ABSTRACT

The Emergency in Malaya formally ended on 31 July 1960 with the lifting of Emergency Regulations from all the eleven states in the Federation. Kuala Lumpur had always feared a merger between Malaya and Singapore alone because this would have made the Chinese the dominant community. By 1961, it was clear that Britain's colonies in Borneo were ripe for independence but would not be viable on their own. The process of merger continued, however, and on 16 September 1963, The Federation of Malaysia was formed. The Chinese-run Clandestine Communist Organization in Sarawak constituted a more serious threat. They operated on similar lines to the Malayan Communist Party in Malaya, with a well established village cadre organization supporting guerrillas who had been trained across the border in Indonesian Kalimantan, with a total membership of 24,000. Chin Peng's Communist Party of Malaya, whose survival and retraining in Thailand was referred to on pages 259-60, felt ready to resume its campaign in Malaysia.