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letters to the editor, Margaret Beckett & Tony Blair
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This is a copy of the letter I sent to the editor of the Sentinal in support of the article on Roy Fellows
I'm unaware if it was published.

Dear Sir

I read your excellent article on Roy Follows and the refusal of the government to allow veterans to officially wear the PJM medal awarded from a generous Malaysian government. As a veteran entitled to the PJM I am at a loss to understand the attitude of the government towards this award. As a citizen and resident of Australia I am told by the UK cabinet office that It is alright for me to wear the medal in Australia but not in the UK. This is the absolute in descrimination against British Malay & Borneo veterans and I believe reflects a government that is archaic, insensitive, out of touch with every day issues and oversees an unaccountable public service. Good on yer Roy Follows wear your medal with pride because you earnt it. Come to Australia where they treat veterans with some respect.

Name & Address included.

Letter to Tony Blair, similar to the one I sent Margaret Beckett. No reply to date.

Dear Prime Minister

Re: Pingat Jasa Malaysia (PJM)

As a Malay Borneo veteran I feel compelled to write to you regarding the grave injustice regarding the refusal to grant permission for British veterans to formally wear the PJM medal. I understand that a petition to Her Majesty regarding the PJM and a recently produced ‘Rebuttal to the Written Ministerial Statement of 31st January 2006’ has been sent to the relevant government ministers. I would however like to present some important points for your perusal in order for the government to do the honourable thing and rescind this unfair decision.

One of your senior public servants has described the PJM as a mere “keepsake”. To do this is an insult to the Malaysian people as well as the 35000 Borneo and Malay veterans who defeated the spread of communism through the Malay Peninsula. I served two tours of duty in the Royal Navy and being at the front line of operations witnessed the atrocious conditions that members of all services had to contend with. I myself was medically evacuated back to the UK with career limiting injuries. I witnessed many men with bullet wounds, land mine injuries, terrible jungle ulcers and other tropical conditions. Many hundreds did not make it back to their homeland and families and lay buried in a distant land.

I ask you Prime Minister, can you understand what anger is generated amongst veterans when a generous Commonwealth country wants to reward these hardships and sacrifices only for the response to be to treat the award as a keepsake.

As the ’rebuttal statement’ clearly points out, the role of some senior servants in this matter has at the least been disinterested and at the worst misleading, deceitful and untruthful. Some veterans have even been told to stop sending emails about the issue to the Ministry of Defence. This is clearly un-defensible in a democracy and contrary to equity and fairness.

I am a resident of Australia and the British Cabinet Office has said that in Australia I can wear the PJM unrestricted without being discourteous to her Majesty. I cannot believe that this discrimination against British veterans has been allowed to happen. I know many of my friends and relatives in the UK are unhappy with this decision and have joined the campaign to have this decision changed. I have noted that there is an increasing groundswell of opinion that this decision needs to be reviewed and changed.

Discussions with my Australian ex service colleagues indicate they are unable to comprehend how this could be allowed to happen in a just society. As you know Australia graciously accepted the PJM for unrestricted wear and the Governor General was the first to receive his PJM. Australia withdrew from the British Honours system and with respect Prime Minister it would enhance the Government’s standing to urgently review the decision on the PJM and review the whole honours system. Hopefully this would enable it to represent the views of the community, not just those of some senior public servants.

At a time when the world is facing many difficulties, what a splendid gesture it would be to review this grossly unfair decision


Yours sincerely,

Ivor Rich
Ex Royal Navy Malaysia/Borneo Veteran


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'Good on yer' Ivor....


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Nice one, Ivor

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Ivor

Thanks very much, we are truly an international bunch, its just so heartwarming to know we support each other from all corners of the world, we did it yesterday, we are doing it today and we will fight this injustice tomorrow and until FULL recognition of wearing this award is given.

We owe this to those who haven't got a voice to be heard...........


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Tunku Mahmood Shah has asked me to post a copy of his letter to Margaret Beckett and Denis Brennan:


10th October 2006

The Right Honorable Margaret M Beckett MP,
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
King Charles Street,
London,
SW1A 2AH,
United Kingdom.


Dear Madam,


AWARD OF THE PINGAT JASA MALAYSIA

I am writing in the hope that you may be able to explain fully to me the reasons behind the sorry state of affairs surrounding the award of the Pingat Jasa Malaysia to those members of the British forces who served in my country, Malaysia between 31st August 1957 and 12th August 1966.

In recognition of the valuable service given by many thousands of Commonwealth Servicemen and women during the period mentioned above, the government of my country sought to recognize their gallant contribution by awarding them a medal, the Pingat Jasa Malaysia.

So far the governments of Australia and New Zealand have welcomed this award and, in conjunction with the Malaysian representatives in those countries, are in the process of ensuring it is distributed to all members of their armed forces who served in Malaya/ Malaysia during its difficult, early days of nationhood.

However, for reasons which are certainly not clear to me, the British Authorities have not shown anything like the enthusiasm of those other Commonwealth countries. Indeed, it seems that the British government has adopted a very confused and mean spirited attitude to this award. It claims to have relaxed a certain ruling in order that those entitled to the medal can accept it, only to immediately re-impose that same rule to stop the medal being worn! Why? What is the sense in this?


Surely, the scope of this medal covers a far greater time span that any other awards that some British Servicemen and women might have previously received for their time in Malaya/ Malaysia. Therefore, it cannot be classified as a “double Medal” which I believe, in another reason given for the refusal of permission to wear it.

Should it not be the case that as all Commonwealth forces regardless of nationality shared the risks, they should all now be allowed to wear the medal that they have now been awarded.

I look forward to your reply with great interest.




Yours faithfully,





YM Tunku Mahmood Shah Ibni Tunku Mohammed


Copy to :

Mr. Denis Brennan,
Ceremonial Officer,
Secretary to the HD Committee (Military Medals)
35, Great Smith Street,
London,
SW1P 3BQ,
United Kingdom.

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That is brilliant Laurie, a member of The Malaysian Royal Family to boot, great stuff!


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The only way that Margaret Beckett will see that letter is to get the National Newspapers to print it.
Do you really think it will get pass the suits?

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Paul Alders wrote:
The only way that Margaret Beckett will see that letter is to get the National Newspapers to print it.
Do you really think it will get pass the suits?


Hardly. Only one paper in the UK seems to have printed anything so far. The East Anglia paper.

Why hasn't "Portsmouth Today" taken up the PJM story? They were very vocal some years back?

Hmmm?


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John Cooper wrote:
That is brilliant Laurie, a member of The Malaysian Royal Family to boot, great stuff!


John, a member of one of the royal families, Johor. There are 11 states in West Malaysia and 9 of those have a seperate and distinct royal family. The only 2 states in the peninsular that don't have royals are the former Crown colonies, Penang and Malacca.

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Herewith an e-mail from Robert Griffiths to his MP (posted with Robert's permission)....Robert's letter absolutely exemplifies the spirit of dogged determination...EXACTLY what we need right now!...A great example for us all to follow.
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Dear Sir,

Thank you for copying me on your letter from the minister with responsibility for our relations with Malaysia, Mr Ian McCartney.
This merely parrots the existing position which is so much objected to. Considering his responsibilities it is disappointing that he does not deal with the fact that his Government has gone out of its way to snub the Malaysians.

Nobody agitating about the wearing of the PJM is asking what the Government's position is, the whole point is that we know that and are seeking to get it changed. In this sense the McCartney letter is more than a rebuff, it is a deliberate insult to our intelligence. In particular it completely ignores the Rebuttal and its update which I referred to in my original e-mail.

I do understand that this Government has only contempt for servicemen both veteran and serving - that has been made blisteringly clear from its treatment of our people in Afghanistan and Iraq - but as a minimum it ought to have the courtesy to recognise the existence of arguments put to it. The argument about 'double medalling' is particularly bogus - for instance the Korean conflict was marked both by British and UN medals. Also, medals have been accepted from the Russians for WW2 Arctic Convoy veterans and from the French for survivors of the Kaiser's war, in both cases decades after those conflicts. Please can you try again to cut through this mishmash of obfuscation and prevarication (the latter a principal feature of our Dear Leader's administration)?

Regards Robert Griffiths.


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Post Re: A little demonstration of determination... 
'Jock' Fenton wrote:
Herewith an e-mail from Robert Griffiths to his MP (posted with Robert's permission)....Robert's letter absolutely exemplifies the spirit of dogged determination...EXACTLY what we need right now!...A great example for us all to follow..


Please pass on to Robert my congratulations on writing such a stunning letter and making a complex point so err ... poignantly.

Great stuff ... come on PJM supporters! Doesn't this inspire you to Keep At'Em??


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Tunku Mahmood has just had a reply to his letter of 10 October, see above. He has asked me to post the reply here.

The salutation used by the writer speaks volumes for the complete lack of knowledge and understanding of these people! And they are supposed to be formulating policy. What hope do we have?



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LaurieB, great post. I was disgusted to read that letter from Hart at the FCO. If he screwed up like this with his own British royal family it would finish him.
Another insult to the Malaysians
This level of ignorance is beyond belief. I read also today that the Labour Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander claims that our education system is teaching 'Cantonese' to compete globally. We are actually teaching 'Mandarin', which is, (as we know and those that rule obviously don't), is the official and mandatory language of China and is the language which we need to teach our youngsters for them to compete as China becomes a global economic power. Ignorance, ignorance, ignorance.

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LaurieB wrote:
Tunku Mahmood has just had a reply to his letter of 10 October, see above. He has asked me to post the reply here.

The salutation used by the writer speaks volumes for the complete lack of knowledge and understanding of these people! And they are supposed to be formulating policy. What hope do we have?



I believe 100s of those letters have been sent out......last week I received the same word for word responce to a letter that I sent to Margaret Beckett last month.


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KenN0898 wrote:
I believe 100s of those letters have been sent out......last week I received the same word for word responce to a letter that I sent to Margaret Beckett last month.


That is correct, KenN. A standard letter that says nothing yet says much.

As Laurie points out, they eat their diplomatic peas off their ignorant knives and do not have the good manners to address people properly. Something about silk purses and sows' ears, methinks.

It will be interesting to see if they do let their target date slip - and for how long. If they delay past the end-November then they will have some explaining to do cos here we have the FCO referring to their target in a letter dated 14th November. They have just 2 weeks to go after having been given 10 months' notice that all was not well with that confused and flawed Ministerial Statement.

I very much hope that I shall soon be shot of these people. I do not want them in my life.

One exception - they are excellent examples to present to grandchildren on how not to behave and how not to treat other people. My young grandchildren are aware that Father Christmas is seriously considering whether to keep some of those suits on his Visiting List. Apparently he's considering his options and will let Rudolf know before the end of November!

Barry


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