Activists staged a protest outside the British High Commission today over London's refusal to hold an inquiry into the massacre of 24 unarmed villagers by British troops in 1948.

British government lawyers in August indicated a provisional decision to reject any investigation despite a decades-long campaign for an official probe by relatives and supporters of villagers killed in Batang Kali.

"The British government promised to show us the documents they used to make their conclusions but four months on and they still have not shown us the most important files and documents on the killings," said Quek Ngee Meng, who represents the families.

"This makes us suspect that they really do not have a basis for their rejection and there may be other evidence in those files that helps our case but is being kept away from us," he added.

Quek, along with 30 Batang Kali villagers, placed yellow flowers at the gates of the High Commission to mark the 61st anniversary of the killings as supporters held up banners condemning the "crimes of the British military in Batang Kali."

In April, the British government agreed to re-examine an earlier decision to reject a probe which activists have been campaigning for since 1993.

Shot in cold blood

The "Batang Kali massacre" occurred in a village in central Selangor state on Dec 12, 1948, when 14 members of the Scots Guards killed 24 unarmed ethnic Chinese and torched their village.

British colonial authorities said at the time of the incident - at the beginning of a 12-year communist insurgency in the former Malaya - that the men were shot because they were suspected guerrillas fleeing the scene.

Explained away in 1948 by the then Malayan attorney-general vindicating the troops, the massacre was largely forgotten until 1970 when a British newspaper ran an explosive account of the killings, publishing sworn affidavits by soldiers involved who admitted the villagers were shot in cold blood.

The revelations triggered uproar in Britain but a promised investigation was later dropped after a change in government.

The guerrilla war in Malaya left thousands dead and formally ended only in 1989 with the signing of a peace treaty with the Malayan Communist Party.

- AFP