Chin Peng loses bid to return home: lawyer
Jun 22, 08 12:10pm
Malaysia's exiled former communist chief, who fought a bloody 12-year guerrilla campaign, has lost his latest bid to return to the country, his lawyer said today.
Chin Peng, the former secretary-general of the outlawed Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), took legal action after the government rejected his 2003 request to return.
But the bid, according to his counsel Darshan Singh Khaira, has now been rejected by the Court of Appeal who upheld a earlier ruling that Chin Peng show identification papers to prove his citizenship.
"Chin Peng is obviously disappointed by the ruling but he says he will continue his fight to return home until all legal avenues are exhausted," Darshan told AFP.
"We are unable to make sense of the ruling because Chin Peng had already said his identification papers were seized by the authority of the day in the 1940s and so he is unable to produce them," he added.
Darshan said the former communist leader should be allowed to return under a December 1989 peace agreement between the government and CPM members.
"The agreement signed by Malaysia, Thailand and the CPM says those of Malayan origin are allowed to return and Chin Peng was born in Malaya," he said, using the country's pre-independence name.
"The government must honour its obligations to Chin Peng," he added.
Darshan said he was preparing Chin Peng's appeal to the Federal Court, the country's highest judicial body.
Born Ong Boon Hua in Sitiawan in Malaysia's northern Perak state in 1923, Chin Peng won the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and two medals for helping the British fight the Japanese in Malaya during World War II.
He later led the communist party, backed by China, in a guerrilla campaign against the British colonial and Malay governments between 1948 and 1960, in which hundreds were killed. Chin Peng left Malaysia in 1961 and has been in exile since.
Malaysia in 2003 denied his request to return on grounds he was still linked to a banned organisation with a "history of perpetrating terrorism" in the country. Chin Peng currently lives in exile in Thailand, his lawyer said.
-AFP
In my opinion, they should allow the exiled former communist leader Chin Peng back here.
My reasons are simple...
One - He is already SO old, he practically has one foot in the grave so I really doubt he will start a fresh guerilla campaign when he comes back for a visit.
(there are more civilised, bloodless ways to take over the government nowadays, such as through political froggie hopping and votes of no-confidence)
Two - he is only asking to come back to spend his last days after all, he is not immortal and will not live for much more longer. For God's sake, he is 85 this year!
Three - for reasons that it is best I leave unsaid.
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