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| Limbang Rebellion: 7 Days in December 1962, by Eileen Chanin |
The "sketch map" of Limbang in the opening section of this book evokes a long-vanished world made famous by Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham. Isolated in the Borneo jungle, on a bend in the Limbang River, lies a small British colonial outpost, with its police station, hospital, district office, DO's house, mosque and Chinese shop-houses.
The map depicts Limbang as it was in December, 1962. This was a pivotal year in South-East Asia. The United States, having shunned military commitment in Laos, was stepping up its involvement in South Vietnam. The British, on the other hand, were pulling out of the region as fast as was decently possible. As they prepared to wind down their commitment East of Suez, the British were promoting the idea of a new federation, to be called Malaysia.
This would bring together five territories: peninsular Malaya, which had been independent since 1957; Singapore, a self-governing entity and one of the world's richest and busiest ports, and Britain's three north Borneo dependencies - Sarawak, Brunei and British North Borneo (Sabah).
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The prime minister of Malaya, the courtly, Cambridge-educated Tunku Abdul Rahman, liked the idea of Malaysia. There was considerable opposition to the plan, however, in other potential member states, not least in the Sultanate of Brunei, the shrivelled remnant of a once-great Malay Muslim trading state.
There, after decades of somnolence, political and social pressures were building to dangerous levels. Those pressures, which included a heady dose of Bruneian chauvinism and irredentism, would soon erupt in a sudden burst of violence.
A. M. Azahari, a charismatic Brunei politician who had spent his formative years in Indonesia, wanted no part of Malaysia. He was electrifying his followers in the Partai Ra'ayat (People's Party), which had swept all before it in the 1962 polls, with a call for a restored Greater Brunei.
Azahari wanted a federation of the three Borneo states headed by the Sultan of Brunei as a constitutional monarch. The Sultan was sitting on the fence. Thwarted by the British, Azahari set up a clandestine armed wing, the North Borneo National Army, or TNKU, allegedly with help from Indonesia.
At 2am on December 8, 1962, Azahari's men attacked police posts and other targets across Brunei, including Brunei Town (now Bandar Seri Begawan), the tiny capital. They also seized Limbang, which is in Sarawak, 19 kilometres upriver from the Brunei capital.
The British Resident in Limbang was Richard (Dick) Morris, an Australian. He and his wife Dorothy were taken hostage by about 350-400 agitated, angry men.
The British quickly recaptured Brunei Town: Gurkhas were flown in from Singapore the same day. But Limbang was to remain in rebel hands for five days. The hostages were only freed on December 12 when an 89-strong company of Royal Marines assaulted Limbang from the river, killing 15 rebels, losing five dead themselves and putting the insurgents to flight.
This book, written by Dick Morris's daughter-in-law, paints a compelling picture of the fortitude, the stoicism, the sense of duty, the stiff-upper-lip good humour shown by Dick and Dorothy Morris in a time of tension and danger.
It also gives an engrossing account of the bold commando assault on Limbang. Chanin's account of the improvised attack, the Marines travelling by night in two commandeered barges, will delight any military buff.
She has a great deal of material taken from interviews, memoirs, journal articles, unit war diaries, official reports, colonial-era newspapers, Dick Morris's papers and Dorothy Morris's engaging letters (the book is, in part, a reverential family history). This allows her to bring the story vividly to life.
The problem is that these voices are almost all British or Australian. There are no Brunei Malay or Kedayan opposition voices, save for Azahari's public comments at the time.There is virtually nothing first-hand from the "other side".
Another problem is that Chanin rather over-eggs the Limbang cake. Brunei, not Limbang, was always the centre of the action. Limbang was a sideshow, albeit a bloody one.
The Brunei Revolt had important consequences. Indonesia, struck by the degree of anti-Malaysia feeling in Brunei, then tried to stir up a revolt among left-leaning Chinese in Sarawak, hoping to convince the world the people of North Borneo were opposed to Malaysia.
That led in turn to Konfrontasi, a three-year (1963-66) conflict in which Indonesia sent soldiers, saboteurs and terrorists into Sarawak and Sabah, Malaya and Singapore. In response, Britain and Australia deployed troops up to 10 kilometres inside Indonesian Borneo. There, in jungle ambushes, they sometimes killed as many as 10-15 Indonesian soldiers at a time.
The Indonesians knew we were doing it. They did not complain, presumably because we were doing no more than they were doing themselves.
Unlike President Yudhoyono, president Sukarno did not withdraw his ambassador in Canberra when things did not go his way.
Dipetik dari - SMH.com.au
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