Forgotten Wars (93 page)

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.

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.

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.