Villagers seek £80m for Scots 'massacre'

Published on Saturday 29 March 2008 19:28

SIXTY years after 25 Malaysian villagers were shot and killed by Scottish troops, survivors and descendents have petitioned the British Government for £80m in compensation.

Soldiers from the Seventh Platoon of the Scots Guards have always denied claims of war crimes surrounding the deaths at the village of Batang Kali, saying the unarmed civilians were communist bandits "shot while trying to escape".

But the powerful Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) believes that those killed were innocent, unarmed rubber tappers and tin miners executed merely because they were from the Chinese ethnic minority.

Among angry villagers who have petitioned Britain's Deputy High Commissioner to Malaysia, Patrick Moody, is 82-year-old Chong Fong and a 68-year-old villager who gave a harrowing eye-witness account of the alleged massacre on December 11 and 12, 1948.

MCA officials claim that Scots Guards soldiers used extreme "terror tactics" to subdue and control Malaya's rural population during the 12-year anti-communist Malayan 'Emergency'.

They believe that following the deliberate execution of one man on December 11, the remaining 24 men were divided into three groups and executed in cold blood the next day.

The petition, prepared by The Action Committee Condemning the Batang Kali Massacre, seeks 30m compensation for the families of the dead men with a further 50m for the Chinese community in Ulu Yam "for the purpose of education and cultural development."

The petition states: "These villagers were unarmed innocent commoners with no intention to resist detention. However, all villagers were shot by the British army without any due investigation. All were killed except one, who is still alive today."

It says that the 'massacre' was covered up by the then British colonial government, and no one has been prosecuted or investigated on account of it.

The petition says: "The crimes of the past should not be forgotten. We are of the opinion that the British Government should take full responsibility for the incident."

One of the petitioners, Loh Ah Choi, was aged just eight at the time of the killings, but now, at 68, he still remembers the day vividly.

Loh said: "They separated the men from the women. Children were with the women. They asked the men to walk out of the estate and the soldiers walked behind them. Then we heard gunshots.

"One of those killed was my uncle. He was only 18 at that time. He was studying in Kuala Lumpur and had only just come back during the holidays to see his grandmother.

"It was over in five minutes. My mother was crying. All the women were crying.

"They (the soldiers] thought the men were communists but they weren't. They were all just rubber tappers or factory workers. We only went to recover the bodies after the soldiers left. They were all lying on the ground. We buried them in Ulu Yam Baru."

He added: "Of course I am still angry. It was my uncle they killed. Fortunately, my father was out of the station when it happened or he would have died too. I hope the Queen will hear our plea.

Last night, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence, said: "The events of Batang Kali, 1948, have been well documented and investigated, with the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence to warrant criminal proceedings."

Just days after the killings, an official investigation was conducted under the instruction of the then Attorney General Sir Stafford Foster-Sutton which concluded that, "the suspects (the remaining 24 men] would have made good their escape had the security forces not opened fire". But the investigations were never made public or sent to the War Office.

In 1970, the British government ordered fresh investigations into the killings. The inquiries were led by Chief Superintendent Frank Williams, who had investigated into the Great Train Robbery.

Williams had sworn testimonies from some of the Scots Guardsmen who said that "one of the sergeants gave the order to shoot, I fired my rifle at the people at the river bank… the villagers were unarmed; they were not running away."

Williams was leaving for Malaysia to continue his investigations when the Conservatives defeated the then Labour government and all further investigations were cancelled.

In 2004, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who was also Internal Security Minister during a 1997 investigation, said the case was closed as there was no evidence to charge anyone.

The Malayan Emergency

The Malayan Emergency started in 1948 and lasted 12 years.

&#149 The Emergency was not called a war out of regard for the London insurance market that the Malayan economy depended upon for cover. Insurance rates covered losses of stocks and equipment through riot and civil disobedience in an emergency.

&#149 The success of the British campaign for "hearts and minds" persuaded Lyndon Johnson to ask Harold Wilson to send troops to Vietnam.

&#149 Britain gave Malaya independence in August 1957, which stopped any justification of an armed insurrection.

&#149 Chin Peng, leader of the Communist Party of Malaya, was, at one point, the most wanted man in the British Empire and had a $250,000 (125,000) bounty on his head.