Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
"Kembara Duga", adventure cum endurance competition in 2004. Seen here is the team from the 6th Battalion Royal Rangers in action. A tough and gruelling competition comprising events such as a 40 km endurance march/run, mountain climbing cum navigation, 60 km rafting- against the current and culminating in a rifle shooting competition. All team members must cross the finishing line intact as a team. Seen in image are team members carrying an injured comrade splashing through the mud. One of them carries the injured member's pack in front of him, racing towards the finishing line. Click on image to enlarge.
Image, courtesy of Major Chan Weng Poh, who was then the Second-In Command of 6th Rangers. Currently stationed in the "Land Below The Wind".
Lee Kuan Yew is wrong.......... very wrong...........
Angry Indonesian lawmakers are demanding a public apology and explanation from Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew after he reportedly said the minority Chinese-Indonesian community was being systematically marginalised. Malaysian leaders also have reportedly demanded an apology from Lee. The source in full. Bernama.
Yesss.. he was wrong in saying only Chinese are marginalised. Alot of us minorities too have been marginalised. He is wrong because he did not mention the Indians, the Orang Asli, the Malays in the rural areas, the East Malaysian natives like the Kadazans, Ibans oh yes the Penans where, Penan plight shocks Suhakam team - subscription required.Many other minorities were not mentioned that's why Lee Kuan Yew is wrong!
I was going through Jeff Ooi's blog on the topic "Chinese marginalised in Malaysia': Damage control in HarryLee-land" when my eye caught this comment by a reader named harin. His is the 3rd comment. Here are extracts from his comments :
1. it only takes very little to sway the malaysian chinese to be on singapore's side.
2. would the malaysian chinese help this nation if ever singapore were to attack and slaughter us?
3. You live in this country you call yours, make your fortune here, bring up your children and family here, but yet when loyalty test you, you fail to stand up.
4. You jump at the very opportunity you get to stab the people you have been living with all this while.
5. Do you live here to just suck this country's resources dry, or will you be here through thick and thin, through happiness and sorrow?
6. This is my country. I would fight and die if and when the call comes. Could you say the same about yourself?
7. It would have been great if we stood united with one voice as malaysians and gave LKY a piece of our mind. A famous man once said " ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country".
The problem with people like harin is you do not know about people like these Chinese who were willing to die for Malaysia unconditionally, they only wanted to be treated fairly. The current situation is like "some people are more equal than others". People like him are WIND BAGS, full of foul air and all empty talk. These are the marginalised Chinese. A couple of them I know. Like they say a picture paints a thous...ooops a million words. The problem with people like hani is they live under a coconut shell, listen to what the mainstream spins....and believe the crap dished out.
My wife's uncle, Sergeant Choo Woh Soon. He is the short guy in the centre from the Recce Regiment. All of them are holding sabres not swords. Yes, he is a Chinese. Sabres are the weapons of the cavalry.He is the guy who killed some of the killers of Henry Gurney. Click on the image to enlarge.
Here is my father-in-law when he was very young. He is the guy in the centre of this armoured vehicle. This was taken at the Police Depot. It was during the Malayan Emergency. He is accompanied by other Chinese. They walked the talk,hani! Incidentally his name is Choo Woh Hup, the elder brother of Choo Woh Soon.
In Taiping, my father in law was a Corporal.In front of the members of the Kinta Valley Homeguard preparing for a firing practice.Click on image to enlarge.
Honour Guard mounted by the Kinta Valley Homeguard at Silibin,Ipoh, Perak. The bugler is from the Royal Malay Regiment. Click on image to enlarge. Anyone knows the details of this camp?
A group of Chinese members of the Kinta Valley Homeguard during the Malayan Emergency, father-in-law included. Recognise anyone ? Click on image to enlarge.
Malaya, 1965-04-05. Sarawak Rangers laden with packs and weapons leap from a RAAF 5 Squadron Bell Iroquois UH-1B Helicopter(A2-387) into a clearing in the jungle near the Thai/Malay border. (Photographer : SERGEANT D. TRAVERS).
Surrender means humiliation -Chin Peng. Monday, Jan. 9, 1956
On a mountain top in Malaya last week, John Davis waited for an old wartime friend. Davis had slipped into Malaya by submarine during the Japanese occupation, fought as a guerrilla against the Japanese with the man he was now waiting for: Chin Peng, Chinese-educated leader of Malaya's Communists. After World War II had come a parting of the ways: after marching in the victory parade in London, Chin Peng had gone back to the jungle to continue his guerrilla war, this time against the British and the Malayans; Davis had become a senior district officer in the government of Malaya. As Davis watched the jungle, two scouts walked across the border from Thailand; then came Chin Peng. No longer the slight, pimply youth of the World War II underground, Chin was now a pudgy, soft-faced 34. Laughing, he shook hands with Davis. Said Davis, in Chinese: "Long time no see."
It had, in fact, been something over eight years since non-Communist eyes had rested on Chin Peng. In that time, Chin and his force of 6,000 Communist terrorists had bobbed up all over Malaya, killed some 3,000 unarmed citizens and 2,000 police and soldiers. Running after Chin and repairing his disruptive work had cost the British (who still control Malaya's security and defense forces) a fabulous $1.4 billion. They had put a price of $82,500 on Chin's head, reduced it to $9,900 as the strength of his forces was halved and Chin's value declined. Though far from licked, the terrorists, driven into the remotest jungles, had been forced to set up their headquarters across the border in Thailand.
Recognition. To bring the war to an end, Prince Abdul Rahman (the Tengku), Chief Minister of Malaya's newly elected government, offered to surrendering terrorists an amnesty guaranteeing safe conduct, fair treatment, a pardon, or safe passage to Red China if desired. But he did not promise legal recognition to the Malayan Liberation Army, Chin's name for his Communist outfit. Chin made propaganda out of what he called the "peace negotiations," just as the British had warned the Tengku he would. When at last Chin rejected the amnesty offer, the Tengku was still hopeful, if only he could explain the amnesty terms personally to Chin Peng. Said he: "I am going to listen with an open heart to all Chin Peng has to say." Out of the jungle came a letter from Chin demanding that anti-terrorist activity be suspended over 400 square miles of northern jungle in order to give him safe conduct.
Once Davis and Chin had met, the Englishman led the way down the mountain to the village where Chief Minister Rahman, the colony of Singapore's Chief Minister David Marshall and Sir Cheng-lock Tan, president of the Malayan Chinese Association, were waiting. But first Chin asked to wash up, demanded five sets of fresh underwear, instructed the three servants who had come out of the jungle with him to cook a Chinese meal. Then he went in with his two lieutenants to listen to a four-hour speech by Chief Minister Rahman on the futility of continuing the war. When the Tengku had finished, Chin blandly demanded recognition of the Communist Party. The next day Chief Minister Rahman repeated his lecture and, getting nowhere, was soon shouting angrily: "If the Communists were in power ... I would not indulge in an armed struggle against the government because I love the people and seek their welfare." Chin countered that as long as the British controlled the security forces, the Tengku was not independent. Said the Tengku: "We cannot give the Communist Party equal status and let the events in China, Korea and Viet Nam recur here. Malaya is too small a country to be divided into warring factions."
Over and over the Tengku repeated the only terms on which the Communists would be allowed to return to the commu nity: they must surrender, disband armed forces, and abolish the Communist Party. After surrender they would each be subjected to a loyalty investigation and would be restricted to a specific area of the country, but once investigated, most would be allowed to enter political life again so long as they did not pursue a Communist line. Said Chin: "I and my people will never submit to investigation."
Humiliation. Here Singapore's David Marshall took a hand: "As a human being, I ask you to realize that there are 7,000,000 people in Malaya and 3,000 Communists. I appeal to you to think of their welfare and to accept the sacrifice of your pride in the mild humiliation which you state is implied in the investigation of the loyalty of M.C.P. members before their release." Said Chin: "To report to the police means surrender." Snapped the Tengku: "I will never give in, so you must give in." Replied Chin: "The amnesty means surrender. Surrender means humiliation. We will not accept surrender at any time. We will carry on the struggle to the last man."
Within an hour Chin was on his way back to Thailand. In Penang, a newly arrived contingent of Australian troops prepared for action in the jungle. The source.
The average monthly killing rate of Communist terrorists is 93.Monday, Jul. 7, 1952
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Peppery General Sir Gerald Templer, Britain's High Commissioner for the Communist-bandit-ridden Malayan Federation, flew in to London to report to the British Colonial Office on his first tour of duty in the rubber-rich equatorial peninsula. In machine-gun tones, he rattled off his news:
¶ The average monthly killing rate of Communist terrorists is 93, and going up steadily. "This," said Templer, "is a most heartening sign."
¶ Casualties among the 250,000 British and Malayan security troops, who are stalking the Reds, are down 30%; the rate of terrorist activity has fallen 18%.
He was confident, he said, but not complacent. So long as any sizable number of Malaya's peaceful Chinese colony sympathizes with the guerrillas, it is doubtful whether the British can wipe the guerrillas out entirely. The problem is to give Malaya's 2,500,000 economically powerful Chinese some kind of political voice without stirring up the peninsula's 2,500,000 indigenous Malays.
Templer arrived back in Malaya to find that a Chinese leader, Dato Sir Cheng-lock Tan, had already made a start toward solving the problem.
Cheng-lock Tan, 69, is Britain's best Chinese friend in Malaya (he was knighted last year for services to the empire). A stalwart antiCommunist, whom the Reds once tried to assassinate, Tan founded the Malayan-Chinese Association in 1949 to provide Malaya's Chinese with a spiritual alternative to Marxism. At first, the association stuck to practical philanthropy: it forked out $650,000 to help resettle Chinese squatters moved out of bandit-infested jungles. But Tan was not satisfied. He threatened to resign unless the association backed his political program, and he got his way. Henceforth the M.C.A. will be a hard-hitting political party.
Tan's highest hope is to forge the Malayan Chinese into good Malayan citizens, loyal to the British Commonwealth. His Chinese party will press for full citizenship for Malayan-born Chinese (two-thirds of its members); those born in China will be "weaned so that they transfer their love and affection and loyalty from China to Malaya." "What matters," says Tan, "is the creation of a Sino-Malay spirit," and he thinks this can be done by giving the Chinese squatters a grubstake in the land. "A land title," says Tan, "is the hoop that holds the barrel together."
To win over the Malays, optimistic Sir Tan offers to establish a $163,000 fund for Malay social welfare, and to sponsor multiracial clinics. The British wish him well, but older colonial hands think his path is long and difficult. The source.
One evening last January, in the pale green dining room of Ottawa's Rideau Hall, Winston Churchill sat at a banquet table, ruddy-faced in an atmosphere redolent of brandy and cigars. He was Prime Minister again, and enjoying it. Sitting near him were Lords Ismay, Cherwell and Alexander. Among the 40 guests, few noticed the tall, slim British general seated downtable. But suddenly Churchill waved a brandy glass at the officer and bellowed:
"Templer! Malaya!"
The buzz of conversation, momentarily suspended, was resumed. Five minutes later, Churchill bawled:
"Templer! Full powers!"
Ten minutes later his gruff voice cut through the cigar smoke again:
"Full power, Templer. Very heady stuff. Use it sparingly."
There had been a council of war at Rideau Hall over Commonwealth defenses. Most urgent subject: the 3½-year "state of emergency" in Malaya, where Communist terrorists 1) had taken more than 3,000 lives; 2) were costing $150,000 a day to combat; 3) threatened tin and rubber production, Britain's best dollar earners. A few months before, Communists had ambushed and killed High Commissioner Sir Henry Gurney, the topflight colonial administrator who had been sent out to put order into Malaya's civil service. Said the London Daily Telegraph: "The trouble [has been] not only murder, but mugwumpery."
Churchill ran a broad finger down Britain's army list and halted at the fifth name: General Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer, K.C.B., K.B.E., C.M.G., D.S.O. A message to Cobham, Surrey brought 54-year-old General Templer flying to the banquet room in Ottawa. Three weeks later he was in Malaya, with such military and political powers in his kit bag as no British soldier had had since Cromwell.
Polo & Palestine. The dragon-tooth soil of Northern Ireland has farrowed a fine litter of Britain's great generals—Montgomery, Alexander, Dill, Alanbrooke, Auchinleck. It also farrowed Gerald Templer, a thin, deceptively fragile-looking, tough soldier. His father, a dedicated officer in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, had some discussion with his mother about what to call the child, but there was no discussion about his career: it was Wellington, Sandhurst, and the army. Says his mother, now in her 80s : "He always wanted to be a soldier, and I did my best to make him so."
So did he. He scraped into World War I as a subaltern at the age of 18, made the retreat from the Somme. In 1919 he was part of a hush-hush force in the Caspian Sea area which helped defend the White Russian fleet from Bolshevik attack: "All pretty unsatisfactory from a political point of view, though great fun for a young officer." Now he likes to say that he is the "only senior British officer who ever fought the Russians." Between the world wars, he played polo and rode to hounds, became bayonet-fighting champion of the British army, made the 1924 Olympic squad as a 120-yard hurdler. He also saw action in Palestine, where he won a D.S.O. in guerrilla skirmishes against the Arabs. Palestine taught him "the mind and method of the guerrilla," and introduced him u) the Arab-Jewish problem: "I can remember lying in bed weeping about the tragedy of it." Continued here.
These new posts will be on the Emergency, the era before Independence and post Independence. I will be running a series from the Time archives on Malaya and Malaysia.- Edit
Shout before you shoot!
For the past three months of their eight-year war against Malaya's Communist terrorists, British and Malayan police and soldiers have been so ordered: before firing on suspects, they must call out the offer of a free pardon. The order stemmed from Malaya's recently elected popular government, which had the praiseworthy but perilous idea of starting the record of independent government by offering an amnesty to Communists. Last week the Communist guerrillas, after dickering briefly with the government about a truce , (they insisted on a Panmunjom-style international armistice commission, plus recognition as a legal political party), plainly showed that they preferred a shooting to a shouting war.
Under cover of a heavy monsoon downpour, 150 terrorists crept up to the barbed wire surrounding the jungle village of Kea in central Malaya, cut through the wire and attacked with machine guns. Quickly subduing the police, they forced the Home Guard commander to deliver up Kea's 35-gun armory, then looted the village of all transportable food. Just as they were about to leave, they called on the village headman to lead them to the house of Vegetable Farmer Chou Yin-san. Said a villager later: "The headman had to show them Chou's house. After he did, they didn't say anything. Chou looked at them inquiringly. They slit his throat." By this act (standard for suspected police informers), the Communists signaled to all Southeast Asia the fact that they were as ruthlessly opposed to the now democratic government of Malaya as they had been to colonialism.
The terrorists had hardly melted back into the jungle before the Royal Regiment of Artillery's 25-pounders began laying down heavy barrages on suspected Communist jungle hideouts. In Kuala Lumpur, headquarters of the British and Malayan forces, General Sir Geoffrey Bourne announced tersely that all-out war against the terrorists would be resumed immediately, canceled the order to "shout before you shoot." The reason Communists could face up to the resumption of a shooting war with some confidence lay not so much in the Federation of Malaya as in the British island colony of Singapore at the southern tip of the Malayan peninsula. Here, with considerable success, the Communists have dropped terrorism for a policy of infiltration in the predominantly Chinese population (Singapore has 900,000 Chinese to 20,000 Europeans). The Communist spearhead in Singapore is the Chinese student movement, among whom are an estimated 20.000 fanatical Communists.
Prompted by professional Communist organizers smuggled in from Red China, the students intimidate their teachers and bully their parents into adopting Communist attitudes. They provide mass support for popular demonstrations, and maintain a flow of anti-Western propaganda, e.g., against American movies, popular songs, clothes, books and ideas, all of which they call "yellow." A Chinese youth was recently stabbed for playing "yellow" songs —on his harmonica, while many have been beaten for attending "yellow" movies.
The British method of handling the colonial problem in Singapore, without losing control of the rich commercial port, has been to let the people govern themselves. Singaporeans responded last April by electing a Labor Front government led by a spaniel-eyed criminal lawyer named David Marshall, who campaigned noisily on an anti-British, anticolonial bias, but in office has had to rely on British help to maintain order. In the past nine months there have been 220 strikes in Singapore, mostly Communist-inspired, aimed at crippling the port's economy.
More significant still is the appearance of a crypto-Communist parliamentary opposition led by the People's Action Party, whose spokesman is baby-faced Lee Kuan-yew, a Malaya-born Chinese. Lee Kuan-yew cannot read or write Chinese, but he graduated with high honors from Britain's Cambridge University. Lee's opposition never misses an opportunity of disrupting or discrediting the fledgling government.
The objective: to win sufficient popular support to carry the next general election and set up a legitimate Communist government. Lee's ruthless attack has at last aroused some spirit of resistance among the Labor liberals. Last week, in a confidence vote on a minor budget issue, Marshall defeated the crypto-Communists 19 to 13.
But, said a State Department official last week: "We are more worried about Singapore than any place in Southeast Asia."The source.
The forgotten war: The Malaysia-Indonesia Confrontation NZ involvement: 1965-1966
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
THIS rarely mentioned conflict was fought largely along the Malay-Indonesian border in Borneo. New Zealand joined Britain and other Commonwealth nations aiding Malaysia. Mike Cole was 17 years-old and fresh out of naval training school when he was posted to the undeclared war flaring between Indonesia and the infant Malaysian state. He says his mother threw up her hands in horror at the news, but he wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.
Initially, he says, he didn't understand the so-called "confrontation" he was serving in. He was just keen to get out and see the world. "You never thought you'd be in danger, which you were all the time. You just went up and did your job," he says. As a radar operator on HMNZS Santon, a ton-class mine sweeping vessel, Seaman Cole and his tight-knit crew patrolled the Singapore and Malacca Straits intercepting Indonesian raiders attempting to slip into Malaysian territory.
The Santon and fellow Kiwi minesweeper the Hickleton conducted more than 200 patrols in the first year of the conflict, dealing with 20 covert Indonesian incursions. Mr Cole says his tour of duty mixed the excitement of an overseas experience with the boredom and bad food that characterises much of military life in war and peacetime. "A lot of it was just boring patrols, like most wars are – boring bits with occasional dust ups."
Mostly the Santon stopped suspect vessels and took the crew into custody. He says fortunately the Indonesian navy never attempted to cross the territorial line and the conflict ended abruptly with an internal Indonesian coup in 1966. These days he says people know so little about the "confrontation". Occasionally he's asked about his medals.
"It was a small war that was readily forgotten, which is a shame," says Mr Cole. It was the camaraderie he remembers most and Mr Cole reckons in his 23-year naval career he never enjoyed a posting as much as his time on HMNZS Santon. This year he'll reunite with some of his old crewmates at a reunion in July – the 40th anniversary of the last combat engagement involving a New Zealand naval vessel. The source.....
Dayaks exploded in an avenging rampage of killing, burning and cannibalism against all Chinese. Friday, Dec. 15, 1967
Monday, September 18, 2006
This incident happened around 4 years after Malaysia was formed on the 16th September 1963 in Kalimantan Indonesia.-Edit
During President Sukarno's konfrontasi with Malaysia, the Indonesian army equipped, trained and sheltered guerrillas to harass the Malaysians along the two countries' common border on the island of Borneo. Now the move has boomeranged. Once Sukarno's successor, General Suharto, had ended the foolish quarrel with Malaysia, the guerrillas were left on their own in the jungles of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. Peking, which sees the island's large Chinese population as the advance phalanx for an ultimate Communist takeover, has been exhorting the mostly Chinese guerrillas not only to continue to offer a major challenge to neighboring Malaysia but also to turn on their former Indonesian mentors.
Numbering 750 hard-core fighters, plus several thousand support troops, the guerrillas have repeatedly attacked Indonesian military sites and terrorized Malaysian border areas since July. They have also tried to enlist by intimidation Borneo's primitive Dayak tribesmen, the descendants of legendary headhunters. This tactic provoked a reaction that their Maoist guerrilla handbooks did not even hint at. Meeting terror with terror, the Dayaks exploded in an avenging rampage of killing, burning and cannibalism against all Chinese.
It is an ancient tradition among the pagan Dayaks that collecting the severed heads of the enemy brings honor and virility. The guerrillas should have reckoned with this tradition when they butchered a dozen recalcitrant Dayaks in the village of Taum. Angry tribal powwows quickly followed throughout northwest Kalimantan, and runners were sent from village to village with bowls of blood, the signal to all Dayaks to get ready to use their homemade pistols, poison darts and machete-like parangs against the Chinese.
The Dayaks were soon engaged in a full-scale massacre. They attacked Chinese in their homes and in their shops, killing them, beheading them, even chopping out their livers and hearts and eating them. Before the Indonesian army could cool off the Dayaks, at least 250 Chinese had been slaughtered; Catholic missionaries believe that as many as 1,000 were actually killed.
About 25,000 of the traumatized Chinese have descended on the sleepy West Borneo port of Pontianak, where they live in dismal squalor. The Chinese are crammed into makeshift quarters, bathe in muddy, sewage-filled canals and wander aimlessly along the waterfront, many of them without homes or hope. Pontianak's Communist propagandists could easily use these displaced Chinese as a breeding ground for more unrest and tension.
Burrowed in Bunkers. A few Chinese are drifting back to their villages under the protection of reinforced Indonesian troops, but the guerrillas themselves remain threatening and elusive. As in Viet Nam, they burrow deep in underground bunkers and in mountainside caves, attack only when they consider the odds right. Two weeks ago, 500 guerrillas caught Indonesian troops in a heavy mortar barrage at Fir Mountain, near the Malaysian Borneo state of Sarawak, where the soldiers had stumbled upon a major guerrilla encampment. While the Indonesians flew in more troops, the Malaysians evacuated Indonesian casualties.
The Malaysians are helping out for good reason. Most of the guerrillas are actually Sarawak Chinese, and the name of their movement alone—Sarawak People's Liberation Army—indicates that their aim is to overthrow Malaysian rule there. Nor do the Indonesians minimize the danger that the guerrillas pose to themselves. Citing captured guerrilla documents that urge a large-scale Chinese uprising throughout the island, Indonesia's commander in West Kalimantan, Brigadier General A. J. Witono, told me last week that the guerrillas are part of a two-pronged campaign of armed revolt and political subversion mounted by Peking against all of Borneo. He is making progress against the guerrillas, he says, but will not even guess when he finally may be able to mop them up.
No Homes or Hope. Last week TIME Correspondent Peter Vanderwicken, after a visit to the remote jungle battleground, filed this report: The source.
There was no Malaysia on the 31st August 1957, there was only Malaya. Malaysia was not there until it's formation when the British colonies of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined the Federation to form Malaysia. Singapore has since left us to become an independent republic. Why are there no celeberations, to commemorate this day ? Maybe, just maybe, Sabah and Sarawak are just states that mean crap to the Federation or just colonies. They are there for the agenda of flooding them with illegal immigrants and exploiting their natural resources, like oil, gas and timber.
It is the greatest of injustice to our fellow Malaysians in those two states when we ignore history. Nothing significant in the MSM about Malaysia Day. Anyway for my brothers in East Malaysia and friends in Singapore who remember this day, CHEERS and Happy Malaysia Day.
Malaysia was formed on that day, 16th September 1963. This is a speech given by Hon Datuk Seri Panglima Joseph Pairin Kitingan MP MLA JPPresident of Sabah United Party (Parti Bersatu Sabah) extracted from, The Making of a Malaysian (1991). Some extracts, "The date 16th September 1963 is a very special date for all Malaysians. It was the day when the Federation of Malaysia was inaugurated. In celebrating the occasion today, we must keep in mind that when the idea of forming a larger federation comprising the then Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak was first proposed by Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1961, it did not materialize overnight.
The proposal was discussed and debated at great length by prominent leaders from all communities. The ordinary people of Sabah and Sarawak were also given a chance to freely express their views and to decide whether to be part of the new federation or not. "
Towards the end of his speech, "Finally, before I conclude, let me again stress the importance of this day - 16th September. Given the importance of this day in our history, I would make a request to the federal government. The request is that starting from next year, 16th September should be declared a national public holiday to mark Malaysia Day.
Our further request is that as from next year, the period from 31st August to 16th September shall be specifically set aside for national unity activities and programmes. National unity celebration should commence on 31st August and close on 16th September.
I feel that these requests are reasonable and acceptable to the federal government. We believe that Malaysia Day serves as a powerful symbol of togetherness. It seems such a pity that Malaysia Day comes and goes every year unheralded and unsung in a nation that marks and commemorates so many other days which are far less significant than that historic day when Malaysia was proclaimed." The complete speech and source...(Well, dream on.....edit)
Here is the 20 Point Agreement for Sabah to join Malaysia :
I did live through those early years before and after independence. As I remember it, as an Anak Sarawak, Independence Day fell on September 16, in 1963. Such a day is well remembered by Sarawakians and Sabahans of my generation, but why should Umno and their millions of minions care? In the self-consciousness of Umno, as guardians and executors of Malay destiny in their Malay homeland, only they can make history. Their ideology of Malay dominance is first manifest in their dominance of the powers to write and interpret Malaysian history. Their natural psychological impulse is what the historian Eric Hobsbawm calls “official nationalism”. In full..."Merdeka reflections" by Sim Kwang Yang in Malaysiakini - subscription required.
Leading to Malaysia "Tunku Yes, Sukarno No" Friday, Sep. 6, 1963
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Happy Malaysia Day !!!Events leading to Malaysia Day.
In steamy, palm-shaded Kuching, capital of Sarawak, the day's biggest excitement is the firing of the 8 p.m. cannon on the lawn of government house. "What a dull place," said a United Nations official. "I don't know how we're going to survive three weeks here." At the insistence of Indonesia's President Sukarno, an eight-member U.N. team is present to "ascertain" whether Sarawak and North Borneo really want to join the Federation of Malaysia, which Sukarno bitterly opposes. As the U.N. ascertainers began to sample opinions around Sarawak, they were nearly stoned, not bored, to death.
The Royal Artillery (RA) gun position for an L5 Pack Howitzer at the A Company, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), forward base at Stass. The British manned L5 gun has been placed into position using a Belvedere heavy lift helicopter from 66 Squadron RAF and it has been placed on steel Marsden matting sheets to stop it from bogging down in heavy weather. The site is surrounded by sandbags and more fortified and camouflaged positions in the base can be seen in the background including an observation tower. The unidentified soldier in shorts and thongs (left) is walking along a pathway that has been made from short lengths of chord wood or bamboo which have been lashed together with wire. The gun has been positioned so it can be traversed through 360 degrees by the crew, and it can fire a 15 kg projectile at any point on the compass out to a maximum range of 10,000 metres. It can fire a variety of ammunition, including illumination and high explosive and is generally used for providing fire support to the patrolling Australian soldiers. Credit line: Donor H Spradbrow
In the Chinese-dominated town of Sibu, the Red-infiltrated Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) staged a demonstration that turned into a 90-minute, stone-throwing riot. Only after police fired warning shots to disperse the mob could the U.N. team sit down —amidst broken glass in a Methodist schoolhouse—to interview local councilors. In Miri, Sarawak's oil-refining center, 3,000 Chinese-SUPPorted youths, wielding stones and bottles, screamed anti-Malaysia slogans until the police opened fire, wounding two, and tear gas forced them to scatter.
A review of the 4th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (4RAR), Honour Guard by the Governor of Malacca, Tun Haji Abdul (in traditional dress) and Malek Bin Yusef (following). Walking next to the Governor is the Commanding Officer of 4RAR, 3328 Lieutenant Colonel (Lt Col) David Scott Thomson, MC, (with raised sword). Lt Col Thomson saw service during the Second World War as VX8275 and VX146397 with the rank of Lieutenant and served with the Australian Staff Corps. He served in Korea as a Major commanding A Company, 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) in 1952 where he was wounded in action. He was awarded the Military Cross for his actions in Operation Blaze against Hill 227. He also served with the Australian Ancillary Unit in Korea during 1953. He was Mentioned in Dispatches on 16 May 1967, during the Indonesian Confrontation in Borneo. During the Vietnam War he made five official visits to South Vietnam from 1966-1969. Walking behind Lt Col Thomson is 335129 Captain (Capt) Ian James Hearn who later served in South Vietnam with 9th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (9RAR) in 1969. Capt Hearn was awarded the National Medal for long service on 14 July 1977 and again on 9 March 1991. Credit line: Rodney Curtis, Donor
Date Set. Such outbursts will slightly delay but not derail the formation of Malaysia, originally scheduled for Aug. 31. In last summer's general elections, voters in both Sarawak and North Borneo decisively defeated anti-federation parties. Although Indonesia's shadow looms large, the Borneo people know they have nothing to gain from Djakarta but economic chaos and demagoguery. Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and British Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandys, who hastily flew to the scene, last week set Sept. 16 as the new birth date for the federation —two days after the U.N. mission's findings will be made public. Both are sure that the U.N. will find a clear majority in favor of Malaysia, but they insist that the federation will come into being regardless of the report. The British last week also turned over internal self-government to Borneo and Sarawak. The source in full....
Ever since its victorious, twelve-year guerrilla war against Communist rebels, rubber-rich Malaya has been an eye of calm amidst the storm of Southeast Asia. From its plantations comes 40% of the world's rubber, and scores of new schools and factories give evidence of its quietly booming economy. But for some time Malaya has cast a wary eye at the spread of Communist influence directly to the south. On the island state of Singapore, Red-lining extremists threaten to topple the local government, and the British-run territories of Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo (see map) are prey to the expansionist aims of Indonesia's left-leaning President Sukarno.
A lookout and machine-gun tower at Stass Base Camp. The camp, near the border between the Malaysian state of Sarawak and the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, was used by A Company of 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), The camp, near the border between the Malaysian state of Sarawak and the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, was used by A Company of 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), during the Confrontation with Indonesia. Credit line: Donor G Fox
To prevent Singapore from becoming an Asian Cuba off Malaya's coast and to stimulate the development of the backward Borneo territories, Malayan Prime Minister Tengku (Prince) Abdul Rahman last year proposed a sensible solution: the formation of a Malaysian Federation.No Altruism. The Tengku's proposal would create a new independent nation of 10 million people with an area a little smaller than Japan. The federation would provide new political stability and end the "colonialism" propaganda issue, which has been a feeding ground for Communist growth. To the source in full.......
For months the bush telegraph of Brunei had flashed the warning that deep inside the Delaware-size oil-rich British protectorate on the north coast of Borneo, a secret rebel army was rehearsing a revolt against the Sultan.Repeatedly, government officials dismissed the story as "another jungle rumor." But last week, in a brief, bloody rebellion, rumor materialized into fact, bringing the threat of a long, nasty guerrilla war in the steaming swamps and forests of the protectorate, and imperiling the prospects of the Malaysian Federation.
An unidentified Iban tracker attached to D Company, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), showing off his tattooed back at the old camp at Bau, Sarawak.
Major cause of the revolt, it seemed, was the federation plan itself. Brunei's dominant, fiercely independent People's Party was dead against the alignment of the state with Malaya, Singapore, and the neighboring British possessions of Sarawak and North Borneo. Instead, People's Party Leader A. M. Azahari. 34, a goateed veterinarian, was determined to weld Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo into a single independent nation. But the British-backed Sultan of Brunei, Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin. wanted to join Malaysia, for Brunei's oil resources, which yield him $40 million annually, promised him influence in the federation disproportionate to his country's size and minuscule population (85,000). Stymied by the Sultan, Azahari's rebels finally attacked.
In the predawn darkness, the ragtag irregulars set up roadblocks, sabotaged communications lines, and overran police stations all over the country. In the town of Seria, Shell Oil's Brunei headquarters, the rebels rounded up 55 hostages, formed them into a human shield, and marched them to a nearby police barracks. But when the police fired on the shield, both prisoners and rebels broke and ran.
Message from Manila. Caught by surprise, colonial authorities flashed word of the emergency to British headquarters in Singapore, sent messengers canoeing up jungle streams with sticks bearing red feathers—a traditional appeal for armed assistance from loyal warriors of the interior. Eluding rebel kidnapers, and nervously fingering a Sterling submachine gun, the Sultan escaped to a police station.
The shooting had hardly begun when Rebel Chieftain Azahari turned up in Manila, of all places, to make sure the world press got the full story. Amid a blizzard of statements, he proclaimed himself Prime Minister of the "unitary state of North Borneo," and demanded support for his rebellion from world leaders. The only encouragement came from Indonesia's Sukarno, who has long coveted Brunei's oilfields and would like nothing more than to absorb the protectorate into Indonesian Borneo.
But the end was near for the rebels, for British troops began pouring into Brunei by air. Hawker Hunter jets of the R.A.F. buzzed low over rebel emplacements firing blank 20-mm. cannon shells; many rebel troops fled in terror because they had never before heard the shriek of a jet engine. Other rebels fought on, inflicted substantial casualties on Britain's tough little Gurkha troops. The Gurkhas retaliated by lopping off a few rebel heads. Finally British numbers began to tell and the rebels faded away into the jungle. Continued here....
Whether the Sultan of Sulu in 1878 ceded his rights to Sabah ? Friday, Nov. 15, 1968
There is a gloomy mood in South east Asia these days that has nothing to do with the problems of Viet Nam. The trouble has to do with family quarrels in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The group is a promising experiment in political and economic cooperation, but today four of its five members find themselves involved in bitter nationalistic disputes. Malaysia and the Philippines are squabbling over Sabah, a small state in Borneo that now belongs to Malaysia but is claimed by the Philippines. Indonesia and Singapore are at odds over the Singapore government's execution of two Indonesian saboteurs three weeks ago. Only Thailand is still friends with all its ASEAN partners.
Portrait of a chance encounter between a patrolling group of Australian soldiers from 9 Platoon, C Company, 4th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (4RAR), who have met up with two civilian clothed border scouts at a Kampong in the Bokah district. Through an interpreter (third from right) the group can talk to each other. Identified (fourth from left) is 57068 Lieutenant (Later Brigadier) Rodney Gerald Curtis, Officer Commanding 9 Platoon and later awarded the Military Cross on 16 May 1967. He also served in South Vietnam with 9th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (9RAR) from 1968-1969. 29833 Sergeant Michael (Mick) Weir Barrett (fifth from left), who served as a Private with 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) during the Malayan Emergency from 1959-1960 and later in South Vietnam with the 1st Australian Reinforcement Unit (1ARU) in 1968 and again with 1RAR from 1968-1969. The border scouts are armed with long barrelled shotguns and the Australians are all armed with M16 rifles. Credit line: Rodney Curtis, Donor
The Philippines v. Malaysia: At the heart of what so far remains this war of words is, quite fittingly, one particular word. That is padjak, which today in Malay means "mortgage" or "pawn" but a century ago meant "to lease" or "to cede." The issue is whether the Sultan of Sulu in 1878 ceded his rights to Sabah, as the Malaysians claim, or simply leased those rights, as is maintained in Manila. There is nothing much new about the Philippine claim—former President Diosdado Macapagal raised it during his election campaign in 1961. It remained a relatively minor issue until this summer when President Ferdinand Marcos seized on it as a handy way to win votes for next year's national elections. In what appears to have been a bid for support from the 3,000,000 Moslems living in the southern parts of the archipelago, Marcos dredged up the issue and signed a congressional bill asserting Philippine sovereignty over Sabah. The Philippine Moslems, who are mostly underprivileged and poor, would like access to Sabah's prospering economy. They also feel a kinship with Sabah's 200,000 Moslems. In full to the source.....
256 Indonesian-trained saboteurs, terrorists and guerrillas landed over the past three months, 47 were killed and 187 captured. Friday, Nov. 27, 1964
In Geneva during his recent European tour, Indonesia's President Sukarno slipped into an out-of-the-way cinema for an evening's relaxation after a hard day of negotiations with pretty shopgirls and Swiss arms manufacturers. TERENDAK, MALAYA. 1964-10-29. CAPTURED INDONESIAN INFILTRATOR WITH HIS AUSTRALIAN WORLD WAR 2 9MM OWEN MACHINE CARBINE (OMC) LESS MAGAZINE, NEAR THE SUNGEI (RIVER) KESANG, SOUTH OF TERENDAK. HE IS UNDER THE GUARD OF SOLDIERS FROM 'D' COMPANY, 3RD BATTALION, THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN REGIMENT (3RAR). (DONOR N. BROWN)
No doubt the "Bung" (Brother), an old movie buff, needed a bit of tranquilizing, but the feature film proved to be The Fall of the Roman Empire. In light of what has been happening in Indonesia of late, it must have scanned like a sneak preview.
Rats & Sweet Potatoes. Most disastrous of Sukarno's programs has been his attempt to "crush Malaysia." The neighboring nation has proved as undentable as armor plate: of 256 Indonesian-trained saboteurs, terrorists and guerrillas landed over the past three months, 47 were killed and 187 captured. Last week, when Sukarno issued his customary order to "intensify" the campaign, 20 more guerrillas sailed off by sampan to Malaya and Singapore —and were soon being hotly pursued by alert British-led troops and citizens, who can collect $300 for every interloper captured. Still, Indonesia's flourishing Communist Party (3,000,000 members) insists that Malaysia must be crushed and last week added to Sukarno's troubles by inaugurating an equally absurd "crush American imperialism" drive on the pretext that the U.S. had sent a military-aid mission to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. To the source in full............
During Ramadan, the Moslem month of fasting, no believer is supposed to take food or drink from sunrise to sunset. Friday, Feb. 28, 1964
Sunday, September 10, 2006
I was in Primary 4, in class we heard that the Indons were not short of proteins, they had rats to eat - Editor
Some of the defences at the D Company, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), forward base at Stass, Sarawak/Kalimantan border. Where possible the defences and walkways at Stass were dug below ground level which provided a degree of cover for the Australian soldiers when walking around the base. These sunken walkways could also be used by Australian infantry as defensive positions if the need arose. Note the steel helmets on top of one of the parapets in the foreground (right). Donor : G Bradshaw
But as Ramadan ended, the religious fasting in large parts of Indonesia had become full-scale famine. Parched by drought, the rice crop in Java had failed; in Bali, last year's eruption of the Gunung Agung volcano had buried two of the island's largest rice areas under volcanic ash. In central Java, an invasion of rats, many 18 inches long from head to tail, had decimated rice stores and created a serious threat of bubonic plague; in east Java, local extermination campaigns have already accounted for the death of 7,000,000 rats.
Nearly 1,000,000 people were on a starvation diet in Java; scores have already died of malnutrition. Peasant villages emptied as food supplies dwindled, and native families poured into already overcrowded cities. In Surabaya, Indonesia's third largest city, 75,000 beggars roamed the streets; half-naked children, five and six years old, begged for parents too weak to walk the pavements themselves. To the source in full.......
SOME nations are born, others are made—such as the new nation of Malaysia Friday, Apr. 12, 1963
SOME nations are born, others are made—such as the new nation of Malaysia, which is coming to life under the guidance of the man on TIME'S cover this week. Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman. It is a complex and colorful story, and one for which we have devised a different method of telling.
The cover was painted by one of Australia's top artists, William Dobell. Inside, in the World section, you will find eight pages of color photographs, which seek to capture the primitiveness, the modernity, the ruggedness and the beauty of this new island nation, whose principal connecting highway will be the sea. Along with the photographs goes a vivid map by R. M. Chapin Jr. showing Malaysia's divisions, topography, population and crops. And after this introduction comes the three-page cover story on the Tunku, written by Contributing Editor John Gregory Dunne.
This oddly assembled, but imaginatively conceived country depends more than anything else on the popularity and sound sense of the Tunku, whom Hong Kong Bureau Chief Charles Mohr describes as "one of the most relaxed, cheerful and modestly friendly cover subjects" he has ever interviewed. To the source in full.....
The suspects never slept in the same house on successive nights. Friday, Feb. 15, 1963
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Many had their photos in an "Arrest on Sight" mug file at police headquarters. To avoid detection on Singapore's teeming streets, they spent much of their time in late-night movie houses. But last week the dragnet was out. Sweeping through the island state, government security police rounded up 115 pro-Communist subversives and labor agitators opposed to Singapore's inclusion, with Malaya and Britain's Borneo dependencies of Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo, in a proposed Malaysian Federation of 10 million people.
Informal portrait of a tattooed Iban tracker named Bala, who was attached to A Company, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR). He is standing next to a rubber tree outside his tent while on patrol with 1st Platoon. Credit line: Donor H Spradbrow
As Malaysia's birth date draws nearer, Indonesia's President Sukarno is doing all he can to prevent it. His government continually blusters about intervening militarily in British Borneo. Authorities in Singapore feared that local Communists might try to sabotage British bases on the island in order to hamper British retaliation in Borneo. Sukarno is also making muscles against Malaya, which would be the dominant state in the new federation. Djakarta has excluded Malayan fishermen from their traditional fishing grounds off the coast of Sumatra. An Indonesian gunboat recently sank a fully laden rubber barge inside Malayan territorial waters. To the source in full......
DISCRIMINATION & DISCORD IN ASIA -Intolerance Friday, Apr. 9, 1965
"If you see an Indian and a cobra, strangle the Indian first," the saying goes in Indo-China. Javanese peasants say, "When you meet a snake and a slit-eye [Chinese], first kill the slit-eye, then the snake." Among Punjabis the proverb is, "If you spy a serpent and a Sindhi, get the Sindhi first."
VARIATIONS of this ugly axiom are heard the length of Asia and are as universal as the antagonisms they express. The continent's greatest single cause of turmoil is not the struggle for food or political power but simple—and not so simple—hatred among peoples, classes, races. The U.S. is deeply and rightly troubled by its own problems of racial discrimination. They are mild compared with Asia's endemic and murderous grudges, and America's problems are subject to a system of social and legal redress that, tragically, most of Asia lacks. The Asian paradox is haunting: on the one hand the brooding, jewel-eyed idols from which flows a spirit of contemplation and moral nobility, and on the other hand swirling violence and blind prejudice. These are some of the passions that years ago were described by André Malraux as "troubled shapes which in the evening swarm up from the rice fields and hide behind the roofs of the pagodas." To the source in full........
Quintuplets were expected, quadruplets appeared. Friday, Jul. 19, 1963
Quintuplets were expected, quadruplets appeared. That was the story in London last week when government and colonial leaders signed the birth certificate of a new British Commonwealth nation. It was the Federation of Malaysia, which was to be composed of independent Malaya, self-governing Singapore, and the three British territories of Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo. But at the last moment, the oil-sodden sultanate of Brunei pulled out of the agreement in a fit of pique over the final terms of federation.
Looking down one of the roads running between the attap huts and other buildings of Cambrai camp, the headquarters base of 4th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (4RAR), nestled amongst forested mountains and located near the predominately Chinese market town of Bau, approximately 70 kilometres south east of Kuching. The parked vehicle (right) is a Bedford 4x4 three ton FV13100 series truck. Donor : Rodney Curtis
Macy's v. Gimbels. Brunei's sudden defection came after weeks of cliffhanging negotiations between Malaya's shrewd Prime Minister Tunku (Prince) Abdul Rahman, father of the federation scheme, and Singapore's brilliant, mercurial Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Though the Tunku had demanded that Singapore kick in 55% of its revenues to the federal treasury, Lee managed to whittle the figure down to 40%. But overplaying his hand, he then held out for 39% . So infuriated was the Tunku at this Macy's v. Gimbels tactic that he delivered an ultimatum to Singapore to get in the federation or stay out and refused to go to London for the final bargaining sessions. To the source in full.....
Sukarno has desperately tried to block the formation of the Tunku's Malaysian Federation of Malaya Friday, Jun 7, 1963
No two leaders were ever less likely to be chummy than Indonesia's President Sukarno and Malaya's Prime Minister Tunku (Prince) Abdul Rahman.
Over the past few months, Sukarno has desperately tried to block the formation of the Tunku's Malaysian Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo, which would successfully contain his expansionist ambitions. Indonesia has threatened Malaya with force, ranted that the Tunku was "round the bend." But at a surprise meeting in Tokyo last week, Sukarno and Abdul Rahman embraced each other as if they had been exchanging posies instead of brickbats.
Portrait of Nutup an Iban tracker attached to 9 Platoon (9 Pl), C Company, 4th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (4RAR). He was originally armed with a 12 gauge shotgun that was as tall as he, whereby the Officer Commanding 9 Pl, Lieutenant Rodney Gerald Curtis, gave permission to have the longarm swapped for an M16 rifle, a much shorter and lighter weapon. Nutup was delighted with the trade and he became a dedicated member of 9 Pl. Credit line: Rodney Curtis, Donor
The informal conference was suggested by Sukarno, who was reclining in Japan on the first leg of a round-the-world holiday. Though the invitation was somewhat startling, Abdul Rahman responded quickly, flew off to Tokyo for two lengthy closed-door sessions with his old adversary. Before long, they were laughing and joking loudly. Between chuckles, they agreed to a "cease-fire" that would end "acrimonious attacks and disparaging references" against each other. (While soldiers died- editor.)To the source in full.........
At the formal opening of the Manila meeting last week, Philippines President Diosdado Macapagal heaped praise upon his two guests. He hailed Indonesia's fun-loving President Sukarno as a "great leader" and paid tribute to the "stabilizing influence in Asia" of Malaya's Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, who hopes, on Aug. 31, to preside over the birth of Malaysia, a merger of Malaya with Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo. Macapagal went on: "The question in the minds of many is, 'Will this conference succeed—?' " At that moment the power failed, out went the lights, off went the microphones and air conditioning. It looked like a sign.
Five unidentified British gunners preparing to fire an L5 Pack Howitzer at the 'Shelldrake' gun position at A Company, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), forward base at Stass. The howitzer has been placed onto strips of perforated steel mesh known as Marsden matting which prevents the gun from sinking into the soft ground. The gun position is ringed by sandbags and in places has been reinforced with corrugated iron sheets. Narrow pathways have been laid which are made from short lengths of bamboo lashed together with wire. An empty 105mm cartridge is visible on top of the sand bags (right) and next to this is a sign saying 'WELCOME to SHELLDRAKE'. Credit line: Donor H Spadbrow
Referendum Demand. At first the three leaders seemed to ignore ill omens. Next morning at Malacanang Palace, Sukarno said he had gone to bed early. Then he winked, "But that doesn't mean I went to sleep early." Macapagal and the Tunku roared with laughter. Getting down to business, the three leaders swiftly approved the principle of a loose association of the future Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, to be known, by syllabic fusion, as Maphilindo. But then came the blow from Sukarno, who has long opposed Malaysia, has only lately and reluctantly accepted the idea. Sukarno insisted on a full-scale referendum in Sarawak and North Borneo before Malaysia comes into existence, to "ascertain" whether these territories really want the federation. They plainly do, but Sukarno just wanted to throw his weight around. He was supported, halfheartedly, by Macapagal, since the Philippines has a shadowy legal claim to certain parts of North Borneo and a referendum would offer a face-saving way of abandoning the claim. To the source in full........
Malaysia's independence had been postponed two weeks beyond the original Aug. 31 Friday, Sep. 20, 1963
The beauty queen flap was low on the list of last-minute labor pains attending the long-awaited birth of Malaysia. At the insistence of Indonesia's belligerent President Sukarno, who bitterly opposes the federation, Malaysia's independence had been postponed two weeks beyond the original Aug. 31 starting date, while a United Nations team investigated whether or not North Borneo and Sarawak really wanted to join. Hoping to influence opinion against federation, Sukarno began moving paratroopers into Indonesian Borneo along his 900-mile-long border with the two territories. Some Indonesian guerrillas even sneaked through the jungles into Sarawak to stir up trouble; they were relentlessly hunted down by tough little British army Gurkhas, aided by half-naked Iban tribesmen, who hung up at least one Indonesian head in the rafters of their longhouses.
MALAYA, 1965-05-26. 1st MALAYSIAN RANGERS, OPERATING IN THE MALAYA-THAILAND BORDER REGION, LEAP FROM A RAAF 5 SQUADRON BELL IROQUOIS UH-1H HELICOPTER (A2-385) AS IT TOUCHES DOWN IN A JUNGLE CLEARING. THESE MALAYSIAN RANGERS ARE ETHNIC IBANS, FROM SARAWAK, BORNEO. (PHOTOGRAPHER: W. SMITHER).
Fearful that Indonesia might extract further delays out of Malaya's easygoing Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, the architect of the federation, Singapore's brilliant, shifty Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who regards Sukarno as "an international blackmailer," swung into action. Flying to Sarawak and North Borneo, "Harry" Lee picked up the chief ministers of both territories and brought them back to Kuala Lumpur to stiffen up the Tunku. Britain's Commonwealth Secretary Duncan Sandys was also on hand, working hard to get agreement. Threatening to declare Singapore an independent state, Lee pressured Abdul Rahman into holding firm for the federation's Sept. 16 deadline. To the source in full.......
Indonesia, Malaya and the Philippines are "triplets who became separated at birth, who were placed under the care of different foster parents but who have now come of age and are trying to rediscover their common origin and shape their common destiny." This description of the three Malay states was offered last year by Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal. In Manila last week, the top ministers of the three nations made plans to bring the triplets together again. The event suggested that, at least for the time being, cantankerous Indonesia is getting to be a more responsible citizen in the Southeast Asia neighborhood.
The new grouping would loosely join Indonesia and the Philippines to Tunku Abdul Rahman's Federation of Malaysia (Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei) to be established Aug. 31. The Philippines claim a part of North Borneo as its own but agreed amicably to postpone settlement of the issue. Indonesia's President Sukarno, who had condemned the Malaysia Federation as an imperialist plot, apparently realized that since he can't stop it, he might as well try to join it. To the source in full.........
No two people seem less likely to be friendly than Indonesia's President Sukarno and U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Friday, Jan. 24, 1964
But on Bobby's official visit to Indonesia two years ago, he and Sukarno quickly fell into an easy kidding relationship. Hopeful that the glow from the previous meeting still lingered, Lyndon Johnson last week dispatched Bobby to Sukarno's Tokyo vacation headquarters to try to cool off the Indonesian leader in his bitter dispute with the fledgling Federation of Malaysia.
Portrait of a patrol group who had been searching for Indonesian infiltrators at Stass village, near the border between Indonesia and Malaysia. From left, Bilon (a local Iban tracker); the platoon commander, 43248 Second Lieutenant (2nd Lieut) Douglas Roy Byers of 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR); and Engill (a local Dyak tracker). 2nd Lieut Byers was accidentally wounded at Terandak in September 1965. He was awarded the Military Cross on 14 December 1965. Credit line: Donor G Fox
By bluff and bluster, Sukarno is determined to "crush Malaysia," which he claims is a "neocolonialist" British puppet state. Along the perilous 900-mile jungle border between Indonesian Borneo and the Malaysian territories of Sarawak and Sabah, British and Malaysian troops have fought a series of bloody clashes with Indonesian "volunteers," who dart back and forth across the frontier sacking military outposts. To the source in full.....
More than 60 Indonesian "volunteer" guerrillas launched three forays through the jungle into the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah Friday, Feb. 7
Friday, September 08, 2006
Trying to find the results of Attorney General Robert Kennedy's whirlwind peacemaking trip through Southeast Asia last week Was like playing the old shell game: now you saw it, now you didn't.
Seen from behind, a group of unidentifed soldiers from 9 Platoon, C Company, 4th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (4RAR), conducting a Claret (cross border) patrol as they pass through a Chinese settlement and market garden in the Bokah district. Donor : Rodney Curtis, Donor
No sooner had Kennedy flown back to Washington after arranging a ceasefire in the Malaysia feud, than fierce fighting erupted once again. More than 60 Indonesian "volunteer" guerrillas launched three forays through the jungle into the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah before they were driven back. Since Indonesian air force planes, along with Malaysian-based helicopters, had dropped thousands of leaflets announcing the truce, it was unclear whether the terrorists had deliberately violated the cease-fire or simply had not learned about it. To the source in full.....
Britain's biggest bases east of Suez are in jeopardy—Aden, with its 14,000 men, is expected to become unusable in two years due to Arab pressure; Singapore-Malaysia, with 51,000 men and the best strategic location in Southeast Asia, is likely to be evacuated by 1970 at the latest, depending partly on how great a threat Indonesia continues to pose in its confrontation with Malaysia.
Both bases put a tremendous strain on Britain's badly stretched economy: Aden costs $168 million a year to maintain, Singapore and Malaysia $630 million. Whitehall planners, currently preparing next February's defense review under the most stringent of cost-accounting standards, are confronted with a knotty dilemma. Britain must pare its projected 1970 defense costs from $6.7 billion to $5.6 billion; at the same time, the "ghastly blank" in the thin red line of defenses that will exist between Europe and Hong Kong must be filled if Britain is to meet her responsibilities in foreign policy, and provide support for her allies. To the source in full......
A detachment of army engineers last week embarked for Borneo to build landing strips as part of a plan to help Malaysia in its "confrontation" with hostile Indonesia. Australia also agreed to a U.S. request for more aid to South Viet Nam, and the government plans to increase its mission in Saigon, which now consists of only 30 army instructors. But Australia, a SEATO member and often hopefully regarded as the West's anchor in the South Pacific, is still woefully unable to back up its brave intentions. To the source in full.....
Remembering an Aussie Warrior.1965. PRIVATE (PTE) L R DOWNES DURING A ROUTE MARCH. PTE DOWNES WAS LATER KILLED IN ACTION 17 MAY 1965 WHEN HE STEPPED ON A MINE WHICH EXPLODED KILLING HIM AND SERGEANT V P VELLA DURING OPERATIONS CONDUCTED BY 3RD BATTALION, THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN REGIMENT (3RAR), IN BORNEO. (DONOR: W. CONNELL)
While largely overshadowed by the bigger, more explosive battle for Viet Nam, the smouldering war in Malaysia has also intensified in recent months.
Along the border in Borneo, the Federation's far-flung security force—Malaysian, British and Australian—now faces an estimated 10,000 Indonesian troops. In the Riauw Archipelago, just across from Singapore, Indonesia's crack Siliwangi Division awaits President Sukarno's irredentist orders. Since late April, Malaysian patrols have annihilated four major raiding parties from the Indonesian side, severely mauled a fifth. And Sukarno's increasingly desperate "Crush Malaysia" campaign has spawned ugly new tactics. Items:
At sea, where scores of motor-powered sampans ferrying Sukarno's guerrillas and saboteurs have been intercepted off the Malay Peninsula in the past year, the Indonesians are now using kamikaze tactics to frustrate Malaysian patrol boats. Suicide sampans are rigged with explosives so that they blow up when halted or hit by naval guns, thus deterring attack and giving other insurgent craft a chance to escape in the confusion. To the source in full......
It was a gala scene in Djakarta's plush Hotel Indonesia Friday, Jul. 3, 1964
A couple of hundred milling guests sipped lemonade or crowded around the guest of honor, Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, flashing his toothy smile. Near by, a 28-girl choir in tight, bright sarongs of multicolored, hand-printed cotton reverently purred Djakarta's hit tune, Crush Malaysia.
It was just what everyone wanted to hear, for Sukarno had hardly returned from the recent Malaysia peace talks in Tokyo when he loosed his bandits again in the rain-drenched jungles of northern Borneo. One band of Indonesians ambushed a British patrol, killing five Gurkhas and wounding six others. Hitting back, Malaysian defenders killed at least seven Indonesian marauders in isolated clashes. There seemed no end to the dreary warfare. To the source in full.....
Indonesia's President Sukarno once boasted that his campaign to "crush Malaysia" would triumph before the cock crowed on Jan. 1, 1965. Friday, Jan. 8,
Last week the deadline passed with the 15-month-old, British-backed federation pressed harder than ever but apparently as far as ever from being crushed.
Though the 800-mile Malaysia-Indonesia frontier on Borneo, where Sukarno began his guerrilla raids, has been the scene of only sporadic clashes of late, Indonesia has stepped up its attacks on the Malay Peninsula itself. So far, each little marauding band has been wiped out almost as fast as it arrived. Christmas week was typical: 30 raiders debarked in southwestern Johore State, took to the adjacent swampland; within hours, three were dead, the rest captured. Next day the British frigate Ajax intercepted seven sampans carrying 22 raiders trying to sneak across the Malacca Strait to Malaysia.
All told, since Sukarno first sent his guerrillas into Malaya last August, 55 have been killed and 243 captured; last week Malaysian security officials claimed that only one invader was unaccounted for. The main reason for the Indonesians' lack of success has been Britain's firm determination—continued by the Labor government—to honor her treaty obligations for the defense of Malaysia. In the past six months Britain has doubled her troop strength in Malaysia, to some 20,000, and British tommies are doing most of the actual fighting in the bitter little war. To the source in full......
Left : Malaysians answering the call to arms. Onto the polished, horseshoe-shaped table of the U.N. Security Council plopped a miniature arsenal—an automatic rifle and a light mortar, a helmet, a back pack, an opened parachute, a camouflage suit. Thus last week did British-backed Malaysia, after more than a year of harassment by Indonesia, launch a dramatic appeal to the U.N.
A captured horde of small arms being displayed on a ground sheet at the A Company, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), forward base at Stass. These weapons were captured by Australians from Indonesian troops during 1965 and most of them originate from the Second World War era. Weapons identified in the first row (left) from bottom are a US M1928A1 Thompson sub machine gun with missing stock; A Chinese SKS automatic rifle with folding bayonet and four US M3 Sub machine guns (known as grease guns). Second row (centre) from bottom are an Australian Owen sub machine gun with missing stock; an Australian L1A1 Self Loading Rifle; Two German Mauser KAR 98K rifles. Third row (right) are two US M1 Garand rifles; three British Mk2 Sten guns (one with steel frame stock); and the remainder are unidentified. Along the top is another row of weapons which includes a US 60mm mortar flanked with a bipod on each side; a British L4A4 Bren gun and two US Browning automatic rifles. Donor : H Spadbrow
The weaponry, Malaysia's Interior Minister Ismail bin Dato Abdul Rahman* told the Council, had been captured from the 40-odd, Indonesia-based paratroopers dropped into mainland Malaya two weeks ago. Last month more than 100 raiders hit Malaya by sea, opening a second front in Sukarno's undeclared war, which had been principally confined to northern Borneo. Declared Rahman to the assembled delegates: "I ask that you condemn such international brigandage." To the source in full....
Every Great Man has one Great Moment in life. For Indonesia's President Sukarno, it may well have come at 10:30 one sticky night last week in Djakarta's sports stadium. There, before thousands of cheering admirers, Bung drew himself up to his full height (5 ft. 4 in.), pointed a finger toward the sky, and announced his country's withdrawal from the United Nations.
It was one way to fame. In the U.N.'s .19 years of existence, no other nation had pulled out. There were those who thought it good riddance. But others pleaded earnestly with the stubborn leader to think twice. Japan's Premier Eisaku Sato, for instance, is said to have sent Sukarno a personal letter recalling the tragic path Japan followed, which led to Pearl Harbor, after it had been the first to abandon the League of Nations in 1933. To the source in full.....
MALAYSIA The Art of Dispelling Anxiety Friday, Aug. 27, 1965
The one place where Sukarno's speech (see above) was received with relief was in Malaysia.For the past two years, the Indonesian President has staged a "confrontation" that sought to bring down the federation by economic blockade and guerrilla infiltration. When Singapore seceded from Malaysia early this month (TIME, Aug. 20), Sukarno could have read it as an argument for the success of his hostile policy.
Defensive Proviso. Like many divorced couples, Malaysia and Singapore have been getting on better since the separation than before. Though now independent, Singapore honored its defense commitments by sending half of its two-battalion army to replace a Malaysian detachment in Borneo, thus demolishing whatever prospects Singapore may have had of reconciliation with Indonesia. In full to the source....
Visiting Team from Terror Tech Friday, Sep. 4, 1964
A new technical school on the Indonesian island of Batam, just ten miles across the straits from Singapore, doesn't have a sports schedule, but its students still play lots of games away. Housed in a cluster of tin-roofed, concrete-block buildings, the institution is a school for sabotage founded by Indonesian President Sukarno as part of his "confrontation" with the Malaysian Federation. At Batam Tech, students get a month's intensive training in such subjects as judo and jellied explosives; on graduation day they receive, instead of a sheepskin, a time bomb or a grenade or a burp gun. Then they set sail to infiltrate the Malaysian territory of Singapore, where this year they have set off 20-odd bombs, killing two persons and injuring seven.
Two weeks ago, a band of Batam's most promising alumni embarked on their school's boldest venture to date. With fellow "volunteers" from the Indonesian island of Sumatra, they formed a guerrilla force that bore down on the Malay Peninsula in a flotilla of 30-ft. outboard motorboats, debarked at three points along the swampy coast only 35 miles north of Singapore. The raid was an Indonesian attempt to open a second front on the Malayan mainland itself in Sukarno's undeclared war, which so far has been chiefly confined to the Indonesian-Malaysian border in Borneo. In full to the source...
"Confrontation will continue with Malaysia, both political and military." May 27, 1966
Sukarno was looking more and more like the old Bung (brother). At a press conference, he playfully tweaked the nose of a reporter, tried on another correspondent's sunglasses, fiddled with a photographer's camera, and ordered General Abdul Haris Nasution, whom he had fired as Defense Minister last February, to help a female reporter down from a railing. "There is no new light in Indonesia," Sukarno beamed with all his old familiar wattage. "There is the same light." Strolling out of a meeting of his Crush Malaysia Command, he shrugged off the army's talk of peace and snapped that "confrontation will continue with Malaysia, both political and military."
For all his bluff and bluster, Sukarno was increasingly out of date. Already overruled by Indonesia's new chiefs was the konfrontasi that Bung Karno invented. Last week Foreign Minister Adam Malik, who has the army's backing, agreed to meet in Bangkok with Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak. Malik's purpose: to end the foolish fight with Malaysia. Though Sukarno angrily advised Malik not to go abroad, Malik seemed set on his course. "The confrontation of the people's stomachs," he said, "is more important than any other confrontation." In full....from the source
Djakarta was all decked out for another political circus. Jun 4, 1965
Djakarta was all decked out for another political circus. Along the sere, sun-scoured boulevards of Indonesia's capital, the gaudiest splashes of color were billboards showing Uncle Sam stomping a few Negroes, handsome Asians engaged in a fierce tug of war with ugly white colonialists, a fearless President Sukarno hurling Malaysia's cringing Tunku Abdul Rahman into the Malacca Strait. Illuminated fountains tinkled merrily around the unfinished obelisk designed by Sukarno to commemorate 20 years of Indonesian independence. Across from the burnt-out shell of the British embassy, the Hotel Indonesia dispensed hot water, air conditioning and Palmolive soap in a futile attempt to insulate political delegates from the shabby city around them.
Relays of Runners. The occasion was the 45th anniversary of the Partai Ko-nntnis Indonesia, Asia's oldest Commu nist Party and, with 3,000,000 members, its second largest.* The P.K.I.'s jingo jamboree brought relays of runners bearing red and yellow flags into Djakarta from points as distant as Bali (560 miles), tied up the capital's Mercedes and betjak (pedicab) traffic for three hours with a torchlight parade that ended in an effigy-burning of Uncle Sam and the Tunku. Over the whole scene reared a 40-ft. hammer and sickle woven from straw and bamboo. In full from the source.....
Apr. 10, 1964. Sukarno has had to go hat in hand to his old and derided colonial masters for help.
His reception was pointedly restrained, but the dapper, dusky VIP who debarked at the Amsterdam air port last week could hardly expect brass bands. Dr. Subandrio, Indonesia's Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier, was the highest-ranking official from Djakarta to set foot in The Netherlands since the Dutch bitterly granted his rebellious nation independence 15 years ago. His aim in "normalizing ties" has been increasingly evident for months.
Like many another leader from the new nations, Indonesia's bellicose Strong man "Bung" Sukarno has had to go hat in hand to his old and derided colonial masters for help.
To the Brink. With colossal mismanagement at home and bullying adventures abroad, Sukarno has pushed his sprawling, intrinsically rich island nation to the brink of bankruptcy. On Java, where 60% of all Indonesians live, recurring drought and a rat plague have led to outright famine. Irked by Sukarno's "Crush Malaysia" campaign, the U.S. is phasing out its aid (total to date: $896 million), last month shipped Indonesia its final 40,000 tons of American rice. Blustered Sukarno: "To hell with aid!" In full from the source.....
One week after its stormy birth, the infant nation of Malaysia was hoping for peace but preparing for war Sep. 27, 1963
My postings will be from the past and a prelude to honour Malaysia Day which is on the 16th September. - Editor
Two Malayan infantry battalions packed their kit bags and prepared to embark for the steaming jungles of Sarawak and Sabah (North Borneo); in Sarawak, orders were issued to raise a native infantry battalion. A round-the-clock watch was begun on the Malayan shore of the Malacca Straits, and 6,000 British, Gurkha and local troops and constabulary units doubled their patrols along Sarawak's tangled, 400-mile border with Indonesian Borneo.
Guarding the Strong Room. The crisis was triggered by Indonesia's puffy, demagogic President Sukarno, who has sworn to crush Malaysia at all costs. On the Sarawak frontier, an Indonesian mortar company lobbed shells across the border. Deepening Indonesia's quarrel with Britain, which is pledged to defend Malaysia, government troops in Djakarta barred British diplomats from entering their embassy, gutted fortnight ago by an unchecked mob. The guards even tried to break into the embassy's fireproof code room until they were stopped by tough, stocky Ambassador Andrew Gilchrist, who forced his way into the embassy and stood guard over the strong room himself. In full to the source....
A mob is an ugly mob anywhere in the world Friday, Sep. 27, 1963
A mob is an ugly mob anywhere in the world; some fanciers claim that a Middle East mob is the worst, although objective observers who have seen well-educated Chinese hoodlums from Singapore colleges getting to work with fire and iron on prostrate policemen are inclined to award them the palm; but all fair-minded witnesses will agree that a Djakarta mob in full cry under a noon sun ... can hold its own in world company.
—Richard Hughes, London Sunday Times
In screaming chorus, under a fiercely hot sun last week, a savage, looting Djakarta mob lived up to its world reputation. Boiling through the streets of the city, thousands of rioters went on a three-day rampage to protest the birth of the neighboring Federation of Malaysia, which joins Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo in a new British Commonwealth nation. With the tacit approval of Indonesia's rabble-rousing President Sukarno, who bitterly opposes the federation for the challenge it poses to his influence in Southeast Asia, the mob succeeded in presenting the fledgling nation with a full-grown diplomatic and military crisis before it was even one week old.
Shattering the Façade. The riots were triggered by independence ceremonies throughout the crescent-shaped new nation. Screaming "Crush Malaysia," Sukarno's mobsters stormed the Malayan embassy in Djakarta, threw rocks through the windows, pelted the building with rotten eggs, painted anti-Malaysia slogans all over the walls. As government police stood idly by, the enraged mob then turned its fury on the British embassy in nearby Friendship Square. They ripped down sections of the iron fence around the building and shattered its modernistic glass facade under a hail of stones. The rioters tore the Union Jack from its flagpole and set fire to Ambassador Andrew Gilchrist's Rolls-Royce. In full to the source.....
A summit conference used to mean a meeting of the world's top leaders.* Nowadays, just about any get-together between heads of government is billed a summit, whether it joins Tito and Nas ser or Liberia's Tubman and the Upper Volta's Yameogo. Last week still an other less than towering summit brought together in Tokyo Indonesia's President Sukarno, Malaysia's Premier Tunku Abdul Rahman and Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal. Agenda: "the Malaysian problem," which happens to be entirely of Sukarno's making. In full.......
Today a British officer commands the Malayan army, five senior British civil servants hold key positions in Malayan government ministries, and British businessmen control more than half of the rubber industry, repatriate $86 million in profits annually. "It's wonderful how this place has flowered since independence." says one businessman. "We're really much better off. Good old Tunku."
Parleys on the Green. With his young nation booming, Abdul Rahman looked with increasing fear at the predicament of neighboring Singapore, just three-quarters of a mile across the Johore Strait. There Communism was spreading like an infection among the underfed, underemployed masses in Singapore's squalid, teeming tenement quarters. By strikes, riots and boycotts, the Peking-oriented Communist-front Barisan Socialist Party tried to topple the tottering government glued together by Singapore's shifty, brilliant, Cambridge-educated Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, 39.
Never too choosy about where he got political support, "Harry" Lee first tried cooperation with the Communists, later adopted a "leftist, not extremist, nonCommunist, not antiCommunist" policy. It did not work; to save his political neck, he was forced to go for help to an old golfing partner—Abdul Rahman.
Lee's vacation house bordered a fair way of Kuala Lumpur's rambling Selangor Golf Club, where the Tunku shot his daily round. From tee to green, Lee tried to convince Abdul Rahman that Singapore's rickety coalition could never survive another election, and that a Red Singapore could only spell trouble for Malaya. Gradually, the Tunku came to the frightening conclusion that Singapore might well become "a Chinese Cuba."
One solution to the "Singapore problem" was obvious: a merger, so that Malaya's powerful internal security police could move in and help Singapore authorities hold Red subversion in check.
But the Tunku shuddered at the prospect of upsetting his nation's Malay racial preponderance by the addition of Singapore's 1,300,000 Chinese. "In order to balance the population," he says, "I thought of the Borneo territories."
Wining & Dining. Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo, however, were less than enthusiastic about the federation scheme. Borneo leaders resented being invited to join merely as a political and racial accommodation, desired instead some sort of independence of their own. Then Britain began putting quiet pressure on the three territorial governments, tried to persuade them that union in Malaysia offered them far more economic and political power than they could ever achieve by themselves. In full five pages from Time
