IN THE last 11 years, our collective hearts have cried out for the families of victims of two tragedies. We mourned when a SilkAir plane dived into the Musi River in Palembang in 1997, taking 40 Singaporean lives. We mourned in 2000, when an SIA plane that had barely taken off from a storm-battered airport in Taiwan crashed, killing12 Singaporeans.
But the killing of Ms Lo Hwei Yen —described as the life of the party and family connector — by terrorists in Mumbai’s Oberoi Trident Hotel, is different, very different.
To be terrorised and traumatised in that hotel for more than 24 hours and then to be killed by two gunshot wounds is a tragedy beyond our collective imagination.
Singapore has seen two hostage incidents in 34 years. In the cases of the Laju hijack in 1974 and the hijack of an SIA flight from Kuala Lumpur in 1991, the hostages lived to tell their stories.
Ms Lo’s date with terrorism is different, very different.
For this 28-year-old lawyer’s friends, family and colleagues, as well as those who knew her only through the smiling photographs and endearing reports in the media, closure is so difficult to come by.
Her sisters have spoken about living with this cruel reality of not knowing what really happened to Ms Lo.
“It’s going to take time to sink in,’’ said one of them.
This big Kylie Minogue fan is the proud face of Singapore’s internationalisation drive, which has seen many of our family members and friends travelling overseas ever more often, not just for holidays, but also for work.
Ms Lo was in Mumbai for a brief business trip, something many of us do these days without even batting an eyelid.
Who would have thought that a group of youth, just out of their teenage years, would plan their operation with such meticulousness and audacity and kill innocent people with no thought for humanity?
Can any Singaporean, or for that matter, anyone in the world, feel safe anymore?
The Mumbai attacks have given us the answer, yet again: No way. Full stop.
They show once more that if somebody out there has a screwed-up mind and the support to punch a hole in the world’s security apparatus, they will do it. For, terrorists can fail many times, but they need only hit the target once to make their point to the world.
If we had thought that it couldn’t get any more dramatic and damaging than the 911 attacks, these Mumbai raids showed otherwise.
The terrorists attacked 10 spots and held people hostage in three buildings, all at the same time.
However well-prepared and well-trained your security forces, such a scenario is a mind-boggling one to prepare for and fight against.
What do you focus on? The railway station where one group fired their rifles and lobbed grenades? The taxi blowing up after a bomb prematurely went off in it? The three buildings where hostages were being terrorised?
Terrorism is not only unpredictable in its timing, but also in its execution.
That is why there are only two real ways to try and contain it.
First, thwart terrorist plans before they can be executed. Intelligence gathering and intelligence collaboration with other countries, especially with neighbouring ones, are a must.
India failed miserably in this, exposing its messy links with neighbouring Pakistan for all to see.
Secondly, show the terrorists that, though they have kept the world on the edge with their 60-hour show of mayhem in Mumbai, they have not won. That message can be sent only if we don’t withdraw into our shells, frightened to take that holiday or make that business trip.
Easier said than done, you might say. But do we have a choice?
