British atrocity during the Emergency

The stain of brutality and uncountable heinous crimes committed by the British Colonialist during those 10 years will never be washed away from the history of Malaya. However despite military rule, our people fought on with dignity. Two young Indians, Gunapathy and Veerasamy, Chairman and Vice-chairman of the Pan Malayan Federation of Trade Unions, were leaders of the anti-colonial working class movement. Gunapathy was murdered in cold blood while Veerasamy was hanged by the British for allegedly possessing an illegal weapon. (The death sentence for possessing a weapon was reintroduced in 1976 under the Essential regulations, which resulted in a 14 year boy and many others being charged.)

On a wider scale, even innocent poverty striken rural folk were not to be spared. In Pusing, 1,000 peasants were fined a total of $40,000 in January 1951 for refusing to give information regarding the execution of a British planter.

We must not forget that the people who suffered also included members of the armed forces who were conned and coerced to lay down their lives for the British Colonialist. Usman Awang, a well known poet and writer joined the Malayan police at the young age of 18. Later he was to realise his dilemma: for he was hunting down his own people who were fighting for independence.

His brief service with the police force also served as the basis for his later literary works in which he describes the senselessness of the war, and the plight of a policeman. "Voice from the Grave" was one of his satirical poems, exposing the hypocrisy of the Government. The authorites were indifferent to their conditions and safety and the agony suffered by their families, but upon their death would bestow them as 'National Heroes'.