New village
Guarded settlements built under the Briggs Plan to cut off guerrilla support.
New villages, also called Kampung baru, were guarded settlements established during the final years of British rule in Malaya. Created under the Briggs Plan from 1950 onward, they were designed to isolate guerrilla fighters from civilian supporters during the Malayan Emergency. Many were enclosed with barbed wire and watchtowers, and guards were ordered to shoot anyone attempting to leave outside curfew hours.
Quick Facts
- Year of first implementation
- 1950
- Total resettled population
- about 500,000
- Estimated resettled individuals
- 470,509
- Chinese resettled
- 400,000
Facts from the source article.
Did You Know?
- British historian John Newsinger stated that people transferred to the new villages were 'effectively deprived of all civil rights'.
- Historian John D. Leary argued that the forced resettlement brought 'misery, disease and death' to many Malaysians.
- Thousands of Orang Asli were forcefully transferred to the new villages.
History
The new villages were created to sever contact between ethnic Chinese villagers and the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), which was led by the Malayan Communist Party. They formed part of the Briggs Plan, a military strategy devised by Sir Harold Briggs after his appointment as Director of Operations in Malaya in 1950. The plan sought to defeat the MNLA, a rural guerrilla force, by cutting off its sources of support among the civilian population. To achieve this, about 500,000 people—roughly 10 percent of Malaya's population—were forcibly moved from their homes into guarded camps called new villages. These camps were typically surrounded by barbed wire and sentry posts; in some cases, such as the Tanjong Malim New Village, a 22-hour curfew was imposed. Although most of those relocated were ethnic Chinese, the aboriginal Orang Asli were also targeted because their homelands lay in areas where the MNLA operated. By isolating the population, the British stopped the flow of material, information, and recruits to the guerrillas. After resettlement was complete, the British initiated a starvation campaign, rationing food inside the camps and burning rural farmlands to starve the communist guerrillas.
Population
During the Malayan Emergency, 450 new settlements were created, and an estimated 470,509 people—400,000 of them Chinese—were resettled. The Malayan Chinese Association (later the Malaysian Chinese Association) was initially formed to address the social and welfare needs of the new village populations. Today, about 1.2 million people live in 450 new villages across Peninsular Malaysia, with roughly 85 percent of the population being ethnically Chinese.
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