When the world held its breath It is 25 years since the end of the
Cold War, now a generation old. It began over 75 years ago, in 1944
long before the last shots of the Second World War had echoed
across the wastelands of Eastern Europe with the brutal Greek Civil
War. The battle lines are no longer drawn, but they linger on,
unwittingly or not, in conflict zones such as Iraq, Somalia and
Ukraine. In an era of mass-produced AK-47s and ICBMs, one such
flashpoint was Malaya By the time of the 1942 Japanese occupation
of the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, the Malayan Communist Party
(MCP) had already been fomenting merdeka independence from Britain.
The Japanese conquerors, however, were also the loathsome enemies
of the MCP s ideological brothers in China. An alliance of
convenience with the British was the outcome. Britain armed and
trained the MCP s military wing, the Malayan People s Anti-Japanese
Army (MPAJA), to essentially wage jungle guerrilla warfare against
Japanese occupying forces.With the cessation of hostilities,
anti-Japanese became anti-British, and, using the same weapons and
training fortuitously provided by the British army during the war,
the MCP launched a guerrilla war of insurgency. Malaya was of
significant strategic and economic importance to Britain. In the
face of an emerging communist regime in China, a British presence
in Southeast Asia was imperative. Equally, rubber and tin, largely
produced in Malaya by British expatriates, were important inputs
for British industry. Typically, the insurgents, dubbed Communist
Terrorists, or simply CTs, went about attacking soft targets in
remote areas: the rubber plantations and tin mines. In conjunction
with this, was the implementation of Mao s dictate of subverting
the rural, largely peasant, population to the cause. Twelve years
of counter-insurgency operations ensued, as a wide range of British
forces were joined in the conflict by ground, air and sea units
from Australia, New Zealand, Southern and Northern Rhodesia, Fiji
and Nyasaland.
General
Imprint: |
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
September 2017 |
Authors: |
Gerry van Tonder
|
Dimensions: |
234 x 156 x 11mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
128 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-5267-0786-4 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-5267-0786-1 |
Barcode: |
9781526707864 |
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