Forgotten Wars

by Harper, Tim

  In arguing to keep these authoritarian instruments, in particular powers of detention without trial, Lee Kuan Yew pleaded historical necessity, the continuing threat of communism and communalism. This was to become one of the powerful legacies of the end of empire in British Asia. In the aftermath of its revolutionary hour, and scale of the violence it unleashed, not only was communism all but obliterated, but in the process so too were a panoply of other alternatives. Liberalism never recovered from the shocking blows to civil society during these years of upheaval. The internationalist vision of the radicals evaporated. The post-independence elites saw it as a dangerous thing; it was, in Lee Kuan Yew’s striking phrase, ‘anti-national’. In this new atmosphere many of the great figures of the popular movements faced long periods of imprisonment, exile or exclusion. But the vanquished also were struck out of national narratives, and almost vanished from historical memory itself. For many of them the post-independence years were a long struggle to be heard; in the words of Ahmad Boestamam: ‘to give a true picture of how a path to the summit was cut and who were its pioneers, so that in time to come it will not be “the cow that gives the milk but the bull too that gets the credit”’.70 In Britain, much was also forgotten, not least the many horrors of the post-war campaigns in Malaya, Indonesia and Vietnam. In 2005 British veterans of the Emergency were refused permission from the British government to wear their campaign medal from the Malaysian government, the Pingat Jasa Malaysia, in recognition of their sacrifice in conflicts in which 519 British troops were killed.

  In 1998, fifty years after the outbreak of the Malayan revolution, Chin Peng began a series of journeys. At this point his countrymen had seen only four images of him: at the victory parade in January 1946 when Louis Mountbatten pinned the Burma Star on his jungle fatigues; a grainy photograph on the poster that offered a quarter of million dollars for him, dead or alive; then there was Chin Peng at Baling, looking like a young clerk on his day off in baggy trousers and a short-sleeved shirt; then nothing for thirty-four years until he appeared at the Haadyai peace talks of 1989, an elderly man now, a little overweight, in a smart business suit, but entirely composed in the full glare of the world’s media. There, in fluent Malay, he had pledged allegiance to the King of Malaysia, and his deputy Abdullah C. D. urged Malaysians to unite in the cause of social justice. But in June 1998, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Emergency, Chin Peng appeared in London. This excited some comment in the British press, but was unreported in Malaysia, and the subject of only a short notice in the Singapore Straits Times. There he travelled to the Public Record Office at Kew; where, in a curious circumlocution of history, the insurgent entered the imperial archive. Surrounded by dozens of other visitors researching their family histories, Chin Peng began a paper trail through his own past. He took pencil notes from the newly opened files of Special Operations Executive; of missions of which he had been a part during the war; of the first agreements in the Malayan jungle between the Malayan Communist Party and South East Asia Command, signed by the traitor Lai Teck; and other names, other betrayals. It began a short odyssey of meetings and interviews with writers and scholars in London, Canberra and, eventually, even Singapore, many of them adversaries, retired policemen and soldiers. Some years later, with the heavy editorial hand of a retired correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, his memories would be woven into a memoir entitled My Side of History.

  Even to his own followers Chin Peng was something of a myth. He had not been seen in the camps of the MCP since he had escaped overland to Beijing in 1960. In his absence, the party had fought a second Emergency, and continued to recruit in small numbers from the poverty and disillusions of independence. It had faced fissures and a brutal internal ‘cleansing’. Now small communities of aged fighters, their families and more recent arrivals lived in ‘friendship villages’ along the Malaysian border, established by the Thai government under the patronage of the Crown Princess. The remnants were still bound by a keen sense of the MCP’s history – the landmarks of its struggle celebrated in commemoration and song. In Hong Kong histories began to appear, in Chinese, of the resistance struggle and, in Malay, of the role of the 10th Regiment, and eventually in Malaysia itself other memoirs of the forgotten wars began to appear. For younger Malaysians and Singaporeans they were something of a revelation. At the heart of Chin Peng’s story, as with many others, was a demand for recognition as a fighter for his nation’s freedom; a claim for a place in the narrative of the nation. With this lay the possibility of return, the issue which had broken up the Baling talks in 1955, but seemed to have been conceded in the Haadyai agreement of 1989. A number of old fighters, including veterans of the Malay 10th Regiment, had quietly come home. But now, it was asked, could Chin Peng – with his lack of repentance for armed struggle, with his long revolutionary’s exile in China and Thailand – be considered a citizen of Malaysia? Permission to return was refused and Chin Peng – seeking to fulfil his obligation to honour his parents’ graves – was forced in 2004 to challenge the government of Malaysia in the Malaysian courts with breaking the Haadyai agreement. He has yet to have his day in court. As this controversy rumbled on, in 2005, a Malay writer and film-maker, Amir Muhammad, born after the Emergency had ended, shot a documentary that traced, through interviews and music, a voyage from Chin Peng’s childhood home of Sitiawan and other parts of Perak to the veterans’ villages in south Thailand. Chin Peng himself did not appear. The film, Lelaki Komunis Terakhir, ‘The Last Communist’, was released in the wake of the sixtieth anniversary of the ruling party, UMNO. Its old veterans warned that ‘old wounds will bleed again’, and the film was eventually banned in Malaysia. ‘I don’t believe’, mused the minister responsible, ‘Malaysians have reached a level where they are ready for it.’71 The Last Communist’s claim for his side of history, was only one of many – of friends and fellow-travellers; victims and vanquished – that were yet to be heard. For many individuals and for whole societies – in the struggles of everyday life and in the perpetual play of memory – the great, terrible Asian war was not yet at its end.

  Notes

  PROLOGUE: AN UNENDING WAR

  1. Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook, Japan at war: an oral history (New York, 1992), p. 306.

  2. Stuart Ball (ed.), Parliament and politics in the age of Churchill: the Headlam Diaries, 1935–51 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 473.

  3. John W. Dower, ‘The bombed: Hiroshimas and Nagasakis in Japanese memory’, in Michael J. Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in history and memory (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 116–42.

  4. John W. Dower, Embracing defeat: Japan in the wake of World War II (London, 1999), p. 45.

  5. Dr Constantine Constantinovich Petrovsky interview, OHD, SNA.

  6. The Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the physical, medical and social effects of atomic bombings (New York, 1981), p. 478; Rinifo Sodei, Were we the enemy? American survivors of Hiroshima (Boulder, 1998).

  7. Petrovsky interview.

  8. Brian MacArthur, Surviving the sword: prisoners of the Japanese, 1942–45 (London, 2005), pp. 420–1.

  9. Hugh V. Clarke, Twilight liberation: Australian POWs between Hiroshima and home (Sydney, 1985), pp. 63–95, 121.

  10. The best account of the campaign remains Louis Allen, Burma: the longest war 1941–45 (London, 1984).

  11. Datuk Mohd Yusoff Hj. Ahmad, Decades of change (Malaysia – 1910s–1970s) (Kuala Lumpur, 1983), pp. 283–4.

  12. Sheila Allan, Diary of a girl in Changi, 1941–45 (2nd edn, Roseville, NSW, 1999), p. 137.

  13. The title of a vivid early memoir by N. I. Low & H. M. Cheng is This Singapore (our city of dreadful night) (Singapore, 1946).

  14. See Chin Kee Onn, Malaya upside down (Singapore, 1946), pp. 199–202.

  15. Cheah Boon Kheng, Red star over Malaya: resistance and social conflict during and after the Japanese occupation of Malaya, 1941–1946 (Singapore, 1983), pp. 130–1.
This is a classic study.

  16. Romen Bose, The end of the war: Singapore’s liberation and the aftermath of the Second World War (Singapore, 2005), p. 101. He quotes a figure of 300 suicides.

  17. Carl Francis de Souza interview, OHD, SNA.

  18. Takao Fusayama, Memoir of Takao Fusayama: a Japanese soldier in Malaya and Sumatera (Kuala Lumpur, 1997), pp. 147–50.

  19. Nicholas Tarling, Britain, Southeast Asia and the Onset of the Cold War, 1945–1950 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 26.

  20. Mountbatten to H. R. Hone, 1 February 1944, in A. J. Stockwell (ed.), British documents on the end of empire: Malaya, part I (London, 1995), p. 73.

  21. Nicholas J. White, Business, government and the end of empire: Malaya, 1945–1957 (Kuala Lumpur, 1996), pp. 64–5.

  22. Paul H. Kratoska, The Japanese occupation of Malaya, 1941–45 (London, 1998), p. 32.

  23. M. E. Dening, ‘Review of events in South–East Asia, 1945 to March 1946’, 25 March 1946, in Stockwell, British documents: Malaya, part I, p. 211.

  24. Richard J. Aldrich, Intelligence and the war against Japan: Britain, America and the politics of secret service (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 172, 186–7, 330.

  25. S. Woodburn Kirby, The war against Japan, vol. V, The surrender of Japan (London, 1969), pp. 77–82.

  CHAPTER 1 1945: INTERREGNUM

  1. Bengal press adviser’s report for the first half of August 1945, L/P and J/5/142, OIOC.

  2. Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: a life (Ahmedabad, 1990), p. 341.

  3. Penderel Moon (ed.), Wavell: the viceroy’s journal (London, 1973), entry for 7 August 1945, p. 162.

  4. Bengal press adviser’s report for the second half of August 1945, reporting the Dainik Basumati, L/P and J/5/142, OIOC.

  5. Reuter report 18 November 1945, CASB weekly intelligence reports for Burma, f. 211, Clague Papers, Mss Eur E252/55, OIOC.

  6. Angelene Naw, Aung San and the struggle for Burmese independence (Copenhagen, 2001).

  7. Robert H. Taylor, Marxism and resistance in Burma, 1942–45: Thein Pe Myint’s ‘Wartime Traveler’ (Athens, OH, 1984), introduction; Joseph Silverstein (ed.), The political legacy of Aung San (Ithaca, 1972).

  8. Abu Talib Ahmad, The Malay Muslims, Islam and the Rising Sun: 1941–45 (Kuala Lumpur, 2003), pp. 10–11.

  9. Firdaus Haji Abdullah, Radical Malay politics: its origins and early development (Petaling Jaya, 1985), p. 67.

  10. Mustapha Hussain, Malay nationalism before Umno: the memoirs of Mustapha Hussain, translated by Insun Mustapha and edited by Jomo K. S. (Kuala Lumpur, 2005), p. 313.

  11. Cheah Boon Kheng, ‘The Japanese occupation of Malaya, 1941–45: Ibrahim Yaacob and the struggle for Indonesia Raya’, Indonesia, 28 (1979), pp. 85–120.

  12. Gandhi, Patel, p. 348.

  13. S. A. Das and K. B. Subbaiah, Chalo Delhi! An historical account of the Indian independence movement in East Asia (Kuala Lumpur, 1946), pp. 221–2.

  14. Leonard A. Gordon, Brothers against the Raj: a biography of Indian nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose (New York, 1990), p. 539.

  15. SEATIC (Southeast Asian Translation and Interrogation Corps) intelligence bulletin, 17 May 1946, interrogation of Ono Ishire, formerly Hikari Kikan Rangoon, WO203/6312, TNA.

  16. Karuppiah N. interview, OHD, SNA.

  17. Gandhi to Amrit Kaur, 24 August 1945, Collected works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 81 (Ahmedabad, 1980), p. 161.

  18. Karuppiah interview.

  19. Joya Chatterji, Bengal divided: Hindu communalism and partition, 1932–1947 (Cambridge, 1994).

  20. New Times of Burma, 23 October 1945.

  21. Mamoru Shinozaki, Syonan – my story: the Japanese occupation of Singapore (Singapore, 1979), p. 24.

  22. David L. Kenley, New culture in a new world: the May Fourth Movement and the Chinese diaspora in Singapore, 1919–1932 (London, 2003), ch. 7.

  23. Reynolds News, 10 June 1945.

  24. Ibid., 15 April 1945.

  25. S. R. Rahman, ‘The new storm over Asia’, ibid., 4 November 1945.

  26. Francis Wheen, Tom Driberg: his life and indiscretions (London, 1990), p. 2.

  27. Ibid., p. 211.

  28. John H. McEnery, Epilogue in Burma, 1945–48: the military dimension of British withdrawal (Tunbridge Wells, 1990), p. 74.

  29. Hussain, Malay nationalism before Umno, p. 288.

  30. ‘The AJUF in Perak’, WO208/3928, TNA.

  31. Innes Tremlett, ‘Memorandum by Head of Malaya Country Section Force 136 on resistance forces in Malaya on the eve of the Japanese capitulation, 15 August, 1945’, WO203/4403, TNA.

  32. The biographical details that follow are taken from Yoji Akashi, ‘Lai Teck, Secretary General of the Malayan Communist Party, 1939–1947’, Journal of the South Seas Society, 49 (1994), pp. 57–103.

  33. By the Singapore communist Ng Yeh Lu, quoted in C. F. Yong, The origins of Malayan Communism (Singapore, 1997), p. 188.

  34. Anthony Short, The communist insurrection in Malaya, 1948–60 (London, 1976), p. 41.

  35. Akashi, ‘Lai Teck’.

  36. James Wong Wing On, From Pacific War to Merdeka: reminiscences of Abdullah C. D. Rashid Maidin, Suriani Abdullah and Abu Samah (Petaling Jaya, 2005), p. 33.

  37. Interviewed by James Wong Wing On, ibid., p. 7.

  38. John Davis to SACSEA, 21 August 1945, HS1/114, TNA.

  39. Chin Peng, My side of history (Singapore, 2003), pp. 111–12.

  40. Dorothy Thatcher and Robert Cross, Refugee from the Japanese ([1959] Kuala Lumpur, 1993), p. 156.

  41. ‘Operational report by Major T. A. Wright, Sergeant Orange, PLO’, n.d., HS1/117, TNA.

  42. J. P. Hannah, ‘MPAJA personalities 5th (Perak) Independent Regiment’, HS1/107, TNA.

  43. Ah Yeow [Liew Yao] to Major D. K. Broadhurst, 16 June and 21 July 1945, Broadhurst Papers, SNA.

  44. M. E. Dening to Foreign Office, 3 September 1945, in A. J. Stockwell (ed), British documents on the end of empire: Malaya, part I (London, 1995), p. 123.

  45. Chin Peng, My side of history, pp. 120–1; C. C. Chin and Karl Hack (eds.), Dialogues with Chin Peng: new light on the Malayan Communist Party (Singapore, 2004), pp. 106–10.

  46. John Davis interview, OHD, SNA; Commander Force 136 to HPD SACSEA, 19 August 1945, HS1/114, TNA.

  47. Col. L. F. Sheridan to Edward Gent, 27 August 1945, ibid.

  48. Quoted in Cheah Boon Kheng, Red star over Malaya: resistance and social conflict during and after the Japanese occupation of Malaya, 1941–1946 (Singapore, 1983), p. 137.

  49. Richard Gough, Jungle was red: SOE’s Force 136 Sumatra and Malaya (Singapore, 2003), p. 147.

  50. Khoo Salma Nasution and Abdur-Razzaq Lubis, Kinta Valley: pioneering Malaysia’s modern development (Ipoh, 2005), pp. 290–1; Wong, From Pacific War to Merdeka, pp. 10, 19.

  51. ‘Operational report by Mai. H. H. Wright, Carpenter State PLO’, 28 December 1945, HS1/107, TNA.

  52. Yoji Akashi, ‘The Anti-Japanese movement in Perak during the Japanese occupation, 1941–45’, in Paul H. Kratoska (ed.), Malaya and Singapore during the Japanese occupation (Singapore, 1995), pp. 113–16.

  53. ‘Operational report by Maj. H. H. Wright’, HS1/107, TNA.

  54. Chin Peng, My side of History, pp. 123–5.

  55. I. D. Ross, ‘Operational report Funnel Blue PLO’, 19 October 1945, HS1/107, TNA; Michael Stenson, Class, race and colonialism in West Malaysia: the Indian case (Queensland, 1980), p. 101.

  56. Netaji Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: a Malaysian perspective (Kuala Lumpur, 1992), pp. 228–9.

  57. For example, Datuk Mohd Yusoff Hj. Ahmad, Decades of change (Malaysia – 1910s–1970s) (Kuala Lumpur, 1983), p. 293; Laurence K. L. Siaw, Chinese society in rural Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, 1983), p. 74.

  58. ‘Operational report D. R. W. Alexander, Sergeant GLO’, 5 December 1945, HS1/107, TNA. Chin Peng, who visited the National Archives in Kew, later endorsed Alexander’s report; Chin Peng, My side of history, p. 128;Ho Thean Fook,
Tainted glory (Kuala Lumpur, 2000), pp. 240–2.

  59. ‘Operational report by Maj. H. H. Wright, Carpenter State PLO’, 28 December 1945, HS1/107, TNA.

  60. Shinozaki, Syonan – my story, p. 97; Heng Chiang Ki interview, OHD, SNA.

  61. N. I. Low, When Singapore was Syonan-to ([1947] Singapore, 1995), pp. 130–1.

  62. Mustapha Hussain, Malay nationalism before Umno, p. 288.

  63. The most thorough and balanced account of the conflict is Cheah, Red star over Malaya, ch. 8. For Malay religious anxieties, Abu Talib Ahmad, The Malay Muslims, Islam and the Rising Sun, esp. chs. 4 and 5.

  64. Syed Naguib al-Attas, Some aspects of Sufism as understood and practised by the Malays (Singapore, 1963), pp. 47–8, 100.

  65. ‘Sabilu’llah and invulnerability’, supplement to Malayan Security Service, Political Intelligence Journal, No. 9/1947, 15 June 1947, Dalley Papers, RHO; A. J. Stockwell, British policy and Malay politics during the Malayan Union experiment, 1945–1948 (Kuala Lumpur, 1979), p. 150, and n. 21.

  66. ‘Report on incidents of banditry, Langkap area’, 25 September 1945, HS1/107, TNA.

  67. Cheah, Red star over Malaya, p. 225.

  68. J. K. Creer, ‘Report on experiences during Japanese occupation of Malaya’, 3 November 1945, Heussler Reports, RHO.

  69. Chin Peng, My side of history, pp. 110–11.

  70. Wilfred Blythe, The impact of Chinese secret societies in Malaya: a historical study (London, 1969), pp. 327–38.