Ong celebrates his 85th birthday in Bangkok last year. — file pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 — Sitiawan-born Ong Boon Hua — more commonly known as Chin Peng — is battling to clear his name in Malaysia’s top court, in a last-ditch bid to pave the way for his return home.
The former leader of the feared Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) who turned 86 on Tuesday will know today if he can sue the government of Malaysia for going against the spirit of the 1989 Peace Accord, and which promised him the freedom to return home with a clean slate.
The Federal Court in Putrajaya has fixed the former CPM secretary-general’s suit for case management today.
“We have filed an application for leave to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal dismissing his case for breaching the terms of the Peace Accord,” the ex-guerrilla fighter’s lawyer, Chan Kok Keong, told The Malaysian Insider.
“In this case, Chin Peng asked for damages and that the Peace Accord be specifically performed by an injunction that the Malaysian government desist from uttering slanderous remarks,” he added.
The three-way treaty, signed 21 years ago in Haadyai by CPM leaders and senior government officials representing Malaysia and Thailand, signalled the end of a decades-long jungle war in the two Southeast Asian countries.
Chan explained that under the terms of the treaty, the parties had “agreed not to make slanderous remarks against each other and mention words such as mass surrender and capitulation”.
“The Court of Appeal ruled that ‘such as’ is limited to mass surrender or capitulation, whereas Chin Peng contends that ‘such as’ only means ‘for example’,” the lawyer said.
“We are considering taking the dispute to the International Centre for Human Dialogues and see if the matter can be resolved,” Chan intimated.
Now living in Bangkok, the man whose Communist-given name once earned him infamy as the country’s “Public Enemy No. 1” first filed to sue the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government in 2005 for making him out to be a ruthless villain, but lost at the High Court here in September 2009.
Ong, who sees himself as a freedom fighter against colonial British rule, wants Putrajaya to stop tarring him as a terrorist.
On July 27 this year, the Court of Appeal had struck out the aged warrior’s bid.
The three-man bench had unanimously ruled that the federal government did not breach the conditions of the Haadyai Peace Accord when it allowed the publication of statements describing Ong as a “terrorist communist”.
“We have closely scrutinised this particular Item of the Administrative Arrangement but we are unable to accept that Item 1.2 provided for the non-publication of all manner of slander, rather, we find Item 1.2 only limited to the non-publication of words to the effect of ‘mass surrender’ and ‘capitulation,’” Court of Appeal judge Datuk Sulong Mat Jerai said in his ruling.
The exiled Ong has maintained that Item 1.2 of the lengthily-named “Administrative Arrangement Between The Government Of Malaysia And The Communist Party Of Malaya Pursuant To The Agreement To Terminate Hostilities”, was intended to safeguard the reputation of CPM members in their voluntary laying down of arms 21 years ago.
The particular item of the one-page document states: “All press statements issued by either party thereafter shall be in the spirit of the agreement and shall not contain any slanderous terms such as ‘mass surrender’ and ‘capitulation’”.
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