In 1961, the Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman, sought to unite Malaya with the British colonies of North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore. Despite growing opposition from the governments of both Indonesia and the Philippines, and from communist sympathisers and nationalists in Borneo, the Federation came into being on 16 September 1963. The Indonesian government later initiated a "policy of confrontation" against the new state. This prompted the British, and their allies Australia and New Zealand, to deploy armed forces, although no skirmishes arising from the Indonesian attacks occurred around Perak. In 1968, a second communist insurgency occurred in the Malay Peninsula. This affected Perak mainly through attacks from Hulu Perak by the communist insurgents who had previously retreated to the Thai border. The Perak State Information Office launched two types of psychological warfare to counter the increasing communist propaganda disseminated from the insurgents' hide-out. The campaign against the second insurgency had to be carried out as two separate efforts, because communist activities in Perak were split into two factions. One faction involved infiltrators from across the Thai border; the other was a communist group living among local inhabitants.