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Old 31st Aug 2010, 12:08
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Jig Peter
 
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Another story

At the start of Confrontation, most of Borneo was unsurveyed: it was said that the border between the East Malaysian (ex-British) and Indonesian Borneo had been surveyed by Shell, with the British and Dutch sides of the company doing the work separately, using different base-lines. Major (and even minor) land features could therefore appear on either side of the frontier line, depending on whose mapping one was relying on. This was said to give considerable lee-way to troops on the ground when confronting opposition forces ...
Certainly, Canberras from Tengah were involved throughout in photography for accurate maps to be produced, instead of the large areas merely " contour shaded".

Confrontation was indeed the most successful example of successful diplomacy backed by land, sea and air forces shown to be "ready to go" - a sharp contrast to the mess that was being made in Viet Nam. The result was a stable Malaysia and Singapore, as well as Indonesia itself: Harold Wilson's declaration as Confrontation wound down, that we would never again be involved in anything so expensive and that we would withdraw from "East of Suez" was one of the crassest ever made by a British politician.
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