SUMMARY
Present-day Malaysia’s federative state formation became gradually established. The Republic of Malaya was established after gaining independence from Britain on 31 August 1957, which is commemorated as the Malaysian-wide Independence Day. The first prime minister of independent Malaya envisioned that several neighboring British colonies could be consolidated into one state, Malaysia. Thus, on 16 September 1963, Malaysia formally came into being, consisting of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. Singapore left the federation and became independent in 1965, whereas Sabah and Sarawak are located on North Borneo. The consolidation of the Malaysian state was a contentious matter. The country experienced instances of conflict, although the level of violence in the country has remained low to none for decades, aside from the Malaysia: Sabah conflict in 2013. Since 1946 Malaysia has experienced the extra-state, interstate, and intrastate categories of UCDP organized violence.
The conflict over Sabah
In 2013, a territorial conflict erupted in Sabah. A force called Royal Soldiers of Sulu Sultanate, led by Rajah Mudah Agbimuddin Kiram arrived by boat in Sabah from the Philippines. A three-week standoff followed during which Malaysia tried to convince the Sulu force to leave the area. However, on 1 March shooting erupted and after a month of clashes almost 70 people had been killed. When the Sultan died in October, the group vowed to continue to claim Sabah only through diplomatic and legal means.
Pre-1989 conflicts
In 1948-1957 the CPM (Communist Party of Malaya), the back-bone of the anti-Japanese resistance movement during the Second World War, fought the British administration over the immediate sovereignty of Malaysia in an extra-state conflict. When the British declared a State of Emergency in 1947 after a series of CPM-sponsored assassinations, the Communists retreated to the jungle and formed the Malayan People's Liberation Army, with about 3000 men under arms, almost all Chinese. Eight years of fighting ensued. The British counter-insurgency strategy, which proved ultimately successful, was to isolate the CPM from its support base by a combination of economic and political concessions to the Chinese and the resettlement of Chinese squatters into “New Villages” in “white areas” free of CPM influence.
However, the CPM did not end its guerrilla insurgency on peninsular Malaysia upon independence. Instead, it engaged the new Malaysian government in intermittent intrastate conflicts in 1958-1960, 1974-1975 and in 1981, now claiming to be championing the cause of the Malayan aborigines. The party was officially disbanded and gave up arms following its peace treaty with the governments of Malaysia and Thailand, signed in 1989.
The communist insurgency also appeared in Sarawak where a group called the CCO (Clandestine Communist Organisation), mainly involving elements of the local Chinese community, fought the Malaysian federal government in 1963-1966 over the sovereignty of North Borneo. Though the territorial conflict had been inactive since 1963, the CCO did not sign a peace accord with the Malaysian government until October 1990.
The CCO had the support of the Indonesian government which simultaneously engaged British-backed Malaysia in an interstate conflict between 1963 and 1966 over the same territory in North Borneo. Indonesia strongly objected to the incorporation of North Borneo into the Malaysian federation, stating that the consolidation of Malaysia would increase British control over the region and thus threaten Indonesia's independence. With the shift in Indonesian leadership in 1965 and concomitant domestic unrest in Indonesia, the interest in pursuing the conflict with Malaysia declined and in August 1965 the countries signed a peace treaty.
