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|  No one has ever denied that a raid by a patrol of Scots Guards on a Malayan rubber estate in early December, 1948, resulted in a mass killing. The victims were Chinese plantation workers who resided on the estate located near the township of Batang Kali, less than an hour’s drive north of Kuala Lumpur. That much could never be concealed, not even in the slaughter’s immediate aftermath. Indeed, it has been an historical given for 60 years.
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| But there is infinitely more to the Batang Kali saga. As colonial planters and tin miners eagerly digested glowing press reports of the Malayan Emergency’s biggest ever “bag” of communist terrorists, very sinister machinations were already underway within the British anti-insurgency High Command. There senior officers, in collaboration with the colony’s highest ranking civil administrators, were piecing together an elaborate cover-up of what had really happened at Sungei Remok Estate that regrettable morning. The truth, they were convinced, must never be divulged. |
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The Emergency was barely six months old. Not surprisingly, the public at large in debt-laden post-war Great Britain was far more concerned with matters closer to home than jungle skirmishes in a little understood colony on the other side of the globe. Food rationing and chronic economic problems throughout the United Kingdom were part of their decidedly more urgent landscape. So, too, were the alarming European repercussions associated with an evolving Cold War. |
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| As a result, Batang Kali headlines in colonial newspapers initially failed to reflect in Fleet Street newspapers. For those manipulating various aspects of the early cover-up, conditions had proven decidedly favourable. With Britain’s attentions diverted to more pressing matters on the home front, the requirement for full reporting of significant military matters – like Batang Kali – back to the War Office could be overlooked. Details of the mass killing were thus conveniently kept from official channels. This, in turn, circumvented any need for awkward formal explanations to be committed to paper and, thereafter, to the judgment of history. |
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These arrangements admirably suited government politicians back in London. From their viewpoint Malaya’s rubber and tin production was providing Britain’s greatest source of post-war foreign exchange earnings – vital to the alleviation of national debt. Nothing must be allowed to interrupt this flow back to UK coffers. There were other compelling considerations. National pride and prestige were at stake. Then again, there was the cherished image of an elite fighting unit to protect. Concealment must continue. Indeed, it should be reinforced. |
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The overall effect of the cover-up’s imposition and the immediate political support it achieved in Westminister ensured that the full story of Batang Kali has remained undisclosed. There have been several attempts over the years – all of them by the press, radio and television – to dislodge the clamps of concealment. Fleet Street became a forerunner of these endeavours in 1970 when disclosures in the Sunday newspaper, The People, released an avalanche of enquiries by other British publications. Radio and television programmes entered the fray. A Scotland Yard investigation ensued. Still, manœuvring by politicians of the day managed to fudge the Batang Kali issue once again. More than two decades later a BBC television documentary crew took up the cudgels. The dramatic impact of their programme prompted yet another police investigation and another fudge. |
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| This book stands as the first attempt to put together a cohesive and comprehensive study of the Batang Kali episode in its entirety. In our research official doors, not unexpectedly, were slammed firmly in our faces. But we also gained access to never-before revealed investigative reports together with signed statements of witnesses present at the time of the mass killing. In the light of the full evidence here presented we feel compelled to ask how much longer can Britain’s cover-up be sustained, reality and the record of history be ignored, and justice be denied to surviving kin? |
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Ian Ward
Norma Miraflor
Singapore, November, 2008.
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