The Leaflet War

The Leaflet War

Leaflets covered four broad areas 'How to surrender', 'Govt.Guarantees', 'Monetary Rewards (rifle,grenade,pistol etc.) and names of recent surrenders

Talking the Malayan rebels into surrender

Friday September 24, 1999
The Guardian

British propaganda experts used the fear of rheumatic fever, beriberi and mental illness to persuade communist rebels in Malaya to abandon their struggle.

Previously classified documents, released yesterday by the public records office, give an insight into the tactics used by the foreign office's propaganda experts at the information research department.

The documents from 1953 include a leaflet dropped over jungle areas, written in Chinese, and designed to demoralise the rebels.

Entitled Why Stay Out in the Rain?, it asks whether the recipient is suffering from a series of complaints and warns: "If so, you have rheumatic fever, which 'licks the joints and bites the heart' with permanent heart disease as a result."

After describing other diseases associated with the jungle, including beriberi, which causes inflammation of the nerves and heart failure, the pamphlet asks if the recipient has begun to hear noises even on quiet nights and is feeling lonely and depressed, then warning him that he may have developed an "illness of the mind".

A further leaflet instructs disheartened rebels on how they could surrender. "We will set up a loudspeaker and a bright light at the jungle edge at night to show you that the spot is the place where you can come out and surrender. When you see this light of hope and hear the voice of goodwill, you will know we are there to receive you."

Other leaflets were more threatening. One lists the names of half a dozen "terrorists" already shot dead in the conflict, then prints the picture of another known rebel with a warning that he will be "hunted by the military, police and home guard until he is captured or killed".

The military also used aircraft with loudspeaker equipment, to broadcast anti-communist propaganda.

But another document recorded a reluctance to use "horror" photographs. "Among the enemy, such as the communist terrorists, they may, if morale is reasonably high, cause anger and an actual stiffening of resistance; among the civil population they certainly cause disgust and revulsion in many cases."

Malaya, a British colony in the post-war period, saw the emergence of a communist-inspired armed revolt from 1948. The British proclaimed an emergency, fighting the rebels by military means but also encouraging a non-communist independence movement.

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