Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Malaysia is what South Viet Nam hopes to be a decade from now: a bustling little land that survived twelve vicious years of internal assault by Communist guerrillas and has gone on to achieve one of the highest standards of living in Asia. Until recently, Malaysians could look forward to continued progress. Now a cloud has fallen over their future. The reason is the sudden reduction in Britain's role as Malaysia's longtime financial angel and protector. With the end of the external threat from nearby Indonesia, Britain is withdrawing its 10,000-man military force, and has put Malaysia on notice that some $200 million in economic and military aid will not be forthcoming.
As Malaysians prepared last week to greet President Johnson, they were hoping that the U.S. would fill the gap left by the departing British. Even before leaving on his trip, the President took measures to reassure the Malaysians. He ordered a reduction in U.S. sales of stockpiled rubber in order to bolster the price and thus help Malaysia, which supplies one-third of the world's rubber. U.S. aid officials were also studying requests for at least a modest amount of economic aid to support Malaysia's ambitious five-year development program, which would suffer if funds were diverted to a defense buildup to replace departing British troops.
Leftover Terrorists. Malaysia can state a compelling case for assistance. Its location—spreading from the Borneo rain forests across the South China Sea to the pleasant Malay highlands—gives it an importance in the security of Asia. The handsome capital of Kuala Lumpur is alive with new autos, motor bikes and eager shoppers; outside the city, 140 new factories have sprung up, and 50 more are under construction. Continued here.......
If the video above does not load go directly to the source here ...
Saddam Hussein's last moments.
In an interview with the BBC, one of the witnesses, Judge Munir Haddad, gave a detailed account of what he saw, painting a picture of a man defiant to the end. Official video released within hours of the execution - without audio - showed what appeared to be a subdued, compliant Saddam Hussein on the gallows being readied for execution. It did not show the hanging itself.
Yet a second video, shot on a mobile phone by an onlooker below the scaffold - revealed an angry scene in which witnesses hurled insults at the former leader and he in turned mocked them. It also showed the moment of death. In full.....
In Geneva during his recent European tour, Indonesia's President Sukarno slipped into an out-of-the-way cinema for an evening's relaxation after a hard day of negotiations with pretty shopgirls and Swiss arms manufacturers. No doubt the "Bung" (Brother), an old movie buff, needed a bit of tranquilizing, but the feature film proved to be The Fall of the Roman Empire. In light of what has been happening in Indonesia of late, it must have scanned like a sneak preview.
Rats & Sweet Potatoes. Most disastrous of Sukarno's programs has been his attempt to "crush Malaysia." The neighboring nation has proved as undentable as armor plate: of 256 Indonesian-trained saboteurs, terrorists and guerrillas landed over the past three months, 47 were killed and 187 captured. Last week, when Sukarno issued his customary order to "intensify" the campaign, 20 more guerrillas sailed off by sampan to Malaya and Singapore —and were soon being hotly pursued by alert British-led troops and citizens, who can collect $300 for every interloper captured. Still, Indonesia's flourishing Communist Party (3,000,000 members) insists that Malaysia must be crushed and last week added to Sukarno's troubles by inaugurating an equally absurd "crush American imperialism" drive on the pretext that the U.S. had sent a military-aid mission to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.
Economically, Indonesia's course has been almost as disastrous. With the country's current eight-year plan at the halfway mark, the government announced that fully 200 of its 335 economic projects had not yet been begun, added morosely that none of the programs aimed at earning foreign exchange had worked. Indonesia's flashily colored currency, the rupiah, last week skidded to a hundredth of its official value: 4,500 to the U.S. dollar on the free market v. a government-controlled rate of 45. At the annual congress of the Civil Servants Union, government clerks demanded a raise. They had cause; a bachelor clerk today earns only 450 rupiah, or one thin dime, a month.
Even with more money, there would be little to buy. With rice in short supply, Sukarno urged his people to cultivate a taste for corn and sweet potatoes. That could help to balance the diet of rat meat recommended by Communist Party Chairman D. N. Aidit, executive chairman of Indonesia's antirodent drive. "If the peasants start eating rats eagerly," said Aidit, "the rats will be wiped out, and there will even be a shortage of rats."
Rockets & Euphoria. None of this hardship seemed to affect the leaders of Sukarno's swollen (412,000-man) armed forces, which this year will receive half of Indonesia's $2 billion budget. Gold-braided and grinning, the army chief of staff recently pressed a button on a Djakarta beach to lob an Indonesia-built rocket a full 21 miles into the Java Sea. Immediately the army began boasting that it would have intercontinental ballistic missiles in no time at all.
What's more, exclaimed one euphoric brigadier, "we plan to explode an atom bomb next year." Though Indonesia does have a functioning nuclear reactor (supplied by the U.S. Atoms for Peace program), it cannot produce materials for weapons. Even the foreign ministry shamefacedly admitted as much. The brigadier's boast was so patently hollow that the Malaysians—who obviously were the target of its propaganda potential—scornfully talked of Sukarno's "bamboo bomb."
And even if the Bung's wobbly country could support the debilitating cost of developing a bomb, Sukarno could not count on being around to profit from it. He has aged visibly since his treatment for a kidney ailment last month, and his hands are as paper-thin and shaky as his economy. Sukarno, 63, has lately begun suffering from intimations of mortality, told a confident that he would like to be buried on Bali, the Indonesian island of lovely women where his mother was born. The source......
Extracts of Singapore Burning - Heroism and Surrender in World War Two by Colin Smith
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
A excellent book on war in Malaya - edit From Chapter One:-
Rubber was king. Ford and the other car giants were putting the western world on wheels and Malaya was the biggest exporter of natural rubber on the planet. Half of its crop went to the United States. By 1927, its 60th anniversary as a Crown Colony, Keppel harbour boasted three miles of wharves and warehouses, known locally as “Godowns”. Its population numbered about 700,000 and was predominantly Chinese, mainly second generation immigrants from south China, followed in size by the Malay and Indian communities.Living with servants from both races, usually in the black-and-white timber framed tropical tudor bungalows of its garden suburbs, were the ruling minority: the British colonial civil servants, entrepreneurs and administrators who were almost all, one way or the other, trying to see that the place was run so that the rubber and tin could be extracted at the smallest cost for the greatest profit.
As the jazz age roared on and rubber prices soared they worked as hard as was considered healthy in tropical climes and many perhaps played rather harder than they should have done. A bachelor’s evening might start in his club, move on to the ball room at Raffles Hotel where the number everyone wanted to hear was ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ . Then, if he was unlucky in love, and at any social event available European women were almost always a minority, solace of a kind might be found in one of the better brothels where Russian émigrés from Shanghai demanded the highest prices, every one a fallen princess.Continued here....
Malaysia: John Howard’s ‘Great Moderate Islamic Nation’
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Dr. Alamgir Hussain December 14, 2006 Malaysia is deemed a model of modern, secular and multicultural Islamic Nation. Find Out Why?------
During his recent visit to Malaysia, Australian Prime Minister (PM) John Howard told the press that Malaysia was "a great example of a moderate, constructive and competitive Islamic country" and “had a very important role to play in promoting better understanding on Islam and its values” [Bernama, 03 Nov, 2006]. This notion is nothing new. In the World Economic Forum in New York in 2004, the former PM Dr Mahathir Muhammad also told the delegates that ‘Malaysia was a modern secular state, not despite but because of Islamic’.
Depiction of Malaysia as a ‘modern, secular and democratic Islamic nation’ in the media has been too pervasive over the last few years. Some statements like those of Dr Mahathir Muhammad even give an impression that modernism, secularism, democracy and multiculturalism etc. may have evolved out of Islam and Malaysia. This is hardly strange when many reformist Islamists, taking cues from the verses of the Koran and examples from Prophet Muhammad’s life, even claim that democracy was seeded in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century by the Prophet of Islam. Malaysia can not only be a model for the Islamic world, but the Western governments struggling with the integration of their Muslim immigrant communities are also looking to Malaysia for importing its multicultural and multi-ethnic socio-political model for a solution at home. Continued here.......
I received an e-mail from Major Murugayah who is a member of the AMM. He was the 2IC of 7th Rangers (Mech) just before his assignment to Acheh. The pic on the left shows him receiving his award, looking on is Dato' Rozi the AAM Deputy Commander, who previously was commanding 19th RMR (Mech) of MALBATT 1 in Somalia, the troops that conducted the rescue of the American Rangers in Mogadishu.
The contents of his e-mail are as follows :
Hello Everyone,
Finally the People of Aceh and the Indonesian Govt are letting us-AMM go... Aceh had a very succesfull election for the 1st time.... The people of Acheh made up their mind to support the Rebel Group(GAM). Irwandi Yusuf from GAM will be the new Governor of Aceh. We wish them well...had a memorable 15 months Peace Mission here.
I will be leaving Aceh on 15th to Jakarta accompanying Dato' Rozi-AMM Deputy Commander on courtesy call to the President and off to KL on 16th.... My AMM office will close down today...a foto of Medal Ceremony attached. See you'll in KL....Bye
The Big Lie About the Middle East - Arab nations don't care about the Palestinians Posted Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006
By LISA BEYER No sensible person is against peacemaking in the Holy Land. Applause and hopefulness would seem the reasonable reaction to the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that the Bush Administration "act boldly" and "as soon as possible" to resolve the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. But as a front-row observer of similar efforts over the past 15 years, I could muster neither response. In lumping the Iraq mess in with the Palestinian problem--and suggesting the first could not be fixed unless the second was too--the Baker-Hamilton commission lent credibility to a corrosive myth: that the fundamental problem in the Arab world is the plight of the Palestinians.
It is a falsehood perpetuated not just by the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, who came late to the slogan after their actual beefs--Saddam with his neighbors; bin Laden with the Saudi royals--gained insufficient traction in the Arab world. The mantra is also repeated like an axiom in the U.S.--in parts of the State Department, in various think tanks, by editorial writers and Sunday talk-show hosts. Continued here....
Blunt Questions for the Palestinians Have the Palestinians started to slip into civil war? That is the blunt question that any Palestinian must not shirk away from answering, without delay or reservations, with such prayers as 'God forbid', 'oh goodness no'. And that's bearing in mind that God listens and answers people's prayers.
Answers have become an urgent issue because we see the beginnings of a slide toward internal Palestinian fighting taking the form of killings and counter-killings, some of which are particularly worrisome given that the movements, Fatah and Hamas, are both busy throwing the blame on each other, regardless of whether it is true or not.
Last Monday, we witnessed a heinous crime no one could have fathomed that a Palestinian could commit against three innocent young Palestinian children who were killed along with their companion - the driver was seriously injured - in their car on their way to school in Gaza. The horror of this crime in itself calls on the need to stop and reconsider many things. The first is the shameful struggle over the authority and governance that is being fought with such intensity while the entire West Bank is occupied, subject to Israeli policies that dismember it through military barriers and crossings and settlements. Bypass roads for Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip are still closed to its population; a population that is often encircled by sea, land and air. Continue to Dar Al Hayat
On February 15th, 1915, men of the Indian 5th Light Infantry mutinied in Singapore. Eventually, they were all rounded up. 37 of them were executed by firing squad by the Singapore Volunteers.
Above : The Mutineers being executed against a wall in Singapore.
At 1530 hours on Monday 15th February, 1915, 815 men of the Indian Army's 5th Light Infantry Battalion with 100 men of the Malay States Guides Mule Battery mutinied. They broke out of their barracks and fired on a group of five British officers, killing three. The other two escaped and ran off to get help. They managed to get sufficient force together from other units in the barracks todrive off the mutineers.
A party of 100 mutineers went to Tanglin Barracks where 309 Germans were interned, including members of the Emden's crew. The mutineers fired onthe guards without warning, killing all of them, but not before one brave guard managed to run across the courtyard under heavy fire to raise the alarm. The mutineers tried to persuade the Germans to join them but only 17 plus 3 Dutch men joined them. The rest refused to have anything to do with what they considered adishonorable act, and stayed where they were.
Other mutineers went on a killing spree at Keppel Harbour and Pasir Panjang killing many men and women including a judge. It was getting dark by this timeand the authorities finally were getting organised. Marines and crew from HMS Cadmus came ashore and were mobilised with other garrison troops who had not mutinied. A radio message was sent to India and any allied warship for help. Continued here...
Another version :
THE SEPOY MUTINY
After World War I broke out, the Indian Muslims rose up against the British. This was because Britain has declared war on Turkey, which sided Germany. The Sultan of Turkey was regarded as the leader of all Muslims in the world. Hence, when Britain declared war on Turkey, the Muslims, including those in Singapore, were urged to go against the British.
A rich Indian Muslim businessman named Kassim Mansur, who was in Singapore, invited sepoys (Indian soldiers) to his house. He talked them into rising against the British. Continued here....
Sunday November 5, 2006, like all Sundays in Ipoh, would have passed into oblivion had it not been for a text message (SMS) sent through the mobile phones by some irresponsible individuals. The message alleged that national mariner, Datuk Azhar Mansor, would lead a group of 600 Muslim students from Politeknik Ungku Omar to a baptism ceremony at the Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Silibin on that fateful Sunday.
The result was a near riot. A large crowd gathered in front of the church gates with some carrying placards denouncing Mansor. The crowd could get ugly so the Police moved in. The presence of Federal Reserve Unit personnel, who formed a buffer between the church and the crowd, had a calming effect on the congregation which had gathered in the church to witness the first Holy Communion for 98 Indian children of the local parish.
According to witnesses a few from the unruly crowd had scaled the church gates and entered the church compound to seek out Datuk Mansor and the Muslim students. “Simply inconceivable,” said Reverend Robin Arumugam. Robin is an Anglican priest and has been active with his parish at Kem Syed Putra (Tambun Camp). He conducts Sunday mass with the small Christian community in the camp. The majority of whom are Sarawakians serving with the resident battalion of the camp - the Second Battalion RoyalRanger Regiment. “It’s difficult to baptise six let alone six hundred new converts. And being a Muslim country such claim is definitely unbelievable,” he added. The ceremony, according to Robin, was for the benefit of the Indian children who were from the local parish.
A priest from Kuala Lumpur was present to perform the Holy Communion. “How can people be so easily led into believing rumours? It is so baffling.” Robin was visibly shaken by the whole episode. He shook his head in disbelief. The fear is being shared by many peace-loving Malaysians who are beginning to see the ugly side of religious intolerance. Religious bigotry is slowly but surely making inroads and in the process help to erode the fabric of our society. If left unchecked it will fester and will come to haunt us in the future. We must not allow religious tensions to divide us.
Text Message
So how did the incident happen in the first place? Sometime in February this year the Mufti of Perak, Datuk Seri Harusanni Zakaria, commented that apostasy among Malay Muslims had reached alarming proportions and he implored the government, especially the Religious Development Department (JAKIM), to act before it became problematic. He alleged that over 100,000 Malay Muslims had renounced their religion and had converted to Christianity. He repeated it during sermons at the state mosque.
Left : .........the Mufti of Perak, still walking and blameless ????- edit
On October 21, 2006, the Mufti received a SMS from a woman claiming that a group of Muslims would be baptised at a church in Silibin on Sunday, November 5, 2006. The woman and her husband came to his house the following day to confirm the message that she sent. She claimed to have studied at the International Islamic University and the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Upon her return from Egypt she did social work with missionaries and had converted to Christianity. She, however, returned to Islam. Harusanni video taped the second meeting with the lady whom he said was from Sungei Patani. He handed a copy of the tape to the Police to help them with their investigation.
The Chief Police Officer ofPerak, DCP Datuk Abdul Aziz Bulat, had identified the lady as Raja Sherina who also went by the names of Raja Norasshikin Raja Azman and Shireen. Raja Sherina could not be found in her house in Sitiawan and Sungei Patani and was believed to have gone into hiding. Her picture was displayed on national TV on Monday evening, November 20, 2006 and in the print media on Tuesday, November 22, 2006.
The police chief had made good his promise to circulate her picture if she failed to contact the police. Raja Sherina, unemployed, is in her 40s and wears a tudung. She was arrested in front of the Alor Star General Hospital at 9.30pm, Monday, November 20,2006 together with her husband.
PM’s Response
The incident had prompted a response from no less a person than the Prime Minister himself. Datuk Seri Abdulah Badawi, in his opening speech at the Umno General Assembly on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 touched on the issue of religious intolerance among a small group of Muslims who questioned long-accepted cultural practices like greeting other Malaysians on occasion of their festivals and joint open houses. “These same groups,” said the PM, “are conjuring imaginary threats aimed atinciting Muslims hoping that they (Muslims) will become more intolerant of others.
Their agenda is to see Malaysia torn apart for us to fail as a multi-racial, multi-religious nation. This is not Islam.” The PM cited the incident in Ipoh as an example. He wondered why were claims made without basis such as the mass baptism of Muslims and the purported formation of the Malay Christian Association. He also alluded to the claim made regarding thousands of Malay Muslims who had become apostates. “But when the lies are exposed those who create them scurry into hiding nowhere to be seen and not even attempting to rectify the situation or to calm things down.” Although no names were mentioned we all knew to whom it was directed at.
Azhar’s Admission
The man at the centre of the controversy, Datuk Azhar Mansor, finally came out in the open to quash rumours of his conversion to Christianity. For all intents andpurposes he is still a Muslim. He declared this during the closing stages of the Umno General Assembly. And what an effect it had on the general public and his detractors, in particular. Azhar came to prominence after he sailed solo around the world between February 2 to August 11, 1999. According to Azhar rumours of his conversion began circulating upon his return from his historic journey. He had dismissed it initially but it took a turn for the worst. The Silibin church incident was a blessing in disguise of sorts. “Now the authorities can investigate the truth behind these rumours,” he said.
Azhar said he could not have done what was said in the text message, as he was working at the yacht marina at Telaga Harbour in Langkawi. He has been working at the marina for the past four years. During a press conference at PWTC on Friday, November 17, 2007, Azhar explained that his work required him to spend time with many people including the orang putih (Caucasians). “When I am seen mixing with the orangputih people say I am not a Muslim. This is uncalled for.” He hit back at reporters telling them not to assume that when one wore a pair of shorts he was not a Muslim. “If a person wears a pair of shorts or sits at the kedai kopi, it’s his choice. I have my own responsibilities to Allah. Please don’t question my faith.” And now that Azhar has made an open admission regarding the sanctity of his faith the matter should be laid to rest but will it end here?
This is a million dollar question. Many, however, are still not convinced and feel that Azhar’s revelation is still far from the truth. Perception differs with people but to a small group of illinformed Muslims they have their very own agenda. They think they can bring changes by being vocal and disruptive. How wrong can they be?
Wake-up Call
Hopefully, the incident in front of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Silibin on the morning of Sunday, November 5, 2006 will be a wakeup call for all Malaysians. We should not take one another for granted. The majority must respect the beliefs of the minority, after all that was the basis our founding fathers had worked on when they forged this great nation. Rumour mongering, as evident from this episode, is harmful for our society. To the disruptive few this quote by Thomas Jefferson should prick their conscience. “It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty Gods or no God.” by Lt Col Fathol (Rtd) Zaman Bukhari in the Ipoh Echo
Obituary....The Passing Of An Icon - Colonel Mohamad Zain Daud
We were like the Salt and Pepper duo, one short the other tall. Although I tower over him he never ceased to remind me who the boss was. It was the early 1970s and communism was still a threat in the peninsula. Our battalion was based in Wardieburn Camp, Kuala Lumpur and was making constant forays into the “bush” hunting for a cunning yet elusive enemy. It was a trying time indeed.
Although Emergency was officially declared over on July 31, 1960, terrorists’ presence was still felt throughout the country. A spate of bombing incidents and the assassination of the Inspector General of Police tested the nation’s resolve to the limits. But it held on.
Troops were deployed to all the troubled spots to contain the terrorists and to defeat them on the ground of our own choosing. Colonel Mohamad Zain Daud was the quintessential Royal Malay Regiment officer - spit and polish.
He was already in command of a Malay battalion in Kuching when he was posted to the 2nd Battalion Ranger Regiment (2 Rangers) in January 1973. We heard of his temperament as the Commanding Officer of the 9th Battalion Royal Malay Regiment for I was in communication with its Adjutant, Captain Khairuddin. A person who brooked no nonsense and whose antics were sometimes theatrical, I was prepared for the worst. It manifested in the form of a diminutive man who was ill at ease with himself and his surroundings.
My first encounter with Zain was at Subang Airport when he flew in from Kuching on a MSA (Malaysia Singapore Airlines) flight. It was a disaster. The staff car broke down. Instead of a free ride home, we had to take a taxi to the camp. Zain was fidgety and was ill at ease. I tried to break the ice by saying something funny but he was not amused. We stopped at the Officers’ Mess for a drink but the waiter, not forewarned of our arrival, was absent.
That was the final straw. He told me to take him to his quarters, poste haste. Our brief introduction was not a cordial one and I got an earful the following morning The battalion had a string of misfortunes while stationed at Loke Kawi Camp in Sabah. Unnecessary deaths had occurred due to suicides, road accidents, drowning and one was shot while attempting to scale the barb wire fence of his outpost on Bangi Island, Sabah. Although 2 Rangers had been in Kuala Lumpur since December 1971, our operational success was negligible.
Morale was rock-bottom. A good and capable leader was what the unit required. Zain provided the kind of leadership that a battalion like 2 Rangers needs in time of crisis. He insisted that there were no bad soldiers but bad officers. “When the second-class monkeys leave the third-class monkeys take over,” he enthused and took steps to rid the unit of “third-class monkeys”. Addressing the troops was his way of getting his message across to the men. He would order the Regimental Sergeant Major to gather the troops in the mess hall for a talk. So we would be in the hall prior to getting into the bush and when we were out.
Transparency, which we preach today, was already in practice in 2 Rangers in the 1970s. Zain was equally merciless in the bush. His method of searching the ground was being adopted by other battalions as it proved successful in flushing out the enemies. He would assign numbers to features like hilltops, trig points, valleys, cols, saddles, confluences of rivers etc. This made identification easier and faster rather than giving six-figure grid references, which was the norm.
His perseverance resulted in the battalion bagging its first kill during an operation in the jungles of Sungei Siput on April 23, 1974. Zain would push his officers to the brink. Being his Adjutant I was the one nearest him and would be the first in the line of fire. I would normally get the first salvo before it reached his intended target. He believed in proficiency and had insisted that we give our best regardless of the outcome. “Do it or don’t do at all,” he quipped. A keen sportsman, Zain represented his alma mater, Federation Military College, in hockey and later played for the army team.
His other love was golf and had been active on the links since a captain. Zain’s passion for the game knew no bounds. He died on Sunday, November 12, 2006 before he could tee-off at a golf course in Jakarta. Zain joined the army in 1958 and was commissioned into the Royal Malay Regiment. He served in various capacities but was best remembered for his stint as Commanding Officer 2 Rangers (1973 to 1975) and as Commandant of the now defunct Officer Cadet School Port Dickson (1980 to 1981). Upon retirement in 1983 he dabbled in business until recently.
However, little is known of his successes and failures in the commercial world, as he had remained tight-lipped. Colonel Mohamad Zaid bin Daud, 68 is survived by his wife and two children, a son and a daughter. He will be sorely missed by friends and foes alike and his absence at our annual reunion will be felt.
Gangster films, the Municipal Council decreed last week, could no longer be shown in Kuala Lumpur, the Malay capital. The Malaya sector of the Communist campaign for Southeast Asia was heating up so rapidly that the Kuala Lumpur city fathers decided that they had best call a halt on Hollywood terror.
View of Minden Barracks, the Battalion Headquarters of 2 Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (2RAR), at Penang, Malaya. The regimental badge is displayed outside the verandah. On the lawn stand two water tanks, probably fire extinguishers. Tents can be seen to the right. Minden Barracks, an historic building built by British colonial forces, was the official headquarters of 2RAR, although most of the battalion's time was spent on operations on the Malayan mainland. Credit line: Donor D Chinn (Current location of USM-edit)
The desperate, quality of the Malaya fighting was brought out in the struggle between two war heroes, Billy Stafford and Lau Yew. Billy Stafford had helped organize Burmese resistance to the Japs. Fifteen times he parachuted into the jungles on secret missions. Recently, he organized in Malaya what he calls a "killers squad" to fight Communists. Malayan Chinese call Billy Tlh Sau-pah, the Iron Broom. On one of his recent raids, Stafford was after Lau Yew, a Chinese who was once Billy's comrade in arms in the fight against the Japanese. The British considered Leader Lau Yew such a hero that they flew him to London for the 1946 victory celebration. Later Lau Yew became a rebel. LIFE Correspondent Roy Rowan accompanied the "killers squad" on their search for Lau Yew, cabled the following report:
"Toward dawn our guide led us to the rim of a deep hollow, blanketed with yellow kunai grass. At the bottom were three dilapidated board shacks, before one of which a woman puttered over her morning chores. As Stafford led the squad crawling down into the hollow, the woman glanced up and shrieked. Three armed men burst from the house and fled for an opposite hill.
"A sharp volley of police carbine fire brought down the foremost runner. The last man then turned and filled the valley with the blood-tingling screams of the terrorists as he wildly emptied his Luger in our direction. Two detectives, firing at close range, pumped 15 shots into him. His head was nearly severed from his neck when he fell.
"The police rounded up the third man and handcuffed him along with six women and another man found in the house. We were just about to leave when the whole hollow suddenly exploded with a blast of Bren guns, Sten guns, and rifles firing in rapid bursts. Bullets spat in the dirt and sizzled through the grass. Two hand grenades exploded, as a third bounced harmlessly on the ground.
"Hugging the ground, we crawled back up into the kunai grass on our hill and started returning the fire. Seizing the opportunity for a bluff, Stafford yelled out 'Here come Gurkhas! Here comes the army!' His men took up the cry and moved forward in a counterattack, blasting with carbines and Tommy guns. The Communists vanished back into the hills. Five of the six handcuffed women, caught in the murderous crossfire, lay crumpled on the ground.
"The man killed first, the one with his neck almost cut off, turned out to be Lau Yew." The source.
Okay "merda" or rather shithead, responded to me with this, he thinks he is intelligent and everyone else is a dumb head, in his own style of crappy English as is his name. He wants to dictate to me what to write. I guess he is in the same league as Kerismuddin. Here is his e-mail in blue :
Thanks a lot for your consideration, whoever I am, chinese or baiter or predator or victimiser whatever, is not your concern and not affecting ur life and my life, but anything written in ur blog is suppose to be about how to raise nationalisme awareness to Malaysian, and be patriotic, and if we are discussing about current politics, religious issues (which is very,very,very sensitive and dangerous), we should open another political blog like Sang Kelembai, or AntiChrist or ExtremeHindu, so that we will have an exclusive comments from readers...As a retired army officer, I think you are intelligent enough to accept my comment open heartedly.
After his above reply I responded with the e-mail below :
I will put this in the blog too. Thanks for the material. Anyway my views are not of your concern, if you find my blog offensive go elsewhere, anyway it confirms what you are.
Regards
Major (Rtd) D.Swami
ps. I have open heartedly published his e-mail and his letters, am I not generous?
I received this e-mail below from a guy calling himself "merda nelly" , I know that "merde" in French means shit, therefore he may be the female version of shit !! His English is as crappy as his name. I have edited it a bit, only paragraphed his mail. I posted Lim Guan Eng's "NEP vs VISION 2020: WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE?" - DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng 26.9.2006 . This was his reaction to Lim Guan Eng's speech. Guess the truth hurts. This is what he wrote to me, highlighted in blue :
Dswami...
I think you are veteran and old folk should think as elder citizen and do not try making trouble la like batuapi in your blogger, by questioning about DEB or what ever and quote statements from Socialist/Communist Party's like DAP....I think you well understand that DAP was the first one who created chaos in 1969...so don repeat that laaa.
Please give me one good country which is not racist?? Britain? USA? France? Indonesia? Singapore? so i think as we are non-malay, especially ones whose living in Malaysia should be grateful enough that muslim-malays are very considerate people, as long we do not touch/ question their culture, religion etc, they are very all rite...
I do business here and Jakarta, and have very good living, but when bunches of idiots chinese or indians making trouble in the issue of racism etc, It makes me worry that one day that incident will happen again, like it had happened recently in indonesia. So as non-malay, you and me, we better shut up laaa in that kind of issue.....don show2 la in your blog
I like your blog by telling us the stories about our (non-malay) gallant fighters against PKM etc, but after recently your blogs starts raising/quoting a racist issue, i feel like losing respect to your blog....don't laa.....i don wan to see any fire sparking between malay and non-malay...
Your Jasa Bakti in army does not justify your right to complain on bumi's right.Hope you may take my advise sincerely.
Chinese businessman Jakarta/Kuala Lumpur.
This was my reply to him (edited all the abbreviations):
I will copy and paste your letter in my blog. I will have something to blog about this week, all about you. I will put in your e-mail address, so others can e-mail to you directly. So that you may have other opinions. Respect has to be earned, in my case I really am not bothered. I do not think you are a Chinese businessman. You are just a baiter, hoping for an adverse reaction. Better try next time.
Christmas: crucified by do-gooders in Great Britain
Britain is no more "Great", there political correctness has gone mad- edit
My rubbish bin is full of Christmas cards. I threw them there. No, I'm not suffering from an obsessive tidiness disorder. Well, maybe a bit, but that's not the reason that I have lobbed dozens of cards straight into the trash can. I'm no Scrooge, either. Not every card I'm sent gets dumped. Far from it. Many are kept as a source of great cheer.
As I write these words, I'm looking at a very jolly Christmas message on my desk from Tony Froggatt, the chief executive of Scottish & Newcastle. By contrast, I can see season's greetings from British American Tobacco nestling in the bin, next to a plastic coffee cup. Why the distinction? Is it because I'm a fan of McEwan's ale, but detest Lucky Strike cigarettes? Not at all.
The selection process is very precise. The discarded items have one thing in common: they are not Christmas cards at all, by which I mean, as well as having no Christian images, Nativity scenes etc, they don't even mention the "C" word. I'm afraid that "happy holidays" simply will not do. Continued here....
Sir Henry Lovell Goldsworthy Gurney, 53, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom to the Federation of Malaya, was a man who seemed to be precisely what he was — a stern and incorruptible servant of Empire. Like a hundred colonial administrators before him, he was a public-school man (Winchester) and an Oxford graduate. He served his apprenticeship in jungles from Jamaica to the Gold Coast, and everywhere earned a reputation as "a man who got things done." The conversation of friends discussing Sir Henry in clubs near Whitehall was seldom if ever leavened with warm, personal anecdote, but words like "courage," "imperturbable" and "dogged determination" invariably punctuated it.
Left : The resting place of Sir Henry Gurney in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. Click on image to enlarge.
Defiant Pennant. In 1946 Henry Gurney was appointed to the ticklish post of Chief Secretary to the embattled British mandatory government of Palestine. He called for martial law, and applied the stringent methods he had learned in the jungle to Irgun's terrorists. Then in 1948, British High Commissioner Sir Edward Gent died in an airplane crash on his way home to London to report on the rising Red menace in the jungles of Malaya. Sir Henry Gurney was ordered to Malaya. In London, the Opposition questioned his fitness for the job (he had never been to Malaya), and the local planters were not reassured when he arrived, as he put it, "with an open mind and no knowledge of the country." But the rebels were more respectful. They threatened to kill him.
Sir Henry replied in kind:' "We are fighting militant Communism and we intend to finish it off." With calm assurance, he urged planters and tin miners to stay at their posts. He pleaded with Whitehall for more troops, built up the native army from four to six battalions, and launched a vast resettlement scheme to separate the Communists from their sources of supply. His men razed whole villages for aiding the Reds and penned up 120,000-Malayan Chinese. He constantly left his snug headquarters at Kuala Lumpur to roam the jungles in his car, his official red-striped pennant a conspicuous target for snipers. He became, as he intended, a symbol of British determination and doggedness.
At Marker 56. Last week, word flashed through the jungles that Sir Henry and his lady would take a weekend holiday at the British resort of Fraser's Hill, 64 miles north of the capital, deep in Communist country. For several days, police and soldiers combed the road in search of possible ambush points. They found none as far as they went, but unaccountably turned back at the 56-mile marker. (Had they gone half a mile farther, they might have found, along a 400-yd. S bend in the highway, 38 skillfully concealed positions, some of them constructed of firewood faggots.) Next day, with his pennant bravely flying and escorted by an armored truck and a radio van, Sir Henry's official Rolls-Royce set out. As they reached the double hairpin turn beyond the 56-mile marker, a volley crackled. Sir Henry's driver fell dead. Two tires squished flat and the governor himself felt the sting of a bullet. He pushed Lady Gurney to the floor of the car, told her to stay down, opened the door and staggered, badly wounded, along the road, deliberately drawing the fire away from the Rolls. A fusillade of shots followed his staggering figure; he fell face down in the road. For 20 minutes the police exchanged shots with the ambuscaders, then reinforcements arrived and the Communists fled. Sir Henry Gurney was past help by then. His wife was unhurt.
Five companies of British and Gurkha troops combed the vicinity but failed to turn up the bandits. Finally, in outrage and frustration, the R.A.F. flew in and bombed the whole area steadily for five hours. The source. Payback was sought and........ some of his killers were later killed.
From Singapore, Manfred Gottfried, chief of foreign correspondents for TIME & LIFE, cabled this appraisal of the situation in Malaya:
They speak of Emergency here. It means Communist terrorism. The Emergency is not getting any better. Every day or so another planter or soldier or constable is killed. Recently, bandits fired into a car in which a planter's daughter, aged 2½, was riding. They hit the driver and the car went into the ditch. Then the bandits came up, shot the little girl through the head at close range, killed the cook boy who tried to protect her."Swine —just swine!" exclaimed a British official, and the planters were even more bitter.
In Singapore, a Chinese takes a taxicab at night and in a lonely area holds up the driver, seizes his money and identity card and sets the cab on fire. Or three or four men take a bus at night and ride until the rest of the passengers alight. Then they set fire to the bus. Returning to my hotel one evening recently, I passed one of these buses just burned out.
Marxism for Schoolchildren. Another terrorist tactic is to enter a school, cut the telephone wires, hold up the teacher, go into the classes, make fiery Communist speeches to the children, take away their identity cards and, after 20 minutes, skip. Identity cards have been issued because of The Emergency, and they apparently bother the terrorists, who are trying to break up the card system.
There are about 3,000 to 5,000 terrorists in all Malaya. It is a purely Communist movement. They get along by living in the jungle, where food is scarce and living tough, and they have to be fanatic to stick it out. The British are convinced that they get no outside help. In support of this view, the British have captured documents which indicate that the Communist high command does not consider it worthwhile to give the terrorists aid until Siam is in Communist hands. The terrorists get their guns and ammunition by shooting people who have them. A favorite trick until recently was to shoot down traffic police when their backs were turned and to seize their side arms. Now traffic police go unarmed and thus are helpless if they see a bandit outrage.
Stalinism for Chinese. The Communists are almost without exception Chinese, and their chief victims are Chinese. The Chinese community's leaders support British efforts to stamp out the bandits, but there is a tendency to play both sides. The British position in the Chinese community was weakened by British recognition of the Mao government. The logical consequence of recognizing Communist China—if China ever acknowledges Britain's recognition—would be the establishment of Red Chinese consulates in Malaya, and that would put all Chinese residents within Communist reach. All the Britons I met in Malaya regard the recognition of Mao as a great mistake.
The British administration, headed by Malcolm MacDonald, British Commissioner-General for Southeast Asia, is probably the best any British possession has ever had. The government is bringing along natives as No. 2 men in all departments. By Oriental standards education is already advanced (literacy is around 40%), and big school-building programs are afoot. On my way out to see Mac-Donald at "Bukit Serene," three miles from Johore Bahru, the Malayan taxi driver said: "If we were going five miles, I would have to ask you to lie down on the floor. The bandits keep watch at five miles. If they saw you, then at seven miles they would shoot at us. I think they telephone ahead." The strange thing about all this is that it is only a nuisance, not an emergency. Life goes on about as placidly as life went on in Chicago in Capone's day—for the moment. The source.
