Dark history of Malaysia’s Chinese villages underscores fury over Unesco bid

The ‘New Villages’ were built by the British colonial authorities when what was then called Malaya was besieged by a communist insurgency

Some politicians have slammed the Unesco plan as a move to challenge Malay rights, while others say it has reopened painful memories

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The entrance arch to the Pandamaran New Village in Malaysia’s main port of Klang, Selangor state. Photo: Yusof Mohamad

Published: 8:00am, 19 Feb 2024Updated: 11:41am, 19 Feb 2024

A proposal by the Malaysian government to seek Unesco heritage status for a cluster of “New Villages” in Selangor has sparked heated debate between the Malay and Chinese communities over whose culture is pre-eminent in a country where historical racial wounds are still festering.

Despite the name, the so-called New Villages – Kampung Baru in Malay – are commonly associated with the Chinese community and are relics of the country’s past dating back to when Peninsular Malaysia, then called Malaya, was besieged by guerilla warfare launched by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP).

The MCP had sought to establish a communist state following the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II and just as the British colonial authorities were returning to resume their control of Malaya.

These villages, numbering more than 400 across the peninsula, were essentially a euphemism for concentration camps set up by the British military to corral the Malayan population, particularly ethnic Chinese who might be sympathetic to the communist cause.

PK Voon, a researcher at the Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, said the resettlement programme was to “gather and protect” families from “bandit influence”, the official description of anti-British armed insurgents.

“The special origins of the New Villages are attributed to a key strategy of the British colonial administration to reassert political control over Malaya. One of the core military actions adopted was aimed at isolating the scattered and often armed anti-colonial units,” Voon said.

An old wooden house in Pandamaran New Village, Klang, Selangor. Photo: Yusof Mohamad

At its peak in 1954, more than 573,000 people – predominantly, but exclusively Chinese – were relocated into these compact villages, which were encircled by barbed-wired fences with curfews and strict movement controls imposed.