In an interview with the Sarawak Tribune the SB Intelligence officer (SBIO) recalled the days when the communists tried to assassinate the brave Sarawak police intelligence officers and men. Chian Seng, 77, said that he was a luck survivor because he almost died when he was born

Looking back Chian Seng entered this world when the Japanese bombed Kuching on December 9, 1941, named him “Chian Seng” because he was born in a time of adversity. He said: “I was a premature child and according to my mother I barely made it because my umbilical cord was wrapped around by neck nine times.

My father named me `Chian Seng’ which means fight to survive.” It was also his name that enabled him to survive during the communist insurgency where he was involved in numerous operations or battles with the enemy.

“The communists got my name wrong and called me the name `Chan Seng’ which in Chinese mean to agree to live,” Peter Lim mused in a recent interview in Kuching. Joining the force in 1964 as a contract officer, Inspector Peter Lim had passed his senior middle three school examinations at the Chung Hua school in Sibu before completing his form four examinations and deciding that he wanted to serve the country as a policeman.

Between 1965 and 1971, the Police Field Force (PFF) officer was involved contacts with enemy in the Bau district taking on Indonesian Border Terrorists (IBTs) and Indonesian Army Commandos (RPKAD) where they killed five and captured three and seized a large cache of weapons such as Soviet Kalasnikov assault rifles, 10 grenades, land mines and several rounds of ammunition.

In 1966 and 1968 his group found several communist underground tunnels at communist such as Tondong, Musi, Buso, Siniawan and Sungei Tapang, enhancing his reputation as a top intelligence officer. Soon he became a marked man. He recalled: "It was 1 p.m. on July 31, 1971 when wife, on leave from her school, decided to accompany me in our Volkswagon for a drive from Bau to Kuching.

“Along the way I asked my wife to keep my loaded 38 Smith and Wesson pistol with six rounds in her handbag. At that time you never knew when the enemy would attack. "As we were turning around the bend at the Kampung Buso-Bau Road junction a group of CTs waiting in ambush opened fire, spraying my car with shotgun pellets and bullets from a rifle.

“I was hit by a pellet in the right eyebrow which was embedded in my skull while a bullet grazed my left chest and went through the car." Inspector Lim sped on but ran into a second ambush 25 yards away from the first ambush point. Apparently the group of CTs had instructions to ensure that Lim would finished off on that day.

He continued: “As the blood blurred my vision, I lost control after the second attack and crashed into a telephone pole at the top of a steep valley. “While the pole prevented the car from sliding down the ravine, both of us got out and prepared to slide down the slope. As I got down first, I shouted out in a defiant voice to the CTs telling them not to approach near because I was armed.

“At the same time my wife slipped her hand into her handbag and pulled out my revolver to me. At that point I think the CTs must have aborted the assassination attempt.” Despite two simultaneous ambushes, the CTs had failed. They needed to get away quickly because the security forces personnel frequently travelled along that stretch.

He continued: “After the minutes passed, my wife got out of the ravine waving down a passing lorry who thought they had an accident. "It seemed like ages before anyone was willing to stop and give us a lift. My wife stood by the roadside desperately waving down passing motorists, while I stayed hidden in the valley.

"It was still touch and go because the CTs could have been still around, waiting to finish me off. I had only six rounds of ammunition and made sure that if I had to fight them, I had to leave at least one bullet for myself.” I knew what was in store if they had captured me alive,’" added Chian Seng who was familiar with the brutal method of torture before the killing of special branch personnel. Lim was operated on, his pellet removed and two weeks later he was back on duty.

Four months later Lim escaped from a second ambush at Bau-Jugan junction, a stone's throw from the Siniawan police station. In the second incident in November the same year, Lim and a convoy of policemen were travelling by land rover from Bau to the Siniawan police station when they were ambushed by gunmen at a sharp corner near the junction.

"After my first bad experience I was better prepared. When they opened fire I instinctively old the driver to step on the pedal and we just made it around the bend without crashing. "Two minutes later we were at the police station where we got reinforcements. I returned on foot with some men through the jungle to see if we could follow the CTs and make a counter attack. But the enemy had disappeared.”

Later at the .location of the attack they we found eight home-made "molotov cocktail" bombs (bottles with petrol or kerosene had to be lighted and would incinerate on explosion) which the CTs were going hurl at vehicle.

He added: "I dread to think what would have happened had our driven lost control of the vehicle and we crashed at the ambush site." Between 1970 and 1972 the communist “killer squads” assassinated or brutally murdered 63 Chinese and Iban civilians. By 1979, a total of 124 civilians including pro-government civil servants, teachers, government-friendly native chiefs and, former communists and informers were killed.

Most of the victims were Chinese, some of who were killed in front of family members during on Chinese New Year’s eve. Among the most dastardly and grotesque killings was that of a young man who tied up to a tree, tortured and burnt alive at Tondong bazaar, disembowelment of an informer and killing of a teacher who was shot before the eyes of his of his students.

A White Paper entitled “The Threat of Armed Communism in Sarawak (1972) said the victims were “savagely murdered and in some cases mutilated”: these acts of terrorism were deliberately publicised...to intimidate the rest of the population.” By the end of the communist insurgency in October 1990, a total of 253 army personnel, policemen and civilians had been killed while the enemy lost more than 1,000.

2. Inspector Lim Chian Seng the Aide de camp of the Sarawak police commissioner John Ritchie and Sarawak Police Field Force colleagues in 1968. Also in the picture are renowned police heroes such as Olympian Inspector Kuda Ditta (seated 2nd left), George Medal recipient ASP Menggong anak Panggit (5th left), World War Two veteran Supt MiIchael Juan and Border Scout leader DSP Samson Juan (2nd right).

ASP Lim Chian Seng in jungle green uniform

The Bau-Jugan junction where Lim’s group was attacked in November 1971.