Putrajaya will not change its stand to block the remains of former Malayan communist leader Chin Peng from being brought back, and challenged those unhappy with the decision to seek legal redress.
“The government has decided and those unhappy with the decision can challenge it in court,” Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said at a press conference after opening a law conference in Kuala Lumpur this evening.
Najib acknowledged the issue had triggered differing opinions but said the people must remember the atrocities carried out by the communists during the insurgency.
“His former victims are still very emotional about it. So many people have either died, were wounded or lost their livelihood as a result of this,” he said.
Najib dismissed suggestions that Putrajaya did not honour the peace accord, pointing out that the former guerilla leader was given an opportunity for a year to take up Malaysian citizenship.
However, Chin Peng had insisted he was a Malaysian whose only wish was “to die in my birthplace and be buried among my ancestors”.
“This is my right and I hope nobody will deny me this,” he had reportedly said.
Najib also said the government will not send a representative to attend Chin Peng’s funeral, but instead will stop anyone from going.
Yesterday, MCA vice-president Gan Ping Sieu called on the government to soften its stand and allow Chin Peng’s ashes to return in fulfilling the spirit of the Hatyai Peace Accord.
Gan had stressed that the international community may cast suspicion on rule of law in Malaysia if the country continued to prevent the late communist leader’s ashes from being brought in.
“The grave of Karl Marx is located in the heart of London despite the fact that Marx’s communism caused grave damage to the British Empire. We should be magnanimous towards Chin Peng on his demise,” Gan had said.
DAP chairman Karpal Singh had also urged Putrajaya to allow Chin Peng’s ashes to be buried in his hometown.
Chin Peng, whose real name is Ong Boon Hua, died in a Bangkok hospital on Malaysia Day, a month short of his 89th birthday. He had repeatedly voiced his wish to be buried in his hometown of Sitiawan, Perak.
He will be cremated in Bangkok on Monday according to Buddhist rites.
Since 1989, Chin Peng had tried in vain to be allowed back in Malaysia. His attempts to get the courts to allow his return ended in 2009, when the apex court ruled against his application to reside in Malaysia because he was unable to prove he was born in the country.
Chin Peng fled to China in 1961 and later settled in Bangkok where he was granted an alien passport.
He reportedly moved to Haadyai, Songkla in recent years and shuttled between Haadyai and Bangkok for his cancer treatment.
He became secretary-general of the Communist Party of Malaya at the age 23 and was Britain’s “enemy number one” in South-East Asia at the height of the communist insurgency in Malaya. – September 19, 2013.
