A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (21 page)

Many Western writers equate new villages with concentration camps. When I was in Amherst, Massachusetts, I was asked by a young American couple how many new villages there were in Malaysia. I did not know but I hazarded a reply, saying there were about one hundred.

The Americans expressed horror. “How can you have so many concentration camps?”

But the new villages were not concentration camps even if there were barbed wire fences all around. The jungle-fringe Chinese squatters, under threat of violence by the communists, had been supplying food and money to them. Their resettlement in the new villages would protect them and enable the authorities to control food supplies.

Today the new villages have prospered and many settlers have been given land titles. The critics can come and verify what I say.

By the time Templer left and Sir Donald MacGillivray, his deputy, took over, most of the Peninsula had been declared white. Three years after Independence, in 1960, the Emergency was ended. But the guerrillas who had retreated to southern Thailand continued to mount sporadic attacks against the security force. In 1974, when I became Minister of Education, Tun Razak also made me a member of the National Security Council (NSC), which directed the war against the remnants of the guerrillas. Every week until the end of 1989—when the communists finally laid down arms—the police and the military chiefs gave a briefing on the progress of the anti-terrorist war. I was impressed with the information gathered by the intelligence agencies. They could identify all the communist units, their locations, leadership and strength. With this intelligence, the security forces were able to position their people and to mount attacks. They were often able to locate food dumps and money, thus forcing the terrorists to depend on their own vegetable gardens in the jungle and supplies from the Orang Asli. Far from any government presence, the Orang Asli often saw the need to stay on the side of the armed and feared guerrillas, who at times made a point of marrying Orang Asli women to gain their support. On its side, the Government had set up an Orang Asli unit in the police force, the Senoi Praak.
[8]
 A number of Malay officers learnt to speak the languages of the Orang Asli and led the unit very effectively. Their knowledge of the jungle and trekking came in very useful. Gradually, they stopped helping the terrorists as they gained confidence in the Government’s ability to protect them.
 

The briefings I attended when I was first appointed to the NSC convinced me that the insurrection could not last. For one thing our police personnel had managed to infiltrate the guerrilla bands and the information they collected was accurate. Another crucial contribution to the Government’s success was the setting up of a War Room or Operations Room, which was an idea adopted from the military and is still used today by the Government to monitor development projects. Now this method has become technologically sophisticated with computers linked to projectors that can display enlarged images, maps, data and the like. This is a great advance from the mid-1970s, when briefings on the security situation at the Operations Room employed more basic technologies such as sliding boards and flip charts, with maps showing the positions of the enemy throughout the country. Layers of transparent sheets over a map enabled us to follow changes that were taking place. Terrain models were also constructed to enable us to appreciate the nature of the operations and the difficulties involved.

By the late 1980s, there were no more casualties from booby traps and the cross-border raids stopped completely. Intelligence reports indicated that the guerrilla fighters had either surrendered or had settled down in south Thailand. But the insurrection was not over until the MCP agreed to officially lay down arms in December 1989. Police intelligence said that the communists no longer saw any prospect of military victory as Malaysia was strong and independent. After communication through go-betweens, discussions took place between our Police Director of Special Branch Tan Sri Rahim Noor and the MCP’s Chin Peng. Even though the guerrillas laid down arms, they insisted they had not surrendered. They claimed that they had only decided not to fight anymore. To us, that was a distinction that made no difference.

In his recently published memoirs, Chin Peng claims that he was the one who truly struggled for the independence of Malaya. Yet he cannot deny that the number of Malaysians murdered and the MCP’s attacks on the Malayan police and the armed forces, even after Independence, prove that his fight was not about achieving national liberation. It was about trying to seize power by force of arms from a sovereign country that was ruled and defended by its own people. As late as 2008, Chin Peng was still fighting in the Malaysian courts to prove that he had never renounced his Malayan citizenship, and so was entitled to return “home” to Malaysia.

The British had been involved in the campaign to get rid of the communist threat when Malaya was their colony, but after Independence we were completely on our own. The Five Power Defence Agreement (FPDA) with Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Singapore could not be invoked. In fact, Australia made it clear that the FPDA was entirely concerned with attacks against Malaysia by foreign invaders—the communist insurgency was considered a domestic affair. In the end, it was our own security forces, both police and military, the Home Guard, the Special Constables, the Senoi Praak and the people of Malaysia who defeated the MCP guerrillas.

Among the world leaders who have expressed their admiration for how we defeated the guerrillas is former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela. I first met him in Zambia when he was released from detention. I expected to see a broken man, someone embittered by captivity. But he was very calm, rational and free of rancour. He had been trained in guerrilla warfare in Libya and Yugoslavia. According to his trainers, he told me, guerrillas could not be defeated. But we, Malaysians, proved them wrong. We fought our own fight, trusted only in our own military and political strength, and prevailed.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] The Esplanade is today a popular tourist destination, but was originally the heart of Penang’s colonial administration.
 

[
2
] Initially a supporter of Sun Yat-Sen, Chin Peng (né Ong Boon Hua) was the longtime leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). After WWII, the MCP fought against the British colonial government, which led to the Malayan Emergency. The Emergency lasted 12 years until 1960.
 

[
3
] The Internal Security Act 1960 provides for preventive detention without trial. Under the Act, police are 
allowed to detain a person without a warrant for 60 days, after which they may recommend to the Home Minister further detention for up to two years. This second period is renewable.

[
4
] The full Latin formula 
habeas corpus ad subjiciendum et recipiendum
refers to a mediaeval writ requiring that authorities “have the body (person detained) brought to the court to undergo and receive” the court’s judgment.
 

[
5
] The New Democratic Youth League (NDYL) was formed in Singapore in 1945. “Although the NDYL’s sponsors tried to project it as non-partisan, it lay at the apex of communist youth
bodies, promoting ‘free democratic education’ and civil liberties through such events as International Youth Week 1946…
 

It was specifically a Malayan organisation, although it mirrored similar groupings in China.” See T.N. Harper,
The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya
, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p69.

[
6
] See Gen Tun Ibrahim Ismail, 
Ibrahim Pahlawan Melayu
, Pelanduk, 2005
 

[
7
] These notes are in the British Archives.
 

[
8
] Also spelt Senoi Praaq, the unit was formed by Templer in 1956 at the instigation of colonial officer
 
R.O.D. Noone (who eventually commanded it). Original members were trained by the elite British Special Air Service, and their highly successful operations gave communist insurgents pause. Today the unit (now with two batallions) is part of the Royal Malaysian Police General Operations Force, and plays a leading role in search and rescue missions.

I wanted to be a leader so that I could get things done. At school, my schoolmates had readily accepted me in this role, but older people did not take me as seriously as I wanted them to. I decided that the only way I could get them to listen to my ideas and opinions was to improve my credentials. The key was a university degree as graduates were a rarity then, so I turned my mind to my textbooks, determined that I should qualify for entry.

I had my heart set on studying law because I enjoyed debating. Besides, it also meant an opportunity to go to England, a strange but exciting foreign country. My family could not afford the expenses of a higher education, so I needed a scholarship. A small number of my classmates had already gone overseas on scholarships and I waited eagerly for news of my own application. It would be ages before I heard anything and in the meantime I grew very dejected. A tertiary education was the only way to achieve my dream of being heard and heeded. But when I finally received a scholarship, it was to study medicine in Singapore. I had never seriously considered medicine and it was clearly not my first choice, but Fate had played its hand. I was to appreciate its intervention greatly in later years, as medicine would prove to be a strangely appropriate education for a political career.

My medical training, for example, came in useful when tackling the problems of administration. Running a country is not just about debating in Parliament or making laws, but also about curing social, economic and political diseases. At least in principle, the treatment resembles medical procedures. The British colonialists were better disposed towards colonial subjects who were doctors because they believed doctors were less likely to give them political trouble. Lawyers, on the other hand, were a pain in the neck and could be critical, and tended to talk back. They were likely to lead movements against the colonialists, who therefore preferred producing doctors rather than lawyers.

It was in 1947 that I was accepted as a medical student at the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore. It was then one of the two higher education facilities in all of Malaya, which at that time included Singapore. I was 22 years old, a little above the average age for admission, but allowance was made for three years because of the Japanese Occupation.

I had applied for a scholarship when I heard that a selection team was going around the country to interview potential candidates for medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. They would also be recommending suitable students for government scholarships. On the team was a Professor A. Sandosham, who later taught me biology in my first year. I remember him particularly because he once joked that he chose medicine because when he went to see his girlfriend, her mother said she was in bed with her doctor. Three whole months passed before I would hear anything about my application. Finally, I received a letter saying that I had been successful. I would receive government financial aid, which entitled me to get all my fees paid by the Government and an allowance of 25 Malayan dollars per month. In today’s money it would be about RM200, maybe less. That was adequate for me to buy soap, toothpaste and other personal items, and I would have enough left over to go to the cinema.

Though my mother had warned me many times that a doctor’s life meant having to forgo sleep and work odd hours, she and my father seemed silently pleased that I was going to go to college. I was working as a clerk in the office of the Custodian of Enemy Property at that time, with no prospects of promotion or acquiring new skills. Moreover, when I was on contract with the office, I had been paid $80 a month. Now that I had become full-time and pensionable, I was only being paid $60 monthly.

A classmate who was also admitted into the medical college was R.P. Pillay, the son of a Hospital Assistant at the Alor Star General Hospital. His elder brother, R.G. Pillay, was already in his third year at the college. It was agreed that R.P. and I would go by train to Singapore, where his brother would be waiting for us. One of my distant relatives, Sutan, who was studying dentistry, would also be waiting for us at the Tanjong Pagar railway station. My parents were relieved that there would be no chance of me getting lost on arrival in Singapore.

Singapore was the biggest city I had ever been to and everything seemed large and impressive. Being there felt like being in a foreign country. When I went to register myself as a student I passed through the General Hospital, which sprawled over acres and acres of undulating land. The Grecian columns which formed the college’s façade towered over me and I could not think of anything else except that I was going to be a doctor. I was going to be like the man who would come to my house with a Gladstone bag to see to my asthmatic sister. One jab and her suffering would stop—I would now learn to do the same.

I discovered what ragging was on my very first night at the college. I was sharing a room with two other boys, a second-year student named Chong Chun Hian, who came from Sarawak, and a big, jovial fellow named Carleel Merican, who was also a second-year student. The previous year the punishment for a freshie had been to carry and dump him in an earthenware tub they used for bathing. Chong and Carleel lost no time in warning me that if I made any noise at all, they would tub me. I was very fearful of my head being pushed underwater. I thought I would definitely lose my breath and drown. Even now, an element of that fear lingers and I automatically open my mouth to breathe every time I am in water. This is probably why I still cannot swim.