Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Officially, 196 people were killed between May 13 and July 31 as a result of the riots, although journalists and other observers have stated much higher figures...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
At the May 1969 federal elections, the UMNO-MCA-MIC Alliance polled only 48 percent of the vote, although it retained a majority in the legislature. The MCA lost most of the Chinese-majority seats to Gerakan or DAP candidates. The result was anti-government demonstrations by Chinese in Kuala Lumpur, provoking a Malay backlash and leading rapidly to riots and inter-communal violence in which about 6,000 Chinese homes and businesses were burned and at least 184 people were killed. The government declared a state of emergency, and a National Operations Council, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, took power from the government of Tunku Abdul Rahman, who in September 1970 was forced to retire in favour of Abdul Razak.
Using the Emergency-era Internal Security Act (Malaysia) (ISA), the new government suspended Parliament and political parties, imposed press censorship and placed severe restrictions on political activity. The ISA gave the government power to intern any person indefinitely without trial. These powers were widely used to silence the government’s critics, and have never been repealed. The Constitution was changed to make illegal any criticism, even in Parliament, of the Malaysian monarchy, the special position of Malays in the country, or the status of Malay as the national language.
In 1971 Parliament reconvened, and a new government coalition, the National Front (Barisan Nasional), took office. This included UMNO, the MCA, the MIC, the much weakened Gerakan, and regional parties in Sabah and Sarawak. The DAP was left outside as the only significant opposition party. The PAS also joined the Front but was expelled in 1977. Abdul Razak held office until his death in 1976. He was succeeded by Datuk Hussein Onn, the son of UMNO’s founder Onn Jaafar, and then by Tun Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad, who had been Education Minister since 1971, and who held power for 22 years. During these years policies were put in place which led to the rapid transformation of Malaysia’s economy and society.
The outbreak of war in the Pacific in December 1941 found the British in Malaya completely unprepared. During the 1930s, anticipating the rising threat of Japanese naval power, they had built a great naval base at Singapore, but never anticipated an invasion of Malaya from the north. Because of the demands of the war in Europe, there was virtually no British air capacity in the Far East. The Japanese were thus able to attack from their bases in French Indo-China with impunity, and despite stubborn resistance from British, Australian and Indian forces, they overran Malaya in two months. Singapore, with no landward defences, no air cover and no water supply, was forced to surrender in February 1942, doing irreparable damage to British prestige. British North Borneo and Brunei were also occupied.
The Japanese had a racial policy just as the British did. They regarded the Malays as a colonial people liberated from British imperialist rule, and fostered a limited form of Malay nationalism, which gained them some degree of collaboration from the Malay civil service and intellectuals. (Most of the Sultans also collaborated with the Japanese, although they maintained later that they had done so unwillingly.) The occupiers regarded the Chinese, however, as enemy aliens, and treated them with great harshness: during the so-called sook ching (purification through suffering), up to 40,000 Chinese in Malaya and Singapore were killed. Chinese businesses were expropriated and Chinese schools closed. Not surprisingly the Chinese, led by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), became the backbone of the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), which with British assistance became the most effective resistance force in the occupied Asian countries. But the Japanese also offended Malay nationalism by allowing their ally Thailand to re-annex the four northern states, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu that had been surrendered to British in 1909. The loss of Malaya’s export markets soon produced mass unemployment which affected all races and made the Japanese increasingly unpopular.
The Malayans were thus on the whole glad to see the British back in 1945, but things could not remain as they were before the war. Britain was bankrupt and the new Labour government was keen to withdraw its forces from the East as soon as possible. Colonial self-rule and eventual independence were now British policy. The tide of colonial nationalism sweeping through Asia soon reached Malaya. But most Malays were more concerned with defending themselves against the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) which was mostly made up of Chinese, than with demanding independence from the British – indeed their immediate concern was that the British not leave and abandon the Malays to the armed Communists of the MPAJA, which was the largest armed force in the country. During the last year of the war there had been armed clashes between Chinese and Malays and many Malays were killed by the armed Chinese communists members of the MPAJA and the returning British found a country on the brink of civil war.
In 1946 the British announced plans for a Malayan Union, which would turn the Federated and Unfederated Malay States, plus Penang and Malacca (but not Singapore), into a unitary state, with a view to independence within a few years. There would be a common Malayan citizenship regardless of race. The Malays were horrified at this recognition that the Chinese and Indians were now to be a permanent and equal part of Malaya’s future, and vowed their opposition to the plan. The Sultans, who had initially supported it, backed down and placed themselves at the head of the resistance. In 1946 the United Malays National OrganisationDato Onn bin Jaafar, the Chief Minister of Johore. UMNO favoured independence for Malaya, but only if the new state was run exclusively by the Malays. Faced with implacable Malay opposition, the British dropped the plan. (UMNO) was founded by Malay nationalists led by
Meanwhile the Communists were moving towards open insurrection. The MPAJA had been disbanded in December 1945, and the MCP organised as a legal political party, but the MPAJA’s arms were carefully stored for future use. The MCP policy was for immediate independence with full equality for all races. This meant it recruited very few Malays. The Party’s strength was in the Chinese-dominated trade unions, particularly in Singapore, and in the Chinese schools, where the teachers, mostly born in China, saw the Communist Party of China as the leader of China’s national revival. In March 1947, reflecting the international Communist movement’s “turn to left” as the Cold War set in, the MCP leader Lai Tek was purged and replaced by the veteran MPAJA guerrilla leader Chin Peng, who turned the party increasingly to direct action. In July, following a string of assassinations of plantation managers, the colonial government struck back, declaring a State of Emergency, banning the MCP and arresting hundreds of its militants. The Party retreated to the jungle and formed the Malayan Peoples’ Liberation Army, with about 3,000 men under arms, almost all Chinese.
The Malayan Emergency involved six years of bitter fighting across the Malayan Peninsula. The British strategy, which proved ultimately successful, was to isolate the MCP from its support base by a combination of economic and political concessions to the Chinese and the resettlement of Chinese squatters into “New Villages” in “white areas” free of MCP influence. The effective mobilisation of the Malays against the MCP was also an important part the British strategy. From 1949 the MCP campaign lost momentum and the number of recruits fell sharply. Although the MCP succeeded in assassinating the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney, in October 1951, this turn to “terrorist” tactics alienated many moderate Chinese from the Party. The arrival of Lt-Gen Sir Gerald Templer as British commander in 1952 was the beginning of the end of the Emergency. Templer invented the techniques of counter-insurgency warfare in Malaya and applied them ruthlessly.
The Second World War began in Europe on 3rd September 1939. By June 1940 Norway, Holland, Belgium Luxembourg and France were occupied by German troops and Britain was left alone to hold back the military forces of Germany. Japan had long desired to control the rich lands of South-East Asia, and on 8th December 1941 she seized an opportunity to enter the war on the side of the Germans. Malaya had not much opposition to offer to the Japanese navy or to their air Force as the British were fully engaged in the West.
By 13th December 1941 Japanese troops were in Kedah and had started their big push towards Singapore. The Japanese forces landed in Singapore on the 8th February and Singapore surrendered to the Japanese forces on the 15th February 1942.
The Japanese set up a military administration for Malaya, which lasted for forty two months. The occupation was a great hardship for most of the people. The Japanese occupation in Malaya ended when they surrendered in August 1945. British forces under Lord Louis Mountbatten reoccupied Malaya on 5th September 1945 and a British Military Administration was set up to run the country.
Both ships were sent to Singapore in December 1941, to serve as a deterrent to Japanese aggression. First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound felt that Singapore could not be adequately defended, unless the Royal Navy sent the majority of its capital ships there to achieve parity with the estimated nine Japanese battleships. That was unacceptable as the British were at war with Germany and Italy. However, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was optimistic about the improving situation in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean and allocating two ships to the colony's defense was seen as a compromise. Furthermore, the US Navy would agree to send its Pacific Fleet with its eight battleships to Singapore in the event that hostilities with Japan broke out.
The original British plan had called for a larger fleet which included the new Illustrious-class aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable for air cover, although the plan had to be revised when Indomitable was damaged en route.
WWII Short documentary: The Japanese Invasion of Malaya
The Japanese Invasion of Malaya began just after midnight on 8 December 1941 before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese plan for the invasion involved landing troops on the east coasts of Thailand and Malaya. The forces in Thailand were to push through to the west coast and invade Malaya from its northern province of Kedah, whilst their eastern forces from Vietnam would attack down the east coast and into the interior of Malaya from Kota Bharu.
The Japanese attack force for the invasion of Malaya, Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita's 25th Army, had sailed from Samah Harbour on Hainan Island on 4 December 1941.
Japanese troops launched an amphibious assault on the northern coast of Malaya at Kota Bharu and started advancing down the eastern coast of Malaya. This was made in conjunction with landings at Pattani and Songkhla in Thailand, where they then proceeded south overland across the Thailand-Malayan border to attack the western portion of Malaya.
The Japanese had already coerced the Thai government into letting them use Thai military bases to launch attacks into Malaya.
"Malaya or Peninsular Malaysia or West Malaysia (Malay: Semenanjung Malaysia) is the part of Malaysia which lies on the Malay Peninsula, and shares a land border with Thailand in the north. To the south is the island of Singapore. Its area is 50,810 square miles (131,598 square kilometers). It accounts for the majority of Malaysia's population and economy. Across the Strait of Malacca to the west lies the island of Sumatra. East Malaysia (on the island of Borneo) is to the east across the South China Sea."
1941 December, Japanese troops landed at Kota Baru in Malaya. Within a few hours, all the British airfields were taken and thus began a quick march down the Malayan Peninsula. 2 months late, Singapore fell.
Clip shows the landing from the sea and a Japanese unit advancing under heavy fire. A soldier could be seen cutting the barb wire fence before the rest charged into the gap.
Also seen are tanks along the Singapore Padang with City Hall at the background and the reception given to General Yamashita by the surrendering British and Indian troops.
The music is a Japanese Naval march called the "March of the Warships" (軍艦行進曲) or the "Gunkan March". It was composed in 1897 by naval troop band leader Tokichi Setoguchi, the words were written by Hiraku Toriyama. It was used as the march of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and after WW II re-adopted as the march of the Maritime Self Defense Forces of Japan.
The figures for the massecre of the civilian population in Singapore varied from 6000 to 40,000. The lower figure was gleaned from the Kempei Tai Japanese military police.The higher figure from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. The civilian population in Malaya suffered a similar fate.
All those who had experienced Japanese Occupation should be able remember this stirring Naval war song, even though they had bad memories of the event.