Chin Peng

Chin Peng
File:Chin Peng.jpg Chin Peng in his later years
Born	Ong Boon Hua (1924-10-21)21 October 1924 Sitiawan, Perak, Federated Malay States, British Malaya
Died	16 September 2013(2013-09-16) (aged 88) Bangkok, Thailand
Nationality	Malayan
Successor	Abdullah CD
Political party	Malayan Communist Party
Spouse	Khoon Wah Keng

Chin Peng (Chinese: 陳平; pinyin: Chén Píng), former OBE, (21 October 1924 – 16 September 2013) born Ong Boon Hua (Chinese: 王文華; pinyin: Wáng Wénhuá) was a long-time leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). A determined anti-colonialist, he led the party's guerrilla insurgency in the Malayan Emergency, fighting against British and Commonwealth forces in an attempt to establish an independent communist state. After the MCP's defeat and subsequent Malayan independence, Chin waged a second campaign against Malaya and, after 1963, the new state of Malaysia in an attempt to replace its government with a communist one from exile, until signing a peace accord with the Malaysian government in 1989.

Chin Peng died at the age of 88, in Bangkok, Thailand. Prior to his death, he was living in exile in Thailand and had not been permitted to return to Malaysia contrary to one of the conditions of the 1989 peace agreement.

Biography

Early years

Chin Peng was born on 21 October 1924, into a middle-class family, in the small seaside town of Sitiawan, in Perak state, Malaya. His father went to live in Sitiawan in 1920. He set up a bicycle, tyre and spare motor parts business with the help of a relative from Singapore.

Chin Peng attended a Chinese language school in Sitiawan. In 1937 he joined the Chinese Anti Enemy Backing Up Society (AEBUS), formed that year to send aid to China in response to Japan's aggression. According to Chin and Hack, he was not a communist then. He was in charge of anti-Japanese activities at his school. He has been a supporter of Sun Yat-sen. By early 1939 he had embraced Communism. He planned to go to Yan'an, the renowned communist base in China, but was persuaded to remain in Malaya and take on heavier responsibilities in the newly formed Malayan Communist Party.

In late 1939, when Chin Peng was at 4th year of his Secondary school education ( known as Senior Middle Level One), his school announced that the Senior Middle section was to be closed due to lack of funds. He decided to continue his education in the Methodist-run Anglo-Chinese Continuation School, which operated in English, because it provided a good cover for his underground activities. He did not want to have to move to Singapore to continue with his education in Chinese. He left the school "for fear of British harassment" after just 6 months He was now focused fully on his political activities and became, from that point on, a full-time revolutionary. In January 1940 he was put in charge of three anti-Japanese organisations that were targeting students, teachers, members of cultural activities and general labourers. At the end of January 1940 he was admitted to the Malayan Communist Party as a member.

Harassment by the authorities led him to leave his home town for Kuala Kangsar in July 1940. (This may be at the time when he left his school, refer to above). Later he spent a month in Taiping. In September 1940 the party posted him to Ipoh as a Standing committee member for Perak. In December he attained full Party membership.

In early 1941 AEBUS was dissolved. Chin Peng became Ipoh District committee member of the Party. "He led student underground cells of three Chinese secondary schools and the Party's organisations of the shop assistants, domestic servants of European families, workers at brick kilns and barbers." In June 1941 he became a member of the Perak State Committee.

Rise to prominence

Chin Peng rose to prominence during World War II when many Chinese Malayans took to the jungle to fight a guerrilla war against the Japanese. These fighters, inspired by the example of the Communist Party of China, became known as the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). Chin Peng became the liaison officer between the MPAJA and the British military in South-East Asia.

The Japanese invasion of Malaya began in December 1941. In 1942 Chin was the youngest of three members of the Secretariat of the Perak State Committee: Su Yew Meng was secretary and Chang Meng Ching (hanyan pinyin: Zhang Ming Jin) was the other member. In early 1943 the two senior members were captured by the Japanese, which left Chin Peng in charge. Contact with the Party's Central Committee had been lost; he attempted to re-establish it, travelling to Kuala Lumpur and meeting Chai Ker Meng. Later Lai Tek, the Party leader, sent another Central Committee member, Lee Siow Peng (Siao Ping), to replace Chin as State Secretary. However, Lee Siow Peng was captured not long after, while travelling to a meeting that was to be held in Singapore.

Thus the job of establishing contact with the British commando Force 136 fell to Chin Peng. The first party of that force, consisting of Capt. John Davis and five Chinese agents, had landed in Malaya on 24 May 1943, by submarine. Chin Peng made contact with this armed group on 30 September 1943. He was active in his support for the British stay-behind troops, but had no illusions about their failure to protect Malaya against the Japanese. In the course of this activity, he came into contact with Freddie Spencer Chapman, who called him a 'true friend' in his Malayan jungle memoir, 'The Jungle Is Neutral'.

Because of his services during the war, Chin was awarded an OBE (though it was subsequently withdrawn later by the British government), a mention in despatches and two campaign medals by Britain. He was elected the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Malaya after the betrayal of previous leader Lai Tek who turned out to be an agent for both the British and the Japanese and had denounced the leadership of the Party to the Japanese secret police. Chin Peng was the most senior surviving member.

Before the Emergency

In 1948, the Federation of Malaya Plan replaced the Malayan Union plan and it frustrated the CPM as they felt the plan was undemocratic and biased towards to the Malay elites. They accused British for forcing the Federation idea to the people by posing it as a constitutional solution to Malaya’s crisis.

According to Chin Peng, at first, the central committees still adherent to Lai Teck’s peace struggle strategy in facing the Federation, as they thought that the people of Malaya were still recovering from the horrors of the Japanese Occupation. To launch an armed rebellion so soon would not only cause them to lose the mass support they had been enjoying but, at the same time, also drive the already wary Malays to openly resist them.

While some scholars alleged CPM for receiving secret directives from Moscow agents on the methods and timing for a near-simultaneous uprising against colonial authorities during the Southeast Asian Youth Conference held in Calcutta on February 19, 1948 which eventually caused the CPM’s insurrection, Chin Peng denied it and stated that the conference was actually argued against such a move. Laurence Sharkey, party secretary of the Australian Communist Party, informed Chin Peng and the central committee of the conference’s decision while stopping over in Singapore on his way home.

In March 1948, the central committees were discussing new policies as the labor strikes were not bringing results that they hoped for. Chin Peng estimated it would be a year or two before the British took actions against the CPM, leaving them ample time to prepare for a guerrilla war.

On 12 June 1948, the colonial government outlawed the burgeoning trade unions federations amid a rising atmosphere of tension.

Since then, there were no reductions in the level of violent activities, other than the neutralization of trade unions. Political murders of informers or anyone found to be working against the labor movement or the CPM, and non-Europeans considered enemies to the communist cause or strike-breakers who used thugs and gangsters to harass protesters rose.

The murdering of three Kuomintang leaders in Johor on June 12 had convinced the British that the communists were escalating the conflict in retaliation for outlawing the trade unions earlier that time, while in the CPM’s eyes, these murders were just purely acts of intimidation. Chin Peng again, claimed that he was not aware of the murders at the time; although he approved of the killing of the plantation owner which he claimed to have been harsh and cruel to the workers.

The Emergency (1948-1989)

Headline on page 1 of The Straits Times of 1952

On June 16, 1948, three European plantation managers being murdered in Sungai Siput, which generally being identified that this incident was the origins of the Malayan colonial administration declaration of a state of emergency.

Rather, argued by Sze-Chieh Ng, these murders were merely the final catalyst for a long-brewing crisis that had been going on since the trade unions began agitating in 1945. Anthony Short feels that this was more of a panic reaction than a carefully considered move. According to him, the government had been powerless to deal with the unrest plaguing Malaya since 1945. While In Purcell’s viewpoint, the Emergency was declared in response to the increasing incidents of violence and lawlessness.

Chin Peng being the most wanted man of British government, and the government offered a reward of $ 250,000 for his capture.

On July 17, 1948, CPM offices in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Singapore, and other major cities being raided, followed by mass arrests of any suspected communists and anti-government individuals on July 21.

The CPM was banned in July. Many Singaporean historians and anti-communists allege that Chin Peng ordered the killings. Chin Peng claimed he had no prior knowledge of the plot. He added that he barely escaped arrest, losing his passport in the process, and he lost touch with the Party for a couple of days.

In response to the Emergency and the mass arrests of its members, the CPM issued a call to its members to revive its disbanded wartime resistance army, the MPAJA, and to take up arms again and escape to the jungles.

In fact, since late May and early June the communists had been secretly setting up platoons in several states in preparation for an expected British crackdown in September. The Emergency’s sudden declaration in June, however, forced the MCP to accelerate its plan and it called out to comrades and volunteers to join them in the struggle.

The new guerrilla army, now known as the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), spent the first year of the Emergency consolidating and rearming.

At that time, the CPM was in chaos, which the members were dispersed in the jungles, and operating without a command structure and a central leadership. According to Chin Peng, attacks were being carried out without his approval or knowledge and there was no coordination between the units. Guerrilla casualties were high in return for little to no strategic gains in those early months.

Chin Peng was desperate to assert control over the MNLA, which had been operating independently since June. It was not until August that some form of central authority was finally set up in Cameron Highlands with Chin Peng ordering the guerrillas to adopt Mao Zedong’s strategy of establishing liberated zones as they drove the British from an area.

However, the adaption of this strategy failed. British forces continued to hound the guerrillas, who were often forced to relocate deeper into the jungles and disperse their forces into smaller units. This was done due to difficulties in resupply and the dangers of maintaining a large force where the chances of discovery and annihilation by British patrols were high.

Furthermore, the CPM was losing civilian support, with the malfunction of Min Yuen, and lacking of material assistance and intelligences, the party was suffered. Chin Peng admits they had wrongly assumed that the people would be willing to offer their support as they had in World War II. When that did not happen, they resorted to forceful measures to obtain what they need.

Besides, the CPM and MNLA also suffered under British’s propaganda, which that they are being labelled as bandits and Communist Terrorists, as known as CTs. Old suspicions and assumptions that the CPM had clandestine support from either the CCP or the Soviet Union had, over time, became an accepted fact.

Post-Cold War materials have finally overturned the convenient lie the British promoted more than half a century ago, revealing not only that the CPM had not sought external support but also that no agents from either China or Russia had even made contact with them. The only ‘support’ Chin Peng remembers obtaining was the encouraging news that Mao’s guerrillas had defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s well-equipped and numerically superior KMT army in 1949.

Briggs Plan

In 1950, a series of strategies being introduced by the Director of Operations in the anti-communist war in Malaya, Lt. General Sir Harold Briggs, that later became known as ‘The Briggs Plan.’

The plan aimed to defeat the guerrillas by cutting off their sources of support from the civilians was a succeed. The creation of ‘New Village’ under this plan had caused shortages of intelligences and foods supplies for the CPM, and thus had a devastating effects on the guerrillas.

Chin Peng concur this fact as he nearly starved on several occasions during those twelve years.

After several reviews and amendments, the CPM it ordered the guerrillas to cease sabotage and terror operations and to develop closer ties with the middle-class in order to preserve their strengthens.

Chin Peng would later admit, in an interview in 1999, that this directive was a mistake as it allowed the British to press their attacks on the MNLA, whom they correctly assessed to be quite demoralized by then.

After Sir Harold Briggs passed away, Lt. General Sir Gerald Templer being appointed as the new commander, and he introduced aggressive strategies which were different from the Briggs Plan, included interrogations, food rationing, large monetary rewards for captured or killed communists coupled with intense military operations, and mobilised large number of troops to hound the guerrillas.

In 1953, the CPM relocated their headquarters in Betong, a place in southern Thailand. They re-establish its networks to connect the scattered units and review it strategy.

In late 1953 and early 1954, the war is in semi-stalemate due to both the MNLA and the British were unable decisively to defeat one another.

In early 1954, Siao Chang, a top CPM leader who had been sent to Beijing in late 1952 to deepen his Marxist-Leninist education while also serving as liaison to the CCP, announced a new direction for the party, which was to abandon the establishment of the People’s Democratic Republic of Malaya and join with other Malayan political parties in a legal fight for Malaya independence.

Chin Peng described Siao Chang as the CPM’s ‘insurance policy’ in the event the central committee was eliminated.

Although this was not their decision, Chin Peng and the other central committees decided to go along with it under such dilemma, that the Malay politicians had achieved more for the independence movement within the last few years than the MNLA had since 1948 and the Beijing announcement revealed to the CPM that both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China had viewed the armed struggle in Malaya as untenable.

Baling Talks

On 24 September 1955, Chin Peng wrote to Rahman offering to negotiate peace. On 17 October, talks between two government representatives with Chin Peng and another central committee of the CPM held at Klian Intan.

A new ‘Eight Point Program’ being introduced by the CPM to call an end to the Emergency, included a cessation of hostilities, reform of Malaya’s political system, democratic rights, support for world peace, and attention to other matters including education, health, welfare, and industrial production.

On 28 and 29 December 1955, the negotiations reached its peak small northern town of Baling in Kedah. Representatives from the Government were Tunku Abdul Rahman, David Marshall as the Chief Minister of Singapore, and Sir Cheng Lock Tan as the leader of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA). For CPM, it were Chin Peng, Chen Tian, and Abdul Rashid bin Maidin.

The first day of the talks did not go well, as Chin Peng wanted CPM to be recognised as a legal party again, or at least the leaders and members of the MNLA were allowed to regain their freedom of movement and not face any legal persecution or imprisonment.

Tunku Abdul Rahman rejected and demanded at the beginning of the meeting that the CPM to fully surrender as the only way to peace but then promised that those who surrendered would undergo a period of rehabilitation before being allowed to become free citizens again.

Chin Peng again argued freedom of thought and choice must be recognized by the Malayan government if the new nation was to survive past its independence, as the people should have the right to decide which political path the nation should take rather than having that choice be decided by a select few in the government.

Tunku Abdul Rahman rejected it again, and only promised the freedom for the CPM members to join any existing political party after being cleared by the authorities.

On the second day of talks, Chin Peng said that the CPM would cease its hostilities and lay down its arms if the Alliance government could obtain the powers of internal security and defence from the British government.

Tunku Abdul Rahman accepted it as a challenge and promised that he would achieved it in his upcoming trip to London.

Great publicity was given in the media to this dramatic challenge from Chin Peng. The challenge, indeed, served to strengthen the Alliance government’s bargaining position at the London talks. Anxious to end the Emergency, the British government agreed to concede those powers of internal security and defence and to the demand for independence for Malaya by 31 August 1957, if possible.

Chin Peng claimed it was his challenge to Tunku Abdul Rahman that hastened the independence of Malaya.

Tunku Abdul Rahman had acknowledged the importance of the Baling talks when the latter wrote in 1974 that ‘Baling had led straight to Merdeka (Independence).’

Whatsoever happened after the talks, but the talks itself ended without a consensus emerged between the two sides.

Chin Peng insisted the term ‘throwing down their arms’ meant not surrendering their weapons but rather setting them aside for future disposal, while Tunku Abdul Rahman rejected it he feared a repeat of China’s takeover by the communists, and demanded an immediate surrender of the CPM as their ideologies were too incompatible.

The talks finally collapsed but were regarded as both a success and failure for Tunku Abdul Rahman, as the talks made the British regarded him as a strong leader who was tough on communism. His performance had also impressed the Colonial Office enough to grant Malaya independence. For the CPM, it was a very demoralizing affair which nearly collapsed the already ailing struggle.

The failure of Baling Talks had had great negative impact towards the CPM, accumulated with the losing of hope to either end the war or achieve their ideology, and the sufferings of mounting casualties due to combat plus the lack of a stable food supply, the members started to turn themselves in to the government in return for financial rewards and pardons.

In 1956, Chin Peng wrote to Tunku Abdul Rahman offering to resume negotiations. This was rejected by Rahman in a broadcast on 2 April.

The MNLA lost almost 88% of its men, from an approximately 3000-strong army when they first raised arms in mid-1948 to no more than 350 men by late 1958 due to causalities and surrenders.

In 1959, the central committees of CPM decided to demobilise their activities and to have the guerrillas re-join society while continuing to promote their communist ideals until such a time when they could once again rise up in revolt.

Chin Peng then moved to south Thailand with the remnants of his forces during the latter part of the Emergency as a result of pressure from the Malayan security forces, which by 1952, there were over 32,000 regular troops in Malaya, about three-fifths of them Europeans from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

The Second Insurgency (1968-1989)

In 1961, CPM central committees such as Chin Peng, Chen Tien, and Lee An Tung moved to Beijing in order to keep them safe and to seek political advice and guidance from the more experienced CCP.

Chin Peng would, however, remain in Beijing for the next 29 years and the party would not lay down its arms until 1989. The reasons for this reversal of the party’s decision to disband, explained by Chin Peng, was the advice given to him by the Vietnamese communist leaders in Hanoi, the opening of the second ‘Vietnam War’, which was followed by China’s Cultural Revolution, all of which stressed a strong militant line to be taken by Asian communist parties.

While in Beijing, Chin Peng also being advised by Deng Xiao Ping, the secretary general of the CCP at the time, to continue the armed struggle in Malaya as Deng felt the time was ripe for revolutions to take place in Southeast Asia.

Deng insisted that the military struggle should not only be maintained but stepped up.

Deng even promised financial support to the CPM provided they take up arms once again.

Deng’s offer was to remain a secret as the CCP did not wish to let it be known that they had been actively supporting Southeast Asia’s communist movements. The so-called Second Emergency would begin in 1970 with little to no success despite being provided with US$100,000 in financial support.

Chin Peng reluctantly decided to acquiesce to Deng’s suggestion. This was also the first time that the CPM had accepted foreign assistance in its struggle and it was with this financial backing that the second armed struggle in Malaya would be launched in 1968.

Meanwhile, back in Malaya, the Malayan government had declared the Emergency over on July 31, 1960 once they are confident the MNLA had ceased to be a credible threat with the surviving guerrillas retreating to their sanctuary in southern Thailand.

The insurgency continued with the insurgents increasing their attacks, ambushes of military convoys, bombing of national monuments and assassinations of marked police officers and political ‘enemy targets’. The insurgency, which began as a war against the British colonialists was now transformed into a war against ‘federalists, compressors capitalists and lackeys of British imperialism’.

The Malayan government maintained a high security alert by devoting one-third of its national budget to defense and internal security needs and requested British, Australian and New Zealand troops and military bases to remain in the country until its internal security and national armed forces could be built up and the foreign troops were gradually phased out.

In 1970, the CPM's guerrilla bases in Thailand were hard hit by the trials and executions of supposed spies. Two breakaway factions were formed which condemned the purge. Chin Peng, who was then based in China, has denied involvement and later rehabilitated his accused comrades.

During 1970s and 1980s, CPM intensify its activities and clashes with the security forces. These activities were due to a rivalry among three factions in the CPM. The split had been over party purges and strategies and each faction tried to outdo the other in militancy and violence.

However, in 1980, Deng Xiao Ping changed his political interest to serve the Chinese bureaucracy after his return of power in 1978. He welcomed Lee Kuan Yew, the then Prime Minister of Singapore and its leading political figure, since independence from Malaysia, in a visit to Beijing.

Chin Peng recalled that, Deng had not bothered to meet him since 1978. And finally in 1980, Deng summoned to Chin’s presence after they had not spoken for 14 years. In the meeting, Deng demanded Chin to immediately close down all the CPM’s radio stations which were broadcasting from China to Malaysia. When Chin asked Deng when he would like him to cease the broadcasting, Deng replied, “The sooner the better… Lee (Lee Kuan Yew) asked me to stop the broadcasts immediately.”

Moreover, during his official visit to China, the second Prime Minister of Malaysian government Tun Razak held talks with Chinese communist leader Chairman Mao Zedong and urged him to stop giving aid to the CPM. The fourth Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed further succeeded in persuading China to downgrade its ties with the CPM. This was an important factor that contributed to the CPM’s decision to end its armed struggle.

The End of Emergency

Eventually, the CPM laid down its arms in 1989.

The death toll during the armed conflict totalled thousands. Those sympathetic to Chin Peng tend to portray the violence perpetrated by the CPM as defensive, while right-wing opponents tend to portray it as aggressive and unethical. Some have claimed the large number of civilian casualties was in contrast to the stance adopted by Mao Zedong and his policy of the Eight Points of Attention.

On 2 December of that year, at the town of Hat Yai in Southern Thailand, Chin Peng, Rashid Maidin and Abdullah CD met with representatives of the Malaysian and Thai governments. Separate peace agreements were signed between the MCP and both governments. One of the terms of the agreement was that MCP members of Malayan origin be allowed to return to live in Malaysia.

When all hostilities ceased, the total number of CPM members was 1,188; 694 were Thai-born and 494 claimed origins in Peninsula Malaysia. They were given a temporary grant and promised integration into Malaysia.

For Chin Peng, a peace could have been achieved as early as 1955 during Baling Talks, if the British, Tunku Abdul Rahman and David Marshall, had not demanded that the communist fighters capitulate and surrender but, rather, had allowed them to hand over or destroy their weapons in an agreed way and then resume normal life with normal political freedom, which was broadly the outcome of the 1989 accords.

Application to return to Malaysia

Chin Peng never returned officially to Malaysia after Hat Yai Peace Accords 1989 but had continued his exile in Thailand. He also gave lectures at the National University of Singapore in 2004, by using academic research as reason to gain the visitation permission from Singaporean government.

At the beginning of 2000, he applied to be permitted to return to Malaysia. His application was rejected by the High Court on 25 July 2005.

In June 2008, Chin Peng again lost his bid to return to Malaysia when the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling that compelled him to show identification papers to prove his citizenship. Chin Peng maintained that his birth certificate was seized by the police during a raid in 1948.

His counsel Raja Aziz Addruse had submitted before the Court of Appeal that it was wrong for the Malaysian government to compel him to produce the documents, because he was entitled to enter and live in Malaysia by virtue of the agreement.

On April 2009, Chin Peng’s application to return to the country again being rejected by the High Court with the same reason as above. Malaysian government insisted that the return of him to Malaysia will make the people who lost their loved ones during the civil war to feel the pain again.

On November 2009, Chin Peng issued an apology to the victims and their family members of the atrocities done by the CPM.

However, the then Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Dato' Haji Muhyidin replied that even though Chin Peng apologised, he is still not allowed to return to Malaysia.

Death

CChin Peng died at the age of 88 in a hospital in Bangkok on the morning of 16 September 2013, the same day with the 50th anniversary of Malaysia Day , and the 90th birthday of Lee Kuan Yew.

He was cremated according to Buddhist rites.

While he has previously voiced wishes to be buried in Sitiawan, his remains continued to be denied entry to and burial in Malaysia by its government, as it claimed that the one-year window after the agreement to reapply for citizenship has long lapsed and he is assumed to have relinquished his rights to return.

Publications about Chin Peng

Chin Peng co-authored his story with Singapore-based writers and publishers Ian Ward, who was formerly the Southeast Asia correspondent for the London newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, and Ward’s wife Norma Miraflor. The book named “Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History”, and had been published in 2003.

Another book, “Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party” by editors C. C. Chin and Karl Hack, being published by the Singapore University Press in 2004.

Media portrayal

In 2006, a documentary film about Chin Peng was made called The Last Communist. It was banned by Malaysia's Home Affairs Ministry.

Another documentary film about him called I Love Malaya was released.

Chronology

• 22 October 1924: Birth.
• January 1940: Accepted as probationary member of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM); put in charge of Communist members in Sitiawan.
• 4 July 1940: Leaves home.
• December 1941: Communists' offer of help accepted; joins the fight against the Japanese.
• 10 January 1942: The first batch of the Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA).
• 1942: Meets future wife, Khoon Wah.
• 1945: World War II ends.
• January 1946: Awarded 2 war medals; boycotts tour of British bases; forced to sign letter of apology.
• Mid-October 1946: In Penang, Yeung Kuo reveals that Lai Teck has betrayed the CPM; Lai Teck subsequently absconds with most of party's money.
• 6 March 1947: MCP Central Executive Committee meeting held to deal with Lai Teck controversy; Lai Teck fails to appear and is never seen by MCP again. Later, Chin Peng is elected secretary-general of MCP.
• 1948: Three planters killed at Sungei Siput; Emergency declared; MCP declared illegal.
• Late 1950: Briggs arrives in Malaya and implements "Brigg's plan" – resettling people into "New Villages". If the people refused to move, the British would forcibly remove them and sometimes burn down their houses. This made it difficult for the Communists to gain food supplies from the "Min Yuen", their supporters in the villages.
• 6 October 1951: Sir Henry Gurney, British High Commissioner in Malaya, is assassinated on Gap road to Fraser's Hill by Siew Ma. It was a "chance" ambush by Siew Ma and his party and not a plan to assassinate Gurney.
• 7 February 1952: Sir Gerald Templer, arrives to take the place of Gurney, and implements harsh measures against the Communists.
• 28 December 1955: Baling Talks held with David Marshall and Tunku Abdul Rahman, unsuccessful because of surrender terms. After the Baling Talks, Chin Peng retires to Thailand. Ah Hai replaces him as acting Secretary-General in Malaya.
• 1960: The Emergency is officially declared at an end. However, fighting still continues. Special Malaysian government troops going by the name "Senoi Praaq" prove to be a thorn in Chin Peng's side.
• 2 December 1989: A peace treaty is signed between the communists, Thailand and Malaysia. The long, hard war the British had preferred to term an Emergency was over.
• 6–8 October 2004: Chin Peng visits Singapore for 3 days to speak at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies (ISEAS).
• 2005: Chin Peng is pending to return to Malaysia. His hearing was scheduled for 25 May 2005, and the High Court postponed it to 25 July 2005. This application was subsequently rejected.
• June 2008: Chin Peng's lost his bid to return to Malaysia when the Court of Appeal demanded he showed identification papers to prove his Malayan citizenship.
• 16 September 2013: Chin Peng died at a hospital in Bangkok. He was 88. According to the Bangkok Post, he was pronounced dead at 6.20am (GMT+8).

References

• 劉鑒銓等人，青山不老－馬共的歷程，(2004)香港：明報出版社 ISBN 962-8871-28-5
• Cheah, B. K. (2009). THE COMMUNIST INSURGENCY IN MALAYSIA, 1948-90: CONTESTING THE NATION-STATE AND SOCIAL CHANGE. New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 11(1), 132-52. Retrieved from http://www.nzasia.org.nz/downloads/NZJAS-June09/14_Cheah_3.pdf on 30 July 2017.
• Chin, C. C., and Karl Hack. eds.. (2004). Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party. Singapore, SG: Singapore University Press. ISBN 9971-69-287-2
• Chin, P. (2003). Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History. Singapore, SG: Media Masters.
• Ng, S. (2011, May). Silenced Revolutionaries: Challenging the Received View of Malaya’s Revolutionary Past. Arizona, US: Arizona State University.
• O’Ballance, E. (1966). Malaya: the Communist Insurgent War, 1948-60. Hamden, US: Archon Books.
• Purcell, V. (1955). Malaya: Communist or Free? Stanford, US: Stanford University Press.
• Short, A. (2000). In Pursuit of Mountain Rats: The Communist Insurrection in Malaya. Singapore, SG: Cultured Lotus.
• Symon, A. (2003, March). Recalling Malaya's Communist Menance: Fact and Fiction on Chin Peng. IIAS Newslatter, 33, 32. Retrieved from http://iias.asia/sites/default/files/IIAS_NL33_32.pdf on 30 July 2017.
• Taaffe, P. (2005, February 4). Review: 'My Side of History' by Chin Peng. Retrieved from http://www.socialistworld.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1604 on 30 July 2017.

Bibliography

• Chin Peng, My Side of History (2003) ISBN 981-04-8693-6
• Ruslan of Malaysia: The Man Behind the Domino That Didn't Fall (2007) ISBN 978-0-9780562-0-9

External links

• Online biography
• Pathé Newsreel, January 1956