His memoirs may have been written by someone else, but former guerilla Chin Peng has shown that he can also hold his own in direct dialogue about his experiences in leading the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM).

His conversations with a group of a academicians and former soldiers are reproduced verbatim in a book to be released in January by Singapore University Press.

Entitled 'Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party', the volume is a record of several discussions sessions between Chin Peng and the researchers held in 1999 at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.

In an early synopsis, the publisher said the project was conceived after ANU academicians came to know that Chin Peng was undertaking research for his memoirs.

The academicians invited him to utilise their resources in Australia while they organised a series of seminars to find out more about his version of events during the Malayan Emergency between 1948 and 1960.

Chin Peng, a nom de guerre of Ong Boon Hua, 79, was the 11th secretary-general of the once powerful 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 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.

Baling game-plan

During the meetings which took place in February 1999, the researchers questioned Chin Peng intensely on diverse issues from the reasons why he joined the CPM, to the party's short-lived 'liberation' of Gua Musang in Kelantan. They took over the town for a few days.

They also delved into issues such as the assassination of Henry Gurney, the former British High Commissioner to Malaya, the CPM's retreat to south Thailand and the communist game-plan at the failed Baling peace talks of December 1955.

Among those who met with Chin Peng were historians and scholars such as Cheah Boon Kheng, Yoji Akashi, Peter Edwards, Richard Stubbs, CF Yong, KS Jomo, Jamie Mackie and Anthony Reid.

Also present were Leon Comber, a special branch officer in the 1950s, and Anthony Short, a former national serviceman in Malaya and author of 'The Communist Insurrection in Malaya 1948-1960'.

According to the synopsis, the 376-page volume will include previously unseen propaganda posters and CPM documents, statistics of casualties from both sides of the conflict and background papers by experts on the Malayan Emergency.

This will be the second book published on Chin Peng's account of events during the turbulent period of Malayan history.

The first, his biography titled 'Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History', was released several months ago and has since shot to the top of bestseller lists in Malaysia and Singapore.