'Alliance sustained insurgency to keep CPM in jungle'

The Alliance government may have had to pander to British interests during the Baling Talks in 1955, but it had many chances to broker a peace deal with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) soon after Independence.

However, PSM’s Sungai Siput MP Dr D Jeyakumar hypothesised, the nation's leader Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj did not do so as the Alliance wanted to keep the CPM in the jungles, and away from electoral politics.

“I’ll make the argument that the Alliance was prepared to accept casualties among Malaysian soldiers, because it knew that the communists could not win, and would only be able to cause some disruption if sidelined (in the jungle).

“But if (the CPM) contests in elections, they could dislodge the Alliance government. This means it was a class decision, and it is a fact Malaysians have got to see,” Jeyakumar said.

As such, he said, those questioning the casualties sustained during the insurgency after 1957 should consider that the Alliance government and the British shared a greater part of the blame.

Jeyakumar (right) told a PSM-organised forum on Chin Peng in Kuala Lumpur last night that this is apparent as the 1989 Hatyai Peace Accord between Malaysia, Thailand and the CPM contained all the demands the CPM made in 1955.

The Alliance, he said, could not have acceded to these demands in 1955 or even 1958, but its successor, the BN government, could have signed it in 1989 as the CPM’s influence had then decreased significantly.

He noted that the Baling Talks materialised when CPM offered negotiations, following the Alliance’s 1955 sweeping polls victory on two promises - Independence by 1957 and the end of the communist insurgency.

But Tunku likely had his “hands tied”, as he had to show to the British he was not pro-communism and that Independence would not mean nationalisation of British assets.

“When (then Utusan Melayu editor-in-chief) Syed Zahari later asked Tunku if he was disappointed that the Baling Talks broke down, he said, ‘No, I’m not as I never wanted it to be a success’,” Jeyakumar said.

British proxy

While Jeyakumar gave the Tunku concessions for the failed Baling Talks, fellow panellist and social activist Lee Ban Chen said Tunku acted as a “British proxy”.
Lee said Tunku did not budge on conditions set prior to the talks - for CPM members to abandon arms, surrender and be investigated - despite CPM’s concessions.

“The CPM were willing to compromise, by laying down arms and abandoning their ideology, which to me is a big compromise... but they were also asked to do something impossible - to surrender.

“This was a big insult to those who had fought against the Japanese and British imperialists,” Lee (right) said.

The Tunku’s uncompromising stance, he said, forced a “civil war” in Malaya and then Malaysia, resulting in casualties among CPM members, and police and army personnel.

“However, I believe the sacrifices of CPM members and their supporters are far greater, in numbers of death and casualties, being exiled, sentenced to death and villagers who were forced into new villages to live like in a concentration camp.

“The sacrifices on the part of the communists are several-fold more than that on the part of the government,” Lee said.