AMID mounting calls for the Lee siblings to take their quarrel with their elder brother, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to the proper forum, such as Parliament, Lee Hsien Yang has released another multi-page statement on Facebook to “introduce” himself so that Singaporeans know where he is “coming from”.

He said he and his sister, Dr Lee Wei Ling had taken to social media to reach the people of Singapore because “We have no other access”.

“I am a private individual who has always avoided public attention. 

“Indeed, until this episode occurred, I had never posted on Facebook. As such, I ask for your patience – I am only a man working to honour his father’s wishes,” he wrote.

He said he and his sister were “pushed by Hsien Loong’s secret cabinet committee” to make the Lee family affairs public, so much so that it has become a “huge national controversy”.

“When my father died, the issue of carrying out both my parents’ wishes for their house came up. Our father firmly believed that demolition of his house was the right thing for Singapore. He believed Singapore needed to focus on her future and not on monuments. My father named my sister and I his executors, and with it came his expectation and trust that we ensure his wishes are honoured. 

“Unfortunately, our brother, Hsien Loong, and his wife Ho Ching, have in private vehemently opposed demolition. As we sought to remind the people of Singapore of our father’s last wish, we encountered opposition every step of the way. It became clear that we faced a vast and coordinated effort by Hsien Loong against us. 

“He did not want our father’s wishes remembered or carried out; he wished to rewrite history to claim that Lee Kuan Yew ‘accepted’ the preservation of his house. 

“Hsien Loong was ready to use his power and influence to thwart our father’s wishes, to meet Hsien Loong’s and Ho Ching’s personal political agenda.”

Hsien Yang said since the events become public, he had been both scolded for disrupting the status quo and given words of encouragement and support, but whether they thought him to be right or wrong, all have wondered what he hoped to achieve through all this.

“It has been insinuated that I seek to redevelop the Oxley road house into a condominium for financial profit after buying it at 150% market price.

“Beyond zero certainty on timing and the ability to demolish, this requires both rezoning by the URA and cooperation with the neighbours. 

“I have no inclination to seek either of these. Preservation of the house would be trampling on Lee Kuan Yew’s values

“The price I paid for the house was simply a price I paid to help ensure my father’s wishes are honoured,” Hsien Loong wrote.

His sister, Wei Ling, meanwhile, also took to Facebook today, to explain why she felt the need to expose the prime minister and his wife, Ho Ching. 

“It is not just that he is not a filial son, his behaviour as PM is not ok,” she wrote. 

‘He is a dishonourable son’

“Hsien Loong threatened angrily to gazette 38, Oxley Road after the lawyer’s read the will to us. This greatly disturbed me. He was willing to go against Papa’s wishes as soon as Papa was gone. 

“He is a dishonourable son.”

Wei Ling said she resented the couple’s  attempt to build a “Lee family cult”.

“Ho Ching took ‘sabbatical’ to ‘help sort out Lee family affairs’. This consisted of her spending her days at Oxley Road, getting the photographer from ministry of Communication and information to photograph & catalog items which she would pack into plastic boxes to send to storage.

“She had no business doing this at all.

“NHB accepted without protest many things Ho Ching wrongfully took and handed over, so many that they had enough to create a ‘Lee Kuan Yew Museum’. 

“Yet later when NHB selected and took furniture and items which were significant from Oxley for display in the museum, they were subsequently told by the PMO to refuse the exhibition simply because we had required that the last paragraph in Papa’s be simultaneously displayed to remind the public of his desire for 38, Oxley Road to be demolished. 

“Hsien Loong and Ho Ching angered me very early on. Both were not straight and were taking advantage of the fact that no one would dare criticise them for acting improperly. 

“I want Singaporeans to see the true face and motives of Lee Hsien Loong and Ho Ching,” she wrote. 

The row between the prime minister and his two siblings is centred around the 38, Oxley Road residence of their father, the late Lee Kuan Yew.

Kuan Yew is reported to have indicated in his last will that he wished the house demolished upon his death. 

The two younger siblings claim the prime minister is blocking the execution of their father’s final wish, while the elder Lee has raised “grave concerns” over the will and the manner in which it was drawn up. 

The prime minister has said he would refute his siblings’ accusations in Parliament on Monday, after which the MPs may “raise questions for themselves and their constituents”. – July 1, 2017.