Eileen Chanin, 2013, Limbang Rebellion: 7 Days in December 1962.

Sather, Clifford

Eileen Chanin, 2013, Limbang Rebellion: 7 Days in December 1962. Singapore: Ridge Books, NUS Press. 249 pp. ISBN 978-9971-69-775-4 (paperback).

The seven days referred to in the subtitle are those from Friday, 7 December through Thursday, 13 December 1962, when the tiny administrative town of Limbang in what was then the Fifth Division of Sarawak became a critical flashpoint in what historians of Borneo now call the Brunei Rebellion. In this excellent book, Australian historian Eileen Chanin gives the reader a gripping account of these days, told primarily through the words of those who were there, particularly the Division Resident, Dick Morris, and his wife Dorothy [not incidentally the author's parents-in-law; both now deceased].

Wisely, Chanin does not burden her account with a great deal of analysis. The "Prologue" and first chapter, "Countdown to Emergency," set the stage, giving readers a brief account of the Brunei Rebellion and the events that led up to it. In telling the story that follows, her intent is "to reflect the experiences of those who in Limbang showed courage, resilience and dignity ... to allow them to tell the story as they saw and lived it" (p. 2). Using letters, diaries, and interviews, she does just that, letting, as she puts it, "Personal, eyewitness accounts take us to the heart of the action" (p. 2).

The action begins on Friday, day one of her story. The Resident, Dick Morris, hears rumors that a rebellion is set to begin in two days' time. In his confidential report for the day, he notes these rumors and adds: "I carried out a reconnaissance of the Limbang Town area to see if there was any area that could be turned into a defended locality ... There was no such area" (p. 43). The next day, day two, or "Black Saturday" as Chanin calls it, the Resident and his wife are awakened at 2 a.m. by an aborted phone call; at the same time they hear gunfire coming from the town area. Seeing armed men at the front of the Residency, they attempt to escape out the back, but are caught. And so we quickly come to the heart of Chanin's story. Soon the words of others are added, as the Morrises, now confined as hostages to a cell in the police station are joined over the next days by others, including a wounded police constable, a PWD engineer, three Catholic priests, and an 18-year old Peace Corps volunteer. Unknown to them, a policeman has hidden himself on the roof just above their heads. Later, he comes to play a crucial role, identifying those who took part in the attack and relating from memory their overheard conversations.

At precisely the same time, at 2 a.m. on the morning of December 8th, armed insurgents reportedly led by members of Sheikh Azahari's Brunei Peoples' Party, attacked police stations and government facilities throughout Brunei and at Limbang and Bekenu in Sarawak. Although Chanin doesn't explicitly say so, the fact that these attacks, involving, at the very least, several thousand insurgents, came as a surprise, leaving local police on their own, represented a massive failure of British intelligence and planning. Fortunately for the hostages in Limbang, the military responded quickly, at once transporting troops to Brunei, who, within days, broke the back of the rebellion. At this point, the center of action in Chanin's story now shifts to Brunei.

Late Monday evening, December 1 Oth, Captain Jeremy Moore, Commander of L Company, 42 Royal Marine Commandos, arrives in Brunei together with just over half of his men. The following morning, he is given his assignment: to "clear" Limbang Town of insurgents and rescue the hostages they were holding.1 While the objective is clear, Moore has little information to go on in planning his operation. Essentially, he has only a small-scale map and a 10-year old aerial photo covering only part of Limbang Town (p.99). At the time, Limbang was accessible only by river. In order to carry out a river assault, Moore commandeers two PWD river lighters and adds to his command a small group of Royal Navy seamen who have just arrived in Brunei. The latter weld metal sheets to the sides and wheelhouse of the lighters and equip them with machine guns. Altogether, Moore has 89 men under his command, including the seamen and a crew of machine-gunners. They set out, the navy seamen operating the lighters, without charts or an experienced river pilot to guide them.

The assault and rescue operation begins at dawn on Wednesday, December 13th, day six in Chanin's account. Moore directs a frontal attack, heading straight for the enemy headquarters which he assumes [rightly] to be the police station. Intelligence has estimated that Limbang is being held by some 30 rebels. In actuality, the figure is closer to 350. As the lighters approach the town landing, the marines use a loudspeaker to broadcast a message in Malay, telling the defenders that the rebellion is over and to lay down their arms. The response is an immediate barrage of gunfire. While shotguns predominate, there is also fire from automatic weapons, including a bren gun. The latter is manned by the rebel leader, an ex-Sarawak Ranger and weapons trainer, Salleh bin Sambas. As the marines storm ashore, the machine-guns on the lighters prove decisive, soon silencing the bren gun. As the wounded Salleh is carried off, his followers melt into the jungle. The assault lasts barely 20 minutes. When it is over, the town is secured and the hostages are released unharmed. Moore's marines and seamen, however, have paid a heavy price: 5 dead and 6 wounded. In terms of British losses, Limbang goes on record as the deadliest encounter of the entire Brunei campaign.

On the final day of Chanin's account, December 13th, fresh troops arrive and "mopping up" operations begin, while a party of Iban appear from upriver bringing rebel captives that they have caught trying to escape.

While Chanin's book focuses especially on the Morrises and the Royal Marines who rescued them, to her credit, she also includes in her story the experiences of local people who, at considerable risk to themselves, came to the hostages' aid. At the time of the Brunei Rebellion, Dick and Dorothy Morris were "old Borneo hands." Morris had served as a colonial administrator in both Brunei and Sarawak, essentially since he had first arrived with the Australian forces in 1946. The couple were fluent in both Iban and Malay, and during their time in Sarawak had became friends of the late Tun Jugah. Fittingly, Chanin's book was officially launched in 2013 at the Tun Jugah Foundation offices in Kuching. In a brief talk during the launching, the author paid special tribute to the people of Limbang, who, as she put it, "did extraordinary things to protect and save others in great danger." Among those she mentioned were the policemen, four of whom died in defending the police station; the Iban prisoner who sought to remain in jail so that he could protect the Resident and his wife from ill-treatment; and, most resourceful of all, Abang Omar, the town postman, his wife, and daughter [a nurse], who made improvised Red Cross uniforms and using official-looking documents demanded and successfully obtained permission to visit the prisoners and bring them food, water, and blankets.

If Chanin's book has a weakness, it is that it tells us little about those who seized the Limbang government offices and took the Morrises and others hostage. What motivated them and how can we account for the manifest anger they displayed when they captured the Morrises and the determination with which they resisted the Royal Marines? One thing we learn from Chanin's account is that, in Limbang at least, the rebels, including their leader, Salleh bin Sambas, came from nearby kampungs within Limbang district. While the question of why he and the others took part in a violent rebellion eludes us, it should be remembered that, at the time, Limbang, and even more so, Brunei, the Rebellion's epicenter, were different places than they are now. Government services were minimal, particularly in rural areas, and, at the time, before the discovery of large offshore reserves, even oil production was in decline. More importantly yet, it was a volatile era of decolonization. In stark contrast to the present, Brunei, in particular, was a caldron of political activity, and that this activity was strongly colored by Malay nationalism seems hardly surprising. Months before the outbreak of rebellion, the first [and, to this day, the only] popular elections were held in Brunei, but the results were effectively annulled. At the same time, an intensely unpopular proposal for federation with Malaysia was being secretly negotiated between British officials and the Sultan, including, presumably, the still-rankling issue of the political status of Limbang itself.

It also came to be known in the aftermath of the rebellion that a major source of support had came from the Kedayan community. Even today, the Kedayan are little known to outsiders. In 1975,1 had the good fortune to live with my family for a month in a small Kedayan (cum Dali') village called Kampung Kawang, near Bekenu. I rented a house from the family of a man who had been a leader of the local 1962 rebellion, and who, 13 years later, was still being held in detention, as were a number of other men from the village. One of the principal reasons that so little is known about those who took part in the Brunei Rebellion is that none of those who were eventually detained were ever brought to trial and given a public legal hearing. Although, to the best of knowledge, all of these men were eventually released and allowed to return home, their absence in 1975 cast a dark shadow over the village and accounted for a number of unoccupied houses like the one I had rented for my family. The villagers were good neighbors, sober and hard-working, and formed a tight-knit community. In a Brunei Malay social setting, the Kedayan represent something of an anomaly as a so-called "ethnic group," being distinguished chiefly by status, while otherwise being essentially identical in religion, language and culture with their Brunei Malay neighbors. Their "invisibility" relates to a history of relative social exclusion.

In all fairness, all this, however, is another story altogether. The Limbang Rebellion is, instead, as Chanin says, a story of courage and resilience and of extraordinary deeds performed by some to save and protect others from harm. It is a compelling story, told with all the immediacy of the eyewitness narratives used to tell it.

(Clifford Sather, Professor Emeritus, University of Helsinki)

(1) Captain Jeremy Moore (later General Sir Jeremy) went on to command British Land Forces in the Falklands War (1982). Other prominent Royal Marines who participated in the Limbang operation included Paddy Ashdown (now Lord Ashdown), sometime leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and a high UN representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina (I am grateful to A.V.M. Horton for this added information).