COMMUNIST TACTICS IN MALAYA

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25546, 14 July 1948, Page 5

COMMUNIST TACTICS IN MALAYA

Village Residents Turn Terrorist By Night

(N.Z.P.A. —Reuter—Copyright)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) SINGAPORE, July 13. The United Kingdom CommissionerGeneral in Malaya (Mr Malcolm MacDonald) , in a broadcast last week, said: “Apparently peaceful citizens of Malaya by day are frequently turning into terrorists by night.” The following dispatch, Written by a “Straits Times” reporter, Geoffrey Geldard, who has just returned from Johore, gives a picture of life under the rule of the gun. He pays: “As terrorism stalks Malaya, every Chinese fears his neighbour. In villages and small towns the man next door, the man in the coffeeshop, and the man who mends your bicycle might be • Communist terrorists, or their womenfolk might be spies. “For months now, the Communists have been the virtual rulers of hundreds of thousands of rubber estate and tin mine workers. Those who defied them are being rapidly eliminated. Most of the Chinese are now ready to let the terrorists have their own way. “In two lonely but adjacent villages in Central Johore one Saturday, when the terror had first started, Communists armed with Tommy and Sten guns killed three opposition leaders while their families watched in horror. One old man’s head was hacked off and his body was pumped full of bullets by three men whom he had known for years. The Village barber was one of his murderers. Of dozens of people who saw men whom they knew committing these murders, only the wife of one of the slain men had the courage to tell the police the names of some of the assailants. “Two old Chinese rubber smallholders were brutally tortured with a Japanese sword before they were shot and robbed by a gang of terrorists who had been their workmates the day before. When over 50 terrorists staged a big dawn attack on a main road village. a number were recognised as old residents who had recently disappeared from the village. The gang killed a small boy. his mother, and a shop assistant. In lhe police comb-out after the terrorists had been repulsed, those arrested as ‘spies’ included an iced water seller, a rubber tapper, and four women. “When the police made their Malayawide all-night swoop on known Com-

munists they arrested hundreds, but all the important men had been warned. They fled to the jungle, where they set up their headquarters in old Anti-Japanese Army camps which they us*ed as guerrillas during the Japanese occupation. When a job is to be done, these leaders detail the barber, the iced water man. the rubber man, and people like them, arm them, and lead them in the ‘operation.’ These W’ere their tactics when they were antiJapanese guerrillas. Now they are anti-anyone who does not co-operate with them, and there is little wonder that the common peace-loving citizen of Malaya is afraid of his neighbour.” Precautions in Singapore The police were doing their utmost to prevent the spread of terrorism to Singapore, said the Governor of Singapore (Sir Franklin Gimson) in the Legislative Assembly. He was asking for approval of the special regulations ordinance conferring sweeping powers on the policed He said that launches were patrolling the island to prevent terrorists from entering from the mainland. Police, with the Army standing by, had rounded up many “undesirable elements” and seized arms and Communist literature. Thirty European women and children were being evacuated to-day by air from the east coast of Malaya. They are from the tin mining town of Sungei 'Lembing, where one European and two Asiatics were killed and a European is missing after an ambush last week. Between 70 and 100 Communist terrorists yesterday seized Batu Arang, the only coalmining town in Malaya, 26 miles from Kuala Lumpur, and held it for an hour and a half while skilled saboteurs disabled vital equipment at the mine. In a well-planned attack they cut roads and telephone lines, pinned down the police in their station, and Europeans in their quarters, held up incoming train passengers who were robbed, and killed four mining employees, and the owner of a general store. The terrorists withdrew before the arrival of police reinforcements and Gurkhas several hours later. One terrorist is believed to have been killed. Police and troops are searching the nearby jungle.