N.Z. jungle exercise

Press, 20 October 1981, Page 6

N.Z. jungle exercise

NZPA Singapore About 500 New Zealand soldiers are on a five-week counter-insurgency exercise in the thick jungles of the Malaysian state of Pahang, believed to be one of the main recruiting areas for communist guerrillas, according to a New Zealand military spokesman. The possibility of a brush with communist elements was remote, he said. Although a few underground members of the Communist Party of Malaya

were picked up in the state in recent years, all guerrilla activities have been confined mainly to the Thai-Malaysian frontier further north. But the "New Zealanders are taking no chances. “Our men have been carrying live ammunition, mainly to protect themselves from wild animals and because of the remote chance of running into real-life insurgents,” the spokesman said. The men taking part in the exercise, which will end on November 4, belong to the

Ist Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, stationed at Singapore under a five-power defence arrangement among Singapore, Malaysia, Britian, Australia and New Zealand. About 30 soldiers are playing the role of guerrillas from bases deep inside the hilly area made difficult to penetrate by torrential monsoon rain and rugged terrain. They are on their own, surviving off food caches hidden before the exercise began on October 8.