Malayan Emergency

Malayan Emergency
Darurat Malaya
馬來亞緊急狀態
மலாயா அவசரகாலம்
Part of the decolonization of Asia and Cold War in Asia
Clockwise from top left:
  • Australian Avro Lincoln bomber dropping 500lb bombs
  • Communist leader Lee Meng in 1952
  • RAF staff loads bombs to be used against communist rebels
  • King's African Rifles search abandoned hut
  • Civilians forcibly evicted from their land by the British as part of the Briggs' Plan
Date16 June 1948 – 31 July 1960
(12 years, 1 month, 2 weeks and 1 day)
Location
British Malaya
Result

British Commonwealth victory

Belligerents

British Commonwealth forces:
 United Kingdom

 Australia
 New Zealand
Supported by:
 Thailand
(Thai–Malaysian border)

Communist forces:
Malayan Communist Party

Commanders and leaders

United Kingdom

Malaya

Singapore

Australia

New Zealand

Malayan Communist Party

Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA)

Strength

Over 451,000 troops

Over 7,000 troops

Casualties and losses
1,443 killed
1,346 killed
2,406 wounded
39 killed
15 killed
8 killed		 6,710 killed
226 executed
1,289 wounded
1,287 captured
2,702 surrendered
Civilians killed: 2,478
Civilians missing: 810
Civilian casualties: 5,000+
Total killed: 11,107

The Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) was a guerrilla war fought in Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and the military forces of the Federation of Malaya and Commonwealth (British Empire). The communists fought to win independence for Malaya from the British Empire and to establish a communist state, while the Malayan Federation and Commonwealth forces fought to combat communism and protect British economic and colonial interests.[3][4][5] The term "Emergency" was used by the British to characterise the conflict in order to avoid referring to it as a war, because London-based insurers would not pay out in instances of civil wars.[6] The MNLA referred to the conflict as the Anti-British National Liberation War.[7]

The war began on 17 June 1948, after Britain declared a state of emergency in Malaya following attacks on plantations,[8] which had been revenge attacks for the killing of left-wing activists.[9] Leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) Chin Peng and his allies fled into the jungles and formed the MNLA to wage a war for national liberation against British colonial rule. Many MNLA fighters were veterans of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), a communist guerrilla army previously trained, armed and funded by the British to fight against Japan during World War II.[10] The communists gained support from many civilians, mainly those from the Chinese community.[11] The communists' belief in class consciousness, and both ethnic and gender equality, inspired many women and indigenous people to join both the MNLA and its undercover supply network the Min Yuen.[12] Additionally, hundreds of former Japanese soldiers joined the MNLA.[13] After establishing a series of jungle bases the MNLA began raiding British colonial police and military installations. Mines, plantations, and trains were attacked by the MNLA with the goal of gaining independence for Malaya by bankrupting the British occupation.

The British attempted to starve the MNLA using scorched earth policies through food rationing, killing livestock, and aerial spraying of the herbicide Agent Orange.[18] The British engaged in extrajudicial killings of unarmed villagers, in violation of the Geneva Conventions.[19] The most infamous example is the Batang Kali massacre, which the press has referred to as "Britain's My Lai".[a] The Briggs Plan forcibly relocated between 400,000 and 1,000,000 civilians into concentration camps called "new villages".[24][25][26] Many Orang Asli indigenous communities were also targeted for internment because the British believed that they were supporting the communists.[27][28] The widespread use of decapitations on people suspected to have been guerrillas, led to the 1952 British Malayan headhunting scandal. Similar scandals relating to atrocities committed by British forces included the public display of corpses.[29]

Although the emergency was declared over in 1960, communist leader Chin Peng renewed the insurgency against the Malaysian government in 1968. This second phase of the insurgency lasted until 1989.

  1. ^ Federation of Malaya Independence Act 1957
  2. ^ Malaysia Act 1963
  3. ^ Deery, Phillip. "Malaya, 1948: Britain's Asian Cold War?" Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 1 (2007): 29–54.
  4. ^ Siver, Christi L. "The other forgotten war: understanding atrocities during the Malayan Emergency." In APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper. 2009., p.36
  5. ^ Newsinger 2013, p. 217.
  6. ^ Burleigh, Michael (2013). Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World 1945–1965. New York: Viking – Penguin Group. p. 164. ISBN 978-0-670-02545-9.
  7. ^ Amin, Mohamed (1977). Caldwell, Malcolm (ed.). The Making of a Neo Colony. Spokesman Books, UK. p. 216.
  8. ^ Burleigh, Michael (2013). Small Wars Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World 1945–1965. New York: Viking – Penguin Group. pp. 163–164. ISBN 978-0-670-02545-9.
  9. ^ Newsinger 2013, p. 216–217.
  10. ^ Hack, Karl (28 September 2012). "Everyone Lived in Fear: Malaya and the British way of Counterinsurgency". Small Wars and Insurgencies. 23 (4–5): 672. doi:10.1080/09592318.2012.709764. S2CID 143847349 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
  11. ^ Datar, Rajan (host), with author Sim Chi Yin; academic Show Ying Xin (Malaysia Institute, Australian National University); and academic Rachel Leow (University of Cambridge): "The Malayan Emergency: A long Cold War conflict seen through the eyes of the Chinese community in Malaya," 11 November 2021, The Forum (BBC World Service), (radio program) BBC, retrieved 11 November 2021
  12. ^ Khoo, Agnes (2007). Life as the River Flows: Women in the Malayan Anti-Colonial Struggle. Monmouth, Wales: Merlin Press. pp. 12–13.
  13. ^ Hara, Fujio (2016). "Former Japanese Soldiers Who Joined Communist Guerrillas in Malaya". Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 89 (2 (311)): 67–99. doi:10.1353/ras.2016.0025. JSTOR 26527760. S2CID 201734987. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference BFBS21 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mann13 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hay82 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference JaWa21 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ [14][15][16][17]
  19. ^ Siver, Christi (2018). "Enemies or Friendlies? British Military Behavior Toward Civilians During the Malayan Emergency". Military Interventions, War Crimes, and Protecting Civilians. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer Nature. pp. 2–8, 19–20, 57–90. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-77691-0. ISBN 978-3-319-77690-3. British efforts to educate soldiers about the Geneva Conventions either did not ever reach units deployed in Malaya or left no impression on them...All of these regiments went through the introductory jungle warfare course and received the same instruction about 'snap shooting' and differentiating between targets. Differences in training do not seem to explain why some units killed civilians while others did not.
  20. ^ "A mistake or murder in cold blood? Court to rule over 'Britain's My Lai'". The Times. London. 28 April 2012.
  21. ^ Connett, David (18 April 2015). "Batang Kali killings: Britain in the dock over 1948 massacre in Malaysia". The Independent. London.
  22. ^ Bowcott, Owen (25 January 2012). "Batang Kali relatives edge closer to the truth about 'Britain's My Lai massacre'". The Guardian. London.
  23. ^ Hughes, Matthew (October 2012). "Introduction: British ways of counter-insurgency". Small Wars & Insurgencies. 23 (4–5). London: Taylor & Francis: 580–590. doi:10.1080/09592318.2012.709771.
  24. ^ Keo, Bernard Z. (March 2019). "A small, distant war? Historiographical reflections on the Malayan Emergency". History Compass. 17 (3). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell: e12523. doi:10.1111/hic3.12523. S2CID 150617654. Despite their innocuous nomenclature, New Villages were in fact, as Tan demonstrates, concentration camps designed less to keep the communists out but to place the rural Chinese population under strict government surveillance and control.
  25. ^ Newsinger 2015, p. 50, "Their homes and standing crops were fired, their agricultural implements were smashed and their livestock either killed or turned loose. Some were subsequently to receive compensation, but most never did. They were then transported by lorry to the site of their 'new village' which was often little more than a prison camp, surrounded by a barbed wire fence, illuminated by searchlights. The villages were heavily policed with the inhabitants effectively deprived of all civil rights.".
  26. ^ Sandhu, Kernial Singh (March 1964). "The Saga of the "Squatter" in Malaya". Journal of Southeast Asian History. 5 (1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 143–177. doi:10.1017/s0217781100002258. The outstanding development of the Emergency in Malaya was the implementation of the Briggs Plan, as a result of which about 1,000,000 rural people were corralled into more than 600 'new' settlements, principally New Villages.
  27. ^ Jones, Alun (September 1968). "The Orang Asli: An Outline of Their Progress in Modern Malaya". Journal of Southeast Asian History. 9 (2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 286–305. doi:10.1017/s0217781100004713. Thousands of Orang Asli were escorted out of the jungle by the police and the army, to find themselves being herded into hastily prepared camps surrounded by barbed wire to prevent their escape. The mental and physiological adaption called for was too much for many of the people of the hills and jungle and hundreds did not survive the experience.
  28. ^ Idrus, Rusalina (2011). "The Discourse of Protection and the Orang Asli in Malaysia". Kajian Malaysia. 29 (Supp. 1). Penang: Universiti Sains Malaysia: 53–74.
  29. ^ Cite error: The named reference :6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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