Lest we forget and not forgive ?

Reading a letter by one Irwan Jamil from Singapore to the New Straits Time regarding Chin Peng seeking the International Court to compel Government of Malaysian to allow for his return. Irwan has also made various allegations of Chin Peng's brutality and arrogance during the Civil War ( the state of Emergency ) period in Malaysia – Hard to forget those years of brutality. NST May 3rd 2006.

Reading through various collected documents on this dark chapter of Malaysia, Chin Pend did indeed responsible for various deaths and violences. But we must remember that, during those period of times, Malaysia is in the state of “Civil War”. It is basically a war of ideological differences – of communisms against democracy. Malaysians has choose democracy. The reality is, in any civil war, there is no rights and wrongs. The political reality is, the victors became the heroes and the losers became the villains. Chin Peng and his followers lost the ideological wars and retreated into the jungle of Thailand to wait for opportunity to relaunch their communism ideology into Malaysia. The process of democratization of Malaysia has resulted in deaths and casualties. Brutal as it may seemed. But essentially, these are the price past Malaysians has to pay for blindly following misguided leaders who refused to accept the political realities.

A peace talk was held between the late Tunku Abdul Rahman and Ching Peng on Dec 28th 1955 to end the “emergency period”, but failed. An intermittent clashes occurred between government forces and the Malaysia Communist Party. The late Tun Abdul Razak made a successful visit to China in 1974 resulting in the late Mao Tze Tong declaring the non recognition of the MCP and advising Malaysian to display allegiance to the country. As a result, the Barisan National had a sweeping victory in the 1974 general elections and The MCP's morale was crushed. Subsequently, the previous Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Mahathir has successfully negotiated a peace settlement in Hadyai Thailand in 1989 with Ching Peng to formally end the hostilities.

I believed a term of the Peace Accord is to allow Ching Peng to return to Malaysia to live his remaining life as Malaysian.

As Malaysians, we must all now close the dark chapter of violences and terrorisms and move forward to become a progressive and tolerance nation. Chin Peng has served his purpose in the history of Malaysia. Looking at his positive contributive side, he did received a QBE for his efforts against Japanese's aggressions, but the QBE was subsequently withdrawn because of his anti-colonist stand. Whether he is a “patriot” or “terrorist” towards the independent and formative years of Malaysia is not a point of contention in this venue.

The important issue here is, the government of Malaysia has striked an agreement with Chin Peng. Are we sincere enough in wanting to honour the agreement ? What is past is past. Let us close ranks now, forgive and forget, and move forward. Let us behave like a true gentlemen. Lest we forget, we must honour our agreement.

Let us all not be sieged by the mentalities of conveniently forging agreement with no intention to fulfill. Let us all not be so vindictive. I said, let this old man come back. After all, his is still a Malaysian. Deliberate attempt to refuse a Malaysian to step on the soil of Malaysia is the most despicable act against the constitution of Malaysia.

Negara ku. Tanah tumpah nya darah ku..... Rakyat hidup bersatu dan maju.... and I have a dream for my future generations living in a peaceful, progressive, moderate, prosperous, and tolerance Malaysia without the need to shed a single drop of blood on the soils of this beloved mother land.