The Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces has apologised over the naming of an Indonesian warship after two marines who carried out the bombing of MacDonald House in Singapore in 1965. General Moeldoko told Channel NewsAsia that the Indonesian military had meant no ill-will, and had not intended to stir up emotions in Singapore. He said the episode has been a learning process, and he is confident that future ties between the two militaries would grow even stronger. General Moeldoko said: "Once again I apologise. We have no ill intent whatsoever to stir emotions. Not at all. Second, relations between the two countries are on the mend. There have been communications among leaders. Singapore's Chief of Defence and I have spoken."

The Indonesian soldiers who infiltrated Singapore to carry out the bombings were all of Malay stock. Some could have well been relatives of Malays who had migrated to Singapore from Java. I recall the swirl of talk in the kampung then: What should the Malays do if the saboteurs came to them to seek refuge? Should we provide food and shelter, or should we surrender them to the authorities?

Konfrontasi was an undeclared war. So no armies facing off against each other. The Indonesian forces basically engaged in sabotage. These acts of aggression were not the acts of open warfare but surreptitious sabotage. And in many cases including the MacDonald House bombing, the original orders for the two soldiers was to target military targets. However, the military targets were too well protected. The bank was a secondary "soft" civilian target. The objective was to foment terror. It was ultimately, an act of terrorism.

Among the innocents killed in the blast were 36 yr old Suzie Khoo, private secretary, 23 yr old Juliet Goh, filing clerk, and driver Mohammed Yasin bin Kesit, 45. I don’t remember the MacDonald House attack being mentioned in any of our history textbooks, nor any of the 37 bombs that hit us during the Sukarno led Konfrontasi. It wasn’t just public buildings being targetted. In Dec 1963, two men were killed in Sennett Estate, while another deadly bomb went off on April 1964 at a BLOCK OF HDB FLATS off Changi Road.

Arising from the bombing, two Indonesian marines were arrested and charged with murder. They were hanged on 17 October 1968. In retaliation, 400 agitated students in Jakarta, Indonesia, ransacked the Singapore embassy there and proceeded to attack the consul's residence and the homes of two other Singaporean diplomats. They also burnt the Singapore flag. Throughout the period of Konfrontasi, 37 bombs hit Singapore, the worst single incident being the MacDonald House bombing.