BRITISH IN ACTION

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5285, 23 December 1946, Page 7

BRITISH IN ACTION

MALAYA PIRATES . R.A.F. AND NAVY SQUASH KIDNiAPPING mUGS, SINGAPORE British troops in Malaya have just completed a task which for strangeness equals anything the Army has ever been called on to carry out, says Pat Sherman in the .Snrnday Express. Co-operating with the Navy and the R.A.F., British and Indian soldiers of the 33rd Indian Brigad'e have taken part in a big drive against the pirates and bandits, mostly Ghinese, who infest the eoastal areas oi' North-West-ern Malaya. Before the war these parasites ' were kept in check by efficient police and forestry departments. But with the coming of the Japs restraint disappeared and they flourished to S'U.ch an extent that when the British reoccupied Malaya gangster piracy was a major problem. Well armed and organised with a flair for the methods of American gangsters, they have terrorised peaceful inhabitants, even .in places which have a military garrison and police. Merchants and Government clerks have been abducted and held to ransom; shopkeepers and'cafe proprietors have been forced to subscribe for "protection." Secret Society Most, if not all, of thess pirates and gangsters belong to a seci'et society with all the trimmings usually found in a Sax Rohmer novel. This society is the "Ang Bin Hoay," or "Red Face Society," whose official name, before the war, was the "T'ien Ti Hoay,^ ' or "Heaven alnd Earth Society." This was originally formed in .South China many decad'es ago with the object of removing the Manehu dynasty from the throne; a similar society, the "W'hite Lotus," worked on the same lines in Northern China. Emigration )on ia largie scale lof Chinese from their mother country to the South Seas and Malayia in the latter part of the 19th century brought the society's ritual and customs, and some of its members, with it. The Ang Bin Hoay — or to give it yet another namc, the Triad Society (from the three red dots tattooed on the hands of its members) — became particularly powerful along the eoast of Perak, where the terrain, consisting of mangrove swamps and tidal creeks, is ideal. The actual location of the society's headquarters is not known, but available evidence suggests it is at or near Pasir Hitam, a mangrove island off Port Weld seldom visited hy white men — or hy any outsiders for that matter. But it eould equally well he located in any of the myriad villages along the hundred miles of coast from Penang to the Dindings. Their Strong Suit Kidnapping is the strong suit of the Ang Bin Hoay's phantom members and they concentrate on Chinese merchants and traders in the bigger towns such as Penang, Ipoh, Taiping and Sungei Siput. If for lack of ransom money they wish to liquidate their victim they do so in this gruesome way: — Tio him up in a sack, hreak him lo pieces with an iron rod or with wooden poles and dump the result into the nearest mud creek, or into the open sea. In the recent drive, carried out as a combined operation, even the muddiest of creeks were combed by naval landing craft and assault barges, while R.A.F. planes roared overhead. Large numbers of suspects^ were winkled from their hideouts and arrested and arms and ammunition of. all types were recovered. Still, the nature of the terrain makes it impossible to hope to check the Ang Bin Hoay's activities effectively in one swoop, and the operation will have tt be repeatecl from time to time. The Pirates of Perak no longer have things all their own way.