Chin Peng dies on Malaysia Day

PETALING JAYA: Former secretary general of Communist Party of Malaya, Chin Peng has died in Bangkok.

According to Bangkok Post, the 90-year-old Chin Peng died at a hospital in Bangkok on Monday morning.

He died of old age and was pronounced dead at 6.20am.

His relatives will perform religious rites for him on Friday.

Chin Peng led the CPM’s guerrilla insurgency and fought against British and Commonwealth forces to establish an independent Communist state.

He lived in exile in Thailand and was not permitted to return in Malaysia.

Chin, a long time public enemy of the state, has been denied entry to Malaysia although Malaysia government has signed a peace accord with CPM in 1989.

A Sitiawan native, he has made several appeals to the government to reconsider his plight as a senior citizen, saying he would like to visit his parents’ graveyard.

Born in 1924, Chin rose to become the CPM secretary-general in 1943 and waged a war against the British colonial administration and subsequently the Malaysia government to establish a communist state.

The war became known as the Malayan Emergency, and CPM was blamed for killing those who refused to co-operate with them.

This period also saw the formation of thousands of new villages, as the government strived to curb the CPM’s influence in the rural areas.

CPM members were forced to retreat to the Southen Thailand in 1970s.

Two weeks ago, former Special Branch deputy head Yuen Yuet Leng told FMT that he is in support of Chin’s return to Malaysia, as he said the war had long ended.

DAP chairman Karpal Singh immediately echoed the statement, saying that the time had come for the government to be pragmatic and compassionate as well as to see the plight of a senior citizen.

Meanwhile Perkasa head Ibrahim Ali told FMT that Chin Peng’s remains should not be allowed to be brought back into Malaysia.

“For me, Chin Peng is not just a terrorising communist, he was also a criminal,” he said, adding that events about Chin Peng and his party should be erased from the nation’s history.