| Communist insurgency in Sarawak | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Formation of Malaysia, Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–89) and Cold War | |||||||
 Armed soldiers guarding a group of Chinese villagers who were taking a communal bath in 1965 to prevent them from collaborating with the Communist guerrillas and to protect the area from Indonesian infiltrators. | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
|
Anti-communist forces:
Supported by:  Indonesia (after 1965)[2] (Indo-Malay border) |
Communist forces:
 China[4] North Vietnam (until 1975) North Korea[5][6] | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Abdullah Mahmud Hendropriyono |
Sukarno (until 1965) A. M. Azahari Yassin Affandi Chin Peng | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
1,500+ armed police and soldiers[10][11] 10,000 (1968) 3,000+ Indonesian soldiers[12] |
600–1,000+ guerrilla fighters[10][13] Unknown numbers of Indonesian infiltrators[4][10] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
99 killed ≈2,000 Indonesian soldiers killed or wounded[4] (Communists claims & Approximates by Anonymous) |
400–500 killed Hundreds Indonesian infiltrators killed | ||||||
| ≈19 civilians killed[10][14] | |||||||
| Statistics source:[15] | |||||||
The communist insurgency in Sarawak was an insurgency in Malaysia from 1962 to 1990, and involved the North Kalimantan Communist Party (NKCP) and the Malaysian Government. It was one of the two communist insurgencies to challenge the former British colony of Malaysia during the Cold War. As with the earlier Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), the communist insurgents in Sarawak were predominantly ethnic Chinese, who opposed British rule over Sarawak and later opposed the merger of the state into the newly created Federation of Malaysia.[7] The insurgency was triggered by the 1962 Brunei revolt, which had been instigated by the left-wing Brunei People's Party in opposition to the proposed formation of Malaysia.[1]
The communist insurgents in Sarawak were also supported by Indonesia until 1965, when the pro-Western president Suharto assumed power in a coup and ended the confrontation with Malaysia. During that period, the NKCP's two main military formations were created: the Sarawak People's Guerrilla Force (SPGF) or Pasukan Gerilya Rakyat Sarawak (PGRS), and the North Kalimantan People's Army (NKPA) or the Pasukan Rakyat Kalimantan Utara (PARAKU).[4] Following the end of the confrontation, Indonesian military forces would co-operate with the Malaysians in counter-insurgency operations against their former allies.[2][1]
The North Kalimantan Communist Party was formally established in March 1970, through the merger of several Communist and left-wing groups in Sarawak including the Sarawak Liberation League (SLL), the Sarawak Advanced Youths' Association (SAYA), and the NKPA.[4] In response to the insurgency, the Malaysian federal government created several "controlled areas" along the Kuching-Serian road in Sarawak's First and Third Divisions in 1965. In addition, the Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Rahman Ya'kub also managed to convince many of the NKCP insurgents, to enter into peace negotiations and lay down their arms between 1973 and 1974. Following the successful peace talks between the Malaysian government and the Malayan Communist Party in 1989, the remaining NKCP insurgents signed a peace agreement on 17 October 1990, which formally ended the insurgency.[4][7]
- ^ a b c Fowler, Will (2006). Britain's Secret War: The Indonesian Confrontation 1962–66. London: Osprey Publishing. pp. 11, 41. ISBN 978-1-84603-048-2.
- ^ a b c d e f Francis Chan; Phyllis Wong (16 September 2011). "Saga of communist insurgency in Sarawak". The Borneo Post. Retrieved 10 January 2013.
- ^ Cheah Boon Kheng, p.149
- ^ a b c d e f g h Hara, Fujiol (December 2005). "The North Kalimantan Communist Party and the People's Republic of China". The Developing Economies. XLIII (1): 489–513. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1049.2005.tb00956.x. hdl:10.1111/j.1746-1049.2005.tb00956.x. S2CID 153955103.
- ^ Geoffrey Jukes (1 January 1973). The Soviet Union in Asia. University of California Press. pp. 173–. ISBN 978-0-520-02393-2.
- ^ Kurt London (1974). The Soviet Impact on World Politics. Ardent Media. pp. 153–. ISBN 978-0-8015-6978-4.
- ^ a b c Cheah Boon Kheng pp. 132–52
- ^ Wilfred Pilo (3 November 2013). "The day the insurgency ended". The Borneo Post. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
- ^ Wilfred Pilo (5 August 2014). "Former enemies meet as friends 40 years later". The Borneo Post. Retrieved 6 August 2014.
- ^ a b c d "Communist Guerrillas Push Government Into Campaign in Borneo's Town, Jungles". Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Herald-Journal. 2 September 1971. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
- ^ Doreena Naeg (10 October 2010). "The forgotten warriors". The Borneo Post. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
- ^ Hugh Mabbett (18 March 1971). "Quit homes, 17,000 told". The Age. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
- ^ Michael Richardson (28 March 1972). "Sarawak Reds kill 13 soldiers". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
- ^ Conny Banji (21 February 2012). "The night communists killed hero of Ulu Oya". The Borneo Post. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
- ^ Peter O'loughlin (20 February 1974). "Malaya rebels on move again". The Age. Associated Press. Retrieved 3 September 2015.