Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation
The
Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation was an intermittent war over the future of the island of
Borneo, between British-backed
Malaysia and
Indonesia in
1962-
1966. It is called
Konfrontasi in the
Indonesian and
Malay languages.
Singapore was part of Malaysia at the time.
In
1961, the island of Borneo was divided into four separate
states:
Kalimantan, an Indonesian
province, was located in the south of the island. In the north were the
kingdom of
Brunei and two
British colonies —
Sarawak and
British North Borneo (which was later renamed
Sabah). As a part of its withdrawal from its
Southeast Asian colonies, the UK moved to combine its colonies on Borneo with those on the Malaya Peninsula, to form
Malaysia.
This move was opposed by the government of
Indonesia; President
Sukarno argued that Malaysia was a puppet of the British, and that the consolidation of Malaysia would increase British control over the region, threatening Indonesia's independence. Similarly, the
Philippines made a claim for Sabah, arguing that it had historic links with the Philippines through the
Sulu archipelago.
In
Brunei, the Indonesian-backed North Kalimantan National Army (TKNU) revolted on
December 8 1962. They tried to capture the
Sultan of Brunei, seize the oil fields and take European hostages. The Sultan escaped and asked for British help. He received British and
Gurkha troops from
Singapore. On
December 16, British Far Eastern Command claimed that all major rebel centers had been occupied, and on
April 17 1963, the rebel commander was captured and the rebellion ended.
The Philippines and Indonesia formally agreed to accept the formation of Malaysia if a majority in the disputed region voted for it in a referendum organized by the
United Nations. However, on
September 16, before the results of the vote were reported, the Malaysian government announced that the federation would be created, depicting the decision as an internal matter, with no need for consultation. The Indonesian government saw this as a broken promise and as evidence of British imperialism.
Contrary to popular belief, mainly shaped by British propaganda during the 1960s, no firm evidence has ever been unearthed to support claims that Sukarno had territorial ambitions over North Kalimantan (he always held firmly to the
1945 decision which delineated Indonesia's boundaries to territories inherited from the former Dutch-Indies, and this might explain why he eagerly pursued Papua's - but not East Timor's - annexation). More likely was that Sukarno invested hopes for the establishment of a North Kalimantan state aligned to Jakarta's anti-colonial and anti-imperialist geopolitics, in which he found suitable allies. Sukarno had made it repeatedly clear in at least four public speeches throughout 1963-64 that Indonesia had no territorial ambitions over North Kalimantan, and that Indonesia's territorial pursuit was completed with the 'return' of West Irian in January 1963.
Local opposition and sentiments against the Malaysian Federation plan has often been under-represented in historical writings on the Brunei Revolt and the subsequent Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation. In fact, political forces in Sarawak had long anticipated their own national independence as promised (but later aborted) by the last White Rajah of Sarawak,
Charles Vyner Brooke, back in
1941.
The predominantly Malay anti-cession movement, which rejected the British takeover of Sarawak in 1946 and even managed to assassinate Duncan Stewart, the first British High-Commissioner of Sarawak, may have been the forerunner of the subsequent anti-Malaysia movement in Sarawak, headed by Ahmad Zaidi.
Left-wing and communist cell groups, which grew rapidly among Sarawak's urban Chinese communities since the
1950s (which later became the nucleus of the anti-Malaysia PARAKU and PGRS guerrilla forces), supported and propagated the unification of all British Borneo territories to form an independent leftist North Kalimantan state, an idea originally proposed by Dr. Azhari, leader of the Parti Rakyat Brunei, who had forged links with Sukarno's nationalist movement, together with Ahmad Zaidi, in Java since the
1940s. The North Kalimantan (or Kalimantan Utara) proposal was seen as a post-decolonization alternative by local opposition against the Malaysian Federation plan. Local opposition throughout the Borneo territories was primarily based on economic, political, historical and cultural differences between the Borneo states and the Malayan peninsula, and the refusal to be subjected under peninsular political domination.
Both Dr. Azhari and Ahmad Zaidi went into exile in Indonesia during the Confrontation. While the latter returned to Sarawak and managed to have his political status rehabilitated, Dr. Azhari remained in Indonesia until his death in 2001.
On
January 20 1963, Indonesian Foreign Minister
Subandrio announced that Indonesia would pursue a policy of
Konfrontasi with Malaysia. On April 12, Indonesian volunteers — allegedly
Indonesian Army personnel — began to infiltrate Sarawak and Sabah, to engage in raids and sabotage, and spread propaganda. On July 27, Sukarno declared that he was going to "crush Malaysia" or in Indonesian Malay
"Ganyang Malaysia". On August 16, troopers of the
Brigade of Gurkhas clashed with fifty Indonesian guerillas.
While the Philippines did not engage in warfare, they did break off diplomatic relations with Malaysia.
The
Federation of Malaysia was formally established on
September 16 1963.
Brunei decided against joining, and
Singapore separated later.
Tensions rose on both sides of the
Straits of Malacca. Two days later rioters burned the British embassy in
Jakarta. Several hundred rioters ransacked the Singapore embassy in Jakarta and the homes of Singaporean diplomats. In Malaysia, Indonesian agents were captured and crowds attacked the Indonesian embassy in
Kuala Lumpur.
Along the remote jungle border in Borneo, there was an ongoing border war; Indonesian troops and irregulars tried to occupy Sarawak and Sabah, with little success. On 28 September 1963 a small, successful (though strategically irrelevant) raid was conducted by the Indonesians on the village of Long Jawe, almost wiping out the entire Gurkha Rifles garrison. In early 1964, Indonesian attacks managed to render the strategic Tebedu-Serian-Kuching road unsafe for months, and additional small scale air raids were launched in the Kelabit highlands on civilian settlements. One Indonesian raiding party en route to the small town of Song was captured by locals and handed over to the Malaysian authorities in April 1964.
In
1964, Indonesian troops began to raid areas in the Malaysian peninsula. In August, 16 armed Indonesian agents were captured in
Johore. Activity by regular Indonesian Army troops over the border also increased. The British
Royal Navy deployed a number of warships, including
aircraft carriers, to the area to defend Malaysia and the
Royal Air Force also deployed many
squadrons of aircraft.
Commonwealth ground forces — 18
battalions, including elements of the Brigade of Gurkhas — and three Malaysian battalions, were also committed to the conflict. The Commonwealth troops were thinly deployed and had to rely on border posts and reconnaissance by
light infantry and/or the two
commando units of the
Royal Marines. Their main mission was to prevent further Indonesian incursions into Malaysia.
On August 17, Indonesian
paratroopers landed on the southwest coast of Johore and attempted to establish guerilla groups. On September 2, more paratroopers landed in
Labis, Johore. On October 29, 52 soldiers landed in
Pontian on the Johore-Malacca border and were captured by
New Zealand Army personnel.
When the United Nations accepted Malaysia as a nonpermanent member at the Security Council, Sukarno withdrew Indonesia from the UN and attempted to form the
Conference of New Emerging Forces (
Conefo) as an alternative.
In January
1965, after many Malaysian requests,
Australia agreed to send troops to Borneo.
Australian Army contingent included the
3rd Battalion of the
Royal Australian Regiment and the
Australian Special Air Service Regiment. There were 14,000 British and Commonwealth forces in Borneo by this time. According to official policy, Commonwealth troops could not follow attackers over the Indonesian border. However, units like the British
Special Air Service and the
Australian Special Air Service did so in secret (see
Operation Claret). (The Australian government officially admitted these incursions in
1996.) In April 1964 the British government gave permission for troops to cross the border into Kalimantan up to 3,000 yards. In January 1965 this authorisation was extended to attacks up to 10,000 yards. There is also evidence that the British and Malaysians secretly gave aid to rebel groups in Indonesia, in the outer islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi, as way to weaken Sukarno's Confrontation campaign.
On
March 10 1965, Indonesian saboteurs carried out the
MacDonald House bombing in Singapore killing 3 people and injuring 33.
In mid-1965, the Indonesian government began to openly use Indonesian army forces. On June 28, they crossed the border into eastern
Sebatik Island near
Tawau, Sabah, and clashed with defenders.
It was later revealed that the lack of success of Indonesian raids could also be attributed by the covert consensus among the Indonesian army leaders (still receiving US military funding as late as 1965) deliberately to play down the military situation in the field. The best Indonesian army battalions were not even sent to Borneo - and it is widely speculated that the Army, with US and British backing, was covertly held back on Java preparing the right-wing coup of
October 1,
1965 which ended the Confrontation and ousted Sukarno from power in
1966. Of special note is the fact that even during the course of Confrontation, a number of Indonesian army officers were still undergoing military training in Australia. Another factor in the defeat of Confrontation was use of intelligence. Britain had broken the Indonesian military and diplomatic cyphers and was able to intercept and decrypt communications from a GCHQ listening station in Singapore. This intelligence was used to plan individual Claret cross border operations.
British psyops
The role of the
United Kingdom's
Foreign Office and
MI6 intelligence service has also come to light, in a series of exposés by Paul Lashmar and Oliver James in
The Independent newspaper beginning in
1997. These revelations have also come to light in journals on military and intelligence history.
The revelations included an anonymous Foreign Office source stating that the decision to unseat President Sukarno was made by Prime Minister
Harold MacMillan and then executed under Prime Minister
Harold Wilson. According to the exposés, the UK had already become alarmed with the announcement of the "Konfrontasi" policy. It has been claimed that a CIA memorandum of
1962 indicated that Macmillan and US President
John F. Kennedy were increasingly alarmed by the possibility of the Confrontation with Malaysia spreading, and agreed to "liquidate President Sukarno, depending on the situation and available opportunities." However, the documentary evidence cited does not support this claim.
To weaken the regime, the
Foreign Office's
Information Research Department (IRD) coordinated
psychological operations (psyop) in concert with the British military, to spread
black propaganda casting the
PKI,
Indonesian Chinese, and
Sukarno in a bad light. These efforts were to duplicate the successes of British psyop campaign in the
Malayan Emergency.
Of note, these efforts were coordinated from the British High Commission in
Singapore where the
BBC,
Associated Press (AP), and
New York Times filed their reports on the Indonesian Civil War. According to Roland Challis, the BBC correspondent who was in Singapore at the time, journalists were open to manipulation by IRD due to Sukarno's stubborn refusal to allow them into the country: "In a curious way, by keeping correspondents out of the country Sukarno made them the victims of official channels, because almost the only information you could get was from the British ambassador in Jakarta."
These manipulations included the BBC reporting that communists were planning to slaughter the citizens of Jakarta. The accusation was based solely on a forgery planted by Norman Reddaway, a propaganda expert with the IRD. He later bragged in a letter to the British ambassador in Jakarta, Sir
Andrew Gilchrist that it "went all over the world and back again," and was "put almost instantly back into Indonesia via the BBC." Gilchrist himself informed the Foreign Office on
October 5,
1965: "I have never concealed from you my belief that a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change."
In the
April 16,
2000 Independent, Sir
Denis Healey,
Secretary of State for Defence at the time of the war, confirmed that the IRD was active during this time. He officially denied any role by MI6, and denied "personal knowledge" of the British arming the right-wing faction of the Army, though he did comment that if there were such a plan, he "would certainly have supported it."
Although the British
MI6 is strongly implicated in this scheme by the use of the Information Research Department (seen as an MI6 office), any role by MI6 itself is officially denied by the UK government, and papers relating to it have yet to be declassified by the
Cabinet Office. (
The Independent, December 6, 2000)
Towards the end of 1965, General
Suharto came to power in Indonesia, following a
coup d'état. Due to this domestic conflict, Indonesian interest in pursuing the war with Malaysia declined, and combat eased. On
May 28 1966 at a conference in
Bangkok, the Malaysian and Indonesian governments declared the conflict was over. Violence ended in June, and a peace treaty was signed on
August 11 and ratified two days later.
Books
* Subritzky, J. 2000.
Confronting Sukarno: British, American, Australian and New Zealand Diplomacy in the Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation, 1961-1965. London, Palgrave. ISBN 0312227841
* Easter, D. 2004.
Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, 1960-1966. London, I.B.Tauris. ISBN 1850436231
* Mackie, J.A.C. 1974.
Konfrontasi: The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute 1963-1966. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press.
* Poulgrain, G. 1998.
The Genesis of Konfrontasi: Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia 1945-1965. London: C. Hurst & Co. ISBN 1-85065-510-3
* Jones, M. 2002.
Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961-1965: Britain, the United States and the Creation of Malaysia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80111-7
* Porritt, V.L. 2004.
The Rise and Fall of Communism in Sarawak 1940-1990. Victoria: Monash Asia Institute. ISBN 1-87692-427-6
Academic journal articles
* Easter, D.
'"Keep the Indonesian pot boiling",: western covert intervention in Indonesia, October 1965-March 1966', Cold War History, Vol 5, No 1, February 2005.
* Tuck, C.
Borneo 1963-66: Counter-insurgency Operations and War Termination, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol 15, No 3, Winter 2004.
Other Sources
* Anonymous. 1964.
Gelora Konfrontasi Mengganjang Malaysia. Djakarta: Departemen Penerangan. (Contains Joint Statements of the Manila Agreements, Indonesian presidential decrees and all transcripts of Sukarno's public speeches from July 1963 to May 1964 pertaining the Konfrontasi)
*
British military history*
Brunei Revolt*
History of Brunei*
History of Indonesia*
History of Malaysia
