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Massacre witness dies
Apr 5, 2010
KUALA LUMPUR - THE last Malaysian adult witness to the massacre of 24 unarmed villagers by British troops in 1948 has died, leaving the campaign for an official investigation uncertain, activists said yesterday.
Former rubber tapper Tham Yong (left), 78, who died last Friday, saw 14 Scots Guards kill the villagers in what became known as the 'Batang Kali massacre' on Dec 12, 1948, families representative Quek Ngee Meng told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Last August, British government lawyers indicated a provisional decision to reject any investigation after a decades-long campaign for an official probe.
'Tham Yong was the main appellant so her death leaves the campaign in uncertainty but the next living witness, who was eight when he witnessed the event, is keen to proceed, so we will continue to seek justice,' Mr Quek said.
The British colonial authorities said at the time of the incident - at the beginning of a 12-year communist insurgency in the former Malaya - that the men were shot because they were suspected guerillas fleeing the scene.
The then Malayan attorney-general vindicated the troops and the massacre was largely forgotten until 1970 when a British newspaper ran an explosive account of the killings, publishing sworn affidavits by soldiers who admitted the villagers were shot in cold blood.
Apr 5, 2010
KUALA LUMPUR - THE last Malaysian adult witness to the massacre of 24 unarmed villagers by British troops in 1948 has died, leaving the campaign for an official investigation uncertain, activists said yesterday.
Former rubber tapper Tham Yong (left), 78, who died last Friday, saw 14 Scots Guards kill the villagers in what became known as the 'Batang Kali massacre' on Dec 12, 1948, families representative Quek Ngee Meng told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Last August, British government lawyers indicated a provisional decision to reject any investigation after a decades-long campaign for an official probe.
'Tham Yong was the main appellant so her death leaves the campaign in uncertainty but the next living witness, who was eight when he witnessed the event, is keen to proceed, so we will continue to seek justice,' Mr Quek said.
The British colonial authorities said at the time of the incident - at the beginning of a 12-year communist insurgency in the former Malaya - that the men were shot because they were suspected guerillas fleeing the scene.
The then Malayan attorney-general vindicated the troops and the massacre was largely forgotten until 1970 when a British newspaper ran an explosive account of the killings, publishing sworn affidavits by soldiers who admitted the villagers were shot in cold blood.
