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The Malayan Emergency

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The Malayan Emergency BIBLIOASIA OCT - DEC 2019 VOL. 15 ISSUE 03 FEATURE CIVILIANS IN THE CROSSFIRE The Malayan Emergency Ronnie Tan recounts the hardship suffered by civilians as a result of the British government’s fight against the communists during the Malayan Emergency. operating in small patrols… intended to regulations were so stringent that in some “strategically sited with an eye to defence, deprive the MRLA [Malayan Races Libera- instances, people were not allowed to stock protected with barbed wire and guarded tion Army]5 everywhere in the country of more than a week’s supply of rice. by a detachment of Special Constables, every necessity of life from food to clothes, until they were each able to form their and every article for their military aims Relocation to “New Villages” own Home Guard units”.8 from printing materials to parts for radio To further ensure that the communist Each relocation was shrouded in China-Japan relations, which are marked The MPAJA, which comprised mainly and subsequently in Singapore on 24 June. receiving and transmitting sets, weapons guerrillas were isolated from the main secrecy and the villagers were not notified by a long history of animosity that goes ethnic Chinese fighters, found a ready The Malayan Emergency would last for the and ammunition”.6 population, the predominantly Chinese beforehand. According to British military Cback several centuries, took a turn for the source of new recruits among the Chinese next 12 years, ending only on 31 July 1960. Shopkeepers in operational areas for villagers living in squatters in the jungle historian Edgar O’Ballance, “secrecy was worse from the 1870s onwards. During squatters in the Malayan jungles to fight the One of the first things the MCP did instance were not allowed to store excess fringes were relocated to settlements essential to success, otherwise the squatters the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), guerrilla war against the Japanese and their was to revive the MPAJA, rebranding it as quantities of canned and raw food that called “New Villages”. These villagers were would have disappeared into the jungle many overseas Chinese who were still sympathisers. In a quid pro quo arrange- the Malayan People’s Anti-British Army were designated as “restricted”. In addition, loyal to their motherland, including those ment, the MPAJA turned to the British for (MPABA), and subsequently renaming it they had to keep detailed records of all in Malaya and Singapore, supported military training and supplies, provided the the Malayan National Liberation Army customers and their purchases, and not sell China’s war efforts against Japan. Thus, communists with the resources they needed (MNLA) in 1949.2 any kind of food item unless the customer when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded to defeat a common enemy. To secure access to supplies of produced an identity card. Restricted items Malaya in December 1941, one of the Following Japan’s surrender in 1945 ammunition and food, the communists included “all types of food, paper, printing first communities they targeted was the and the return of the British in the form began intimidating, torturing and even materials and instruments, typewriters, Chinese. To escape torture and persecu- of the British Military Administration,1 the murdering civilians who refused to support every drug and medicine, lint bandages and tion, many Chinese fled to the fringes of MPAJA was formally dissolved in Decem- their anti-colonial activities. By October other items; torch batteries, canvas cloth, the Malayan jungles where they set up ber that year. For the MCP, however, the 1948, the MNLA had killed 223 civilians, and any clothing made from cloth as well as makeshift homes. problem had not gone away; the British had most of whom were Chinese, “for their cloth itself”.7 Even cigarettes and beverages The Malayan Communist Party (MCP) reinstated themselves as colonial rulers and reluctance to support the revolution”.3 like coffee and tea were restricted. The had been a formidable element even before the communists would once again resume To counter the communist threat, the the Japanese invasion. It had been set up its armed struggle. British put in place the Briggs Plan, a a decade earlier in 1930 with the primary As hostilities between the MCP and strategy aimed at defeating the commu- (Above) A member of the Malayan Home Guard aim of overthrowing British colonial rule. the British grew more intense, on 16 June nist insurgency.4 manning a checkpoint on the edge of a town during When Malaya fell to the Japanese and the 1948, three European planters in Perak the Malayan Emergency. Such checkpoints allowed British were booted out, the MCP went were brutally murdered by communist The Briggs Plan the authorities to search vehicles and intercept food and supplies being smuggled out to the communist underground and formed the Malayan insurgents. Two days later, on 18 June, a One of the chief aims of the Briggs Plan insurgents. © Imperial War Museum (K 14435). People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). state of emergency was declared in Malaya was to deprive the communist guerrillas of sources of support and sustenance. (Right) An identity card issued during the Malayan Emergency (1948–60). Image reproduced from Yao, Ronnie Tan is a Senior Manager (Research) with the National Library, Singapore, where he conducts research The plan was described as “a policy of S. (2016). The Malayan Emergency: Essays on a Small, on public policy as well as historical, regional and library-related issues. His other research interests include starving [the communists] out, coupled Distant War (p. 57). Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Malayan history, especially the Malayan Emergency (1948–60), and military history. with ceaseless pressure by security forces Asian Studies. (Call no.: RSING 959.5104 YAO) 20 21 BIBLIOASIA OCT - DEC 2019 VOL. 15 ISSUE 03 FEATURE in mass flight”.9 The operation usually uncooked rice, sugar, cigarettes and began before dawn, with troops and Chinese medicine.18 police surrounding the squatter area. The • Phang Seng, a farmer from Kelapa Sawit villagers were then moved en masse, along New Village in southern Johor, was with their belongings and livestock, using jailed three years for being caught at one truck per family to the New Villages the village gate without a valid permit scattered throughout Malaya.10 for carrying six tahils (227 g) of rice on Most villagers were caught unawares him. When apprehended, he could and “stupefied by shock” at the sudden not give a satisfactory explanation move, protesting that they should not be as to why he had uncooked rice with forced to relocate as they had never helped him because he claimed “he could not the communists. Some tried delay tactics, speak a word of Malay”.19 for example, by claiming that they had to round up their livestock in the jungle, or that they were ill.11 Most were persuaded Coercion from Communists to move only when told that the plots of Many people living in the New Villages land in the New Villages would be allotted were caught between a rock and a hard on a first-come-first-served basis.12 By place. Apart from mounting pressure from mid-1951, around 400,000 villagers had Aerial view of a newly completed village where squatters would be resettled.© Imperial War Museum (K 13796). the police, they were also not entirely been resettled in such New Villages. The safe from the clutches of the communist reality was, however, far from rosy for insurgents. As mentioned earlier, those these new settlers. There were also reported cases of who was then General Officer Comman- who were either neutral or opposed the while working and was warned, in no nist guerillas gave him to buy “uncooked Once settled in the New Villages, crimes committed by the security forces ding and Britain’s High Commissioner to goals of the communists were coerced uncertain terms, that he would be killed rice, sugar, cigarettes and Chinese medi- people who entered or left the villages against the villagers. Under the pretence of Malaya, stripped the town of its status as into aiding them or faced reprisals – even if he did not supply them with food. He cine”. 21 Such hapless civilians had little were subject to stringent checks by armed checking for possible smuggling attempts, a district capital and imposed a 22-hour death – if they did not cooperate. For did not report this incident to the police choice in these situations because the security personnel guarding the gates some police officers were known to have curfew every day for a week. Shops were instance, a villager in the northern state because he feared for his life and that of communists usually made good their around the clock. This was to ensure that outraged the modesty of young girls by permitted to open only two hours a day, of Kedah was killed by three communist his family members as the communists threats of reprisal. the villagers could not secretly send sup- strip-searching them.15 people were banned from leaving town, guerillas for refusing to buy them food.20 knew where he lived. Even children and youths were not plies to the guerrilla fighters. Plantation The forced resettlement in the New schools were closed, bus services were Hee Sun of Kulai Besar New Vil- As for Wong Pan Sing from Gombak, spared. On 20 June 1951, it was reported workers, whom the communists targeted, Villages also led to a sense of social dislo- ceased and rice rations were reduced. lage, for example, had the misfortune Selangor, he was threatened with death if that an 11-year-old Malay boy from Ben- also had to be home by 3 pm daily and were cation among its inhabitants.
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