Jungle Justice

There was little evidence against the Communist jungle-fighter, Piao, except that he was occasionally noisy and sometimes insubordinate, that he once lit a fire when his commanding officer told him not to and that, in the early days of liberation from the Japanese, he had been befriended by Chinese Nationalists. Nevertheless, the rumor spread that Piao was a spy. His trial took place in the middle of the Malayan jungle.

"Are you guilty?" asked the prosecutor. "No," said Piao, whose hands were tied behind his back.

"Were you sent into the jungle by an agent of the Chinese Nationalists?" "No," said Piao.

That was all there was to the trial. The verdict: guilty. Sentence: death by strangulation, to be carried out on the spot. A length of rattan fiber was wrapped around Piao's neck; two comrades seized hold of each end of it and pulled hard. After a while, Piao was dead.

Thus, in the jungles of Malaya, was one Communist recently rendered "politically reliable" by his own comrades, the British army command in Malaya learned last week. There were other evidences of a widespread purge and toughening of the hard-pressed guerrilla forces. British High Commissioner Sir Gerald Templer's firm drive against the Communists has apparently spread discontent and created waverers among the Communists. Over the past few weeks, some 40 suspect jungle fighters have been strangled, buried alive or beaten to death with rifle butts, according to British army sources. After a formal inquiry into the executions, the Communists' own Central Executive has admitted that in some cases, local Communist regimental commanders have acted too hastily.

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