I WOULD like to respond to the articles in the Dec 16 and 17 editions of The Straits Times concerning the US sailor who is in custody for voluntarily causing hurt.

The US Embassy and the US Navy take any and every incident seriously, and cooperate fully and closely with the Singaporean authorities to ensure justice is served. The service member will be held accountable for his behaviour under both Singaporean and US military laws.

The United States and Singapore enjoy strong bilateral relations, and our close strategic, economic, security and military ties benefit both our nations. Singapore regularly hosts US military ship visits; these visits inject tens of millions of US dollars annually into the Singapore economy through US Navy contracting services, in addition to the economic benefit for restaurants and stores of personal purchases by thousands of service members.

I would like to highlight three activities the Marines and sailors of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Tarawa Expeditionary Strike Group 3 are conducting while in Singapore. On Friday, Marines and sailors painted buildings in the Archdiocesan Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, a community centre that provides migrants and domestic workers places to go for community fellowship and livelihood skills training. On Monday, more than 60 volunteers from the ships spent the day cleaning sections of Pulau Ubin Beach in cooperation with the National Environment Agency. And on Tuesday, Marines and sailors will spend the afternoon with children at the Singapore Sunbeam Science Centre.

Prior to arriving in Singapore, the Marines and sailors provided humanitarian assistance to the people of Bangladesh following the tropical cyclone there.

These are some of the positive contributions made by the Marines and sailors aboard the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Tarawa Expeditionary Strike Group 3 currently visiting Singapore.

Patricia L. Herbold (Ms)
US Ambassador to Singapore