pointed out that the insurgents could not live otf the jungle and had to obtain food from sympathisers. The plan pointed to the squatters as the real problem, and dismissed the deployment and patrolling of troops as mere palliatives. H.Q. Malaya District, Local Defence Committee Minutes,
In Operation KUKRI, which took place in the Sungei Siput area on 15th October 1943, the town itself had been cordoned by troops and the
inhabitants screened. Fourteen known insurgents had been apprehended and
so many more detained that the screening operation had had to be
temporarily suspended for lack of space in the detention camps. The
squatters had been resettled but in an unprepared site, and of the ten
thousand resettled, five hundred had promptly moved back when they found that there was no law against their doing so.47
In December 1948, a committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary, Sir Alec Newboult, was set up to examine the squatter problem. The c o m m i t t e e ’s report was submitted in February 1949; its
principal recommendations were: (a) Wherever possible, squatters should be settled in areas already occupied by them; (b) Where this was not possible, they should be resettled in an alternative suitable area; (c) Any squatters refusing settlement or resettlement should be repatriated; (d) Emergency measures to deal with the security problem of certain areas should be
supported by administrative measures designed permanently to reestablish the authority of the government, and (e) Legal means should be introduced to provide for the evacuation of squatters by summary process.1’8
Under Emergency Regulation 17D introduced in January 1949, a total of sixteen operations were launched between then and October 1949 in various localities which resulted in the uprooting and detention of 6,343
persons.1’8 Just after Briggs arrived, the Government stated that up to 10th
March 1950, 11,683 squatters who had been detained were now ’s e t t l e d ’ i.e. in their original areas, 4,465 had been resettled in other locations, and
2,396 on estates and mines had been regrouped.58 But the methods used in
these early attempts - as demonstrated by Operation KUKR.I - were haphazard and inefficient and even Government statements concerning this early process
are apologetic. There were seldon specific grounds for the removal and
detention of these squatters and though some compensation was paid for the removal of property, and for livestock which had to be killed, it was meagre,
47 Q-H.R., G(0ps/SD) Branch FARELF, 31st December 1948.
48 F . L .C.M.C.P., 1950/51, pp B90-91 1+8 M.C.P., T e r r o r i s m , p 16.
and those resettled were deprived of their homes and means of livelihood until new crops could be grown.51 While it was more humane than the
Japanese method, any relief the squatters may have felt at simply surviving was scarcely being turned into positive support. Moreover, the Government
quickly realised that detention and deportation were of little use by
themselves. To carry the policy to its logical conclusion would have meant the removal of practically the whole squatter population since almost every one was a willing or unwilling helper of the insurgents.52 Second, as the Chinese ports were closed by the southward advance of the Chinese Communist armies from early 1949 onwards, there was no place to send deportees. Nor was there any significant improvement in the security situation as a result of resettlement. The majority of the people removed were women, children and old men, the younger men in most cases slipping through the cordon.52 Indeed, the latter may even have been induced by the process to become more willing and active supporters of the insurgents.
There was also a political problem. Much of the reason for procrastination prior to the arrival of Briggs was that the Malay rulers were not prepared to see land titles given to Chinese squatters, nor were
they willing to have their taxes used to create resettlement areas with electric light, schools, clinics, police stations and other amenities which were all too often lacking in the Malay villages and Kampongs. However,
unless title to land was given and unless resettled squatters were allowed to live in dignity, resettlement threatened to become a cure worse than the
i
disease. The difficulty of resolving this basic conflict in attitudes had been sufficient to delay resettlement for several years.
The squatter question was given high priority by Briggs: "During the period (May 1950 - September 1950) certain problems were
becoming more and more obvious. The first was that the problem of clearing communist banditry from Malaya was similar to that of
eradicating malaria from a country. Flit guns and mosquito nets in the form of military and police, though giving some very local security 51 M.C,P., Banditry, p 28. In addition to those resettled during the years
1949-52, some 26,000 including 24,000 Chinese and 2,000 Indians and Indonesians were deported.
52 Briggs Report, p 9.
52 Patterson G.S.; Masai Settlement Area, Mimeograph Johore Bahru, 1950, p 6. Only 10 men aged between 24-40 out of a total of 171 males of all ages were among 326 squatters moved to Masai in 1949.
if continuously maintained, effected no permanent cure. Such a
permanent cure entailed the closing of all the breeding areas. In
this case the breeding areas of communists were the isolated squatter areas, the unsupervised labour on estates, especially small h o l d e r s ’ and Chinese estates without m a n a g e r s . ,,5lf
This pointed to a dual problem. It would not be enough merely to resettle
the squatters; estate and mine labour must be regrouped and concentrated so
that in turn the acquiescent could be protected, and the rebellious could be
controlled or caught; the economy must also continue to function. If it
ceased to do so, the problem of financing operations would b e c o m e acute, and
the value of Malaya to the British economy - for which operations were
largely being undertaken - would be compromised. Secondly, these areas were
going to require a comprehensive range of facilities if they w e r e to become
viable communities, including: (a) Protection; (b) Radio communications
adequate for security purposes; (c) Resettlement long huts and other
buildings; (d) A reception and administrative control organisation, and
(e) Intelligence agents placed among them. And, to make the plan socially
effective, administration would have to follow immediately on the domination
of the security forces. This would include: frequent visits by District
Officers and x^here possible agricultural officers; the establishment of
police posts in nex>7 communities and the establishment of local schools in
which Malay and the simple duties of a citizen could be taught along lines
acceptable to the British; dispensaries x^ould have to be e stablished or
arrangements made for visits by travelling ones; a measure of simple
propaganda including mobile cinemas x^ould have to be introduced, and
finally, a degree of village responsibility in xtfhich permanent titles to
land and arrangements for cooperative marketing might act as rex^ards, x^hile
stoppage of trade might act as a p unishment.55 Briggs also n o t e d that xvhere
these services could not immediately be introduced the intention x^as to be
expressed with the proviso that the better behaved areas Xv7ere to be given priority. And, so that possible communal strife x^/ould be d e f used at the
outset, improvements and facilities were to be applied equally in the Malay
kampongs and in the Chinese areas.56