Month: September 2011

I wonder if Johoreans felt, for lack of better word, slighted when they heard what Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said recently to foreign journalists in Singapore about their state:

“Penang is visibly cleaner not only in terms of running an honest Government but also cleaner physically. Also safer and not to worry about safety in Penang. Penang was number one last year in terms of cutting crime by 27 per cent. For the first six months also cut crime by another 25 per cent. Whereas in Johor, a Singaporean is likely to get kidnapped. Won’t have that problem when you come to Penang.”

I’m afraid the Chief Minister was telling the truth about Penang’s crime statistics. In the Royal Malaysian Police website, Penang’s index crime saw a drop of 27.5% while Johor only saw a drop of 0.3% comparing the periods of Jan-May 2010 and Jan-May 2011. However, all states except Perlis and Pahang saw a drop in the percentage of index crimes for the given period.

Before the foreign journalist could say “Kudos, Guan Eng,” they should not forget that unlike its British counterpartS, the Royal Malaysian Police does not come under the control of respective states. In each state, the police is headed by the Chief Police Officer who is answerable to the Inspector-General of Police. In England there are 39 police forces in England alone; Wales has four while Scotland has eight. They are headed by their respective Commissioner or Chief Constable, who in turn report to the Home Minister.

Therefore, does Guan Eng have the right to gloat and bask in glory, claiming for the success which is not his?  The success of the police in reducing the number of index crimes in Penang and in other states is due to the leadership of the police force, not that of the respective state’s Great Ministers or Chief Ministers.  Furthermore, being a Chief Minister from a party that is part of a loose coalition of political parties that have very little or no respect for the men and women of the Royal Malaysian Police, Guan Eng ought to slap himself for having the balls to claim any credit.  For any FDI that goes to Penang post-August 2011, the supporters of Guan Eng et al should lick the boots of those men and women of the police force they constantly discredit and call names such as UMNO/BN Dogs so on and so forth, and say sorry to them.

Still doesn’t ring a bell, let us try another:

 

Let us not forget that rabid creature, with no respect for the men and women of the police force, who bit a policeman who was discharging his duty:

The rabid creature that bit the police

So, Guan Eng, sorry but you did not do any tangible work to reduce the number of index crimes in Penang and could therefore NOT claim any credit for it.  Shame on you for that, and for failing to mention the fact that the number of index crimes in other states also went down.

“Aiya! Saya manyiak bolo!”

For someone like A Samad Said to say that the Tunku was merely an independence receiver shows the works of a fiction-writer’s mind (Yahoo! News (from Malaysiakini): Pak Samad – Tunku Merely Independence Receiver)

“To me, Tunku was not an independence fighter. He was a receiver, the person approved by the British to ‘receive’ independence… the British felt that the ‘receiver’ must be a person who can take care of its interests in Malaya.”

A fiction writer does not need to know facts, all he has to do is to conjure a litany of half-truths or mere fiction to write, and that was what he did during the forum. It also displays his lack of knowledge in the history of the nation.

In my previous “The Road to Merdeka” series, I have written somewhat extensively to bring readers to one structure of thinking, then explain that the independence was obtained through a constitutional struggle that culminated in the end of feudalism, power to govern was handed by the Malay rulers to the people of Malaya, whilst maintaining the institution of the Malay rulers albeit in a constitutional form.

When the Federated and Unfederated Malay States were perfidiously annexed by the British and lumped in with the Crown Colonies of Penang and Melaka via the Malayan Union on 1st April 1946, it was done so using threats and blackmail on the Malay rulers without consulting the people who were the Rulers’ subjects. Malays all over the peninsula protested in January of 1946 when they got to know of the British’s plan. On 1st March 1946, over 40 Malay political and cultural organisations (PAS had not been born yet) met and 41 of these organisations decided to form UMNO, and three days later, under Dato’ Onn Jaafar, UMNO was formed. It was through this galvanisation of the Malays, united against the Malayan Union that caused the very architect of the Malayan Union, Sir Edward Gent, to declare the Malayan Union unworkable given the resistance by the Malays, a little over a month after it was formed.

Let us also recall that among the organisations that supported the formation of the Malayan Union were the Indonesian-leaning, Malay-dominated PKMM, and the Malayan Democratic Union that was dominated by the other races wanting immediate and automatic citizenship through the Malayan Union.

In 1949, the British government announced that it was to grant eventual independence to Malaya, and issued another in 1952 saying that independence will only be given if the various races were united. But UMNO and MCA called the British’s bluff and fielded their candidates for the 1952 Kuala Lumpur Municipal Election on a common ticket. We all know how that went. That paved way for the Alliance when MIC joined forces and the Alliance won the 1955 General Elections resoundingly.

And how did the struggle for independence go soon after? It was not smooth at all. We all know the British created for the Tunku and TH Tan a hell of roadblocks that they had to lobby friends in the British Parliament before the Colonial Office would even see them.

Prior to this, Onn Jaafar had sought to open up UMNO’s membership to ALL Malayans and rename the party as the United Malayans National Organisation, but his call went unheeded by UMNO’s members. We know now whom the British had favoured when they made the second announcement in 1952. He left UMNO in August 1951 and formed the Independence of Malaya Party (IMP), a multiracial party and had probably hoped that Malayans would support it in order to be granted independence from the British, as it would fullfil the . He misjudged the Malayan people’s resolve, and eventually left the party too, to form Parti Negara, a party with restrictions to non-Malays as members, aimed at winning back the support of the Malays. In 1955, Dato Onn and Parti Negara failed to win a single seat.

Old Samad also conveniently dropped a few names like Burhanuddin al-Helmi, Ahmad Boestamam, Mat Kilau. The latter fought against British influence but was not part of the Indonesian-leaning groups the former two were part of. In fact, Burhanuddin was a member of the militant KMM that was bent on overthrowing the British by force and become part of Melayu/Indonesia Raya. He also led Kesatuan Rakyat Indonesia Semenanjung (KRIS) right after KMM was banned, and then the PKMM. Boestamam headed the Angkatan Pemuda Insaf (API), the youth front of the PKMM. After the PKMM was banned for being the Communist Party of Malaya’s United Front and soon after he was released from prison, Boestamam set up the Partai Rakyat Malaya (PRM) in November of 1955 which during its formative years was based on the struggles of Sukarno and subscribed to the Pan-Malaya/Indonesia nationalism.

So to whom did Burhanuddin al-Helmi and Boestamam look up to? Sukarno. Was he a Malayan?

But like I have been saying all along, who are we independent from? The answer is FEUDALISM, the very system that brought the British advisors in. On 31st August 1957 the Malay rulers handed over power to their subjects, and freed them from having to depend on the British. The British had never colonised Malaya de jure save for the Straits Settlements. If the pro-BN say that we were colonised in any way, they are agreeing to the point made by their opposition counterpart that the Tunku, Tun Razak et al were all British lackeys (Barua British) as the respective states’ administration would have come under the purview of the British. Dare they chance that thought?

For Old Samad, I only have one pantun for him:

“Tersipu-sipu meminta barang,
Menggigil-gigil sebab teruja;
Cukuplah awak menipu orang,
Kubur dah panggil, usia dah senja.”

In the Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 3126 dated 10 November 1893, there was a column entitled: A BRIGHTON SCANDAL. BREACH OF PROMISE SUIT AGAINST A SULTAN. It tells of a certain Miss Jenny Mighell suing a Mr Albert Baker for breaching a promise to marry her. Albert Baker was the name assumed by HRH Sultan Sir Abu Bakar ibni Daing Ibrahim, the Sultan of Johor from 1862 to 1895.

The case set a legal precedence in nations belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations that the ruler of a sovereign state or nation that is a protectorate of the British Empire cannot be tried in a court of law. Johor, in 1885, had signed a treaty of protection with the United Kingdom.

Collectively known as “British Malaya” the Malay states were unlike “British India.” British India started off as a business venture by the East India Company when it established a factory in Bengal in 1612. However, the “company rule” by the East India Company ended with the Government of India Act in 1858 following the Indian rebellion a year earlier. It was ruled directly by the Crown as a Colonial Possession and known thereafter as the Empire of India. The Indian princely states were allowed some measure autonomy in exchange for British suzerainty.

The Malay states comprised of three groups namely the:

1) Federated Malay States: a group of four states – Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang and Perak, that formed a federation that enjoyed the protection of the British in exchange for an “Advisor;”
2) Unfederated Malay States: Johor, Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah (and later Perlis after it was independent of Kedah) that did not form a single grouping. Johor signed a treaty of protection with the British in 1885, while the rest became the British Protected States after Bangkok transferred its rights over these states to the British via the Bangkok Treaty of 1909. The Unfederated Malay States lacked common institutions and were not recognised as a single state under International Law.

3) The Straits Settlements – areas along the Malay Peninsula that came under direct British Crown rule (Pulau Pinang, Melaka and Singapore) after being taken over from the East India Company. Initially, the Dindings and Pangkor islands formed part of the Straits Settlements via the Treaty of Pangkor in 1874, but the British gave it up as Pangkor did not serve the British’s economic interest. It was established in 1826 by the East India Company following the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, but became a Crown Colony on 1st April 1867.

Therefore, the Malay states were never colonies save for Pulau Pinang, Melaka and Singapore that came under direct British rule.

Both the Federated Malay States and the Unfederated Malay States had an “Advisor” appointed who came under the respective Sultan’s or Raja’s payroll to advise on the management of the state’s day-to-day affairs. They were called the “Residents.” They were there in exchange for the protection provided by Britain and do represent an indirect rule by the Crown. While it may be argued that the real rulers were the Advisors, but that is more on a case-to-case basis. Some may be pushy, like Birch who was subsequently murdered for his overwhelming influence in the Perak courts, while some are loyal to their paymaster(s).

One such person was Frank Athelstane Swettenham who first became the Resident of Selangor before convincing the Rulers of Selangor, Pahang, Perak and Negeri Sembilan to form a federation and became the first Resident-General of the Federated Malay States, serving from 1896 to 1901. Swettenham brought about development to the four states and introduced better civil administration. He was one of close to 40 former British Empire officials who were OPPOSED to the Malayan Union on the grounds that the Malayan Union went against the Atlantic Charter (the Atlantic Charter among others stated that there was to be NO territorial aggrandizement after the Second World War). Swettenham, as other Advisors, were on the payroll of the Sultans. There were other British officers who were on the payroll of the Sultans. One example is Major L.Vears, who was the aide-de-camp to Almarhum Sultan Iskandar of Perak.

If you remember the first paragraph, the United Kingdom recognised Sultan Abu Bakar as the reigning sovereign of the country of Johor, a protectorate of the Crown of the United Kingdom, and thus enjoyed the privileges extended to members of royal families. Johor, as other Malay states were at that time, sovereign states, ruled by its own rulers albeit with an appointed Advisor (Johor accepted an Advisor only in 1904). Sultan Abu Bakar and Queen Victoria became lifetime friends; not as a subject, but as real friends who corresponded with each other on a frequent basis.

Another example of “British-Malaya” being a collection of independent states is the donation of the people of Malaya towards the construction of a battleship aptly named “HMS Malaya” during the First World War. Launched in 1915, HMS Malaya served during the Battle of Jutland, and throughout the Second World War before she was sold for scrap in 1948. Her bell can be seen at the East India Club in St James’s Square, London. Among the battleships that served the Royal Navy, only HMS Malaya flew a different ensign: the red-white-black-yellow ensign of the Federated Malay States!

We have now established the fact that the Malay states were never colonised by the British, and that the Residents (Advisors) were appointed and on the payroll of the Malay Sultans. Therefore, those who waged war on the Malayan, and subsequently Malaysian, people are nothing less than traitors to their homeland.

Whether or not the Advisors were the real rulers of the Malay states, we must keep an open mind. Some may have spoken with condescending tone, some may have been more polite. Comments on history are often made by people who are emotionally-scarred, and may be biased as to how they see things, but history cannot be based on emotions – it must be based on facts.

You may now ask, if we were not colonised, then whose flag did we bring down on 31st August 1957, and what are we independent of?

Feudalism!

On 31st August 1957, the Rulers of the Malay States handed over power to the people of the Federation of Malaya through its Chief Minister, thus ending the need to be dependent on the Advisors from the British Empire, turning this land into one with democratic principles with Constitutional Monarchy.

Now that we are independent, perhaps the Department of Museums and Antiquities would like to ask for the bell of HMS Malaya to be brought back to the country that sponsored the ship.

I know it is an odd title. When I say China, I do not mean the Chinese. I mean the country, China. This posting contains facts that many, including those from UMNO, do not know.

Before I go on, I want you to remember this important fact throughout this posting:

The Alliance won 51 of 52 seats in the 1955 General Election.

For a brief period during the Second World War, Sumatera was taken away from the control of Java and was placed under the Japanese Administration in Malaya. However, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, the Japanese mooted an idea to Sukarno for Malaya to be included in a declaration of independence by Indonesia BEFORE the Allies could retake both Malaya and Indonesia.

On 13th August 1945, Sukarno and Drs Hatta went to Taiping on their way back to Jakarta from Saigon and met up with Ibrahim Yaakob and Burhanuddin Helmi to discuss on the idea of Malaya joining Indonesia Raya. This idea was not new to Ibrahim Yaakob. A Bugis by descent and an idolizer of Sukarno, Ibrahim was a member of the Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM), a radical nationalist group formed in 1938 to overthrow the British by force and unite Malaya with Indonesia under the banner of Melayu Raya. This meeting in Taiping was also attended by one Major General Hirokichi Umezu of the Imperial Japanese Army. The Imperial Japanese government at the time recognised the leaders of Indonesia. Ibrahim was also a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Japanese Giyuugun (Volunteer Army) that was formed in Java. Before the Indonesia Raya idea could be pushed forward, the Japanese government surrendered to the Allies two days later.

Sukarno however continued to push for the Indonesia Raya concept but told that the inclusion of Malaya would not be easy as they would have to fight against two major powers of the day: the British and the Dutch; and asked Ibrahim to continue his fight for the inclusion of Malaya from Java. On 19th August 1945, together with Hassan Manan (a graduate from the Sultan Idris Teachers College, and fellow KMM member), Ibrahim, his wife and brother-in-law were flown to Jakarta in a Japanese military aircraft to escape the British.

Together with Mokhtaruddin Lasso, Burhanuddin Helmi then formed the Persatuan Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM), a republican association, on 17th October 1945, taking over where Ibrahim’s KMM had left. This got PKMM at loggerheads with the British. PKMM was then joined by other Jakarta-leaning members such as Shamsiah Fakeh, who led PKMM’s women wing, AWAS (Angkatan Wanita Sedar); and Ahmad Boestamam who led the youth wing, API (Angkatan Pemuda Insaf). Onn Jaafar, who was then a District Officer in Batu Pahat, was against Melayu Raya/Indonesia Raya as he did not want Malaya to be subsumed by a Javanese master. It was during this period too that Kiai Salleh, a respected religious leader from Batu Pahat, rose to fight the Communist Party of Malaya’s Bintang Tiga menace.

When the British formed the Malayan Union in 1946, PKMM together with its fraternal organisations API, AWAS and BATAS; and the non-Malay organisation, Malayan Democratic Union (MDU), quickly supported the move by the British. PKMM, being republican in nature, supported the Malayan Union because it was opposed to the idea of a Malaya ruled by the Malay rulers while MDU supported the idea of an immediate citizenship for all immigrants. As history has proven, intense pressure by UMNO caused the British to abandon the Malayan Union. The Malayan Union was then replaced by the Federated Malay States in 1948.

It was also at this juncture that the British offered independence, but was rejected by UMNO. The reasons for rejecting this offer were that the Malays were at that time a minority in Malaya; the Malays lacked education (they were given elementary education until Standard Six); the Malays were also not involved in the mainstream economic activities. It was not until later, when General Sir Gerald Templer objected to the British offer to Malayans for a self-rule Malaya for its assistance in fighting the communist, that UMNO declined that offer and went instead for the independence of Malaya.

Where was PAS during this time? PAS was embedded within UMNO. There was no PAS. PAS came about when none of the supporters of the founder of PAS was appointed to the respective state’s legislative council, following the formation of the Federated Malay States. They left UMNO probably in 1951, and then formed the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party (PMIP) in 1955 to contest in the first General Elections where they won one seat.

Despite having seen that UMNO and MCA could set aside differences and work together in the first Kuala Lumpur Municipal Council Elections in 1952, Templer was quoted by the Straits Times on the 19th May 1953 to have said the following:

“It would be a tragedy, not only for Malaya, but for South-East Asia, if power was handed over so precipitately that the remarkable progress now being made in all direction is thrown out of gear, to say the least of it, quite apart from the communal difficulties which might, or would arise.”

In November 1955, after the victory of the Alliance inthe first General Elections, Tunku Abdul Rahman who was the Federation of Malaya’s first Chief Minister, went to Jakarta to call upon President Sukarno. The Tunku put forth Malaya’s idea to pursue an independence from the British. Enter our long-lost character Ibrahim Yaakob, who went to meet Tunku there, pushing forward his ambition to have Malaya’s independence within the framework of Indonesia Raya.

Let us fast forward a bit to the formation of Malaysia in 1963. Although the Constitution of the Federation of Malaysia gained the consent of the Yang DiPertuan Agong on 29th August 1963, objections by Indonesia and the Philippines over the inclusion of Sabah and Sarawak, and the conduct of referendums in the two states by the United Nations pushed the date further to 16th September 1963. It was also a coincidence that 16th September is the birthday of Lee Kuan Yew, the then-Chief Minister of Singapore.

Indonesia, already opposed to the independence of Malaya in 1957, was further aflamed by the inclusion of Sabah and Sarawak into Malaysia. Sukarno was influenced to teach Malaysia a lesson by D.N Aidid, Leader of the Indonesian Communist Party, and by the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Dr Subandrio, who went to China to meet its Premier, Zhou En-Lai. Subandrio, an alleged communist, was very close to Premier Zhou, and discussed the possibility of lynching and splitting Malaysia, and requested for support from China. The plan was for an Indonesia Raya and a greater China where all Malay island nations (that possibly include the Philippines as well) would be under Indonesia Raya, while all mainland nations including the Peninsula of Malaysia would come under China.

Indonesia at the time was supported by the communists in the Soviet Union. This episode saw the withdrawal of Soviet support (the Soviet was against the confrontation with Malaysia) and a cautioned-support from China. Supporting the Indonesians then would be a positive move for China as Indonesia had the second largest communist party outside of the Soviet Union. Chinese arms started trickling into Indonesia by 1964. Had it not been for the help from the Commonwealth Forces, Peninsula Malaysia would probably be a province of China now. Chin Peng, who was residing in China then, also ordered the CPM members to assist the Indonesian armed forces against Malaysia and the Commonwealth.

The rest, I would say, is history. Ibrahim Yaakob resumed the name Iskandar Kamel and was made a Minister under Sukarno rule. After the attempted coup by the communists in Indonesia failed, he withdrew from his post and died in Jakarta in 1979, aged 78. He was listed on his tombstone as Iskandar Kamel Agastya (IBHY), Leftenan-Kolonel Purnawirawan NRP 26217. In 1973, the late Tun Razak allowed him to return briefly to Malaysia. In an interview during that visit, Ibrahim Yaakob admitted to being a double-agent for both the British and the Japanese.

Chin Peng, in an interview in Singapore, had said that the CPM, as a fraternal organisation of the Communist Party of China, enjoyed full support from China for the establishment of a satellite-communist state in our country. He was given the task to fulfill three levels of achievements in the 1950s, namely the:

1) Support on the local level,
2) Support on the national level, and,
3) Support on the international level.

He achieved the support on two of these levels: Local – he had strong support from the Chinese community. He had support on the International level – the support from China. What he did not have in the 1950s was the support on the National level – there was no support from the general Malay population. Hence, the only way for the CPM to remain relevant was to incite the non-Malay population to work against the Malays, who were portrayed as being the political masters of Malaya. Does this ring a bell? It is deja vu all over again in present day Malaysia.

If you remember at the beginning of this posting, I asked you to remember this important fact:

The Alliance won 51 of 52 seats in the 1955 General Election.

In 1955, the Alliance won the first General Elections of the Federation of Malaya. Then, the non-Malays were still in the process of being naturalised (provided they could speak Bahasa Melayu and met the number of years criteria) hence most did not make it into the electoral roll. Therefore, it could be said that the voice of the Malays were in support of the Alliance – not PAS, not Parti Negara (that was formed by Dato’ Onn after leaving UMNO), not PPP, not PKMM, not CPM (the latter two of course were illegal organisations then and were not elligible to contest).

So, what does that say about people like Mat Indera, Abdullah CD, Rashid Maidin, Shamsiah Fakeh et al., the so-called nationalists who fought on the side of the communists? A simple malay term to describe them would be none other than “TALI BARUT KOMUNIS” or the communists’ lackeys, who lost all clout fighting for independence when the Federation of Malaya achieved independence in 1957. The elections results also prove that the malays disapproved of them fighting for the communists from the onset of the Malayan Emergency in 1948, and definitely disapproved of Mat Indera’s slaughter of the men, women and children of the Bukit Kepong Police Station.

None of those mentioned in the previous paragraph own any right whatsoever to be called “Freedom Fighters.”

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In ending this posting, I can safely say that I have done six postings on several chapters of the history of our nation versus none from the Ministry of Information. There seems to be no check and balance by the Ministry of Education to provide a full course in the nation’s history: all that the children read are watered-down versions of the nation’s history, structured so they could perform in the history examinations without understanding the spirit behind each and every event. There also seems to be inaction from the Home Ministry on seditious remarks made by certain quarters, even to the extent of belittling the institution of the Yang DiPertuan Agong and the Raja-Raja Melayu, as well as the glorifying of an illegal organisation – an act that is covered extensively in several legal Acts.

If we forget our history, we will become a nation without a soul – and this is now all too evident in a weary 54-year old Malaysia.

As mentioned in the previous posting, the CPM split into two factions in October 1974: the CPM and the MPLA (CPM-Marxist-Leninist).

In 1975, the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge ousted the Cambodian military government and began a reign of terror. In Vietnam, Soviet-backed North Vietnamese Army rolled into Saigon, effectively ending the Vietnam War. By December 1975, Laos too, fell to the Communists. In South-East Asia, there was real fear that the ASEAN nations would be next to fall to Communism – the Domino Theory was born.

Both the CPM and MPLA’s spirit were boosted by this new turn of events. Their activities peaked in 1975. There were bombings of the National Monument (Tugu Negara), the Police Field Force camp in Jalan Pekeliling in Kuala Lumpur Having scored a morale-boosting victory by assassinating the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Hashim, a year earlier, they set their sights on Tan Sri Yuen Yuet Leng’s predecessor, Tan Sri Jimmy Khoo Chong Khong, the Chief Police Officer of Perak. Tan Sri Khoo was ambushed near the Ipoh General Hospital by the same assassins that murdered the IGP. His brave driver, Sergeant Chong, returned fire despite having being hit repeatedly by the assassins’ bullets. Sergeant Chong died soon after, but not before injuring one of the assassins in the head that then led the police to them.

Between 1976 and 1977, the Malaysian media was filled with nothing but stories of ambushes and attacks by the communist terrorists against the police and the military.

When Chairman Mao Zedong died, Deng Xiaoping returned to mainstream politics. Given his rapport with Chin Peng, the CPM was fueled to up the revolutionary ante. However, in 1978 Deng visited Thailand, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and was convinced to stop exporting Communism. As a result, in 1981 Deng ordered the ‘Suara Revolusi Malaya’ to stop broadcasting. The CPM had had to relocate the radio station to South Thailand and renamed it ‘Suara Demokrasi.’ Starved of support, the CPM and MPLA were riddled with internal strife and political cleansing (including the execution of suspected counter-revolutionaries) that their effectiveness was greatly reduced. The MPLA changed its name to the Malayan People’s Army (MPA) in 1982. One of the last gunbattles that occurred in the vicinity of Kuala Lumpur was in May 1983, on the day my paternal grandmother died. A patrol car chanced upon a group of Min Yuens and communist terrorists near what was Mimaland in Gombak. In the gunbattle, one policeman and one CT were killed, while the other policeman and another CT were injured.

The West Betong and Sadao groups of the CPM decided to surrender themselves to the Thai government in 1987 when they realised their struggle was not achieving any success, and with no clear political or military objectives.

On 2nd December 1989, the Communists gave up armed struggle and signed a peace treaty with the governments of Malaysia and Thailand, ending the Second Emergency.
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So, were the communist terrorists freedom-fighters as claimed by some parties?

When the Federation of Malaya achieved independence, the CPM had lost all clout in fighting “imperialism” and “colonialism”; yet it continued to do so, and even refused to recognise the formation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 by supporting the Indonesian campaign of lynching Malaysia (Ganyang Malaysia). Let us also not forget that the CPM’s counterparts in especially Sarawak continued to wage war against the government ’til 1989. Among those killed fighting the terrorists in Sarawak was Superintendent Joni Mustapha, a Sarawak hurdler in 1958-59. Joni was loyal to his men. He was in a cinema in Sibu watching a movie with his son when he got word that his men were pinned down by heavily armed terrorists upriver. He left his son behind and travelled by boat to reach his men. He was felled by machinegun fire, but remained to direct the firefight against the terrorists until he died. Seeing his commander die, Corporal Nguing, an Iban warrior, unsheathed his machete and charged at the terrorists only to be mown down.

Therefore, the communists terrorists not only fought against what some perceived as the “puppet-regime” in Kuala Lumpur, they fought against Malaysians on every inch of this hallowed soil trying to introduce communism, and turn this beloved country of ours into either a China-leaning satellite, or a Soviet-leaning one. It was never a nationalistic fight for freedom as claimed by some mentally-skewed politicians and their supporters either. There is nothing nationalistic about joining the forces of a foreign-nation to lynch your own people, if the CPM ever regarded Malaysians as their own. Remember, the CPM waged war against the Malaysian people for 32 years after the independence.

Was the fight against the communists solely a malay struggle as claimed by a former Minister? No. Kanang ak Langkau is an Iban. So was Corporal Nguing. Tan Sri Khoo Chong Khong, Tan Sri Yuen Yuet Leng, Colonel Chong Kheng Lay – chinese. Former DSP Jeganathan, whom I had the honour of working with, is an Indian. He was absorbed into the Special Branch from Jabatan Talikom to set up the police VHF network, jungle-bashing, ploughing his way through to construct towers in the jungle with the communists hot on him. Inspectors Kamalanathan and Robert Cheah were injured when a grenade was lobbed into the Ipoh coffee shop where they were having coffee. I worked briefly with Kamalanathan who still limped in 1995 with a shrapnel lodged inside him decades after the incident.

It was a war against all of us, Malaysians – free and independent Malaysians, by godless creatures who call themselves freedom fighters, a war that none of us Malaysians should ever forget, and against those none of us should ever support.

The people of Malaysia, the Malaysian Armed Forces, the Royal Malaysian Police, should always be on guard for a resurgence of communism in Malaysia. The peace treaty of 1989 was just a declaration of the end of an armed struggle; not the giving up of the communist ideology.

After the failure of the Communist Party of Malaya’s (CPM) revolt against British colonial rule and the subsequent independent Federation of Malaya’s government, the CPM retreated almost in full to Southern Thailand. In 1961, Chin Peng, leader of the CPM moved to China and sought support from Beijing. Deng Xiaoping, who was the most influential Chinese leader of the time although he never held any head of state office, promised Chin Peng a sum of US$100,000 in support of the CPM’s struggle.

In 1963, when Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore chose to join the Federation of Malaya to form the Federation of Malaysia, Indonesia objected violently by launching a campaign to lynch the newly-formed country out of existence dubbed “Ganyang Malaysia.” The CPM joined the Indonesian forces to fight against the people of Malaysia.

On New Year’s Day in 1968, the Communist Party of China launched the “Cultural Revolution”. The CPM, taking this as a queue and in conjunction with the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the first Malayan Emergency, issued on 1st June 1968 a directive: “Hold High the Great Red Banner of Armed Struggle and Valiantly March Forward.” The first act, 16 days later, was to ambush the security forces and murdered 17 of its members in the Kroh area in Perak. Thus begins the Second Emergency. A year later, with the support of the Communist Party of China, the CPM began transmitting “Suara Revolusi Malaya” from the Hunan province, aimed to gather momentum and support from sleeper-agents, CPM members in South Thailand, and communist symphatizers who remained at large.

When Malaysia and Singapore parted ways, the DAP took up the role of the PAP. There were demonstrations and strikes almost on a weekly basis organised by the DAP. With the party being predominantly Chinese, race relations took a toll. This fact was successfully exploited by the CPM. The CPM indoctrinated people at all levels: Chinese civil servants, student leaders, trades unionists, the non-Malay members of the Armed Forces and Police, the middle classes with their ideology. All it did was to portray that the malays dominated the political scene while the chinese and Indians were relegated to being second-class citizens. Does this ring a bell? By 1969, the damage to race relations was just waiting for the final straw to break its back.

Those who were born after 1970 will never be able to recall how a curfew siren sounds like, but this writer had had that experience of rushing home (our quarters was not only fenced up using the normal chain-link fence, the perimeter chain-link fence was covered in total by barbed wire) every time the siren sounded. Those were the days when our boys in blue had to fight on two fronts: against the communists, and against the common criminal.

Fresh from the race riots of May 1969, the government felt that it could not afford any more ethnic antipathy. During the First (Malayan) Emergency, the setting up of New Villages by order of General Templer caused other races to look at the Chinese population as communist-symphatizers, when the truth was far from it. The government of Malaysia rightfully did not declare the Second Emergency as one, but instead learned from the Briggs Plan that the only way to win the war against the communists was through the tandem improvement of security and development: KESBAN – Keselamatan dan Pembangunan (Security and Development).

KESBAN was carried out to protect the people from subversion, insurgency and a state of lawlessness. It saw the coordination of all agencies from kampung level all the way up. I had had the opportunity to work under Tan Sri Yuen Yuet Leng (one of the heroes of Operation Ginger during the First Emergency), who as the Chief Police Officer of Perak, had to fight not just the war against the communists but also against common criminals. He related to me how, when the police force was stretched thin in Perak, called all the head of gangsters in Perak and appointed them as Rukun Tetangga heads.

“They were born leaders with natural leadership skills. All I had to do was channel those skills to positive use.”

The newly-appointed Rukun Tetangga heads were given the task to uphold the law and maintain peace and order. Any gang member found breaking the law would be surrendered to the police, else the leader will be arrested. This ploy work, crime was drastically reduced, and the police had a freer hand in combatting the communist terrorists in Perak.

The Rukun Tetangga (Neighbourhood Watch) was born out of KESBAN. It saw people of all races work together to keep their neighbourhood peaceful; but what it did most was to foster a good relationship and understanding between races. People were more tolerant of each other back then than they are now. Mind you, it was around half a decade after the race riots of 1969. No one, save for a few, cared whether one was Malay, Indian or Chinese, or Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Tao or Hindu. They were all Malaysians back then.

KESBAN also allowed for development to reach the rural areas; where there was no electricity, some kampungs began to enjoy at least 12-hour electricity supply per day, with the police and military guarding the power supply network from the occasional sabotage by the CPM. Once more rural areas were developed and connected, the communist terrorists moved further deep inside the jungle.

KESBAN would not have been possible had it not been for the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Malaysia. In February 1972, US President Nixon established diplomatic ties with Communist China in order to stem the influence of the Soviet Union in East Asia. The late Tun Abdul Razak did so in 1974. China warmed up to Malaysia. Everywhere the Malaysian delegation went, children lined up the streets waving the flags of both nation. One must remember that back in 1961, Chin Peng had gone to meet with Deng Xiaoping. The latter enjoyed strong support in the Communist Party of China but was not in good terms with Chairman Mao. The diplomatic ties between Mao and Razak was in a way a hint to Chin Peng and Deng. The CPM retaliated with the assissination of Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Hashim, the then Inspector-General of Police a week later.

Due to the relationship between China and Malaysia, in October 1974, the CPM saw a split in its ranks, and eventually a split in the organisation. The CPM Marxist-Leninist, a splinter group leaning towards the Soviet Union was born. This group was then renamed the Malayan People’s Liberation Army.

IN PART 3 I WILL WRITE MORE ON THE SECOND EMERGENCY TO ITS EVENTUAL COLLAPSE