page_title: Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–1989)
section_title: Early offensive
hierarchical_section_title: Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–1989) / Early offensive
caption_attribution_description: 69 Commando operator of the CIW team preparing to storm the enemy.
context_page_description: The Communist insurgency in Malaysia, also known as the Second Malayan Emergency, was an armed conflict which occurred in Malaysia from 1968 to 1989, between the Malayan Communist Party and Malaysian federal security forces.
  Following the end of the Malayan Emergency in 1960, the predominantly ethnic Chinese Malayan National Liberation Army, armed wing of the MCP, had retreated to the Malaysian-Thailand border where it had regrouped and retrained for future offensives against the Malaysian government. Hostilities officially re-ignited when the MCP ambushed security forces in Kroh–Betong, in the northern part of Peninsular Malaysia, on 17 June 1968. The conflict also coincided with renewed domestic tensions between ethnic Malays and Chinese in Peninsular Malaysia and regional military tensions due to the Vietnam War.
  While the Malayan Communist Party received some limited support from the People's Republic of China, this support ended when the governments of Malaysia and China established diplomatic relations in June 1974.
context_section_description: On 1 June 1968, the Central Command of the MCP issued a directive entitled "Hold High the Great Red Banner of Armed Struggle and Valiantly March Forward." The MCP was ready to start a new insurgency in Malaysia. On 17 June 1968, to mark the 20th anniversary of their armed struggle against the Malaysian Government, the MCP launched an ambush against security forces in the area of Kroh–Betong in the northern part of Peninsular Malaysia. They achieved a major success, killing 17 members of the security forces. This event marked the start of the second armed revolt of the MCP. At the initial stage of their second insurgency, the MCP achieved a significant amount of success. Their actions at this stage were bolder and more aggressive causing considerable losses to the security forces. These successes were due to their preparation and the training that they received during the "lull periods" or the reconsolidation period after the end of the first insurgency.
  According to Chin Peng, the MCP's ranks had grown to around 1,000 by the period between 1967–68. Following the race riots of the May 13 Incident, underground Communist activists operating in the towns and rural areas launched a word–of–mouth campaign which targeted ethnic Chinese youths who were disaffected with the Alliance government's pro-Malay affirmative action policies particularly the New Economic Policy. By that stage, MNLA numbers had swelled to 1,600 with approximately half of these originating from Peninsular Malaysia and the rest from southern Thailand. While acknowledging the presence of strong racial tensions in Malaysian society, National University of Singapore History Professor Cheah Boon Kheng has contended that the Communist insurgency did not evolve into a racial conflict due to the government and public's preoccupation with the insurgency. They had learned from the past that they could no longer rely on sympathisers from the poor or village people for their food and logistics.
  To support the MCP's renewed insurgency, a clandestine radio station known as Suara Revolusi Rakyat (Voice of the People's Revolution) was established in 1969 to cater to Communist cadre throughout Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. Suara Revolusi was based in Hunan since the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong was still covertly supporting Maoist guerilla movements in Southeast Asia including the MCP. The radio station broadcast Maoist propaganda which supported Communist China and the MCP.
  Suara's programmes were beamed across the region by a powerful 20-kilowatt transmitter and it was broadcast in three languages: Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. Later, English broadcasts were also added after the MCP succeeded in recruiting several university students from both Singapore and Malaysia. While the Malaysian Special Branch and the Singaporean Internal Security Department regarded the students as Communists, Chin Peng and other MCP leaders believed that most of these student recruits were merely left-wing sympathisers.
  In 1969, the Malaysian government responded to the Communist resurgence by establishing its own special forces: VAT 69, which was modelled after the British Special Air Service (SAS). Most of the recruits came from the Malaysian Police Field Force (PFF). The unit was trained by an SAS training detachment in Ipoh in 1969. By 1972, the British had succeeded in training a full squadron of 104 men. Following the departure of the British SAS team, a training detachment from the New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) took over the training programme and trained another 208 men. The NZSAS also handpicked and trained 13 VAT 69 officers to serve as a VAT69 training cell, which went on to train a fourth squadron. According to a Central Intelligence Agency report published in April 1976, China limited its involvement in the MCP's insurgency to radio broadcasts from Suara Revolusi. Beijing did not become materially involved in this conflict and would later establish diplomatic relations with Kuala Lumpur in June 1974. The Soviet Union and Democratic Republic of Vietnam also
caption: VAT 69 Commando is the second special forces unit after the 21st GGK that played a major role in the fight against MCP forces during the insurgency.
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