Lawyers seek hidden documents linked to British massacre in Malaya

Ben Macintyre (link from The Times, London)

April 9 2011 12:01AM

Lawyers for relatives of victims of an alleged massacre by British troops in colonial Malaya have demanded immediate release of all relevant documents that may be held in the Government’s secret archive at Hanslope Park.

Last week the Foreign and Commonwealth Office admitted that the Government had routinely removed sensitive files from former colonies before independence, and pledged to release 8,800 files from 37 former colonies and dependent territories, including Malaya.

The killings at Batang Kali took place at the height of the Malayan Emergency in 1948, when Malaya (now Malaysia) was a British protectorate facing a major communist insurgency. British troops were deployed to help the colonial authorities to keep order.

The Malaysians’ complaint, filed this year, alleges that 24 villagers, all of them unarmed, were shot and killed by troops of the Scots Guards between December 11 and 12, 1948. According to some reports, some of the bodies were also mutilated. Those who were not killed, mainly women and children, were then taken away by lorry and the village burnt to the ground.

Lawyers representing the claimants sent a letter to the Treasury Solicitor’s department yesterday asking to be given immediate access to any files in the hitherto secret archive relating to the incident. “Our concerns about the improper withholding of documents have greatly intensified over the last few days with the publication in The Times and other newspapers that an archive exists at Hanslope Park of secret and sensitive material,” Bindmans LLP wrote. “Press reporting states that one of the countries to which the archived documents relate is Malaya.” The letter is the first sign of what may be a wave of legal complaints over the hidden archive.

Bindmans also noted that although it had asked the government to provide all relevant archival material over the last two and half years “these secret and sensitive documents are not mentioned” in any correspondence.

“Judging by the nature of the material that has come to light in relation to Kenya, it seems at least likely that similar material is held in relation to Batang Kali.” The lawyers demanded to know whether and when the archive had been searched and, if any material had been found there, why it had not been disclosed. “If no searches were undertaken, why not?”

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has promised to release the entire archive, but the letter asks for immediate answers: “We would expect to be given physical access, or copies, early next week.”

Unlike the complainants in the Mau Mau case, the Malaysians are not seeking damages but a judicial review into why the British Government has refused to hold a public inquiry into the incident. The defendants are named as the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and the Secretary of State for Defence.

Among the documents that may be in the Foreign Office archives is a report of an investigation carried out after the incident by the AttorneyGeneral, Sir Stafford Foster-Sutton, which has never been released. It was later alleged that statements made by the soldiers for this inquiry were written for them and they were required to sign them. The official version of events, made public at the time, is that the killings were justified by the character and actions of the villagers. A statement by the Colonial Secretary in 1949 stated that the men had opened fire to prevent suspected Chinese communist guerrillas from escaping.

In a television interview in 1970, however, the Attorney-General said he was “absolutely satisfied that a bona fide mistake was made”. An undated memo written during the Emergency also noted that the Attorney-General held the personal view that “there was something to be said for public executions”.

This Government’s first response to the claim was a letter on March 18 from the Treasury Solicitor stating that the Government would seek legal costs from the Malaysians, amounting to at least £200,000, “if their claim is unsuccessful”.

In 1970 Denis Healey, the Defence Secretary, instructed Scotland Yard to investigate the matter, but the inquiry was later dropped, citing lack of evidence. In 1993 the Foreign Office stated that “no new evidence has been uncovered by the British authorities to warrant the setting up of another official inquiry into the alleged massacre of 24 villagers in Batang Kali”.

Last November the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence decided not to arrange a public inquiry into the Batang Kali incident. On Tuesday night, Lord Howell of Guildford, the Foreign Office minister, acknowledged for the first time that it was “general practice for the colonial administration to transfer to the United Kingdom, shortly before independence, selected documents which were not appropriate to hand on to the successor government”.

Lord Howell said that the release might take “years”. But the Bindmans letter suggests that many litigants will want far swifter answers. “We would like to have sight immediately … of the contents of the archives of secret and sensitive material that has any bearing on the Batang Kali killings.”

 

Massacre victims’ families to take matter to British court

Linked from English.xinhuanet.com （新华网）

BATANG KALI, Malaysia, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) — During the British colonial, 24 ethnic Chinese were shot dead by the British army as the latter accused them of being terrorists and were trying to escape — a claim that was crushed years later as evidence suggested the 24 were innocent.

Named after the small town, the Batang Kali Massacre took place in the Selangor State of Malaya on Dec. 12, 1948. Fire was also set on the village where the 24 men were seized.

The British government has refused to correct the records despite calls from the people of Malaysia and activists in the United Kingdom. And now, family members of the victims plan to take the matter to court — the first of such action and a last resort.

Loh Ah Choi was only nine when he watched his uncle shot dead at a rubber estate in the town some 34 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital.

He is 70 years old now, but the memory still haunts him.

 

 

In an interview with Xinhua, Loh said the British armies did not believe that they were innocent.

“My uncle was only 19 years old. He was attending college in Kuala Lumpur. It was a school holiday and he came back to help my mum. They executed him. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“I said, ‘grandma, they took uncle!’ It was not so far away. It was just about 100 meters from here. We heard three shots. We were on the lorry when we heard more shots. They then torched the house. We did not even have a single piece of clothes with us.

“Of course we cried. My uncle loved me so dearly. I was the only child back then. I was only nine years old,” said Loh in grief.

A total of 26 unarmed ethnic Chinese laborers were shot by the Scots Guardsmen at that time. Two survived, 24 dead — most of their bodies mutilated.

According to the British official records, the 24 were sympathisers of the enemies of the British. But years later, some of the Scots Guards involved in the shooting confessed and survivors of the massacre gave their statements. They said the killings were unjustified.

Wong Then Loy, another witness of the massacre, said he had followed his father to collect the bodies of the 24.

“I was a child then. We, children at that time were not afraid of anything. Four or five days after they were shot, the landlord came to look for our father to collect the bodies.

“We picked up the bodies, like we used to pick up tree logs. Families came to claim them and set up graves for them. My dad was the one who carved their tombs,” said Wong.

 

 

The British had concluded that it was an incident and refused to launch an inquiry although new evidence continued to emerge. The Malaysian government opened the case and dropped it citing lack of evidence.

Loh spent most of his life advocating justice to be returned to his uncle. He had personally collected signatures from Chinese associations around the country and submitted a petition to the British government to launch an inquiry.

But to date, nothing has been done and the 24 dead ethnic Chinese were still labelled as bandits and terrorists.

Loh is not giving up, determined to get his uncle’s name cleared. He, with the help of a group of activists and lawyers advocating for the same cause, are taking the case to court soon.

It is the first time that such action has been taken, but it would be the last resort.

“I hope they compensate and apologize. It has been so long. Now I can’t work. No one would hire me because I’m old. I don’t know till when I shall wait. But I will wait, perhaps until the day I die,” said Loh.

 

 

Quek Ngee Meng, a lawyer and activist, has been helping surviving kins of the victims for years, demanding the British government to investigate the incident and clear the names of the victims.

“These people were killed unlawfully. Therefore, compensation needs to be paid. Their fathers, ancestors, being labelled as bandits and terrorists are being stuck into the official history. They want this record to be cleared,” said Quek.

But to date, nothing has been done.

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

“They (the British) use this kind of frivolous, ridiculous excuse to stay away, to refuse our claims, which we think is unreasonable,” stressed Quek.

It would be increasingly difficult for authorities to investigate the Batang Kali Massacre due to the lack of evidence. That begs the question: how much longer can those who have been actively pursuing justice for the victims hang on to the case.

The last adult witness, Tham Yong, who was 17 when she saw the killings died last year. The father of Quek, who himself was also an activist and an inspiration to his son, died the same year.

There was no record of the Batang Kali Massacre in the country’ s history books.

“When we asked for the public inquiry to be set up, they refused on the account that this happened over 62 years ago. This will incur substantial taxpayers money to set up the inquiry without going to the substance of the case.

“We have done sufficient research. It was disclosed that the British government doesn’t have legal authority to kill the 24 unarmed civilians. And we hope the British government could face up to these challenges but they didn’t.”

“The only avenue left for us is to go to court,” said Quek.

 

 

The group will file a petition at the British High Court next month and expect to stand a trial at the court in a few months.

Quek said, that will be their last resort in asking for an investigation to clear the victims of any wrongdoings.

No one knows what will happen after that, but Quek and the victims’ family members will make sure that part of the history is not left behind.

 

 

 

 

Justice sought in the UK over Malaysian deaths (Video)

British forces killed 24 men suspected of helping communist rebels during the Malaya Emergency, 62 years ago this weekend.

The soldiers, from the Scots Guards, originally claimed that a group of rubber plantation workers were trying to escape capture in the village of Batang Kali, in what is now Malaysia.

But since then, some of the troops have confirmed claims that the killings were in cold blood and the families of the men are now calling for a public inquiry.

News Video Link From : BBC News Asia Pacific

Justice sought in UK over Malaysia deaths

Chong Koon Ying was only nine years old when British soldiers came to the rubber plantation and killed her father.

Today, on her first visit to the scene in decades, the stream helps her work out where the rows of trees used to be, where the family lived and where 24 men were shot dead on 11 and 12 December 1948.

“This is the place my mother came to identify the bodies,” she said.

Since her father and the other Chinese migrant workers were killed, the British government has ignored calls for an inquiry, and this month the latest petition has again been refused.

It was late afternoon when the platoon of Scots Guards arrived in Batang Kali, now just an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur, but then deep in the jungle and an area thought to be a Communist stronghold.

“They separated the men from the women,” she remembered, picking over some big stones which were all that remained of the house on stilts where they lived.

The Malaya Emergency was only six months old and the troops had come expecting trouble.

A guerrilla force which Britain had used to help defeat the Japanese in World War Two had turned on them, and Communist insurgents were attacking the rubber and tin producers who generated the colonial power’s biggest source of foreign income.

The men and the women were interrogated, asked where the insurgents were and accused of giving them food. One of the men was shot dead that evening.

“A woman was crying and the soldiers said if she didn’t stop they would shoot her,” Ms Chong remembered. She tried to keep her younger brother and sister quiet.

They spent all night in one big room with no food or water and the next day they were forced onto the back of a truck.

She then acted out the gunfire they heard – “boom, boom, boom” – pointing to the five different areas the men were taken and shot.

As the truck pulled away they saw the houses burning with everything they owned inside.

 

‘Stigma’

Ms Chong broke down as she remembered what happened.

“It’s heartbreaking, we were left with nothing. I am old, soon I will be in a coffin, but I hope there will be compensation,” she said.

The soldiers claimed the men were insurgents who had been shot as they tried to escape and a brief inquiry at the time supported that version of events.

But in 1970 some of the Scots Guards on patrol that day told a tabloid newspaper the men had been killed in cold blood – not while trying to escape, but illegally.

A Scotland Yard inquiry followed, but was abandoned after a change of government in Britain.

Then in the 1990s, following a BBC documentary, Malaysian authorities reopened the investigation, but again it was stopped before reaching a conclusion.

Now the latest petition for an inquiry has been rejected and the lawyer representing the families in Malaysia, Firoz Hussein, says he will challenge the decision in the British courts.

“We want a public inquiry that investigates precisely what happened, to exonerate the 24 villagers and we feel reparations should be paid to these people,” he said.

“The families are still tainted with the stigma that those executed were Communist terrorists.

“This issue must be put to rest finally – there must be a sense of justice achieved for all those executed, so no matter how long it takes we feel it should be brought to a close, and resolved.”

He acknowledged it would be difficult, as a long time had passed since the events and many witnesses had died, but said it was important lessons were learned about maintaining standards when at war.

 

History books

A spokesperson from the British Ministry of Defence issued a statement: “We do not condone any wrongdoing by UK forces. These events took place over 60 years ago so it is highly unlikely that UK forces operating in 2010 could learn any useful lessons from a public inquiry.

“The families of those who died may choose to take legal action to overturn this decision and so it would be inappropriate for us to comment further while the possibility of further legal proceedings still remains.”

The Malaya Emergency lasted 12 years and is still considered one of the few successful counter-insurgency campaigns.

British troops study the strategy and tactics used in Malaya before going to Afghanistan and commanders see it as an important part of today’s counter-insurgency approach in Helmand province.

Only a handful of those who were there that day are still alive, but the survivors and their families want their version of what happened in Batang Kali written into the history books.

Chong Koon Ying says her father’s death left her family with nothing

Link from : BBC News Asia Pacific

Malaysian campaigners ask Queen to press for action over 1948 deaths

Campaigners in Malaysia have petitioned the Queen to use her influence in gaining an apology and compensation from the British Government over an alleged massacre of 24 unarmed villagers by British soldiers in 1948.

The move comes after a request was rejected for an investigation into the killing of the 24 ethnic Chinese in the remote village of Batang Kali, Selangor province, despite a decades-long campaign. A lawyer acting for the victims’ families, Quek Ngee Meng, criticised the British government’s decision as “legally and morally hollow”, adding that the failure to hold an inquiry amounted to a “very British cover-up”.

The families along with a delegation from the Chinese Associations’ Federation have presented their petition in Kuala Lumpur. It asks that the Queen use her “vast influence” over the government to ensure it issues an “official apology” and “reasonable compensation” for the victims’ families and the wider community, which it sets at £30 million and £50 million respectively.

The families contend that a contingent of 14 Scots Guards entered the village on 12 December, 1948, and detained 25 unarmed men at the beginning of a 12-year insurgency in what was then the colony of Malaya.

Twenty-four of the men were killed while one, who fainted and was presumed dead, survived and is still alive. The men’s wives and children who had been separated from them witnessed the killings.

At the time a British investigation into the massacre found they were killed on a river bank to prevent them from escaping.

In 1970 a British newspaper reported the damning allegations on what is sometimes referred to as “Britain’s My Lai Massacre”. The revelations forced the Labour government to order an investigation but a lack of evidence led to the next government dropping the inquiry.

A BBC documentary in 1992 threw up fresh evidence of survivors’ testimony, the confession of Scots Guardsman and interviews with the Scotland Yard officers on the 1970 inquiry. The following year the families first petitioned the Queen demanding justice, but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said no new evidence had been unearthed to warrant reopening an inquiry.

But the families refused to give up. In accepting the new petition the British High Commissioner, Simon Featherstone, said he would “faithfully convey their views to the British government” when he passes it on.

Link from www.telegraph.co.uk