The Malayan Emergency

Introduction and overview The 'Malayan Emergency' lasted from mid-June 1948 until 31 July 1960. At its peak in 1951-52, 40,000 troops, over 70,000 police, and more than 250,000 Home Guards confronted seven to eight thousand armed insurgents. Led by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), the guerrillas were backed by Min Yuen (Mass Organisation) cells for suppliers, women, youth and more, and beyond that by supporters and sympathisers estimated as peaking at anything up to a million.1 They operated in the equatorial jungle that covered two thirds of the country, on mountain and hill, in belukar (dense, scrubby secondary jungle), lalang (tall, course grass), in marsh at the forest's edge, in rubber plantations and close to small villages and squatter settlements. The administration's aim was to protect, control, coerce and cajole a population that rose from just under five million in June 1948 to six million in 1956, in particular those living along the forest fringe. This population, which in 1948 comprised 49 percent Malays, 38 percent Chinese, and 11 percent Indians, inhabited an area roughly the size of England without Wales--