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50 Years Ago in Southeast Asia

The world-wide population explosion also affected this region. The population of Indonesia alone rose from 70 million in 1950 to 103 million in 1965. For the region as a whole, the boom saw the population rise from 146 to 191 million people.

A civil war in the British Malay colony between communists and anti-communists breaks out in 1954. British troops are largely responsible for defeating the communists.

The war was also an ethnic struggle. Most of the communist rebels were from the large Chinese minority. In 1957, the Federation of Malaysia was created. In 1965,

Singapore left the federation to become an independent city state.

Indonesian nationalists declare the foundation of the Republic of Indonesia, the territories of the Dutch East India, in 1945. A three-year guerrilla war is fought against the Dutch army. In 1949, after negotiations, the Dutch agree to Indonesian independence. Java is the most populous and dominant island in the new state. However, some regions, like the Moluccas islands, proclaimed their own independent state, but were invaded and conquered by Indonesian troops. In 1963, Indonesian troops invade Dutch New Guinea and add it to Indonesia as the province of Irian Jaya.

But the worst violence broke out in Vietnam. This was a French colony, but had been occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War. After the Japanese defeat, the French tried to move back in, but Vietnamese guerrillas, led by the communists under Ho Chi Minh (1894-1969) and General Giap, fought them. The Vietminh or "liberation movement" had been founded in 1941. A republic of Vietnam was declared with its capital at Hanoi. Between 1946 and 1954, the First

Indo-China War took place, which sees French troops decisvely defeated at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. But the south part of Vietnam is created as a separate country, supported by the United States, Britain and France. Vietnam is now split in two. The Second Indo-China War between North and South Vietnam broke out in 1957.

Direct intervention by the US army began in 1964 with the naval battle in the Gulf of Tonking. Meanwhile, the other former French colonies in the region broke up and formed the nations of Cambodia and Laos

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