Alumnus (PhD in History), Charles Darwin University

The Partai Rakyat Brunei and Indonesia

When the Partai Rakyat Brunei (Brunei People’s Party, PRB) saw its hopes of forming a federation with neighbours Sarawak and Sabah dying with the clear success of a rival concept for a Federation of Malaysia, they decided to form an armed wing, the Tentera Nasional Kalimantan Utara (National Military of North Kalimantan, TNKU). The PRB had always been inspired and influenced by the struggle for independence of the Republic of Indonesia and they used their links to the Indonesian Government to seek training for their “army” in Kalimantan. The ineffectiveness of this training may have helped to doom the subsequent Brunei Rebellion in December 1962 to failure, but the revolt was concrete evidence of opposition to the Federation of Malaysia in northern Borneo and thus was a welcome event to both the Indonesian Government and the Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party, PKI). It was the match that lit the fire of Konfrontasi.

Biography

Kathleen Harry was awarded her Doctorate of Philosophy from Charles Darwin University in 2015 for her thesis “The Brunei Rebellion of 1962”. She has presented at two Borneo Research Council conferences: in 2010 on “The Causes of the Brunei Rebellion of 1962” and in 2012 on “Brunei’s First Democratic Experiment: The 1962 District Council Elections”. She has also published an entry on Brunei Darussalam in “The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives” in 2017.