Malaysia's Multiple Emergencies

Dr Rizal Yaakop, Senior Lecturer at School for History, Politics and Strategic Studies, University Kebangsaan, in his article ‘The Emergency Law in Malaysia’, discusses emergency regulation in Malaysia. In all, five emergencies have been declared in the country, the first being the declaration of Emergency in 1948 by the British in response to the communist uprising.

The other four were declared post-independence, the first being in 1963 in response to the Indonesian Confrontation. At the date of Dr. Yaakop’s article (October 2010), this and subsequent declarations had not been revoked. Two declarations, one in 1966 and the other in 1977, applied to single states. The fourth was proclaimed after an outbreak of ethnic violence in May 1969. According to Dr Yaakop, only two of these ‘were justified by the grave emergency conditions of the time’, those of 1963 and 1969.

Bedlington wrote in 1978: ‘In mid-1975 the government promulgated a set of Essential Regulations that, without declaring a state of emergency, gave sweeping powers to the authorities, including the abrogation in some cases of the rules of evidence.’ (p.181)

The year before, Richard Stubbs presented five factors he believed provided ‘increasing evidence that the Government will prevail.’ The first of these were the security measures the Government was taking to counter the communists:

… First, it has gradually reintroduced counter-guerrilla measures that proved effective during the Emergency years. Propaganda offensives have been mounted and the State Psychological Warfare Committees have been active. Substantial cash rewards also have been offered for information leading to the arrest of communist guerrillas. In rural areas a force reminiscent of the Home Guard which operated so well during the Emergency has been constituted. Under the Rukun Tetangga (principle of neighbourhood) every able-bodied man between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five must register for duty. In those areas where guerrillas are thought to be operating, short-term curfews have been imposed and food-denial programmes implemented, which, as Richard Clutterbuck has recorded, were particularly successful during the latter stages of the Emergency. And, under the Essential (Community Self-Reliance) Regulations, 1975, security laws have been tightened and special courts set up to try suspected terrorists. These measures, in conjunction with the expansion of the Police Force, indicate the determination of the Government to maintain order and contain the communist threat ... (p.259)

Australia’s Nature of Service Branch of the Department of Defence deny this important part of Malaysian history in their “Background Paper Parliamentary Petition Dated 3 March 2014 Rifle Company Butterworth 1970-1989”. At paragraph 81 they cite a letter from the Army History Unit to Mr Robert Cross of 11 Feb 2004:

No state of ‘war’ or emergency has existed in the Federated States of Malaysia since the establishment of the need in 1970 to deploy a rifle company at BUTTERWORTH. Professor David Horner at the Australian National University agrees that no military threat against the national interests of Malaysia has emerged since the cessation of hostilities with Indonesia (since Confrontation ended in 11 Aug 66).

This denial of Malaysian history is also denial of true history of Butterworth and that of those who served there.

References:

Mohd Rizal Yaakop, ‘The Emergency Law in Malaysia – Political Security of Liability?’, University Kebangsaan, Malaysia, 21 October 2010. Accessed at papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1695727, 15 Mar 2015

Richard Stubbs, ‘Peninsular Malaysia: The “New Emergency”’, Pacific Affairs, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Summer, 1977), University of British Columbia, p.249.

Stanley S. Bedlington, Malaysia and Singapore; ‘The Building of New States’, Cornell University Press, London, 1978.