Forgotten Wars (103 page)

16.
‘British Defence Committee in South East Asia, 10th meeting’, 12 March 1947, CO537/2503, TNA.

17.
MSS/PIJ, 30 September 1947; UK High Commission Ceylon to
Commonwealth Relations Office, 10 April 1948; FARELF to War Office, 13 April, 28 April, 4 May, 14 May 1948; ‘Aide Memoire’, DO35/2406, TNA. Charles Gamba,
The origins of trade unionism in Malaya
(Singapore, 1960), p. 208.

18.
Gent to Creech Jones, 11 May 1947, in A. J. Stockwell (ed),
British Documents on the End of Empire: Malaya, part I
(London, 1995), p. 335.

19.
M. V. del Tufo,
Malaya: a report on the 1947 census of population
(London, 1949); Charles Hirschman, ‘The meaning and measurement of ethnicity in Malaysia: an analysis of census classifications’,
Journal of Asian Studies
, 46, 3 (1987), pp. 555–82.

20.
Utusan Melayu
, 18 November 1946.

21.
Malaya Tribune
, 13 November 1947.

22.
Gamba,
The origins of trade unionism
, p. 436.

23.
C. S. V. K. Moorthi, President of Selangor Estate Workers’ Trade Union, 24 March 1947, Thivy Papers.

24.
R. Shlomowitz and L. Brennan, ‘Mortality and Indian labour in Malaya, 1877–1933’,
Indian Economic and Social History Review
, 29 (1992), pp. 57–75.

25.
Pierre Boulle,
Sacrilege in Malaya
([1958] Kuala Lumpur, 1983), pp. 35–6, 44.

26.
For a first-hand description of a planter’s work see Margaret Shennan,
Out in the midday sun: the British in Malaya, 1880–1960
(London, 2000), pp. 176–81. For the quotation, Henri Falconnier,
The soul of Malaya
([1931] Singapore, 1985), p. 52.

27.
Gamba,
The origins of trade unionism
, pp. 32–3, and for general conditions on estates, pp. 252ff.

28.
‘Report: Work on the plantations’, FS13622/49, ANM.

29.
‘Special meeting of the Malayan Union Labour Advisory Board… 3 July 1947’, MU Labour/167/47, ANM.

30.
We are grateful to Dr Emma Reisz for her comments. See also, J. Norman Palmer, ‘Estate workers’ health in the Federated Malay States in the 1920s’, in P. Rimmer and L. Allen (eds.),
The underside of Malaysian history: pullers, prostitutes and plantation workers
(Singapore, 1990), pp. 179–92.

31.
Stephen Dobbs,
Tuan Djek: a biography
(Singapore, 2002).

32.
Scorpio, ‘ITBA’,
The Planter
, 22, 9 (September 1947), p. 235.

33.
‘Planters in Malaya’,
The Times
, 9 October 1951.

34.
S. K. Chettur,
Malayan adventure
(Mangalore, 1948), pp. 249–50.

35.
Ravindra K. Jain, ‘Leadership and authority in a plantation: a case study of Indians in Malaya (c. 1900–42)’, in G. Wijeyewardene (ed.),
Leadership and authority: a symposium
(Singapore, 1968), pp. 163–73; P. Ramasamy, ‘Indian war memory in Malaysia’, in P. Lim Pui Huen and Diana
Wong (eds.),
War and memory in Malaysia and Singapore
(Singapore, 2000), pp. 90–105.

36.
Arasaratnam, ‘Social and political ferment of the Malayan Indian community, 1945–55’, pp. 141–55.

37.
This paragraph and the next is drawn from ‘[Draft] Summary of reports regarding recent disturbances on estates in South Kedah’, in Gent to Creech Jones, 8 April 1947, CO537/2173, TNA; K. Nadaraja, ‘The Thondar Pedai movement of Kedah, 1945–47’,
Malaysia in History
, 24 (1981), pp. 95–103; Leong Yee Fong,
Labour and trade unionism in colonial Malaya: a study of the socio-economic and political bases of the Malayan labour movement, 1930–1957
(Pulau Pinang, 1999), pp. 164–7, and Gamba,
The origins of trade unionism
, pp. 252–303.

38.
Gamba,
The origins of trade unionism
, p. 284.

39.
Brazier to Commissioner for Labour, 19 September 1947, LAB/158/47, ANM; For example, ‘Trade dispute Rengo Malay Estate, 12 November 1947’, LAB/139/47, ANM.

40.
Quoted in Gamba,
The origins of trade unionism
, p. 296.

41.
Gimson to Creech Jones, 4 March 1947, CO537/2171, TNA;
Malaya Tribune
, 14 February 1947.

42.
Minutes of sixth Governor General’s conference in Singapore, 11 March 1947, in Stockwell,
British documents: Malaya, Part I
, pp. 303–6.

43.
Labour Report for October 1947, LAB/54/47, ANM.

44.
Malaya Tribune
, 16 October 1947.

45.
Chin Peng,
My side of history
(Singapore, 2004), pp. 195–6; ‘Lawlessness and insecurity’,
The Planter
, 23, 10 (October, 1947), pp. 240–44.

46.
Quoted in Nicholas J. White,
Business, government and the end of empire: Malaya, 1945–1957
(Kuala Lumpur, 1996), p. 82.

47.
Ibid., p. 103; Norman Cleaveland,
Bang! Bang! in Ampang
(San Pedro, CA, 1973), p. 54.

48.
Gimson to Creech Jones, 2 March 1947 and 20 March 1947, CO537/2171, TNA.

49.
Gent to J. J. Paskin, 20 September 1946; Paskin to Gent, 4 October 1946, CO537/1522, TNA.

50.
‘Report on the Special Conference on the threat of Communism in Malaya and Singapore, 1947’, 26 June 1947, Dalley Papers, RHO.

51.
Michael Stenson,
Repression and revolt: the origins of the 1948 communist insurrection in Malaya and Singapore
(Athens, OH, 1969).

52.
C. W. Lyle, ‘Selangor Protest Committee’, 16 July 1947, LAB/158/47, ANM.

53.
Returns on LAB/562/47, ANM. See also Leong,
Labour and trade unionism in Malaya
pp. 168–73.

54.
Laurence K. L. Siaw,
Chinese society in rural Malaysia
(Kuala Lumpur, 1983), p. 86.

55.
MSS/PIJ, 15 October 1947.

56.
They were also written with access to British documents and ‘as told’ to a retired
Daily Telegraph
journalist, Ian Ward, and his wife and collaborator Norma Miraflor. Chin Peng discusses the relationship briefly in his preface to
My side of history
, pp. 4–5.

57.
Ibid., pp. 167–74.

58.
MSS/PIJ, 31 March 1947.

59.
There is a discrepancy here over the dates. Chin Peng, in his memoirs, gives the date as late January, and the subsequent meeting at which the dossier of evidence was presented as 6 March. However, this must be an error. Most other sources give the date of Lai Teck’s disappearance as 6 March and of the meeting to expel Lai Teck as May, and we have followed them. The March date was also given by Chin Peng when questioned directly in an earlier interview: Chin Peng,
My side of history
, pp. 171–9; C. C. Chin and Karl Hack (eds.),
Dialogues with Chin Peng: new light on the Malayan Communist Party
(Singapore, 2004), pp. 124–6. See also Anthony Short,
In pursuit of mountain rats: the communist insurrection in Malaya
(Singapore, 2000 [1975]), pp. 40–41. We are grateful to C. C. Chin for clarification of this point.

60.
Chin Peng,
My side of history
, pp. 178–9.

61.
‘The Wright (@ Lye Teck) Document: “A written statement on Lye Teck’s case issued on 28 May 1948 by the MCP Central Committee”’, supplement to MSS/PIJ, 31 July, 1948.

62.
Chin Peng,
My side of history
, pp. 179–84.

63.
Christopher E. Goscha,
Thailand and the Southeast Asian networks of the Vietnamese revolution, 1885–1954
(London, 1999), ch. 5.

64.
Ibid., pp. 187–8.

65.
Chin and Hack,
Dialogues with Chin Peng
, p. 130.

66.
Chin Peng,
My side of history
, pp. 188–9.

67.
Ibid., pp. 187–91; Chin and Hack,
Dialogues with Chin Peng
, pp. 106–10.

68.
‘The Wright (@ Lye Teck) Document’; MSS/PIJ, 31 July 1948.

69.
Ibid.

70.
‘Interrogation of a Perak prisoner, MCP area representative, political’, Supplement No. 7 to MSS/PIJ, 15 July 1948.

71.
Short,
In pursuit of mountain rats
, p. 44; C. C. Chin, ‘In search of the revolution: a brief biography of Chin Peng’, in Chin and Hack,
Dialogues with Chin Peng
, pp. 355–8.

72.
Yoji Akashi, ‘Lai Teck, Secretary General of the Malayan Communist
Party, 1939–1947’,
Journal of the South Seas Society
, 49 (1994), pp. 57–103; Chin Peng,
My side of history
, p. 159; Lim Cheng Leng,
The story of a psy-warrior: Tan Sri Dr C. C. Too
(Batu Caves, 2000), pp. 113–25.

73.
‘Malayan Communist Party policy’, supplement no. 9 to MSS/PIJ, 31 July 1948.

74.
Michael Stenson,
The 1948 Communist revolt in Malaya: a note on historical sources and interpretation with a Reply by Gerald de Cruz
(Singapore, 1971), p. 29–30.

75.
Short,
In pursuit of mountain rats
, p. 41; ‘Malayan Communist Party Affairs 25 April 1984 to 26 June 1948’, Appendix A to MSS/PIJ, 30 June 1948.

76.
Short,
In pursuit of mountain rats
, p. 40.

77.
Malayan Security Service, ‘Report on BMA Period’, 3 April 1946, SNA; Leon Comber, ‘The Malayan Security Service (1945–1948)’;
Intelligence and National Security
, 18, 3 (2003), pp. 128–53.

78.
Robert Cribb, ‘Opium and the Indonesian revolution’,
Modern Asian Studies
, 22, 4 (1988), pp. 710–22; Young Mun Cheong,
The Indonesian revolution and the Singapore connection, 1945–1949
(Singapore, 2003), pp. 101–37.

79.
Onn to Gent, 17 February 1947, in Stockwell,
British documents: Malaya, part I
, p. 294.

80.
Majlis
, 2 April 1946.

81.
‘Report on UMNO General Assembly, 10–12 January 1947’, in Gent to Creech Jones 27 January 1947, Stockwell,
British documents: Malaya, part I
, pp. 292–3.

82.
Ahmad Boestamam (trans. William R. Roff),
Carving the path to the summit
(Athens, OH, 1979), pp. 82–5. Mustapha Hussain,
Malay nationalism before Umno: the memoirs of Mustapha Hussain
, translated by Insun Mustapha and edited by Jomo K. S. (Kuala Lumpur, 2005), pp. 330–31.

83.
Quoted in Farish A Noor,
Islam embedded: the historical development of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party PAS (1951–2003)
, vol. I (Kuala Lumpur, 2004), pp. 113–16.

84.
Hussain,
Malay nationalism before Umno
, pp. 334–9.

85.
Shamsiah Fakeh,
Memoir Shamsiah Fakeh: dari AWAS ke Rejimen Ke-10
(Bangi, 2004), pp. 40–45.

86.
Khatijah Sidek,
Memoirs of Khatijah Sidek: Puteri Kesateria Bangsa
(Kuala Lumpur, 2001 [1960]), p. 160.

87.
Malaya Tribune
, 17 March 1947; Wazir Jahan Karim,
Women and culture: between Malay adat and Islam
(Boulder, 1992), pp. 96–100.

88.
Boestamam,
Carving the path to the summit
, pp. 61–2; MSS/PIJ, 30 April 1947.

89.
MSS/PIJ, 31 March 1947; Gent to Creech Jones, 24 February 1947, CO537/2151 TNA.

90.
Utusan Melayu
, 14 August 1947.

91.
This pamphlet has recently been republished, in facsimile form, in Ahmad Boestamam,
Memoir Ahmad Boestamam: merdeka dengan darah dalam api
(Bangi, 2004).

92.
Malaya Tribune
, 20 March and 21 March 1947; Firdaus Haji Abdullah,
Radical Malay politics: its origins and early development
(Petaling Jaya, 1985), pp. 98–101.