Here's the reply from the Singaporean Ministry of Defence.
It says much about a certain someone's temperament when it's so hard to say "sorry" for a poor judgement call.
The Straits Times Forum Page
May 28, 2010
Shooting incident: Mindef admits it should have issued statement
WE REFER to Mr Matthias Chew's letter yesterday ('Shooting incident: Mindef should have told public').
The Singapore Armed Forces' (SAF) immediate priority following any incident is to attend to the needs of the affected servicemen and to keep their families informed.
In the case of the training incident in Thailand, the servicemen were given immediate medical attention and arrangements were made for their safe return to Singapore on the same day for further medical treatment.
The families of the servicemen were immediately notified and provided regular updates. Whatever information that is available is thus provided to the servicemen and their families as soon as possible.
The Ministry of Defence (Mindef) informs the public whenever there is a serious incident, or where the incident is likely to be of public interest.
Given the nature of this incident, Mindef should have issued a media statement when it occurred.
Colonel Darius Lim,
Director, Public Affairs,
Ministry of Defence (Mindef)
The unit that should be caring for the injured soldiers and the public affairs department are two different segments. Can SAF not multi-task at the same time? I don't think a "3G Army" as advertised should be doing only one thing at a time. That can't be right.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how Mindef operates but in many Ministries, it is often the Minister himself who approves all letters to the press. It may not be entirely fair to blame a mere Director (face it - colonels aren't what they used to be) for what gets pubished or not published. For "sensitive" cases like this, I doubt that he is more than a scribe for what the bigger bosses want to say.
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