On this day, 12 December 1948, the Batang Kali massacre took place in Malaysia (then Malaya) when British troops massacred 24 unarmed rubber plantation workers as part of their campaign against a communist insurgency in the British imperial colony. Malaya was at the time the world’s biggest exporter of rubber and tin, which Britain needed to tax to pay debts to the US. None of the murderers, members of the Scots Guards, were charged with any offences.
Pictured: Romen Bose Tham, a survivor of the massacre
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