Written by CPI Friday, twenty Apr 2012 10:38
History
By CPI
We have been reproducing excerpts from dual brand new articles in The Guardian exposing attempts by the vacating British supervision to cover up embarrassing state crimes carried out during the final years of the empire, together with in colonial Malaya.
The journal reports concern the discovery of sequestered annals that have put the British colonial authorities in the scandalous as well as shameful light. These embody annals upon the conduct of the fight opposite the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), as well as the impasse of British troops as well as military in assorted atrocities as well as abuses, together with the Batang Kali massacre.
More interestingly, these revealing annals acknowledge the jingoist as well as anti-colonial nature of the insurgency carried out by the MCP. Meanwhile alternative damning annals had been purposely scrubbed or broken so that it competence crop up as ! if Her M ajesty's Government had scrupulously kept her hands clean as well as ethical standards chaste during the days when Britannia ruled the waves.
The newly unearthed writings await the attention of the brand new generation of Malaysian scholars as well as researchers despite the shocking scale of the operation to purge the colonial files, as well as the border of the British Foreign Office's counsel deletion of history.
The Guardian the integrate of days ago suggested how an central review found that "thousands of writings detailing shameful acts were culled, while others were kept tip illegally".
The journal reported the finish of an central review that thousands of writings detailing the little of the many shameful acts as well as crimes committed were evenly broken to prevent them descending in to the hands of post-independence governments in 37 former British colonies.
A organisation of Kenyans who had been detained as well as allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion had formerly won the right to sue the British government, following that the Foreign Office was compelled to release the 8,800 files it held in the tip vaults.
The initial of these files were made accessible to the British public upon Wednesday during the National Archive during Kew, Surrey with the residue expected to be separated by the finish of 2013.
"The writings during Hanslope Park [where the Foreign Office the tip archive] embody monthly comprehension reports upon the 'elimination' of the colonial authority's enemies in 1950s Malaya; annals showing ministers in London were wakeful of the torture as well as murder of Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya, together with the case of Aman pronounced ! to have been 'roasted alive'; as well as writings detailing the lengths to that the UK went to forcibly mislay islanders from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
"However, among the writings have been the handful that uncover that many of the many sensitive writings from Britain's late colonial epoch were not dark away, though simply destroyed. These writings give the instructions for systematic drop issued in 1961 after Iain Macleod, cabinet member of state for the colonies, destined that post-independence governments should not get any material that 'might confuse Her Majesty's government', that could 'embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others eg military informers', that competence compromise comprehension sources, or that competence 'be used unethically by ministers in the inheritor government'."
See article 'Britain destroyed annals of colonial crime' (18 Apr 2012)
Not usually were sensitive writings disposed of, there was additionally the direction to the vacating British diplomats as well as officers that when such writings were burned, "the rubbish should be marked down to charcoal as well as the remains broken up".
This report upon the emphasis placed upon the drop of the files is gleaned from the handful of direction writings that survived the culling.
The Guardian additionally reported that writings that tarry from Malaya "suggest the distant more haphazard drop process, with relatively youth officials being available to confirm what should be burnt as well as what should be sent to London" upon the eve of decolonisation.
The blank Batang Kali papers
A preceding article i! n the jo urnal upon Tuesday (April 17) is headlined 'Colonial Office files item "eliminations" to throttle Malayan insurgency' as well as exposes Britain's favoured method of targeted assassination.
Excerpts:
"The 'elimination of ranking terrorists' was the steady theme in tip monthly reports upon casualty figures circulated by the executive of comprehension in British-controlled Malaya during the 1950s.
"Long-lost files from the Emergency period, when insurgents attempted to expostulate out colonial occupiers, reveal how the long jungle fight was fought to expostulate comrade groups in to submission as well as deprive them of food as well as support.
"The initial tranche of writings belatedly separated from the Foreign Office repository in Hanslope park, near Milton Keynes, to the National Archives in Kew, uncover how British officials in Kuala Lumpur interpreted substantially all anti-colonial protests as justification of the programmed comrade takeover.
"But many potentially embarrassing documents, together with substantially the little of those relating to the alleged 1948 massacre by Scots Guards of 24 villagers in Batang Kali, crop up to be missing.
"These blank writings could have been among scores of files listed for drop in the colony's final months.
"A compensation claim by relatives as well as survivors of the killin! gs desc ribed by the little as the 'British My Lai massacre', after the US couple killings in Vietnam is due to come to trial in London in May.
"Among writings that survived the transfer have been reports issued monthly from the executive of comprehension in the Federation of Malaya.
" 'The final month of 1956 brought the total of 41 eliminations of terrorists, that is average for the year,' the director, G. C. Madoc, noted. 'During the year, 287 terrorists were killed, 52 were captured as well as 134 surrendered. The [communist] politburo routine of avoiding contacts as well as conserving militant strength remains in force.'
"Madoc added: "In spite of the considerable difficulties of formulating underground carry out organisations from the jungle, it is well known that the MCP [Malayan Communist party] is striving invariably to exercise directives upon overthrow in town as well as villages
"Hence the need to say consistent watch over the trusting as well as desirous opponents [of] the existent regime who have been healthy as well as substantially unconscious targets for pointed forms of subversion."
"Casualty tables written for December 1956 record: 'Ranking terrorists separated 8.' The phrase "eliminated" is used regularly to describe the killing of insurgents. In January the following year, Madoc recorded: 'In Selangor the small though important success was completed when the total of the Ampang branch, upon the hinterland of Kuala Lumpur, was eliminated.'
"In Mar 1957, reduction than six months prior to the colony's formal independence, the monthly comprehension comment observed: 'By the standards of the final year the number of militant eliminations might be deliberate satisfactory'."
There is most to sense from these boxes of Top Secret files that have usually now come to light due to the Kenyan lawsuit. The routine of culling as well as cleansing the record practised in alternative colonies on top of Kenya was the single that on purpose sought to mislay ! incrimin ating evidence.
Here is the chance for Malaysians to differentiate through as well as determine what really happened in the brand new history that has oft been the victim of central propaganda.
This evident distortion of reality was not usually carried out by the former colonial master though additionally acquiesced by the Alliance supervision that Britain cultivated, nurtured as well as felt to be the protected sufficient pair of hands to that to pass the baton.
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