Chin Peng and the struggle for Malaya

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 279-297

  Stockwell, A J ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 43249157340     PISSN: 13561863     EISSN: 14740591     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1356186306006201     Document Type: Article

References (82)

1. The Correspondent, Oct.-Nov. 2003, the on-line publication of the Foreign Correspondents' Club, Hong Kong, http://www'.fcchk.org/correspondent/corro-oct- nov03/chinpcng.htm.
2. Montgomery to Oliver Lyttelton (secretary of state for the colonies), 27 Dec. 1951, in A.J. Stockwell (ed.), British Documents on End of Empire: Malaya (London, 1995), II, document 258.
3. For the reward offer, see CO 1022/132, The National Archives, Kew (TNA). The wages of unskilled field-workers (20-25% of the labourers on rubber estates) rose from MS1.43 per day in the first quarter of 1950 to a record high of MS2.90 at the height of the Korean War boom in the second half of 1951 but dropped back in 1952 as the boom petered out. See, Richard Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency 1968-60 (Singapore, 1988), pp. 111 and 174
4. and Federation of Malaya Animal Report, 1953 (Kuala Lumpur), pp. 26-7 and 49ff.
5. Chin Peng, Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History, as told to Ian Ward and Norma Miraflor (Singapore, 2003).
6. See also C. C. Chin and Karl Hack (eds.), Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party (Singapore, 2004). These works are subsequently referred to as My Side of History and Dialogues. The latter includes valuable essays by C. C. Chin and Karl Hack on Chin Peng's life and the Malayan Emergency as well as transcripts of conversations with him.
7. My Side of History, pp. 133 and 510.
8. For the effects of the world depression on Southeast Asia, see: Ian Drown, 'Rural distress in Southeast Asia during the world depression of the 1930s: a preliminary re-examination', Journal of Asian Studies, 45, 5 (1986), pp. 995-1025;
9. Robert E. Elson, 'International Commerce, the State and Society: Economic and Social Change' in Nicholas Tarling (ed.), The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, vol. II (Cambridge, 1992), 186-193;
10. T. N. Harper, The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 27-29.
11. "Malaya', Cabinet memorandum by Oliver Lyttehon, 21 Dec. 1951, C(51)59, in Stockwell (ed.), Malaya, II, document 257, paras 55-57. Lyttelton proposed a shake-up of the police, including changes at the top, and in January 1952 Colonel W. N. Gray was replaced by Colonel Arthur Young, commissioner of the City of London Police.
12. Review of the Emergency in Malaya from June 1948 to August 1957 by the Director of Operations, Malaya [Lieutenant-General R. H. Bower]', 12 Sept. 1957, AIR 20/10377, TNA.
13. Oliver Lyttelton, The Memoirs of Lord Chandos (London, 1964), p. 372.
14. See also 'Malaya', C(51)59, para. 60. More precise figures for the period 1951-53 are given in CO 1022/132.
15. Tunku Abdul Rahman, Looking Back (Kuala Lumpur, 1977), pp. 6-14;
16. Dialogues, pp. 171-185. The verbatim record of the two-day talks is to be found at CO 1030/29, 1030/30 and 1030/31.
17. For an early assessment of this agreement see K. S. Nathan, Asian Survey, 30, 2 (Feb. 1990), pp. 210-212.
18. This period is covered in My Side of Histery, chapters 24-30
19. and Dialogues, pp. 186-224 and 306-326. Richard Collin, 'Interview -Chin Peng - Haadyai Southern Thailand - Wednesday 22/Thursday 23 January 1992', library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
20. F. Spencer Chapman, The Jungle is Neutral (London, 1949). Chapman remained behind enemy lines after the British surrender in 1942 and later linked up with Force 136 officers.
21. Dialogues, pp. 222-223.
22. In addition to the editors, C. C. Chin and Karl Hack, contributors include: C. F. Yong, Yoji Akashi, Cheah Boon Kheng, Peter Edwards, Leon Comber, John Coates, Anthony Short, Richard Stubbs, Jamie Mackie, Hara Fujio, and John D. Leary.
23. For the origins of the communists' armed struggle, see: Ruth McVey, The Calcutta Conference and the South-East Asian Uprisings (Ithaca, 1958);
24. M. R. Stenson, Repression and Revolt: The Origins of the 1948 Communist Insurrection in Malaya and Singapore (Athens, Ohio, 1969);
25. Anthony Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya 1948-1960 (London, 1975), especially pp. 65-94, reissued as In Pursuit of Mountain Rats: The Communist Insurrection in Malaya (Singapore, 2000);
26. Stubbs, Hearts and Minds, pp. 42-65;
27. A.J. Stockwell, '"A widespread and long-concocted plot to overthrow government in Malaya"? The Origins of the Malayan Emergency', in Robert Holland (ed.), Emergencies and Disorder in the European Empires after 1945 (London, 1994), pp. 66-88;
28. Aloysius Chin, The Communist Party of Malaya: The Inside Story (Kuala Lumpur, 1995);
29. Harper, End of Empire, pp. 94-148.
30. The question was also discussed at the Canberra workshop, Dialogues, p. 100ff.
31. Pace Chin Peng, who asserts that most of the accounts have been written by "Caucasian authors, applying neat Western concepts of right and wrong, good and evil... to the obvious benefit of the West's position in the region" (My Side of History, p. 127)
32. the outstanding history of the period is Cheah Boon Khcng's Red Star over Malaya: Resistance and Social Conflict during and after the fapanese Occupation, 1941-1946 (Singapore, 1983).
33. Report on the Military Government 12-30 September 1945', BMA/TS Com no. 58/9, Arkib Negara Malaysia (National Archives of Malaysia).
34. It 'appears, however, that publishing delays, rather than censorship, held up the appearance of F. S. V. Donnison's British Military Administration in the Far East (London, 1956). See CO 1022/468.
35. Philip Ziegler (ed.), Personal Diary of Admiral the Lord Louis Monutbattcn, Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia, 1943-1946 (London, 1988), p. 244, entry for 11 Sept. 1945.
36. See also Peter Dennis, Troubled Days of Peace: Mountbatten and South East Asia Command, 1943-46 (Manchester, 1987)
37. and Richard McMillan, The British Occupation of Indonesia 1945-46: Britain, the Netherlands and the Indonesian Revolution (London, 2005).
38. Files on Operation Zipper are to be found within the voluminous series for South-East Asia Command, WO 203, TNA.
39. This commemoration took place on I July 1952; it was only later that Chin Peng's generation learned from Ho Chi Minh, who had attended the inauguration in Singapore, that the MCP had been founded some time in April 1930.
40. Translation of MCP document dated I Oct. 1953, published by the Singapore Freedom Press and enclosed in A. E. G. Blades (director, Special Branch, Singapore) to commissioner of police, 3 Dec. 1953, and minutes by R. Baxter, 31 Dec. 1953 and T. C. Jerrom, 1 Jan. 1954, CO 1022/46.
41. 'Lessons' from Malaya were applied to wars of decolonisation in Kenya, Cyprus and Aden, and to Americas war in Vietnam. Sir Robert Thompson, who worked closely with Templer and served as defence secretary in Malaya, was later appointed to head the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam (13RI AM, 1961-5). Competing interests in Washington and Saigon, however, neutralised BRIAM's influence.
42. See Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: Experiences in Malaya and Vietnam (London, 1966)
43. and Ian F.W. Beckett, 'Robert Thompson and the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam, 1961-1965', Small Wars and Insurgencies, 8, 3 (1997).
44. Dialogues, pp. 10, 16, 20, 31 n.28, 378 and 379;
45. Short, Communist Insurrection, pp. 507-508;
46. 'Review of the Emergency in Malaya', 12 Sept. 1957, AIR 20/10377. The number of detainees also dropped markedly from the "intolerable" level noted by the secretary of state in December 1951 to approximately 2,000 by December 1953, see CO 1022/132, item 52.
47. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was a hero of the Second World War who, having served under Vichy, turned against Germany in 1942. After he was posted to Indo-china as commander-in-chief in 1951 French fortunes revived, but he was soon invalided to France and died in January 1952. Thereafter General Vo Nguyen Giap regained the initiative. De Tassigny was posthumously made a Marshal of France. For comparisons between the two generals, see John Cloake, Templer Tiger of Malaya: The Life of Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer (London, 1985), pp. 219, 293 and 295ff.
48. For a balanced assessment, see Simon C. Smith, 'General Templer and Counter-Insurgency in Malaya: Hearts and Minds, Intelligence, and Propaganda', Intelligence and National Security, 16, 1 (Autumn 2001), pp. 60-78.
49. Purcell, Malaya: Communist or Free? (London, 1954), p. 16
50. and review of Arthur Campbell's Jungle Green (1954) in Pacific Affairs, 27, 1 (Mar. 1954), pp. 87-88;
51. Cloake, Templer, pp. 291-292 and 307-309;
52. and Louis Heren, Growing up on 'Tltc Times' (London, 1978), pp. 135-155;
53. Determined not to repeat the error of 1941, when the British failed to launch Operation Matador in order to pre-empt a Japanese attack from southern Thailand, ten years later the Chiefs of Staff drew up a contingency plan to advance to Songkhla in Thai territory should Thailand come under communist domination, see: 'Preparations for the defence of Malaya', Chiefs of Staff note for the Cabinet Defence Committee, 23 Feb. 1951, in Stockwell (ed.), Malaya, II, document 231.
54. Chin Peng confirms that shooting Gurney was fortuitous, not planned. Dialogues, pp. 155-8.
55. Karl Hack, 'Screwing Down the People: The Malayan Emergency, Decolonisation, and Ethnicity', in Hans Antlov and Stein Tonnesson (eds.), Imperial Policy and South-East Asian nationalism 1930-1957 (Richmond, Surrey, 1995).
56. 'Attitude to be adopted in publicity towards communism in Malaya and China', joint note by the Colonial Office and Foreign Office, Dec. 1949, and 'Political and economic background to the situation in Malaya', memorandum by James Griffiths for the Cabinet Defence Committee, 15 Nov. 1950, DO(50)94, in Stockwell (ed.), Malaya, II, documents 202 and 227; minutes of the Cabinet Malaya Committee, 4th meeting, S May 1950, PREM 8/1406 pt II, TNA.
57. At My Lai on 16 March 1968, US forces killed over 500 unarmed Vietnamese. This episode was covered up until the journalist, Seymour M. Hersh, broke the news in November 1969 but only one soldier, Lieutenant William Calley, was found guilty. In March 1971 Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour but was released, pending appeal. Under house arrest for three years, Calley was freed on bail in 1974 and later that year was placed on parole, having completed but one third of a reduced sentence of ten years. In connection with My Lai, George Brown (former British foreign secretary) risked the remark: "I suspect there are an awful lot of spectres in our cupboard, too". In February 1970 The People rose to his challenge.
58. FCO 24/851, TNA.
59. See also Brian Lapping, End of Empire (London, 1985), pp. 168-169. Transcripts of interviews conducted for the Granada TV series of 1985 have been deposited with Rhodes House Library, Oxford.
60. Cf report from Malaysia from BBC correspondent Jonathan Kent 'Past lessons for occupying forces', broadcast on 10 July 2004 and up-dated on 17 July 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/fron1-our-own-correspondent/ 3897147.stm
61. Cf. two important studies of British treatment of detainees during the Mau Mau Emergency: David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: Britain's Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire (London and New York, 2005)
62. and Caroline Elkins, Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire (London, 2005);
63. American edition Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, (New York, 2005).
64. Unlike Batang Kali, files on the Lee Mcng episode are open at The National Archives, Kew, particularly with respect to representations in her support and Cold War ramifications, see:, CC4(53)7, 22 Jan. 1953, CAB 128/26/1; C(53)52, C(53)75, C(53)98, Feb.-Mar. 1953, CAB 129/59; CO 1022/2-6; FO 370/106275-106283; PREM 11/454.
65. For the changing timetable for self-government, see Stockwell (ed), Malaya, II, documents 219, 283, and III, documents 394, 399, 400, 404, 405 and 406.
66. Far Eastern Economic Review, 7 Dec. 1989, pp. 29-33.
67. For C. C. Too, see: Kumar Ramakrishna, Emergency Propaganda: The Winning of Malayan Hearts and Minds 1948-1958 (Richmond, Surrey, 2002)
68. and 'The Making of a Malayan Propagandist: The Communists and C. C. Too', Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, LXXIII, 1 (June 2000), pp. 242-266.
69. Peter Taaffe, review of My Side of History, 4 March 2005, http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2005/02/ 04malay.html
70. The quotations are taken from Tim Hardy, 'Footnote Man', Newsletter of the Royal Malaysian Police Force Officers Association [RMPFOA], 16 Jan. 2004, pp. 19-20.
71. Neal Ascherson, 'Finally I meet the man I was sent to kill 40 years ago - and he smiles' (profile of Chin Peng), Observer (London), 14 June 1998. Ascherson served as a commando in the Emergency.
72. Peter Edwards, 'Public Enemy Number One', Wartime (Canberra, Australian War Memorial magazine, Summer 1999), available online at: http://www.awm.gov.au/ wartime/8/articles/public-enemy.pdf. The collections and publications of the Australian War Memorial cover Australia's military involvement in the Malayan Emergency.
73. Daily Worker, 22 May 1952.
74. See press cuttings on the publisher's website: http://www.mediamasters. com.sg/say-peng.htm.
75. S. Arutchelvan, Aliran Monthly, September 2003, http://www.aliran.com/ monthly/2003a/9e.html. Birch was murdered while posting notices which proclaimed direct British control over state administration and thereby departed from the Pangkor Engagement (Jan. 1874) between Britain and Malay chiefs.
76. The leaders of the rising were driven out of Pahang and Mat Kilau was believed to have died in Thailand but in December 1969 an old man emerged in Pahang insisting that he was Mat Kilau. This revelation caused much excitement since it occurred a few months after the "May 13 incident" - the race riots that had rocked the foundations of the nation-state. To be authentic, the claimant would have had to be well over 100 years old. Subsequent investigations concluded, just before the old man died, that he was the revered warrior. A tradition of Malay resistance lived on in central Pahang after the rising of the 1890s and, in contrast to the rest of the Federation, during the Emergency Pahang Malays took up arms against the government and formed the MNLA's 10th Regiment. Today "Warrior Country" is a tourist attraction where trekkers can follow the "Mat Kilau Trail' along the Tembeling River that borders Taman Negara (National Park) and leads to Trengganu.
77. Quoted in Cheah Boon Kheng, Malaysia: The Making of a Nation (Singapore, 2002), p. 1.
78. Both radical activists in post-war Malaya, Abdullah C. D. and Musa Ahmad were founders of the MNLA's 10th Regiment in May 1949, crossing into southern Thailand early in 1954. On the eve of the Baling Talks (December 1955) Musa was made chairman of the Central Committee and the Indian, R. G. Balan, became vice-chairman. Rashid Maidin was a member of the Central Committee and attended the Baling Talks, sitting at Chin Peng's right hand. Musa later went to Beijing but in the 1980s he renounced communism and returned to Malaysia. Musa was succeeded as chairman by Abdullah C. D. who has written his own account, Perang Anti-British dan Perdamaian [The anti-British war and reconciliation] (Hong Kong, 1998).
79. Ascherson, Observer, 14 June 1998.
80. Alex Spillius (for the Daily Telegraph, London), 'Malaysia bans rebel leaders book on British "atrocities'", 8 Sept. 2003, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne\vs/2003/09/08/wmalay8xml.
81. As quoted by Tim Hardy, RMPFOA Newsletter, 16 Jan. 2004, p. 20.
82. As quoted by Lim Kit Siang, DAP Chairman, 7 Oct. 2003, http://dapmalaysia.org/all-archive/English/ 2003 /oct03 /lks/lks2672.htm.