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Invitation to Firdaus Abdullah to a public debate on whether there should be a Ministerial statement or White Paper in Parliament on the 1989 Malaysia-CPM Haadyai Peace Accord and whether Chin Peng had honoured his end of the agreement

Media Conference Statement (3)
by Lim Kit Siang

(Petaling Jaya, Friday): University of Malaya economics lecturer Professor Firdaus Abdullah in his weekly column in Utusan Malaysia yesterday (2.10.03) entitled “Usaha pulih sejarah Chin Peng” asked whether there was an attempt to rewrite the history of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and linked it with my call to the government to table a Ministerial statement or White Paper on the 1989 Haadyai Malaysia-CPM Peace Accord and the status of Chin Peng, former  CPM secretary-general. 

I deplore Firdaus’ subtle  insinuation that I had ulterior  motives and  I invite him to a public debate on whether there should be a Ministerial statement or White Paper in Parliament on the 1989 Haadyai Peace Accord and the status of Chin Peng. The public debate can  take place at  the University of Malaya. 

As I said in my media statement dated 30.9.03, a White Paper on the 14-year Haadyai Peace Accord 1989 is warranted as Malaysians are entitled to know, among other things, 

  • Whether CPM had honoured the peace agreement to cease all armed activities;
  • Whether Chin Peng had honoured his end of the agreement, and if so, why he is not allowed to visit the country when some 330 former CPM members had come home to Malaysia after the Haadyai Peace Agreement;
  • Whether it is true, as Chin Peng recounted in his book “My Side of History” that the Malaysian government, through its chief representative at the Haadyai Peace negotiations,  Rahim Noor (then head of Special Branch) had acknowledged CPM’s contribution to the attainment of national independence on 31st August 1957, and that  there are videotapes which had recorded this official acknowledgement.

Fourteen years have passed since the Haadyai Peace Accord was  signed, and as Chin Peng had made several revelations about the Haadyai/Phuket  negotiations previously  not known to Malaysians, it is in the public interest that the people should be informed of the government’s position on these issues.

(3/10/2003)

* Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman