Slaughter and Deception at Batang Kaliby Ian Ward / Norma Miraflor
ISBN: 9789810813031
Price: RM55.00
History - Media Master
Paperback, 228pp
With the publication of this book, how much longer can Britain’s official cover-up be sustained, the historical record be ignored and justice be denied the surviving kin of the Batang Kali dead?
Six decades of relentless British concealment undertaken by senior politicians, high ranking military officers and top civil servants to protect national prestige and the mystique of an elite fighting force.
And official cover-up that remains in place to this day.
For the first time in 60 years, a comprehensive examination of a brutal colonial episode with telling lessons for our contemporary world.
No one has ever denied that a mass killing of Chinese plantation workers resulted when a patrol of Scots Guards raided a Malayan rubber estate near the township of Batang Kali in early December, 1948. This fact could never be fully concealed, not even in the slaughter’s immediate aftermath.
Our book has been written because there is infinitely more to the Batang Kali saga. The sinister efforts to deny accountability and withhold justice must be recorded in a comprehensive manner.
An elaborate programme of concealment was instigated by senior officers within Britain’s anti-insurgency High Command in Kuala Lumpur. They worked in close collaboration with top colonial police and civil administrators.
It was a time when the Malayan Emergency was barely six months old and the insurgents appeared to the gaining ground.
London then had her own preoccupations. There were the repercussions associated with the evolving Cold War.
Britain was also saddle with huge post-war debts. She required reassurance that the much needed dollar earnings from the little understood colony called Malaya – her richest source of foreign exchange – would not be disrupted by a ragtag bunch of ‘unlettered bandits’.
There were other compelling considerations requiring an official cover-up.
National pride and prestige were at stake. And there was the cherished image of an elite fighting unit to protect.
The overall effect of the cover-up’s imposition and the immediate political support it achieved in Westminster ensured that the full Batang Kali story remained undisclosed.
Over the years, several attempts to get the bottom of Batang kali have been launched. Fleet Street did its share in 1970; Scotland Yard initiated an investigation shortly thereafter. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) produced as documentary in 1992. The Malaysians formed their own probe team.
Six decades of relentless British concealment undertaken by senior politicians, high ranking military officers and top civil servants to protect national prestige and the mystique of an elite fighting force.
And official cover-up that remains in place to this day.
For the first time in 60 years, a comprehensive examination of a brutal colonial episode with telling lessons for our contemporary world.
No one has ever denied that a mass killing of Chinese plantation workers resulted when a patrol of Scots Guards raided a Malayan rubber estate near the township of Batang Kali in early December, 1948. This fact could never be fully concealed, not even in the slaughter’s immediate aftermath.
Our book has been written because there is infinitely more to the Batang Kali saga. The sinister efforts to deny accountability and withhold justice must be recorded in a comprehensive manner.
An elaborate programme of concealment was instigated by senior officers within Britain’s anti-insurgency High Command in Kuala Lumpur. They worked in close collaboration with top colonial police and civil administrators.
It was a time when the Malayan Emergency was barely six months old and the insurgents appeared to the gaining ground.
London then had her own preoccupations. There were the repercussions associated with the evolving Cold War.
Britain was also saddle with huge post-war debts. She required reassurance that the much needed dollar earnings from the little understood colony called Malaya – her richest source of foreign exchange – would not be disrupted by a ragtag bunch of ‘unlettered bandits’.
There were other compelling considerations requiring an official cover-up.
National pride and prestige were at stake. And there was the cherished image of an elite fighting unit to protect.
The overall effect of the cover-up’s imposition and the immediate political support it achieved in Westminster ensured that the full Batang Kali story remained undisclosed.
Over the years, several attempts to get the bottom of Batang kali have been launched. Fleet Street did its share in 1970; Scotland Yard initiated an investigation shortly thereafter. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) produced as documentary in 1992. The Malaysians formed their own probe team.
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