Chin Peng, an issue grossly exploited

My Sinchew

I have no idea where Mr Chin Peng is now.

No one seems to know for sure whether he really wants to come back to his home country--with this I mean Malaysia--and we have not heard that he is applying to come back either.

Weird enough, the issue of Chin Peng returning to Malaysia has all of a sudden been cooked up.

With Utusan Malaysia taking the lead, many have branded Chin Peng the "enemy of the state" deeply ingrained in heinous crimes, one who must never be allowed to set foot on this land again!

Most funnily, there are a few veteran soldiers claiming to represent the nation's retired troops, vowed by all means to oppose to Chin Peng's return.

As if that is not enough, they even urged the government to cite the Internal Security Act to detain anyone holding dissident views.

A veteran soldier might still be sunken deep into the war syndrome, overlooking the fact that the war has ended decades ago, such that he would demand actions against people supporting Chin Peng's return.

Even Dr Mahathir has jumped into the bandwagon, feeling that the government should be firm in its stand not to allow Chin Peng to return to Malaysia.

Under the auspices of Dr Mahathir himself, though, the Malaysian government signed a peace accord with the Malayan Communist Party some 20 years ago.

Frankly speaking, that was one of the not-too-bad things the long serving ex-premier did during his tenure!

Interestingly, didn't Dr Mahathir reiterate that we should lay down our historical baggage and allow past hatred to precipitate? It doesn't make any sense for him to grow less tolerant as his age advances.

In addition, the driving force behind the peace accord back then, former IGP Abdul Rahim Noor said during an exclusive interview with Sin Chew Daily that the struggles with MCP had actually hastened the independence of Malaya. In other words, he admitted that MCP had its own contributions towards the nation-building process.

Didn't everyone of us cheer the peace accord then?

If the government is indeed persistent in its policy of denying Chin Peng, why doesn't it make this very clear, so that no one would cook up this issue again every now and then? (By TAY TIAN YAN/Translated by DOMINIC LOH/Sin Chew Daily)