Indonesia–Malaysia Confrontation Footage - British Troops Join War Against Sukarno (1963-1966)

Captured Indons by 3rd RAR

From January 1963 to August 1966, Indonesia was engaged in an armed conflict with Malaysia. President Sukarno opposed the formation of the state, which was established after the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo and Sarawak, merged.

The confrontayion remained an undeclared war invovling small-scale jungle clashes in the border areas. The border between East Malaysia and Indonesia saw the heaviest fighting with further action concentrated in Singapore and the Malay Peninsula.

The dispute ended after President Sukarno was deposed and Indonesia accepted the formation of Malaysia. ITN produced four reports documenting the conflict and reporting on the efforts of British and Gurkha troops who were deployed to help Malaysian forces.

Sukarno wanted to continue to rule without a democratic process (legislative oversight & elections, etc.) so he needed a diversion from the failure of his left-leaning socialist dictatorship in managing the economy and the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) wanted to save the oppressed Malayan Communist Party.

They collaborated to create a confrontation in the name of expelling neo-colonialism in the Malayan federation. But the Indonesian military did not fully support this effort and was divided into factions, those in favor were driven by the KKO (Marine Corps) and AURI (Indonesian Air Force) which had been infiltrated by PKI agents and those against were driven by the Army and Navy who hated the PKI.

Therefore, most of the ground forces were filled with untrained volunteers who were mobilized in a hurry, not regular soldiers. Therefore, as with dictator-made conflicts, the confrontation was doomed to failure due to unreliable troops, logistical limitations due to poor economies and weak support from communist countries.

After the failure of the confrontation and under the pretext of protecting Sukarno, the PKI then carried out revenge and massacre of high-ranking Army officers in the G30S/PKI incident in 1965. The Army retaliated back against the communists and their sympathizers led by Suharto and the Army Reserve, then one of the worst genocides in the 20th century occurred which claimed the lives of 500,000 to 3,000,000 people, most of whom were not even communists including ethnic Chinese who were considered pro-Sukarno and mainland Chinese (PRC) communists.

However, to this day. The largest Secular Socialist Party in Indonesia (winner of the last 3 general elections) led by Sukarno's descendants and its supporters still glorify "Operation Dwikora" a failed effort and wasted state resources that should have been used for domestic development.