After a brief setback, the biography of former communist leader Chin Peng has been given the all-clear and will be back on bookshelves soon, said local distributor Horizon Books.

Contacted today, company executive Philip Harold said the ministry has written to the publishers of 'Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History' to inform them about its decision.

"Last week, the ministry said the book was not banned. They wrote to the (co-author) Ian Ward in Singapore to apologise for the delay. The book should be available in the market from today," Harold said.

Ward is also managing director of Media Masters in Singapore, which published the book.

The Chin Peng memoirs was first released in Malaysia on Aug 29 but less than a week later, 17 copies of the book were seized by Home Ministry officials from the MPH Bookstores' Mid Valley Megamall flagship store in Kuala Lumpur.

Another 1,000 copies of the book were confiscated by the Johor Customs as these were being shipped into the country from Singapore.

Amidst uncertainty over its status, the Home Ministry issued a statement to the press last Friday saying that the book had not been banned, although it did not specify if the book would be released for sale.

The ministry's head of the publications control unit Abdul Rahim Mohd Radzi was unavailable for comment today.

Stores stock up

Meanwhile, one major book retailer in Kuala Lumpur has confirmed that the ministry has approved the sale of the memoirs. An executive of Times book store said the book is now available at its Bangsar branch.

A representative of Kinokuniya's KLCC branch said supplies of the book have arrived at its store although these have not yet been put on the shelves.

"We have a few cartons of the book, but we are still waiting for the (approval in) black-and-white from the Home Ministry before we start selling them," he said.

A representative of MPH Mid Valley also said the company is waiting for direct communication from the ministry on the matter.

Chin Peng, a nom de guerre of Ong Boon Hua, 79, was the 11th secretary-general of the once powerful Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), which fought against British colonialism, the Japanese occupation and the newly independent governments of both Malaysia and Singapore for over half a century.

The party's armed struggle, which began in June 1948, ended with a peace agreement signed between CPM and the governments of Malaysia and Thailand in 1989.

During the communist insurgency, the government offered an award of up to $250,000 (Straits dollars) for Chin Peng - the country's most wanted man for 40 years - dead or alive. The former guerilla fighter currently lives in Haadyai, south Thailand.