Batang Kali massacre

The Batang Kali massacre was the killing of 24 unarmed male civilians in Batang Kali by the British Army's Scots Guards on 12 December 1948. The massacre took place in Batang Kali, Malaya (now Malaysia) during the Malayan Emergency, a communist insurgency involving the British Commonwealth and communist guerrillas belonging to the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA). British author Christopher Hale described the massacre as "Britain's My Lai" in his book titled Massacre in Malaya: Exposing Britain's My Lai.

The massacre was one of a number committed during the war that saw British extrajudicial killings of unarmed villagers in violation of the Geneva Conventions, communist and trade union leaders, and the participation of British military forces in headhunting their civilian and MNLA victims.

thumb|British headhunting during the Malayan Emergency

thumb|British soldiers pose with a severed head inside a British military base

Background

After World War II, the British returned to Malaya to recover control from Japanese military forces. During the war, the British government had supported the guerrillas who continued to fight against the Japanese forces. However, following VJ Day in August 1945, many resistance units did not completely disband. The groups instead became the foundation for the independence movement against British rule in Malaya. Some guerrillas turned from agitation to communism and began targeting British commercial interests in the colony by attacking rubber plantations and tin mines. By June 1948, escalating violence and the assassinations of several prominent British landowners led colonial authorities in Malaya to declare an "Emergency".

That gave the Royal Malaysia Police and government greater powers and flexibility in combating the insurgents. Although the British had extensive experience in jungle warfare, most recently in the Burma Campaign during World War II, military leaders had not formalized their experience into a specific jungle warfare curriculum. The 1949 Geneva Conventions included Common Article 3, which is a "mini-convention" applicable to non-international armed conflict and simply prohibits the murder of non-combatants under the physical control or custody of State or non-state forces. However, Britain ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1957, owning much of its reluctance to apply Common Article 3 to its colonial wars.

Killings

In December 1948, 7th Platoon, G Company, 2nd Scots Guards, surrounded a rubber plantation at Sungai Rimoh near Batang Kali in Selangor. The Guards then rounded up civilians. The Guards separated the men from the women and children for interrogation. The Scots Guards promptly massacred 24 unarmed men from the village with automatic weapons. The only adult male survivor was a man named Chong Hong, who was in his twenties. He fainted and was presumed dead. Other eyewitnesses included the victims' spouses and children, such as Tham Yong, who was 17, and Loh Ah Choy, who was about seven.

Legacy of the massacre

After the massacre, British diplomats introduced Regulation 27A, which authorised "the use of lethal weapons" to "prevent escape from arrest", in an attempt to retrospectively legalise the Scots Guards' massacre of civilians. This new regulation was uncovered within secret documents which had been hidden from public view at Hanslope Park by the Foreign Office. Various UK governments attempted to hide the existence of the massacre by intervening to block investigations into the Batang Kali massacre.

Despite several investigations by the British government since the 1950s, and a re-examination of the evidence by the Royal Malaysia Police between 1993 and 1997, no charges were brought against any of the alleged perpetrators.

Subsequent developments

In 1970, the British Sunday newspaper The People published testimonies by members of the platoon that a massacre had occurred. In response the government referred the matter to the Department of Public Prosecutions, but the investigation was terminated shortly after only a few months due, according to the Director of Public Prosecutions, to a lack of documentation and the difficulty of verifying testimony about an event that had occurred twenty years prior.

On 8 June 1993, with the help of the MCA Legal Bureau, a petition was presented to Queen Elizabeth II asking that justice be done. On 14 July 1993 a police report was lodged by three survivors, accompanied by the MCA Public Service and Complaints Bureau Chief Michael Chong. On 18 September 1993, however, Gavin Hewitt (Head of South East Asia Department of the Foreign Office, UK) stated, "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...".

On 30 December 1997, an investigation report was submitted to the Royal Malaysian Police Jabatan Siasatan Jenayah Bukit Aman. The case was closed on the grounds of insufficient evidence for prosecution. On 24 April 2009, the British government announced that it was reconsidering this decision.

On 30 April 2009, The Independent reported that the British government had agreed to reinvestigate the massacre.

In January 2012, lawyers for the victims and their families were given Foreign Office correspondence and Cabinet Office guidance relating to the incident.

Judicial review

Malaysian victims unsuccessfully petitioned Queen Elizabeth II personally to reopen an inquiry into the massacre in 1993 and in 2004. They tried again in 2008 and failed to receive a reply from the British government until 2011, when the High Court agreed to review the case.

Survivors of the Batang Kali massacre and relatives of civilians executed by the Scots Guards started a legal battle in 2012 with against the British government over the killings. On 4 September 2012, the High Court's judges in London upheld a government decision not to hold a public hearing into the killing. It also ruled that Britain was responsible for the killing in Batang Kali. In its written judgement, it said, "There is evidence that supports a deliberate execution of the 24 civilians at Batang Kali."

In March 2014, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales announced it would make a ruling on whether a public enquiry will be held into the killings. The move was welcomed by families of the plantation workers who had died at Batang Kali. The British government had rejected calls for a public hearing, a decision that was upheld by the High Court in September 2012.

In November 2015, the United Kingdom Supreme Court ruled that the British government was not obliged to hold a public inquiry into the 1940s killing by a British Army patrol of 24 Malayan villagers even though it may have been a war crime, because the atrocity was committed too long ago.

References

External links

Condemning Batang Kali Massacre Signature Campaign and Legal Action against the British Government
Malaysian account of massacre
A Scottish viewpoint
Another Scottish viewpoint
BBC Malaysia Correspondent's account
Morning Star newspaper feature 'A murder revisited'