From ‘Latest leaked cables about Myanmar leaders’, 16 Dec 2010, article in Today online
Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew called Myanmar’s junta leaders “stupid” and “dense” in conversations with United States diplomats, according to classified documents released this week by WikiLeaks.
Mr Lee said dealing with Myanmar’s military regime was like “talking to dead people”, according to a confidential US briefing on a 2007 conversation with US Ambassador Patricia Herbold and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Christensen.
…In the latest leaked cable, “Lee expressed his scorn for the regime’s leadership”, adding that they had “mismanaged the country’s great natural resources”.
MM Lee said China had the most influence over Myanmar’s leadership of any foreign country and that Beijing was worried the country would “blow up” and thus threaten Chinese investments there, according to the leaked cable.
I already foresee a treasure trove of MM nuggets ready to be Wikileaked onto our hapless neighbours and more protest notes coming our way, despite the government refusing to acknowledge or comment on these reports. Leads one to wonder how many of our less fortunate neighbours have our politicians NOT taken casual potshots at all these years? Makes for juicy tabloid reading and bestseller material, though the use of rather blunt and inarticulate adjectives like ‘stupid’ does not speak well of our MM’s renown oratory skills. Sooner or later someone will have to admit or deny the allegations, for our ‘stupid’ neighbours will simply take Wikileaks at face value and retaliate at the earliest opportunity. MM Lee also had dubious things to say about countries without any sort of military regime at all, case in point Costa Rica, though here one is justified in casting some doubt on his competency in gaugeing how much natural resources any country has.
Filed under: 2010, Politicians Tagged: | MM Lee, Politicians, Wikileaks
