The Malaysian Insight

DAP agrees with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad position that the ashes of late communist leader Chin Peng should not be made into an issue, said Lim Guan Eng.

The DAP secretary-general said the party agreed with the position and that it was time to move on.

“What the prime minister said is sufficient. I think it’s enough. And, we agree with that position,” Guan Eng, who is also finance minister, said.

He was responding to media queries on the party’s stand on the issue, which kicked up a storm after it was reported that the former Communist Party of Malaya’s kin had returned his ashes and scattered them in the sea of Lumut and the Titiwangsa mountain range in Perak, Chin Peng’s birth state.

Yesterday, Dr Mahahtir said matters concerning the late communist leader should not be made into an issue as he is now dead.

“He is dead. Yes, he killed a lot of people, but we also killed a lot of people… it was war time,” Dr Mahathir had told Malaysian reporters in Seoul, where he is on a working visit.

“It’s only his ashes (that have returned to Malaysia).

“What do you want us to do? Pick up all the ashes that have been scattered and send them back overseas?” he said regarding the return of Chin Peng’s ashes in September by a group of people handling his remains after his death in Thailand in 2013.

The group revealed their actions in a press conference two days ago, which is now the subject of a police investigation.

The news had sparked outcry from opposition MPs in Umno and PAS, who accused the Pakatan Harapan government of allowing the ashes to be returned.

However, Dr Mahathir said those blaming the PH government were using the issue for their own agenda.

“What do you want to raise such an issue for? This is a small matter that is being used to make the government look bad.

“Similar things happened under Najib (Razak) before, but nothing happened. Now, everything is PH’s fault.”

Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had both said the government did not approve any request for Chin Peng’s ashes to be brought back.

Dr Mahathir added today that it was difficult to detect when the ashes were brought back across the border.

“If the ashes were kept in a flask, how are we to know? If they want to scatter the ashes, let them.”

Dr Mahathir also said that, while Malaysia had allowed the return of other members of the CPM, such as Shamsiah Fakeh, the government had not allowed Chin Peng to return as he was a leader.

“It’s only his ashes that have returned. We allowed Shamsiah Fakeh to return and no one complained. Why? Because she was Malay, perhaps? There were others also (who returned).

“It was only Chin Peng (who) we did not want to accept because he was the leader,” he said.

Chin Peng, whose real name is Ong Boon Hua, was CPM secretary-general.

He died aged 89 on September 16, 2013, while living in exile in Thailand.

Under a peace treaty signed by Malaysia, Thailand and the CPM to end the communist insurgency, CPM members and leaders were allowed to return to Malaysia under certain conditions.

Chin Peng had filed a case in the Malaysian courts on his right to return under the peace treaty, but this was quashed by the Federal Court in 2009.

His lawyers had said he had repeatedly written to the Malaysian government for permission to return, but had always been denied. – November 29, 2019.