Honour peace accord, let Chin Peng’s ashes come home, says group

Chairman of the 21st Century Friendship Association Lee Huck Tee urges Putrajaya to honour the Hatyai Peace Accord by allowing Chin Peng's ashes to return home. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Hasnoor Hussain, November 30, 2014.Putrajaya has been urged to allow the ashes of the late Malayan Communist Party (CPM) leader Chin Peng to be brought home on the eve of the anniversary of the peace treaty which officially ended the party's guerilla insurgency.

Chairman of the 21st Century Malaysia Friendship Association, Lee Huck Tee, said the government should honour the Hatyai Peace Accord, signed on December 2, 1989, with the CPM and the Thai government.

By not letting Chin Peng to return home while he was alive and even after his death, Lee said, the Malaysian government has failed to honour the peace accord.

One of the terms in the peace accord signed in Hatyai, southern Thailand, was that CPM members of Malayan origin would be allowed to return to live in Malaysia, if they wanted to.

However, CPM secretary-general Chin Peng, whose real name was Ong Boon Hua, was barred from returning to Malaysia. His ashes have also been denied entry into the country.

"Not allowing his ashes to be brought back to his homeland cannot be tolerated by the universal laws of justice," Lee said.

Lee said experts, scholars and current affairs commentators, who had participated or witnessed the negotiations of the peace accord, viewed that Malaysia went against the agreement by refusing Chin Peng's return and by continuously condemning him as a terrorist in the media.

"Five years ago, we had the 20th anniversary celebration of the peace accord in Hatyai.

"The hot topic then was whether Chin Peng, who had signed the agreement, could ever come home," he said in his speech at 25th anniversary celebration of the signing of the Hatyai Peace Accord in Prai, Penang, last night.

Lee said Chin Peng spoke then of how the Malaysian government had signed the agreement in an "atmosphere of honesty and benevolence".

Chin Peng had also expressed regret and disappointment that he was not allowed to return home, Lee said.

Lee said the peace accord must be honoured, which was one of the reasons why they were celebrating the anniversary of the agreement's signing.

"The first reason is to honour the spirit of the peace accord; fight against tyranny and unjust political conspiracy; and struggle for reforms that benefit the people, democracy and unity.

"The second reason is to urge all parties that signed the agreement, namely the government of Malaysia, to honour the terms, fulfil their promise, listen to the people and allow Chin Peng's ashes to be brought back to the country of his birth," he said.

Meanwhile, the secretary of the association which promotes friendship, Chai Gao Ren, said the peace accord had an important impact.

Chin Peng was a long-time leader of the Malayan Communist Party. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, November 30, 2014."It stabilised society, and brought peace harmony and unity," Chai, a representative from East Malaysia, said at the anniversary celebration that was attended by over 900 people.

According to history, Chin Peng became a communist at 16. He fought with the British against the Japanese during the Second World War, earning him an OBE (Order of the British Empire) that was later rescinded when he went against the empire.

As an anti-colonialist, he fought against the British and Commonwealth forces in an attempt to establish an independent communist state in Malaya.

After Malaya gained independence in 1957, he continued to wage a campaign against the nation while in exile, attempting to replace the government with communist rule. The communist party finally laid down arms and the peace accord was signed in 1989.

Chin Peng was one of three senior CPM leaders who signed the peace accord but the Malaysian government refused to allow him to return to the country.

He first applied to return to Malaysia in late 1990, but the application was rejected in December the following year.

After some of his CPM comrades were given permission to return home, he made further efforts to return to his hometown of Sitiawan, in Perak, but was unsuccessful.

He then turn to the court and lost his final bid in the Federal Court on April 30, 2009.

Chin Peng lived out his live in exile in Thailand until his death in a Bangkok hospital on Malaysia Day last year.

The other two CPM leaders who signed the peace accord were Rashid Maidin and Abdullah CD. Rashid died in Narathiwat on September 1, 2006, at 88. Abdullah, now 91, is living in a Southern Thai village close to the Thai-Malaysian border in Kelantan. – November 30, 2014.