INSURGENCY IN EAST MALAYSIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001100160025-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 3, 2006
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: January 10, 1973
• Content Type: IM

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 L'~f1) aYh- I (, 1173
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Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Memorandum
Insurgency in East Malaysia
CIA
UR
Ub-'j ~~
L 11 '11'.i
Tr.Y
Secret
25X1
10 January 1973
No. 1617/73
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insurgency in east malaysia
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of intelligence
10 January 1973
As Malaysia pursues its efforts to build a stable political order following
the communal disorders of 1969, considerable attention has been focused on
the renewed insurgent challenge of the Thail,i nd-based Malayan Communist
Party. Meanwhile, Communist dissidence in the East Malaysia state of
Sarawak grinds on largely unnoticed by the outside world. Although limited
in scope and almost certainly containable, this other insurgency is significant
if only for the drain it places on Malaysian resources that are badly needed
closer to home. The insurgents in Sarawak are few in number, poorly armed,
primitively equipped, and lack external support. Still, in certain areas they
have the capability of harassing Malaysian security forces and of intimidating
and proselytizing the local population.
Kuala Lumpur's problem is compounded by distance; 400 or more
miles of the South China Sea separate the Malay Peninsula (West Malaysia)
from the Borneo states (East Malaysia). Moreover, Sarawak is ethnically
non-Malay; less than one fifth of Sarawak's one million people are Malays;
about one fourth are Muslim. Since the racial crisis of 1969, the propensity
of the federal government to impose pro-Malay policies throughout the
Federation has markedly increased. Although Kuala Lumpur has not im-
plemented these policies as extensively in Sarawak as it has elsewhere, the
pro-Malay measures it has taken have not been welcomed by the vast
majority of Sarawak's ethnic Chinese and indigenous tribal population.
The problem is not solely an internal Malaysian matter. Overseas
Chinese throughout the region are sensitive to what happens to the Chinese
in Sarawak because they know what it is like to be a Chinese in this
predominantly Malay part of the world. The Sarawak insurgents, of course,
look to China for id:;ological inspiration, though they receive little if any-
thing in return beyond an occasional word of moral encouragement.
Australia, New Zeeland, and the United Kingdom have been deeply
concerned about the security situation in Sarawak because of their defense
Note: This memorandum was prepared by the Office of Current Intelligence ant, co-
ordinated with the Office of National Estimates.
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ties with Malaysia. The new labor governments in both Australia and New
Zealand have indicated they intend to loosen these ties and withdraw their
forces from Malaysia; political interest could fade rapidly as the military
presence diminishes. The outside power with the greatest continuing stake in
Sarawak-and the greatest willingness to intervene there-is Indonesia.
Jakarta's interest in the Sarawak insurgency stems in large part from the
overlap with its own security problem in the rest of Borneo (Kalimantan).
The Indonesians fear that Kuala Lumpur may some day lose control of the
situation; as a result, Jakarta has stepped up its support of the Malaysian
counterinsurgency effort.
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CAMBODIA SOUTH
Phnom Ponhr' M VIETNAM
Plnang:1
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NnuCr ~rr>lbilan `-' J /
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))) 1V* VOAPOPC
Singapote
Kota
Kinabalu,
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The communist movement in Sarawak has shown remarkable tenacity
and resilience over the past three decades. It began in small units of
Sarawakian Chinese fighting against the Japanese during World War 11.
Dormant for a while, the movement was revived in the early 1950s when the
Sarawak Communist Organization was formed. This organization, directed
by a small, hard-core elite, operated underground, but it gained thousands of
overt supporters and sympathizers in the Chinese community. By the late
I 950s the party had chosen the legal, parliamentary route to power and had
gained considerable influence in the left wing of the Sarawak United Peoples
Party, the largest political party in the state. The other Chinese party, the
Sarawak Chinese Association, was clearly an instrument of a few wealthy
Chinese timbermen and their allies. The United Peoples Party was the only
political party in Sarawak that appealed to the Chinese common man-
hawkers, pepper farmers, wharf workers, and the like.
When Sukarno shifted to a policy of confrontation against Malaysia in
1963, the Sarawak Communist Organization shifted to armed struggle. In
that period, the same Indonesian Army that is now keen on wiping out the
insurgents provided the initial training in West Kalimantan for the first batch
of Sarawak armed communist guerrillas-about a thousand, almost entirely
Sarawakian ethnic Chinese. The guerrillas lost Indonesian support after the
coup attempt in 1965, and the Indonesian Army turned against them in the
anti-communist witch hunt which followed. The army's campaign was so
effective that the guerrillas could not even maintain base areas in the remote
and rugged jungles of West Kalimantan. By 1969, Indonesian counter-
insurgency operations in the border area compelled the Sarawak Communists
to return to Sarawak, retaining only a few small camps on the Indonesian
side of the border.
The remnants of the guerrilla bands which filtered back into Sarawak in
the late I 960s provide the backbone of the communist terrorists in Sarawak
today, but new blood, mainly young ethnic Chinese, has been added in
recent years. For Chinese youths who see little opportunity under existing
conditions in Sarawak, revolution seems to offer the only hope. Com-
munism, moreover, provides an explanation for their problems and a pro-
gram for revolutionary change. Communist propaganda in Sarawak is gen-
erally well-written and well-grounded in Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist
principles. A surprising number of the terrorist recruits are articulate and
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relatively well educated; many have high school and a few have college
educations. A female terrorist, recently killed on the outskirts of Kuching,
was a graduate of Nanyang University in Singapore and a former teacher at a
Chinese school in Kuching.
The Sarawak communists no longer call themselves the Sarawak Com-
munist Organization; in recent years they have adopted a more pretentious
title-the North Kalimantan Communist Party. In fact, there is little appar-
ent communication and no evidence of coordinated action between the
communist terrorists in the First and the Third divisions. The First Division
is the domain of the Pergerakan Guerilya Rakyat Kalimantan Utara (or
North Kalimantan Peoples' Guerrilla Movement), formerly known as the
Pergerakan Guerilya Rakyat Sarawak (or Sarawak Peoples' Guerrilla Move-
ment). The Third Division is the preserve of the Paraku (Paksokan Rakyat,
sometimes known as the East Bureau of the North Kalimantan Communist
Party).
Although the comr,unist movement in Sarawak is likely to remain
basically a Chinese phenomenon, over the last year or so the communists
have been trying to make inroads among young Iban nationalists. The Ibans,
also known as Sea Dayaks, are the largest ethnic group native to Sarawak.
Ibans who join the communist cause are usually motivated by their dislike of
the pro-Malay policies of the government. Most of the recruiting is by ethnic
Chinese who speak the Than language. Recruiters come unarmed to the Than
longhouses and do not enter unless they are specifically invited. They
establish themselves nearby and try to win over the longhouse inhabitants by
assisting in construction
projects, distributing sim-
ple medicines, and provid-
ing basic schooling for the
Than children. The Ibans
frequently do not under-
stand communist inten-
tions, and Than coopera-
tion, even collaboration,
can in many cases be ob-
tained without recourse to
intimidation.
When operating
among the Chinese popula-
tion, the Communists
Than Longhouse: A New Communist Target
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fast Malaysia: Areas at Communist Ilist, rt mcy
M AI*Y
p
J Sibu
SorlkA,, .._: V4~nr~
owil
Kota KinnbnIu0
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revert quickly to a range of coercive and terrorist tactics. These include
selective assassinations and ambushing of government security patrols, eco-
nomic extortion, and propaganda activities in schools and among the popula-
tion at large.
The insurgents ar' most active in the First and Third divisions, where
70 percent of the Sarawak people live. The best estimate of their strength
runs from 200 to 300 in the First Division and from 400 to 500 in the Third
Division. The latter includes the towns the cities of the lower Rejang River
(Sarikei, Binatang, and Sibu), which have large Chinese populations, and the
surrounding countryside. In this area the Communists are also gaining
support in Than longhouscs south of the middle and .ipper Rejang (roughly
from Kanowit and Kapit to the Indonesian border), Active Communist
support from Chinese in underground Min Yuen (People's Movement) cells
and from members of front. organizations like the Sarawak Farmers Associa-
tion and the Sarawak Advanced Youth League may run as high as 10,000. If
tacit support or collaboration resulting from intimidation were included, the
figure would be considerably higher.
Government Countermeasures
The Malaysian Government's counterinsurgency operations in Sarawak
have increased in the past year. Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak
launched a stepped-up campaign on a visit to Sarawak at the end of March
1972. The insurgents took the occasion of his visit for a show of strength,
ambushing a security forces road convoy near Lundu in the First Division
about 35 miles west of Kuching and killing 15 Malaysian soldiers. This was
the most violent incident in recent years and imparted a certain sense of
urgency to Malaysian counterinsurgency.
In response to the growing seriousness of the situation in the Third
Dig ision, the government established the Rejang Area Security Command to
unify the command structure and coordinate government operations in the
area. Under this command, the Third Division has been separated adminis-
tratively from the rest of the state and placed under a joint military-police-
civilian administration headed by Sarawak's chief minister;, Abdul Rahman
Yaakub. Yaakub is a Muslim of the indigenous Melanau ethnic group; as a
Melanau, he is more acceptable to the Chinese, the Ibans, and the other
native peoples than would be a Malay. Yaakub's deputy is a Malay, Brigadier
General Ghazali Seth., who is also the local military commander. Under the;
new command, ten military-police-civilian civic action groups have been
emplaced in isolated Than and Chinese villages in different parts of the Third
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Division. The job of these groups is to provide advice on craps, sanitation,
and development, and to train local volunteer security units to take over
security duties when the civic action groups move out.
The government has taken a number of other steps to secure the
support of the citizenry. To strengthen the villages against Communist
intimidation, it has distributed arms to villagers in outlying areas. It has also
introduced a program of voluntary resettlement of lbans from unprotected
longhouses to more secure surroundings. It is relying more and more on
psychological warfare, holding mass public rallies at which the citizens are
asked to pledge their support to the government, distributing leaflets that
call on Communist terrorists to surrender, and establishing fairly effective
means to guard terrorists who surrender against reprisal.
Another key part of the government's present campaign is the elimina-
tion of communist influence in the Chinese schools. The Sarawak state
government has taken over the administration of all schools in the state,
including, for the first time, Chinese private schools. The state has also
cracked down on suspected communists in these schools. Between March
and September, more than 230 Chinese students and teachers were arrested
and detained without trial; subsequently over two thirds were released.
With these countermeasures the government, for the time being,
appears to have retaken the initiative from the insurgents. Over time,
however, the pressure could begin to alienate the Chinese population,
especially if the pressure on Chinese schools goes too far, if irresponsible
arrests are made or if the government is too blatant about its pro-Malay
policies. Overly ambitious attempts to carry out the resettlement of Iban
communities on a large scale will not only be very expensive, but could
create as many problems as they solve. Past experience in Sarawak has shown
that relocating villages usually alienates the people affected and creates
islands of discontent. Moreover, arming the citizenry is a good idea only as
long as their weapons-one thing the terrorists lack-do not pass from the
hands of the volunteer forces to the insurgents. The Communists, equipped
only with homemade, single-shot pistols and rifles, along with similar
Indonesian-supplied weapons left over from the confrontation period, would
be quick to try to appropriate the volunteer forces' more modern weaponry.
The real test of the results of the civil action program will come when these
grcups are pulled out and the local volunteer forces have to stand on their
own. Arrests and killings have been increasing in the past several months, and
a number of new teenage recruits disillusioned with life in the jungle have
surrendered, but security force operations have yet to bag a single hard-core
terrorist.
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The Security Forces
More troops (approxim-.tely 9,000 to 10,000) are engaged in operations
in Sarawak today than at the height of confrontation. The forces include
over six battalions of the Malaysian Army (three battalions and one cony
pany of the exclusively-Malay Royal Malay Regiment and three battalions
and one company of the predominantly-Malay Rangers); four battalions of
the more racially mixed Police Field Forces; and perhaps 1,200 native
(predominantly lban) Border Scouts divided into Area Security Units of
about 30 each. These ;ast are based near longhouses or in the more remote
border regions. Also involved are the Police, a national constabulary with
long-standing law enforcement responsibilities in Sarawak.
The large number of troops in Sarawak in relation to population creates
problems. Many Sarawak citizens see the Malaysian Army more as an army
of occupation than a force for their protection. The vast majority of
Malaysian Army troops in Sarawak are Malays from West Malaysia. They are
essentially "foreigners"; they care little about Sarawak per se; they are at
best indifferent toward the lbans and other native peoples; and they have a
visceral hostility to all things Chinese. To the ordinary Chinese or Iban,
Malaysian soldiers appear arrogant and domineering as they move about in
battle gear with machine guns at the ready. Arguments involving Chinese
civilians and Malay soldiers have on occasion led to brawls, and brawls to
violent clashes not only between soldiers and civilians but between soldiers
and policemen. The police are generally respected in Sarawak; most are
Sarawakians and a fair number are ethnic Chinese.
The Broader Context: Economic Conditions
The insurgency directly affects only a small portion of Sarawak's
population. For most of the people, social and economic life goes on much
as usual. Indeed, the aura of "business as usual" has over the years .provided
fertile soil for the communists. At first glance, the over-all economic condi-
tion of the country looks favorable. In 1972, mainly as a result of oil
exports, the balance of trade ran up a surplus of several million dollars-well
ahead of the surplus achieved in 1971. Kuching and Sibu are bustling
commercial centers with a number of prospering small merchants and manu-
facturers. Sibu, in particular, is thriving with fairly modern facilities for
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riverine, coastal, and ocean-going trade. There are said to be at least 40
millionaires in Sibu alone.
Nevertheles , when compared with the other states of northern Borneo,
Sarawak runs a poor third. Its oil wealth cannot compare with that of the
tiny British protectorate of Brunei. Its timber resources do not compare with
those of the other East Malaysian state, Sabah. The great majority of the
inhabitants of Kuching and Sibu are by no means rich. Poverty and squalor
exist side by side with wealth and privilege. In the countryside, where the
vast majority of the people of Sarawak live, poverty is prevalent. The rural
population scratches out a living from a sterile and desolate land of swamp,
jungle and slow-moving rivers. Next to oil, Sarawak's principal export is
timber but the timber concessions are held by relatively few Chinese
businessmen who are not inclined to share their wealth. For the rest. there is
rubber, but prices are so low that most Sarawakian farmers have given it up;
sago, which also suffers from low prices; pepper, the price of which fluc-
tuates greatly; palm oil, which is grown only on a few large estates outside
Miri; and rice, which has brought lean harvests in recent years.
The government has provided some development assistance and has
promised more, but the over-all economic outlook is not bright. One per-
sistent obstacle to development is the government's land policy, which
prohibits Malays from selling their land to Chinese and other non-indigenous
people. These circumstances contribute to the frustration of educated,
ambitious, and politically conscious young people, many of whom turn to
the Communists.
The political picture has some positive aspects. The government in
Kuching is still a representative government, something that can scarcely be
said of Sabah or Brunei-or most other political entities in Southeast Asia.
Still, the footing of representative government in Sarawak is unsure. After
the racial rioting in Kuala Lumpur in May 1969, the National Operations
Council that took over in Kuala Lumpur turned the state government over to
a Sarawak Operations Committee headed by a Malay from West Malaysia.
Scheduled state elections were indefinitely postponed, and only after ten-
sions subsided and Kuala Lumpur's moderate Malay leadership regained its
composure was the decision made to revert to politics as usual.
The commitment of Kuala Lumpur's British-educated leadership to
parliamentary politics reasserted itself, and elections were held in the
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summer of 1970. The elections highlighted the weakness of the Sarawak
Alliance and its three components-the Sarawak Chinese Association, pre-
dominantly Malay Party Bumiputra, and the predominantly Iban Party
Pcsaka. The Alliance did well to command 40 percent of the vote. y
To organize a government, the Alliance was forced to fora; a coalition
with one of the two opposition parties. The Sarawak National Party was not
a likely candidate. Although it won almost a fourth of the total vote and was
the strongest Iban party in the state, its earlier membership in the Alliance
had ended on a sour note when Kuala Lumpur deposed its leader Stephen
Ningkan as chief minister in 1966 and replaced him with a more tractable
lban from Party Pesaka. The Alliance's only alternative w--is to ally with the
Sarawak United People's Party, a leftist party made up for the most part of
Chinese.
This coalition party still governs in Kuching. It took some courage and
persuasion for the leadership of the United People's Party to bring its
Chinese constituency into a coalition with the conservative, Malay-oriented
Alliance. Although the coalition has endured for almost two and a half years,
it is an uneasy marriage of convenience and there is no assurance it will last.
If, for example, Kuala Lumpur were *o turn to blatantly pro-Malay and/or
anti-Chinese policies, the United People's Party would find it difficult to stay
in. While most Sarawakian Chinese have accepted the intensified security
measures invoked by the government, the party could not tolerate an
undiscriminating anti-Communist crusade that tended to brand all Chinese as
Communists or Communist sympathizers.
Many Chinese already view government counterinsurgent efforts, like
curfews, as general punitive measures aimed at Chinese rather than as a
means of restricting in-
surgent activity. They re-
sent the fact that Chi-
nese are still confined to
the fenced-in, restricted
villages where they were
r'',3ettled during the time
of confrontation, They
are aware that Chinese
make tip the great bulk
of the more than 1,300
persons in political de-
tention in Sarawak, """9"
some for ten years or
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more. These fears and frustrations make it difficult l'or Sarawak's Chinese to
give their whole-hearted support to either the government or its anticom-
munist campaign.
The Indonesian Per~.pectivc
The Indonesians take a much more pessimistic view of the situation in
Sarawak than does Kuala Lumpur. The presence of the United People's Party
in the Sarawak coalition government is not seen in Jakarta as a hopeful sign
of reconciliation and accommodation, but rather as proof of communist
infiltration. This gloomy perspective is rooted in the fundamental Indonesian
distrust of Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. To an Indonesian, the
Chinese are actual or potential agents of subversion, and Jakarta is convinced
that the in urgency in Sarawak is directed and supplied from Peking. The
lack of evidence to support this thesis does not dim the fervor of the
Indonesian conviction.
The Indonesian approach to Sarawak has, of course, been shaped by
their experience with the large ethnic Chinese population in West Kaliman-
tan. Chinese in West Kalimantan have been a source of recruits and sus-
tenance for insurgent operations on either side of the border. The Indo-
nesians attacked the problem by resettling or eliminating .It rural Chinese.
The process began in late 1967, when the Indonesian -rmy turned the
indigenous Dayak population (both Ibans and Land Dayaks) loose against
the Chin.. se. The result was the massacre of an estimated 1,000 and the
forced removal of over 60,000 others from the interior to the coastal cities
of Pontianak and Singkawzng. Phase two was carried out by the Indonesian
Army in October 1970; virtually all of the some 15,000 Chinese living in the
country to the north of the Kapuas R:.'er were forced to move south to
small bazaars along the river. It is believed that no more than 20 or 30
terrorists survived on the Indonesian side of the border.
The Indonesians realize that such ruthless methods would not be
politically palatable in Sarawak. They were feasible in West Kalimantan
because the Chinese comprised only a fifth of the total population and
because the Indonesian Artily was in a position to eliminate any opposition.
In Sarawak, on the other hand, the support of the proportionately larger
Chinese population is essential for the Alliance's coalition with the United
People's Party. Moreover, the West Malaysian forces in Sarawak do not enjoy
the close rapport with the Than population enjoyed by the Indonesian Army.
Despite the differences between West Kalimantan and Sarawak, the
Indonesians believe that at least some of their methods could be adopted
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profitably by the Malaysians. For one thing, they would like the Malaysians
to rely more on the army and less on civilians in their counterinsurgency
operations. The Indonesians would also like the Malaysian Army to drop its
fairly conventional British-oriented approach in favor of the Indonesian
doctrine of "territorial warfare"--Le., recruit and station arnl units in their
home areas among their own people.
:udonesian-Malays:an Cooperation
Despite these different approaches, the Indonesians have increased their
support of the counterinsurgency effort in Sarawak. Cooperation has im-
proved in facilitating "hot pursuit"; there are coordinated patrols and
combined operations; communications in the border area and between
joint Border Security Agreement was negotiated in April 1972, and in late
July senior Indonesian and Malaysian military commanders and Malaysian
Deputy Prime Minister Tun Ismail attended the first meeting of the General
Border Committee established under the agreement. Regional border com-
mittees for both "east" and "west" have been established; in fact, Indo-
nesian-Malaysian security cooperation has been extended beyond their
common border regions to the entire territory of both countries. Jakarta
clearly views Kuala Lumpur as the junior partner in these arrangements-an
attitude which rests on the nebulous, but nonetheless deeply felt premise
that Indonesia is the natural leader of all peoples of the Malay race.
Although the antecedent-, of this broad cooperation date almost from
the And of confrontation, the sense of urgency with which Kuala Lumpur
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and Indonesia have lately been drawing together reflects their growing
uncertainty over the course of events in Southeast Asia and the shifting
relationships between the Great Powers. The security problem in Sarawak
gives impetus to, but is hardly the cause of, the new Indonesian-Malaysian
collaboration.
A Lingering Problem
Isolated from the older and better defined Communist movements of
Southeast Asia, the insurgency in Sarawak is not wholly typical of the
pattern of revolt and subversion found elsewhere in the region. Despite its
Communist trappings, the insurgency is basically a domestic product grown
from the seeds of unassimilated and resentful Chinese almost continually at
odds with political authority. There is no ready solution to this basic
problem and there is little reason to believe that Kuala Lumpur, short of
adopting the draconian anti-Chinese measures of Indonesia, stands much
chance of significantly reducing the present level of insurgency.
The security situation in Sarawak is obviously worse than it was three
years ago when the bulk of the Communist insurgents first returned from
West Kalimantan. In recent months government countermeasures have
improved, and although Communist .te;rorists have by no means been
checked, a certain equilibrium has been re..lched. It is unlikely that a real
insurgent threat will develop unless the ever-a'l political situation turns sour.
A breakdown of the present Sarawak coalition government, a heightening of
racial tension, or a serious deterioration of the ' conomy would significantly
nourish disaffection and alienation among the two thirds of the population
which is not Malay. In such circumstances, Kuala Lumpur's capability to
maintain its authority in Sarawak would be severely tested. If the govern-
ment then resorted to armed coercion using Malay soldiers, a bad situation
would be made worse.
That the situation will unravel in such a way is only a possibility, not a
probability. Certainly the languor with which history tends to move in this
part of the world makes a clear-cut denouement unlikely. Saraw:!k's insur-
gency, like its fragile political structure and unhappy social order, will not go
away, but similar problems on the Malay Peninsula will pose more of a threat
to the general stability of Malaysia.
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