in the fortunate position of having a number of S.E.P.s and C.E.P.s who
thoroughly understood the minds of their former comrades.53 For a start, the rewards to members of the public for information leading to the capture or killing of insurgents were vastly increased. Under Briggs, the reward for bringing in the Secretary General of the M.C.P. had been M$80,000; it was now
increased to M$250,000 and commensurate increases were announced for all other members of the M.C.P. However, while the old scale had been based purely on the rank of the insurgent, the new scale depended on the amount of personal risk called for, and the extent of cooperation by the insurgent who
surrendered or was captured. For example, an insurgent would receive more if he personally led a Security Force patrol to attack his erstwhile camp or to a point for a successful ambush than if he merely pointed to spots on a map. The payment of huge rewards to insurgents for inducing the capture or death of their former comrades raised questions of ethics and morality in the minds of some people (particularly members of the British Communist Party and
British Labor Party); the Government’s reply was that it produced results.54 The Psychological Warfare experts were playing on the venality of the
predominantly Chinese insurgents and directing this weakness towards the destruction of the M.C.P. itself. Immoral or not, it proved brilliantly successful in conditions of weakening insurgent morale. In the later years during 1957-58, it was on the hope of many an ex-insurgent to rehabilitate himself in a small business, by bringing in so many dollars worth of
surrendered insurgents, that the mass surrenders of those years were based.55 The Psychological Warfare Section also perfected several techniques for
communicating with the insurgents. Mass leaflet drops for example were so successful that the M.C.P. politbureau punished possession of a leaflet with death. The use of voice aircraft, which broadcast surrender terms and
promises of safe conduct to areas of the jungle became so substantial that by 1954 Dakotas and Austers equipped with loud speakers were broadcasting to fifteen separate jungle areas per week. So successful was this combined leaflet and voice aircraft campaign that by that year, more insurgents surrendered than ever before, and more than half stated that their minds had
53 The best known of such men was Lam Swee who had defected in May 1950 but from 1952 onwards a number of lesser fry were continually employed within the Information Service. Osman China who defected in Pahang in December 1954 was found to be particularly valuable. Miller, Jungle War, pp 147-148. 54 Templer, Interview.
55 Brooke, Interview.
finally been made up by the Government's communication with them.6^
Collective Punishment - Detention - White Areas
As will be examined in Chapter VI, the operational technique which finally 'dug out the roots' of the insurgent infrastructure was food denial, known in its final, highly intensive form as the Federal Priority Operation. However, while this technique was largely developed under
Templer, it is doubtful whether it could have worked until the end of 1952, when Resettlement had been completed. Until complete penetration of the
insurgent organisation had been achieved by Special Branch therefore, some means had to be found to provide the essential intelligence. Templer 's
approach, broadly speaking was to make selective use of the stick of collective punishment (on towns or areas with a bad Emergency record) while awarding
where it was possible the carrot of the lifting of Emergency restrictions. Tanjong Malim had a bad record. Near the town had occurred fifteen murders, five successful ambushes, five unsuccessful, ten attacks on military and police patrols, seven strikes due to intimidation, numerous attacks on the town water pipeline; 6,000 rubber trees had been slashed, eight buses and lorries burned, several trains derailed. Worse, on only three occasions had anyone helped the Security Forces with information.57 Then, on 25th March 1952, twelve men including the district officer were killed and eight wounded in an ambush. Two days later Templer, newly arrived, went to Tanjong Malim. Having had three hundred local leaders assembled, he denounced them with a vehemence which was to become typical, but was at that stage new and
startling in a High Commissioner. The mildest charge was cowardly silence: "This is going to stop," declared Sir Gerald, "It does not amuse me to
punish innocent people, but many of you are not innocent. You have information which you are too cowardly :o give."
He then imposed a collective sentence: a strict 22 hour curfew, shops open for only twTo hours a day, no one to leave town, all schools closed, no bus services, reduced rice rations. As a final ignominy Tanjong Malim would cease to be the district capital.^
Review 1954, p 28. It should be pointed out that Psychological Warfare was originally included in the Director of Operations staff under the Head of the Emergency Information Service. However in March 1954 the Psychological Warfare Section was separated under that title, and made a separate department within the Director of Operations staff. It worked very closely with Special Branch of the Federal Police. C.C. Too, Interview. 57 S.T., 28th March 1952.
household, there, and at a nearby Malay village. The replies were placed in sealed boxes, travelled to Kuala Lumpur accompanied by representatives of the town and were opened by Templer in their presence. As a result, some thirty Chinese, mainly shopkeepers, were detained and a number of arrests were made. Then on 26th April men of the Suffolk Regiment, acting on information
received, killed Long Pin, a local insurgent leader. In a relatively short time Tanjong Malim was secure, with an effective Home Guard.
What did Templer achieve by this? First, having arrived only seven weeks before the crucial incident, when morale was still suffering from the effects of Gurney’s death and from the sense that so little had been
achieved in so many years, he had demonstrated his authority and determination unforgettably. On his orders, the affair was given wide publicity, aimed at his own officials as much as at the rest of the country. Moreover, to ensure
that his test case would not fail, a reorganisation of the local district boundary was carried out to allow Tanjong Malim's firmer administration, and
the town itself received high priority defence stores to improve its
security.70 Secondly, like Briggs, Templer understood that until villagers could answer insurgent demands by saying that if they complied they would be punished by the Government, they x^ould not dare refuse. Further, that without increased security, the rule of law could not be established. Finally, the distribution of questionnaires, later standardised as Operation QUESTION, provided the Government with information previously virtually inaccessible. Once Special Branch became more effective, this technique became more or less redundant, but for a time it was very effective.71
Templer imposed collective punishment on six other occasions. It was certainly the most dramatic and controversial of his Emergency
measures, but it was not new. Indeed, Templer used both collective punishment
°9 Parkinson; Op .Cl t p 25. Templer found Operation QUESTION to be so successful that in April 1952, he began to apply it to blocks of four and five villages simultaneously. It served a useful purpose until the expertise of Special Branch was established and there was no further need for it to be used. Templer and Madoc, Interviews.