Chin Peng’s Farewell: A Letter to Comrades and Compatriots
by dinobeano
September 21, 2013
MY COMMENT: My views on the status of the late Chin Peng are well 
known.
I think his remains should be brought home and his wish to be interred
with his parents should be granted. It is not being magnanimous but
about honouring our treaty obligations. I therefore compliment the
former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Rahim Noor for standing up
for the rights of Chin Peng under the 1989 Hatyai Peace Agreement
between the Malaysian Government and the Communist Party of Malaya
(CPM).
known.
I think his remains should be brought home and his wish to be interred
with his parents should be granted. It is not being magnanimous but
about honouring our treaty obligations. I therefore compliment the
former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Rahim Noor for standing up
for the rights of Chin Peng under the 1989 Hatyai Peace Agreement
between the Malaysian Government and the Communist Party of Malaya
(CPM).
Now
that he is dead, his cremated remains should be brought home to be
buried beside his parents. This is not about politics. It is the most
honorable and decent thing to do. We must also learn to accept our
history, and recognise that Chin Peng fought the Japanese and British
imperialists, although we may not accept his ideology and methods. When
our government signed that peace treaty, we accepted him and his
comrades as non-combatants and partners in peace.
Yes,
many lives were lost during the Emergency (1948-1960). Armed conflicts
cost lives. The American lost 55,000 soldiers and the Vietnamese many
times more.But once the Americans and the Vietnamese signed the Paris
Peace agreement, they began the process of rebuilding their relations
and today both combatants are working together to advance common
interests. Reconciliation is possible only if we can come to terms with
our past and learn the lessons of our history.--Din Merican
Chin Peng's Farewell: A Letter to Comrades and Compatriots
My dear comrades, my dear compatriots,
When
you read this letter, I am no more in this world.It was my original
intention to pass away quietly and let my relatives handle the funeral
matters in private. However, the repercussions of erroneous media
reports of me in critical condition during October 2011, had persuaded
me that leaving behind such a letter is desirable.
Ever
since I joined the Communist Party of Malaya and eventually became its
secretary-general, I have given both my spiritual and physical self in
the service of the cause that my party represented, that is, to fight
for a fairer and better society based on socialist ideals. Now with my
passing away, it is time that my body be returned to my family.
I
draw immense comfort in the fact that my two children are willing to
take care of me, a father who could not give them family love, warmth
and protection ever since their birth. I could only return my love to
them after I had relinquished my political and public duties, ironically
only at a time when I have no more life left to give to them as a
father.
It
was regrettable that I had to be introduced to them well advanced in
their adulthood as a stranger. I have no right to ask them to
understand, nor to forgive. They have no choice but to face this harsh
reality. Like families of many martyrs and comrades, they too have to
endure hardship and suffering not out of their own doing, but out of a
consequence of our decision to challenge the cruel forces in the society
which we sought to change.
It
is most unfortunate that I couldn't, after all, pay my last respects to
my parents buried in hometown of Sitiawan (in Perak), nor could I set
foot on the beloved motherland that my comrades and I had fought so hard
for against the aggressors and colonialists.
My comrades and I had dedicated our lives to a political cause that we
believed in and had to pay whatever price there was as a result.
Whatever consequences on ourselves, our family and the society, we would
accept with serenity.
In
the final analysis, I wish to be remembered simply as a good man who
could tell the world that he had dared to spend his entire life in
pursuit of his own ideals to create a better world for his people.
It
is irrelevant whether I succeeded or failed, at least I did what I did.
Hopefully the path I had walked on would be followed and improved upon
by the young after me. It is my conviction that the flames of social
justice and humanity will never die. – September 21, 2013.
* Chin Peng died at hospital in Bangkok on Malaysia Day, September 16, 2013 at the age of 89. This is his final letter to his comrades and compatriots published in his memorial booklet.
*
This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not
necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
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