I WOULD like to express my sympathy with Mr John Martland and those he represents in the National Malaya & Borneo Veterans Association in their frustration at the way in which all governments have refused to acknowledge the sacrifice of all those young National Servicemen who lost their lives in the war in Malaya which started in 1948.

They should be remembered, along with all our other war dead.

Mr Martland asks -- 'Why do the politicians cringe each time the Malaya campaign is mentioned?' The answer is that this was a vicious, dirty and unjust war, not conducted against enemies of this country, but against the people of a small country who had the misfortune to be a colony of Britain and to be the producer of tin and rubber of great value to the coffers of the British Government.

During the Second World War, the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army fought a brave guerilla war against the Japanese fascist troops, tying up thousands of Japanese soldiers and preventing them from being used in Burma and India.

Many MPAJA fighters were honoured, like Liew Yau, Commander of the 1st Regiment of the MPAJA, who was decorated with the Burma Star by Lord Mountbatten and who, with many others, took part in the Victory Parade in London. This was the sort of 'terrorist' who was killed by the British Army quite early in the Malaya campaign.

It must be remembered that, as a result of their anti-Japanese stand, the people of Malaya were promised their independence at the conclusion of the Second World War, but this was never implemented by the Labour government of the day (under Clement Attlee) who, less than three years later, manufactured an excuse to launch a war in Malaya to crush any possibility of the ending of Malaya's colonial status. They carried out many acts of quite horrendous savagery, including severing the heads of their victims and then being photographed holding the heads up by the hair.

These photographs were published in this country and must still be in the newspaper archives. I think Mr Martland will be able to understand why subsequent governments have kept very quiet about this war.

E M Lim (Mrs)

(address supplied)