Back in the 60s when Malaysia was formed with the union of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak, it faced very vocal protest from Indonesia and the Philippines who had ideas of their own with respect to the future of the region. Indonesia under Sukarno launched the Ganyang Malaysia campaign, and pressure was amounted to the nascent country both politically and militarily. This despite the fact that Malaysia and Indonesia have some of the closest ties between any two countries in the region. My family wasn't much affected by this at all and there aren't any stories to tell, except for my grandfather who lived in Singapore at the time who recalled the uncertainties when Indonesian paratroopers landed on neighbouring Johor. When Suharto took power, the Ganyang Malaysia policy was detracted and the two countries officially made peace. Amongst other things, this helped pave the way for the formation of ASEAN.

Some old people said that ganyang Malaysia didn't worked because Malaysia gave Indonesia's army food.. besides that, Malaysia used their propaganda tools wisely..

The Malaysian Confrontation was a favour done by Indonesia to the Communist Bloc (particularly China). The Confrontation was meant to aid communist insurgents then fighting the Malaysian government in both Peninsular Malaysia and North Borneo.

Indonesia's President Sukarno was moving Indonesia closer towards to communist bloc, creating the so-called "Djakarta-Phnom Penh-Peking-Pyongyang Axis". He found this leftist alignment necessary because:

1) The capitalist bloc (CIA and MI-6) had provoked a regional rebellion (PRRI-Permesta rebellion) in 1958 because of the massive electoral gains made by Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1955 elections. This rebellion is aided by CIA money, guns, pilots, and B-15 planes transported through Malaya and Philippines. It is near miraculous that the PRRI-Permesta rebellion was crushed very quickly by the end of the year.

2) Soviet Union and other communist states had loaned a lot of money and military equipment (worth $ 1 billion) by 1963 for the successful confrontation against the Dutch to retake West Papua.

However, Sukarno's confrontation policy is disapproved by the army. This is because the army's nationalist ideology saw international communism as its mortal enemy, particularly due to lasting memory of Indonesian Communist Party rebellion against nationalist Indonesian govt in 1948, when Indonesia still faced the Dutch in the war of independence.

As result, the Indonesian army was split into two:

1) The communist-inflitrated faction, led by Gen Mustafa Soepardjo, they participated actively in infiltration into Malaysia, fighting British and Commonwealth troops in the jungles of Sabah and Sarawak together with PKI volunteer armed units.

2) The anti-communist faction, who never participated in confrontation. Instead, anti-communist officers send intelligence agents such as Col Leonardus Benjamin Moerdani to Thailand to make secret peace-feelers with Malaysian government as early as 1964.

The PKI realised that the anti-communist army faction is actively oppossing communist programs, such as Indonesia's alignment with China, establishing a people's militia controlled by the PKI, and the Malaysian Confrontation. They are moreover afraid that the anti-communist army faction might establish contacts with CIA to overthrow Sukarno.

As a pre-emptive strike, PKI kidnapped and murdered seven anti-communist army generals on 30 September 1965. However, these murders provoked the surviving army leadership, led by General Suharto, to co-operate with religionists (who also hated the communists since many Islamic clerics were murdered by PKI in 1948) to wipe out the PKI in a bloodbath from 1965-66. By 1967, Suharto had successfully became president, replacing Sukarno who was put under house arrest.

The confrontation, being a communist PKI brainchild, was quickly ended with the help of contacts made by Colonel Moerdani in Malaysia since 1964. The peace agreement was signed in 11 August 1966. The confrontation cost the lives of around 150 British and Commonwealth soldiers, 50 Malaysian soldiers, 100 civilians, and around 500 Indonesian soldiers and PKI armed volunteers.

Many folks our generation nowdays fail to appreciate how different things were back then. The Malays in malaysia would never have supported Communism. Islam was ingrained too much in us. There still were Malay communists like Shamsiah Fakeh. I've read the diatribe in the Hot Indo chat section, it's true that Malaysians are more devout that Indonesians. The domino wouldn't fall in Malaya, but it was gaining hold in Singapore, our twin in many sense then. Which was the main card that Lee Kuan Yew played in wanting union with Malaya.

Several Muslim-Malay figures indeed joined CPM, however for various reasons. Mostly because colonial British hunted them because of their ultra-nationalist & leftists views (as the case of Shamsiah Fakeh).

These Malay commies never sacrificed their religious beliefs, just that they believed in some Socialists ideology.

Interestingly, the chairman of PKI from 1951-1965 who advocated the destruction of Malaysia was an ethnic-Malay from Belitung Island, Dipa Nusantara Aidit (nee Achmad Aidit)

Wd you folks recommend the movie Year of Living Dangerously as a good movie in explaining these issues leading to the end of Sukarnoe's confrontasi?

Not really. The movie is fictional, and it has got nothing to do with Confrontation.

Thanks Purnomor.

One thing I couldn't quite see clearly were the reasons why Sukarnoe was willing to align himself with the communist axis. You said the Confrontasi was a favour done by Indonesia to the Communist Bloc (particularly China). Why would Sukarnoe want to help the Chinese?

Was it because he was losing his grip on the reins of power that he exploited the PKI as a tool to purge the generals and wipe the slate clean of opposition?

Did he misread the Malays and thought they would ideologically adopt communism?

It is the other way around, Sukarno was exploited by the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) to launch the Confrontation.

Sukarno was willing to align Indonesia with the communist axis for several reasons:

1) The capitalist bloc has tried to overthrow him and break-up Indonesia through the CIA-sponsored PRRI-Permesta rebellion of 1958. This is because the western powers are suspicious of Sukarno's "non-aligned movement" ideas, and are concerned abt the electoral gains made by PKI. As the saying goes, enemy of your enemy is your friend.

2) Indonesia is heavily indebted to the communist countries like USSR and China ($ 1 billion), mostly in military aid and loans for the retaking of West Papua from the Dutch. Confrontation against British forces remaining in Southeast Asia was one of the conditions imposed by Premier Nikita Khrushchev to Sukarno for the aid during the Soviet premier's visit to Indonesia in 1960.

3) Since Malaya was the base for CIA and MI-5 covert aid to PRRI-Permesta rebels, Sukarno truly believed Malaysia was a British neo-colony which would become the base of future Western attempts to overthrow his rule. Sukarno always refer to Malaysia as a "neo-imperialist rump state" meant to encircle Indonesia.

Thanks Purnomor. I guess Malaysia's ruler Tunku Abdul Rahman at the time was very close to the British government, and so was Singapore's Lee.

Can you offer an explanation why weren't Sukarnoe's anti-capitalist views shared by Suharto who subsequently came to power? Was Suhartoe's bloodbath against the PKI sponsored also in part by the CIA?

1) Since Suharto had wiped out the PKI, broke diplomatic relations with China (though not the Soviet Union, which was an enemy of China), and banned Marxism-Leninism, Indonesia had made enemies with the communist bloc. Hence, Suharto was not foolish enough to maintain hostilities with the capitalist bloc, instead he made friends with US and UK. As the saying goes, enemy of your enemy is your friend.

2) Indonesia's economy was in a poor state, since Sukarno spend 80% of the budget on military expenditure, causing hyperinflation and widespread poverty. To remedy this situation, Suharto decided Indonesia needed foreign investment, reversing Sukarno's decision to expel all foreign (mostly Dutch) investors from Indonesia in 1957.

3) Suharto's economic policies went under the infuence of the so-called "Berkeley Mafia", all doctorate graduates from UC-Berkeley, such as Widjojo Nitisastro, Ali Wardhana, and Emil Salim. The Berkeley Mafia put Indonesia's economy into a strongly capitalistic system in order to attract foreign investment, which worked until 1997-98 crisis.

4) Abt CIA, after the United States realised Suharto was going to crush the communists, they decided to help him a bit by giving Suharto a bit of money (Rp 50 million, which was not much) on December 1965, which is quite late since the bloodbath begin on November 1965 and mostly ended by February 1966. Overall, the role of CIA is insignificant in the scheme of things.

Interesting insight from purnomor. Thanks. One thing that I will reiterate is that the Malays in Malaysia never would've accepted communism. It's multi-racial existence with the Chinese who then together with the ones in Singapore outnumber the Malay gives them a wariness of communism which equated to Red China at the time. And again, just like it had been since the time of the Portuguese, Dutch and especially British, Islam became a unifying factor against outside influence. But Malaysia is pragmatic, one thing had stabilised, it became the first country to establish diplomatic ties with China amongst ASEAN countries in 1974.

Absolutely. They were both British educated. Tunku's relationship with Lee is one of the most interesting between any two leaders in the 20th century.

I agree with you Malaccan that there was no way Malaysia would ever had turned towards communism.

I guess Sukarno must have started the rhetoric against Malaysia and Singapore being neo-colonies of the British in order to distract his critics at home.

How did Thailand view the situation during the period of Confrontasi? I think they were also affected by the infiltration of Communist cells in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Which side of the straits did Thailand gave its support?

Oh, I remember those days alright.

It appeared that Sukarno had told his men that the Malayans would help them ......give them food when they land in Malaya. They landed alright but somehow due to lack of info or so they got stuck in the mangrove area off the coast of Johore. Tired and hungry, they were easily picked up by the authorities. Some of them looked so young!

My dad was often called upon to accompany these guys to the lockup.

Most Malaysian communist insurgents were ethnic-Chinese, Sukarno's Chinese-supported Confrontation were meant to help bring ethnic-Chinese communists to power.