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December 9, 2020 by Ted Chitham

Senator James McGrath on Rifle Company Butterworth – 9 December 2020

Senator James McGrath on Rifle Company Butterworth – 9 December 2020

“Today, I’d like in particular to pay tribute to the Australian soldiers who have served and those continuing serving in Rifle Company Butterworth in Malaysia, that recently marked the 50th anniversary of its establishment.

In particular, I’d like to acknowledge the efforts of the veterans involved in the second Malaysian emergency against communist insurgents between 1970 and 1989 and the protection of RAAF aircraft, families and facilities at the air base at Butterworth.

From 1973, Army troops in infantry company groups were deployed from Australia to Butterworth and had orders from the RAAF commander of the air base to provide a quick-reaction force that could be activated at short notice to repeal attacks by communist insurgents.

The Army troops received intelligence briefings on the nature of the insurgency threat to the air base, carried weapons and live ammunition, had orders to use lethal force should it be necessary, and regularly practised in responding to potential threats.

It is undeniable that our Army troops were integral, with the Malaysian forces, in protecting the air base at Butterworth from the threat of attack by communist insurgents.

Despite acknowledging the threats posed by the communist insurgency and the need to deploy Army troops to carry out protective tasks to assure the safety and security of the air base, the Defence Committee of 1973 made recommendations to the government that the decision to deploy Army troops be presented publicly as being for training purposes, underplaying their real role.

Many Rifle Company Butterworth veterans have since campaigned, to no avail, to have their service recognised as warlike service, given the strategic importance of their role and the threat of conflict in the region.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the extensive efforts by Rifle Company Butterworth veterans, since their involvement, to have their service recognised as warlike service in light of the critical role they played in the defence of Butterworth.

Following the decision to award the VC to Teddy Sheean—which is well deserved and a decision that I support and that everyone in this chamber supports—I would ask the government to consider the Butterworth veterans’ endeavour to claim appropriate recognition for their service.’

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwh86anOPZA

Filed Under: History, Malaysia's 2nd Emergency, Malaysian Conflict, Operations, RAAF, RCB, Service Recognition, Warfare

December 9, 2020 by Ted Chitham

Malaysia’s “Second Emergency” (1968–89)

Malaysia’s “Second Emergency” (1968–89)

The upsurge of armed struggle in Malaysia represents one of the lesser noticed repercussions of the 1968 developments in Vietnam and China. 

The impact of revolutionary developments in Vietnam and China on the May events of 1968 in France and other Western countries has long been acknowledged. Less notice has been paid outside Asia to their repercussions on other Southeast Asian countries, which also experienced a revolutionary high tide in 1968. The upsurge of armed struggle in Malaysia in 1968 is rarely mentioned in general studies on the period, and is not often talked about even in Malaysia.

This article’s author is Gregor Benton emeritus professor of Chinese history at Cardiff University and research associate in diaspora studies, NTU, Singapore.

In 1968, the Malaysian Communists under their ethnic-Chinese leader Chin Peng declared war on the Malaysian government. They kept their insurgency going until 1989, although to increasingly diminishing effect. This armed struggle is generally known as the Second Emergency, following the original “Malayan Emergency ” of 1948-1960. At the time, Chin Peng was feared almost as much as Osama bin Laden in later times, and had earlier gained a reputation as “Britain’s enemy number one in Southeast Asia.”

The strategic context of Malaysia’s two Emergencies starting in 1948 and 1968 was the Cold War, which in Southeast Asia took the form of Soviet and Chinese competition with the US-led Western bloc. In the 1960s, the main arena of this competition was Vietnam, where Moscow and Beijing supported the north under Ho Chi Minh against the US-backed south. In Indonesia too Communists staged a rebellion in the 1960s that was crushed by local anti-Communist forces.

In 1968, Communist forces in South Vietnam staged their Tet Offensive, which resulted in a military defeat but represented a political victory of stunning proportions. The Tet Offensive was a main factor in the CPM’s decision to return to arms and wage a Chinese-style People’s War against the governments of Singapore and Malaysia, which they saw as neo-colonies of the British, and to campaign for a Malayan People’s Republic. Their revolution was designed to chime not just with Vietnam’s War of National Liberation but also with China’s Cultural Revolution, which peaked in 1968.

In the first five years after 1968, the CPM groups set up a secret network of supporters across Malaysia, and in 1974 it began a campaign of bombings and assassinations in both Malaysia and Singapore. Its victims included Tan Sri Abdul Rahman bin Hashim, Inspector-General of the Malaysian Police. Communist guerrillas created a series of strongholds across the border from Malaysia in Southern Thailand. The absence of a concerted Thai-Malaysian response to their activities played into the hands of the CPM, which profited from the two governments’ failure to cooperate effectively.

In Malaysia, the CPM failed as a result less of the military prowess of the government’s security forces than of its own failure to win over key sections of the population outside its jungle strongholds in Southern Thailand.

The CPM suffered greatly as a result of the deepening of the Sino-Soviet split. As China’s relations with the Soviet Union worsened, Beijing began a process of rapprochement with its non-communist neighbours to the south, as a counterweight to its troubles in the north. As part of this process, the Chinese leader Zhou Enlai announced in 1974 that Beijing would henceforth consider the CPM to be an internal problem for Malaysia, thus signaling the start of Beijing’s withdrawal of support.

In his memoirs, Chin Peng claimed that the CPM had won “peace with dignity” — a “reasonable conclusion” to the struggle. However, he also acknowledged that the MCP’s terror campaign had been a mistake, for it had “antagonized the masses.” He went on to outline the domestic and international conditions that had prevented the spread of revolution in the Malay Peninsula and Borneo: “A revolution based on violence has no application in modern Malaysia or Singapore.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Filed Under: History, Malaysia's 2nd Emergency, Malaysian Conflict, Warfare

November 21, 2020 by Ted Chitham

RCB 50th Anniversary – Appreciation from the Malaysian Armed Forces

RCB 50th Anniversary – Appreciation from the Malaysian Armed Forces

The Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) congratulates Rifle Company Butterworth (RCB) for its 50th anniversary of establishment in Malaysia.

“Your presence and sacrifice here in Malaysian soil in protecting the RMAF Butterworth base during the resurgence of the communist insurgency in 1970-1989 was a remarkable contribution and had always been the highlight of your presence here in Malaysia. Since then, the cooperation and the desire to further develop the friendly relations continue to grow, in preparing for more challenging future ahead.”

“May the long historical defence collaboration between MAF and Australia Defence Force will further strengthen and expand beyond the bilateral scope and more importantly under the auspices of the Five Power Defence Arrangements and the Malaysia Australia Joint Defence Program in providing a better future for the subsequent generations.” – GENERAL TAN SRI DATO’ SRI HJ AFFENDI BIN BUANG RMAF, CHIEF OF DEFENCE FORCE 

The Malaysian Army’s battle against Communist Insurgency in Peninsular Malaysia 1968-1989 is detailed in a book of the same title. It was a Malaysian Government declared War in which 155 security troops were killed and 864 wounded.

Filed Under: Malaysian Conflict, Operations, RCB

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