Malaya veterans stand defiant over new medals on Remembrance Day parade

Thousands of British war veterans are to snub protocol at Sunday's Remembrance Day service by wearing medals awarded by the King of Malaysia, Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, and his government.

The Ministry of Defence yesterday confirmed that the veterans should not wear the Pinsat Jasa Malaysia medals they have just received in recognition of their service during the anti-communist Malayan Emergency between August 1957 and 1960 and the Malaysian-Indonesian conflict in the 1960s over the future of Borneo.

Around 8,000 medals have been presented so far and 22,000 servicemen are due to receive them.

During the emergency 35,000 British army soldiers were deployed; 519 were killed, against 6, 700 guerrillas. The campaign included the Batang Kali massacre - sometimes called Britain's My Lai - in which 26 unarmed villagers were killed by a troop of Scots Guards.

In Plymouth, 300 men received their medals this week - but the MoD insists that protocol does not allow the wearing of two medals for the same campaign.

Mike Warren, of the Malaya and Borneo Veterans' Association, said: "Eight thousand medals have been awarded so far and we will wear them on our medal bars on Remembrance Sunday.

"People were awarded medals from the British government for this conflict but the Ministry of Defence are saying that you cannot be awarded two medals from the same conflict.

"But my argument is that two medals were awarded for the Korean conflict and in Northern Ireland."

A former Royal Navy sailor, Harry Booth, said he felt the MoD's view was "very silly", saying: "I can wear my other medals, why not this one?"

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said yesterday there had been no recent MoD ruling. Instead there is longstanding rule, he said, that comes from the honours and declarations committee which answers directly to the sovereign rather than a government department.

The MoD spokesman said: "It's a longstanding principle. You are not given permission to wear two medals from the same period of service. Medals are supposed to be special and significant. It is more of a procedural ruling than the law not to wear these medals.

"The veterans should not wear these second medals at official engagements although it is not policed. They are foreign medals and not British ones and they should not wear it."

The spokesman said that they did not want to copy the Americans, who wear chest fulls of medals.

Mr Warren agreed: "I think that's right - I am not advocating going down that road."

But he said he felt it was a good thing that the Malaysian king and government had made these presentations.

Colonel Tajri Alwi, defence adviser at the Malaysian high commission in London, made the presentation to the Plymouth veterans and told them: "I'm very proud on behalf of the Malaysian government for your contribution.

"You are the ones who fought alongside Malaysian soldiers as well as soldiers from other friendly countries. If you drink water from the well, you must not forget who dug the well.

"You had a difficult time. You not only fought but struggled to fight mosquitoes, leeches, as well as other wild animals in the jungle."

Bob Perchard, president of the Plymouth and South West Malaya-Borneo Veterans Association, said: "It's nice to know that a foreign country has acknowledged all the hard work and loss of life that was given to gain that country stability."