Front cover of Suriani Abdullah's memoirs

( Book cover released for the first time EXCLUSIVELY to Freedom in Solidarity ) As I have revealed earlier, the memoirs of veteran central committee member of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), Suriani Abdullah a.k.a Eng Ming Ching is coming out soon.

Its publisher Mr. Chong Ton Sin of SIRD/Gerakbudaya told me just now that it will be out in the market in two weeks' time.

Titled Setengah Abad Dalam Perjuangan - Memoir Suriani Abdullah (Kuala Lumpur, SIRD, 2006), it was written personally by makcik herself in Bahasa Malaysia. She, a former student of Setiawan's Nan Hwa and Ipoh's Methodist Girls' School (MGS), had already mastered Bahasa Melayu in 1940s during the anti-Japanese war and she further improved it in the period of 1946-1948 with the guidance and assistance of Sutan Jenain, a legendary Marxist from Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) who was reportedly a CPM's central committee member in 1936.

In 1947, she visited the newly independent Republic of Indonesia, lectured at the Madiun University, spoke on Radio Republik Indonesia in Jogjakarta and also met President Sukarno as well as Defence Minister Shariffudin at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. It was the policy of the Communist Party of Malaya at that time to support the Indonesian people's armed independence struggle, led by Bung Karno and Dr.Mohamad Hatta, against Dutch colonialism.

She is also the author of another Bahasa Malaysia book, Rejimen Ke-10 Dan Kemerdekaan (Hong Kong, Nan Dao) which is the official history of the all-Malay 10th Regiment of the Malayan People's National Liberation Army (MNLA). The MNLA and its successor (since 1983) Malayan People's Army (MPA) have been demobilised since 2 December, 1989 in fullfilment of the Peace Accords between the Communist Party of Malaya and the Governments of Malaysia as well as Thailand.

Suriani Abdullah and her husband Abdullah C.D was granted audience by HM Sultan Azlan Shah of Perak in the 1990s in a palace in Malaysia before they went to the Holy City of Mecca to perform Haj in fullfilment of their duties as Muslims.

Suriani, the resistance heroine
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/34828

Tortured by Kempetai
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/34864

Resistance heroine Eng Ming Ching on national unity (in Chinese)
http://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/42407

History of the Malay Left
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/48827

Merdeka history in new light
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/42665

A tale of two Malay communist memoirs
http://www.malaysiakini.com/opinionsfeatures/33401