,
in a further sign of the strong ties developing between the two countries. What is needed
now, said Lee Khoon Choy, is for today's leaders and diplomats to make a similar gesture to
soothe wounded feelings.