Charge the British, not Mat Sabu

The Malaysian government could demand for an immediate release of all relevant documents on Malaya that are held by the British government at its secret archive at Hanslope Park.

If the Barisan Nasional were really interested in righting wrongs, it would pursue the British for alleged miscarriage of justice and murders, which were never properly investigated.

BN appears to treat the rakyat like fools; it vexes us with sodomy trials, sex tapes and the rewriting of history. Then, in an attempt to bolster our flagging spirits, it tell us that the Internal Security Act (ISA) will be abolished and Malaysia made the “best democracy in the world”

Many people fail to realise that in the run-up to the general election, there is a concerted effort by Umno-BN to discredit opposition MPs and hence destabilise them.

Last month, Mat Sabu made a speech about one of Malaya’s freedom fighters, Mat Indera. As a result of this, Mat Sabu has been politically flayed, his family threatened and his home violated.

He has also been pursued in court and charged under Section 500 of the Penal Code because he is alleged to have slandered the police officers who had been killed by communists in an attack on the Bukit Kepong police station in 1950.

Mat Sabu’s trial is slated for December and if convicted, he could be fined and imprisoned for two years. If that were to happen, he would be prevented from participating in the 13th general election. His conviction is politically motivated and a cheap attempt to divide the nation further along racial lines.

And yet, the government machinery appears to have ground to a halt in pursuing another incident which happened two years before the attack which Mat Sabu was referring to.

That incident is known as the Batang Kali massacre in which 24 unarmed Chinese were shot dead and their bodies mutilated, by the Scots Guards, on Dec 12, 1948. Batang Kali was at the time believed to be a communist stronghold deep in the Selangor jungle.

When the British soldiers arrived, the men and the women were separated, before they were interrogated. The villagers were accused of supplying the communists with food and the men were shot when the British soldiers’ attempts to extricate information proved unsuccessful.

Still termed terrorists

An eyewitness described the imprisonment of villagers in one room without food or water. She said: “One woman was crying and the soldiers said if she didn’t stop they would shoot her.”

This eyewitness said she attempted to quieten her younger brother and sister and that the following day the men were taken away and the rest were herded into a truck and driven away. She heard the sound of gunfire and saw that their houses had been torched.

Another villager who was only a child at the time said that he had spent most of his life attempting to seek justice for his uncle who was killed.

He said: “I hope they (the British) compensate and apologise. It has been so long.”

Despite his collection of signatures from Chinese associations nationwide and the submission of a petition to the British government to launch an inquiry, the British government had decided not to take any action. The 24 victims are still termed bandits and terrorists.

Official records support the testimony of the British soldiers that the 24 Chinese were communist sympathisers and had been shot while escaping.

However, in an interview which was reported in a UK tabloid in 1970, a number of Scots Guards who were present at Batang Kali, confessed to their part in the massacre. The former soldiers said that the Chinese men had not been trying to escape.

This claim led to the launching of an inquiry by Scotland Yard, which was soon abandoned after a change of government in Britain.

Secret archive

A BBC documentary, which was broadcast later in the 1990s, compelled the Malaysian authorities to reopen the case and this too was dropped before a conclusion could be reached.

Despite the emergence of new evidence and calls by Malaysians and some activists in the UK, the British government has refused to launch an inquiry.

The Malaysian government briefly pursued the case before it too collapsed for “lack of evidence”.

Lawyer and activist Quek Ngee Meng, who has been instrumental in helping the families of victims to clear the names of the victims, has also made demands for compensation.

He said: “First, the British are saying that at that time, the British soldiers were employed by the Malayan or Selangor state government, not by the Queen. Therefore, we should sue the Malayan or Selangor government.

“Secondly, they said after independence (Malaya gained independence in 1957), the Malayan government actually succeeded to all the liability and responsibility. Therefore we shouldn’t point our claim against the British government.”

It has been reported that there has been no record of the Batang Kali Massacre in the country’s history books.

When the latest petition for an inquiry was rejected, Firoz Hussein, the lawyer representing the families in Malaysia, said that he would challenge the decision in the British courts.

He said: “We want a public inquiry to investigate precisely what happened, to exonerate the 24 villagers and we feel reparations should be paid to these people. The families are still tainted with the stigma that those executed were communist terrorists.”

In 2011, Mat Sabu’s words about the Kepong attack were twisted by Utusan Malaysia so that he now faces charges for “defaming the dead”.

On the other hand, the BN government does not think there is any point in seeking justice for the villagers of Batang Kali who were executed in cold blood.

The Malaysian government could start with the demand for an immediate release of all relevant documents on Malaya that are held by the British government at its secret archive at Hanslope Park.

Mariam Mokhtar is a FMT columnist.