KL rejects return bid by Chin Peng

KL rejects return bid by Chin Peng

MALAYSIA: Malaysia has rejected a request from an ageing former communist guerrilla leader to be allowed to return home from exile, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in remarks published on Monday.

Chin Peng, 79, the ex-secretary-general of the outlawed Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), wants to return for the launching of his autobiography Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History and to visit his parents' graves.

But permission could not be granted because Chin Peng was still linked to a banned organization with a "history of perpetrating terrorism in this country," Abdullah was quoted as saying by local media.

Chin Peng, who won the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and two medals for helping the British fight the Japanese in Malaya during World War II, later led the CPM in a guerrilla campaign against the British colonial and Malay governments between 1948 and 1960.

The government and the CPM eventually signed peace accords in December 1989.

"I was informed about his request from a third party," Abdullah said. "Chin Peng said that he wished to come back now. I replied that at the moment, the government's stand is not to allow him to return."

Chin Peng, born Ong Boon Hua in Sitiawan in Malaysia's northern Perak state, now lives in exile in Thailand. -- AFP