The initial government strategy had been primarily…
1950 CE
The initial government strategy had been primarily to guard important economic targets, such as mines and plantation estates.
General Sir Harold Briggs, the British Army's Director of Operations in Malaya in 1950, develops an overall strategy known as the Briggs Plan.
Its central tenet is that the best way to defeat an insurgency, such as the government is facing, is to cut the insurgents off from their supporters among the population.
In addition the Brigg's plan also recognizes the inhospitable nature of the Malayan jungle.
A major part of the strategy involves targeting the MLNA food supply, which Briggs recognizes comes from three main sources: camps within the Malayan jungle where land is cleared to provide food, aboriginal jungle dwellers who can supply the MLNA with food gathered within the jungle and the MLNA supporters within the 'squatter' communities that live on the edge of the jungle.
The Briggs Planis multifaceted, with one aspect which has become particularly well known: the forced relocation of some five hundred thousand rural Malayans, including four hundred thousand Chinese, from squatter communities on the fringes of the forests into guarded camps called New Villages.
These villages are newly constructed in most cases, and are surrounded by barbed wire, police posts and floodlit areas, meant to keep the inhabitants in and the guerrillas out.
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