Following weeks of perusal, the Home Ministry has allowed the sale of a book featuring the views of Chin Peng, the secretary-general of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM).

The Singapore-published book titled Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party records the dialogues between historians and academics from various countries with the communist leader.

The dialogues were held in Canberra's Australian National University (ANU) between Feb 22 and 23, 1999.

The book, jointly edited by Chen Jian @ CC Chin and Karl Hack, was published by Singapore University Press earlier this year.

A spokesperson for a major bookshop in Kuala Lumpur told malaysiakini that the book has been on sale since last week.

Four-month delay

According to a source in the book distribution industry, the book was held up by the Home Ministry for two months after being submitted for approval.

However, one of the academics involved in the dialogues claimed that four months had lapsed between submission and approval.

Malaysiakini had obtained a copy of the book long before the official approval and published a review of it in late June.

The book features questions and answers almost in verbatim between Chin Peng and a group of prominent Malaysian, Singaporean, Australian, Canadian and Japanese historians, political scientists and former security and defence personnel on the histories of CPM.

Also discussed were the war of resistance against the Japanese invasion and occupation in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, Emergency, Baling Peace Talk and process leading to the signing of the 1989 Peace Accord between CPM, the governments of Malaysia as well as Thailand.

The book also includes an official biography of Chin Peng written by a specialist historian on CPM and the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), Chen Jian @ CC Chin as well as a closing comment on the dialogue session by the doyen of Southeast Asian and Chinese studies, Wang Gungwu.

The others who participated in the two-day dialogues were Karl Hack, Lt Gen (Rtd) John Coates, KS Jomo, Yoji Akashi, Hara Fujio, Cheah Boon Kheng, Leon Comber, Peter Edwards, John D Leary, Jamie Mackie, Anthony Reid, Anthony Short, Richard Stubbs and Yong Chin Fatt @ CF Yong, Andrew Chin, Michael Godley, Benedict Tra Kerkvleit, David Marr, Michael Ong, Anthony Paul and Merle Ricklefs.

A tribute

In the preface, written by the convener of the dialogue session Anthnoy Reid, it is said that the participants "offer this book to readers as a tribute to all those who fought on opposite sides in a long and bitter war, but who lived long enough to shake hands and remember together how it all fell out".

Two other recent books that have recorded Chin Peng's lengthy narratives include the Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History, co-authored by veteran Australian journalist Ian Ward and his wife Norma Miraflor (Singapore, Media Masters, 2004), and the Chinese-language Green Mountain Never Ages - Journey of the Communist Party of Malaya published and distributed by Sin Chew Daily in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year.

Chin Peng, born in Sitiawan on Oct 21, 1924, became the secretary-general of CPM in May 1947 at the age of 23.

During the 44-month Japanese occupation of Peninsular Malaya and Singapore, he was CPM's political representative attached to various companies in the Perak-based 5th Independent Regiment of MPAJA and also an appointed CPM/MPAJA's secret liaison officer with Allies' Ceylon-based South East Asia Command special operations unit, Force 136 led by John Davis, a prewar British police chief in Kampar, Perak.

Awarded the Burma Star, 1939/45 Star and Order of the British Empire (OBE) after the liberation of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore at the end of the Pacific War for his contribution to the Allied war efforts, Chin Peng was stripped off his OBE after the British declared an anti-communist ' Emergency' in June 1948. The ' Emergency' lasted 12 years until 1960.

In the early years of the 'Emergency', which Chin Peng and his comrades call ' the Anti-Colonial War', he was also declared by the British administration as 'public enemy number one'. He went into exile to China in 1961 until his return to southern Thailand in 1989 to sign the 1989 Peace Accord between CPM and the governments of Malaysia and Thailand.

Although stipulated in the 1989 Peace Accord, his right to return or visit Malaysia is still being denied by the government.

Chin Peng, who is nearing 80, is now believed to be living in southern Thailand with his comrades like Rashid Maidin and Abdullah CD.