Insurgency In The Malayan Emergency Essay

Insurgency in the Malayan Emergency

This history analysis of insurgency during the Malayan emergency will highlight examples of the Three Phases of Insurgency model according to S.B. Griffith II.

The Survival Phase

In 1937, as the Japanese Empire invaded China to secure more resources, the Chinese fled to Malaya. During this time, the Malayan people sided with the Communistic ideology that was prevalent in the area. They formed the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and because there was an anti-Japanese sentiment among the Malayan Chinese it created an opportunity to recruit members and raise funds in the banner for the defense of China. When Japan invaded Malaya in 1941, the British authorities accepted a standing offer of military cooperation

Under the Briggs’ Plan of 1950, the British strategy was to prevent peasants, particularly squatters, from aiding the guerrillas; the British commenced a relocation program where about 650,000 people were moved into compounds, termed 'New Villages ', which were surrounded by high barbed wire fences and guarded by police. On the mines and estates, employees did not face relocation but merely 're-grouping ' into guarded compounds on site. In addition, in June 1951, a general food-control program called 'Operation Starvation ' was instituted. In 'food restricted areas ', eating was only permitted at home, not at cafes and restaurants or workplaces. Shop keepers had to keep a strict account of all food sold, and canned goods had to be punctured at time of sale to necessitate their being used promptly. Widespread burning of villages suspected of Communist sympathies was also common. As a military strategy, these restrictive measures were highly successful. By 1953, the MPLA was often short of food and its numbers declined. Faced with failure to establish any 'Liberated Areas ', the MCP renewed its work with trade unions and political parties. The MCP underwent a period of streamlining, retraining, and re-indoctrination of the communist ideology and started the three phases of insurgency all over again and truly was not disbanded until