By 1955, the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) was on the decline, its combat strength weakened by combat deaths, desertions, and surrenders, morale was low, and its popular support was greatly reduced. In September 1955, some three months after his party won the general elections, Tunku Abdul Rahman, chief Minister of Malaya, offered amnesty to the MNLA. Government representatives and the CPM leadership held negotiations in October and November 1955, paving the way for the Baling Peace Talks (held in Baling, in present-day northern Peninsular Malaysia) in December 1955, where CPM leader Chin Peng met with Chief Minister Tunku. However, this meeting produced no settlement. Subsequent offers by Chin Peng to continue negotiations were spurned by Tunku, who insisted on unconditional surrender, i.e. that the MNLA must disarm and disband, and the CPM would not be granted official recognition. In February 1956, Tunku rescinded the amnesty offer.
(Taken from Malayan Emergency – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)
On June 12, 1948, three European plantation managers were killed by armed bands, forcing British authorities to declare a state of emergency throughout Malaya, which essentially was a declaration of war on the CPM. The British called the conflict, which lasted 12 years (1948-1960), an “emergency” so that business establishments that suffered material losses as a result of the fighting, could make insurance claims, which the same would be refused by insurance companies if Malaya were placed under a state of war.
The state of emergency, which was applied first to Perak State (where the murders of the three plantation managers occurred) and then throughout Malaya in July 1948, gave the police authorization to arrest and hold anyone, without the need for the judicial process. In this way, hundreds of CPM cadres were arrested and jailed, and the party itself was outlawed in July 1948. The murders of the three plantation managers are disputed: British authorities blamed the CPM, while Chin Peng denied CPM involvement, arguing that the CPM itself was caught by surprise by the events and was unprepared for war, and that he himself barely avoided arrest in the intensive government crackdown that followed the killings.
The CPM retreated into the Malayan jungles where it reconstituted its military wing under a new name, first the Malayan Peoples’ Anti-British Army (MPABA), and then in February 1949 as the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA). Combat units were hastily re-formed (from the wartime MPAJA units) and buried weapons caches were recovered from the ground. The MNLA combat strategy consisted of acquiring more weapons by raiding police stations and ambushing army and security patrols. The guerillas also attacked civilian and public infrastructures to upset the Malayan economy, thereby undermining the British government. Tin mine operations were disrupted, rubber plantations destroyed, and operations managers targeted for assassinations. As well, buses were ransacked, railway trains upturned, and public utilities sabotaged. These indiscriminate attacks soon were having a detrimental effect on the local workers and ordinary people, which forced the MNLA to end this strategy.
The MNLA obtained its support mainly from the ethnic Chinese population, which provided the rebels with recruits, food, supplies, and information. MNLA support particularly was strong among the so-called “squatter” population, the 600,000 people who lived in remote areas which typically were beyond the reach of British administrative and police control. Direct auxiliary support to the rebels was provided by ordinary civilians using the clandestine “Min Yuen” (Masses Movement) network. “Min Yuen” functioned in many ways, including being a link between the MNLA and the general population, providing the MNLA with logistical support, and being a courier and communications system across Malaya, where messages (written in small slips of paper) were passed to and from the various rebel commands. For about three years from the start of the Emergency (1948-1951), the communist rebels held the initiative against government forces; at its peak, the MNLA launched over 6,000 armed incidents in 1951.
At the start of the war, the undermanned British forces in Malaya were unable to confront the rapidly expanding communist insurgency. Consequently, British military and police units were brought in from outside of Malaya, while local recruitment to the Malayan police force and privately-organized militias (by plantation and mine owners) increased government and anti-insurgency security strength to over 250,000 personnel by the early 1950s. Furthermore, the arrival of army contingents from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, as well as Gurkha troops in the British Army and security forces from British East African territories, soon allowed the British to seize the initiative from the communist rebels by 1952.
Initially, the British sent large military formations to “search and destroy” operations against MNLA camps which were located deep in the Malayan mountains. British warplanes also launched thousands of bombing and strafing sorties. By 1950, these large-scale offensives, cumbersome and ineffective against a concealed enemy, were abandoned. Small-unit operations were adopted, which were better suited to the Malayan jungles. The British also saw that their air attack missions achieved only modest success, because of the dense forest cover, the absence of reliable maps, and the difficult high-altitude weather conditions.
Maneuverability of British Army ground units also was handicapped by the jungle terrain and the elements, and the difficulty in locating the enemy. British soldiers also were unable to distinguish between friend and foe, and therefore regarded all persons in remote settlements as potentially hostile. As a result of these difficulties, the British committed a number of atrocities on the local population, the most notable being the Batang Kali Massacre in December 1948, where 24 villagers were killed and their houses burned.
The British also built fortified camps deep in the jungles in areas that were inhabited by the indigenous Orang Asli tribal population, who previously had supported the MNLA, but were won over by the British. From these jungle camps, the British sent out patrols to seek out and engage the rebels. Members of the Orang Asli also were organized into local militias to defend their villages.
Early on in the war, the British saw that warfare alone could not win the war, because of the difficulty of penetrating the thick Malayan jungles and the refusal of the enemy to engage in open combat. They therefore implemented a number of non-military approaches to confront the insurgency. Shortly after the state of emergency was declared, the British jailed hundreds of ethnic Malay communists in order to keep the insurgency from spreading to other Malays (as well as ethnic Indians), thereby reinforcing the perception that the MNLA was a mainly ethnic Chinese organization. For the same reason, in Pahang State where an ethnic Malay-led MNLA unit operated, British authorities expelled the Malay rebels and brought the region under their control.
Still unable to defeat the MNLA, the British turned to starving it into submission. The 600,000 rural squatters from whom the rebels derived much of their support were uprooted from their homes and moved to “New Villages”, which were guarded settlement camps where British authorities provided the new residents with basic necessities and public utilities, but also enforced strict restrictions on the residents’ personal movement, food allocations, and other civil rights. A curfew was imposed and violators were subjected to severe punishment. By the mid-1950s, some 450 “New Villages” had been built. To win over the local population, the British launched a “hearts and minds” campaign, where the “New Villages” were provided with educational and health care services, and primary utilities such as electricity and clean water.
British authorities also co-opted the large anti-communist ethnic Chinese population, forging friendly ties with the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), which had been organized by moderate Chinese who sought to advance Malayan Chinese interests through peaceful, democratic means. Intelligence gathering operations also were greatly expanded during the Emergency, with emphasis placed on recruiting Malays, Chinese and Indians as intelligence operatives with the task of gaining information on the CPM’s organizational structure and courier and communications network. Working through deep cover agents, captured or surrendered rebels, seized CMP documents, and other sources, the government gained a large body of information on the CMP. British authorities also infiltrated the rebels’ courier and communications system, and thus succeeded in subverting MNLA and CPM operations.
The British also used psychological warfare, which were so effective in demoralizing the ranks of the MNLA. Propaganda leaflets were air-dropped in the mountains and jungles, anti-communist rallies were organized in towns and cities, and uncovered rebel weapons caches were left in place but sabotaged, for example, with self-exploding bullets and grenades.
Furthermore, the herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T were first used during the Malayan Emergency, with British planes spraying them to defoliate the forests and deprive the rebels of cover. Also targeted were the insurgents’ own crop fields located in jungle clearings, as well as the roadsides where the British were most vulnerable to rebel attack. A mixture of these two herbicides (called Agent Orange) was used extensively by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.
The government’s multi-faceted approach to meet the Malayan Emergency was raised to a higher degree during the term of Gerald Templer as British High Commissioner in Malaya. Templer had been given broad powers by the British government following his predecessor’s assassination by MNLA guerillas in October 1951. Templer’s two-year tenure (1952-1954) did much to turn the tide of the war in favor of the British, even though upon his departure, the MNLA continued to be a threat. Of all the counter-insurgency methods that the British employed, the most successful was preparing Malaya for independence, a process that was accelerated under Templer’s tenure. The British reasoned that handing Malaya its independence would nullify the CMP’s reason for existence, which was to end colonial rule.
As it turned out, however, Malaya’s road to independence involved a long, tedious process, primarily because Malaya’s three main racial groups (Malays, Chinese, and Indians) were not integrated and even mutually hostile to each other; this difficulty initially convinced the British that Malaya’s independence was virtually impossible to achieve.
Earlier in April 1946, the British organized the Malayan states into a single polity, the Malayan Union, where the powers of the Sultans were restricted, and the Chinese and Indians were to be granted citizenship. However, Malay nationalists led a series of protests against granting citizenship to non-Malays. The British relented, and negotiations that followed led to a compromise – the Malayan Union was abolished and replaced in February 1948 with the Federation of Malaya. In the new polity, the Malayan sultans’ powers were restored; in exchange, ethnic Chinese and Indians were granted citizenship, and equality of all races was guaranteed. Furthermore, a Malay sultan would be the head of state, sovereignty over Malaya would rest with Malays, and Malay would be the official language. Conversely, the Chinese and Indians would be guaranteed representation at all levels of government and legislation, and their economic interests and social, cultural, and religious traditions would be protected.
In 1954, Malayan interracial integration was bolstered with the formation of the Alliance Party, a coalition of political parties comprising the three leading ethnic-based political parties, i.e. United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), and Malayan Indian Congress (MIC). Then in general elections held in July 1955, the Alliance Party won decisively. Two years later (on August 31, 1957), the Federation of Malaya became a fully sovereign, independent state These political developments denigrated the legitimacy of the CPM’s armed struggle, particularly since the 1955 election and Malaya’s independence received overwhelming support from the general population.
By 1955, the MNLA was on the decline, its combat strength weakened by combat deaths, desertions, and surrenders, morale was low, and its popular support was greatly reduced. In September 1955, some three months after his party won the general elections, Tunku Abdul Rahman, chief Minister of Malaya, offered amnesty to the MNLA. Government representatives and the CPM leadership held negotiations in October and November 1955, paving the way for the Baling Peace Talks (held in Baling, in present-day northern Peninsular Malaysia) in December 1955, where CPM leader Chin Peng met with Chief Minister Tunku. However, this meeting produced no settlement. Subsequent offers by Chin Peng to continue negotiations were spurned by Tunku, who insisted on unconditional surrender, i.e. that the MNLA must disarm and disband, and the CPM would not be granted official recognition. In February 1956, Tunku rescinded the amnesty offer.