Specialists In Violence

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30592, 7 November 1964, Page 5

Specialists In Violence

(By

ANTHONY BROWN

in the "Canberra Times.” Reprinted by arrangement I

lIISTORICALLY the Chinese secret societies have been associated with a struggle against the short-comings of the social and political structures of government. They created branches of the Triads such as the White Lotus Society, and created the Taiping Rebellion. The rebellion led to the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Another branch, the Small Dagger Society, created the great Singapore riots of 1854.

During the great Chinese emigrations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, secret fraternities went with them. Lodges were established in Australia (and persist in an emasculated sort of way), Indo China, Hawaii, Thailand. Malaya, Indonesia, India, the United States and England. With their elaborate mumbo-jumbo, their own cosmology, they created the Penang riots of 1867—incidents without parallel in Malayan history save for the collapse of Singapore in 1941. The Penang riots, so fierce that British forces were compelled to withdraw into a single street of the island, led to the opening up of the Malay States by the British. The British Government became deeply concerned at the power of the Triad—--30,000 revolted in a bloodbath against 4000 Malays and Indians—and legislated them under ground.

Short Step In recent years the authorities tend to claim the power of the societies has been broken, and that they have degenerated into dangerous gangs of thugs. But experts believe that the step from the Triad Society to the Kuomintang, meaning the country, the people, the party, is very short. The Kuomintang was organised secretly in 1894 by Sun Yet Sen, who through the secret societies, overthrew the Manchu dynasty in 1912 and established the first Chinese Republic in its place. At the beginning of 1946. the income of the Triads in Singapore was reported by police as an estimated 100,000 dollars a month.

Both right and left wing arenas of Chinese politics have and are seeking society support. As the 12 years emergency in Malaya unfolded —an emergency which tied down 75 battalions of British troops —so the implication of the Chinese secret societies emerged again. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China there was a noticeable swing of all Triad secret societies to the left. In fact Triad societies have always supported Chinese racialism and nationalism. The secret societies’ capacity for crime is considerable. In 1956 the Singapore police stated that 75 per cent of all suspects arrested for robbery during the year were on record as secret society members. Singapore gambling is controlled by two groups known as 24 and 108—who were also prominent in the latest Singapore disturbances and also have been running illegal lotteries worth 50 million Malayan dollars a year.

In local politics, the secret societies have been offering to use their influence amongst the electorate to obtain block votes for between five and 10 Malayan dollars per vote. The power of the secret societies emerges as a real political force by the last survey, which showed there were 360 secret societies in Singapore. On the Malayan Peninsula there were 48 active societies in existence. They are a government within a government. In Hong Kong it is estimated that about 20,000 hardcore Triad men belong to 116 active societies. As in Hong Kong and other great South East Asian centres so in Singapore and Malaya the greatest weapon of the secret society is fear. At a dockside cafe in Singapore a hawker refuses to pay protection money and is stabbed to death before 50 witnesses, all too terrified to move or help the police later. In a crowded coffee house a detective is fatally shot. Noone saw anything. A Triad bomb is thrown—acid. It was made by puncturing the base of an electric light bulb, while it is immersed in acid which is thus drawn into the vacuum. The hole is sealed when the bulb is full. For maximum effect it is shaken well before throwing—and a British major in Singapore told me the reason for the water in his hipbottle was not for drinking but to mix with bicarbonate to apply to blinded persons. Young Recruits The Triads—police sources tell me—catch their recruits young. Recently a 14-year-old boy with unusual intelligence was found to be the leader of an adult Triad mob. Half the shoeshine urchins of Singapore have been drawn

in and junior sections set up in respectable schools. In Hong Kong Triads practise extortion from youngsters forcing them to sell their blood to clinics and taking a percentage of the price—seven pounds ten shillings per five hundred c.c. There are fewer girls in the business but one group—- “ The Red Butterfly Society" consists entirely of women whose secret recognition mark is a butterfly tattooed on the thigh. Their specialities are the beating up of defaulters in payment and remonstrating with promiscuous husbands whose wives are ready to pay for this to be done with knives, clubs and acid.

Identity Cards To combat these extraordinary subterranean forces the Singapore authorities have introduced draconian measures. Known gangsters are given new identity cards marked with a black cross, placed under supervision, and thereafter summarily arrested and penalised heavily for the slightest suspicious act. Suspects under supervision can now be restricted to their homes from dusk to dawn and may go to prison for three years if they default. They can be arrested and gaoled for suspicious loitering, for being seen with known gangsters, for sitting in a cafe with a man who is carrying a knife, even for being found in a place of public entertainment without a good excuse. There are 57 offences for which Triad men may be given double the maximum sentence the law prescribes. Cayght in possession of any corrosive substance or an unexplained knife with a blade more than two and a half inches long, they go to gaol for two years.