PM: Malaysia to snub Chin Peng’s funeral: KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19 — Putrajaya will not send anyone to pay last respects to Chin Peng, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today as he maintained Malaysia will not allow the former communist leader’s remains to be brought into the country. He said under no circumstances would any government representative be allowed to attend the burial of the former Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) leader who died on September 16. “We do not pay respects to people who are responsible for the deaths of thousands of people,” he said at a press conference here. The government has taken an unaccommodating position towards allowing the remains of Chin Peng, born Ong Boon Hua, to return to Malaysian soil amidst reports that it was his dying wish to return to his home state of Perak. Chin Peng, who led a bloody insurgency from the 1950s until the signing of the Hatyai Peace Accord in 1989, previously launched a legal challenge to compel the Malaysian government to allow his return, but this was dismissed by the Federal Court in 2010. Having adopted the communist ideology since he was 17, he has been credited with helping fight off the Japanese during World War II and also fighting against colonial rule to the point of Malaya’s independence in 1957. Najib did not deny Chin Peng’s contributions towards Malaya’s freedom in the past, but claimed that it was the former secretary-general of the CPM who threw away the chance at becoming a Malaysian citizen. The prime minister said he has personally gone through details of the Hat Yai Peace Accord, and confirmed that CPM members who agreed to the terms had to apply for citizenship within one year of the signing of the agreement. “He refused to do that and did not do anything to pursue it, so his rights have expired. He has relinquished his rights,” he said of the government’s refusal to recognise Chin Peng as a Malaysian citizen. Najib said allowing Chin Peng’s ashes into Malaysia on humanitarian grounds is not a sufficiently compelling reason, considering what he described as a “great emotional outpouring” against it by those who lost loved ones to the communists. Likewise, Chin Peng’s role as a freedom fighter must be tempered with the atrocities committed by the communists over the years, he added. Chin Peng died early Monday morning at a hospital Bangkok, Thailand, where he had been living in exile in the years prior to his death. dlvr.it/40BwQq
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 10:36:47 +0000