Singapore Turns Out for Lee Kuan Yew’s Funeral

Original article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/singapore-turns-out-for-lee-kuan-yews-funeral-1427609125

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SINGAPORE—Singaporean leaders and dozens of foreign dignitaries gathered Sunday to bid a final farewell to Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s founding prime minister, in a grand funeral ceremony with scale and pageantry unprecedented for this island city-state.

Hundreds of thousands stood for hours in queues stretching several kilometers to pay respects last week to Mr. Lee as his remains lay in state at Singapore’s Parliament. Considered this affluent country’s guiding architect and an elder Asian statesmen, Mr. Lee spent more than five decades in government before his death at 91 on Monday.

Tens of thousands of people—many dressed in somber black and white, totting umbrellas as they braved heavy tropical downpours—lined the streets Sunday along the 15.4 kilometer (9.6 miles) route of Mr. Lee’s cortege bearing his flag-draped casket on a ceremonial gun carriage to a university performance hall for the state funeral.

Many had gathered since dawn, hopeful for a final glimpse of Mr. Lee. Some stood in silence, while others wept.

Four F-16 fighter jets streaked over Singapore’s central business district as Mr. Lee’s funeral cortege began its journey, while dull booms echoed from a 21-gun salute—an honor Singapore has typically reserved for sitting domestic heads of state.

Along the route, crowds broke out into applause and chanted “Lee Kuan Yew” as the procession passed.

Mr. Lee, who led Singapore as prime minister for 31 years until 1990, will be eulogized by his elder son and current leader Lee Hsien Loong, former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, and other former colleagues and associates, according to a government statement. Singapore’s largely ceremonial president, Tony Tan, will also deliver remarks.

More than a dozen foreign heads of state and government are attending the funeral service, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Former president Bill Clinton leads the U.S. delegation, which includes former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, a close friend of Mr. Lee’s. China is represented by Vice President Li Yuanchao.

The elder Mr. Lee, who died after spending weeks under intensive care for pneumonia, has been widely credited with leading Singapore’s transformation from a poor British colonial trading outpost into a global trade and finance powerhouse.

But Mr. Lee also drew criticism from rights groups that say Singapore attained its developed-world living standards without adopting full Western-style democracy and curbing some freedoms taken for granted in Western societies, such as public speech and assembly.

His People’s Action Party, which has held power since 1959, remains dominant in Parliament, even though it recorded its worst electoral showing in 2011—a result government officials and political observers have attributed to festering discontent over issues such as a widening divide between rich and poor, rising costs of living and the increasing number of foreigners in the crowded city-state.

Although Mr. Lee retired from government a week after that election, he remained influential and respected by many of his countrymen, particularly older citizens who enjoyed rapid advancements in quality of living in the early decades since Singapore became a nation in 1965.

More than 450,000 people have paid last respects to Mr. Lee since Wednesday by filing past his remains at Parliament. More than 1 million people, meanwhile, paid tribute at various memorial sites across the island state of about 5.5 million people.

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Posted on 29 Mar 2015

 

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