Chin Peng fights on in courts for homecoming

According to one of Chin Peng's lawyers Darshan Singh Khaira (pix), the Appellate & Special Powers Division of the Kuala Lumpur High Court, presided by Justice Mohd Zabidin bin Mohd Diah, this morning allowed the application made by the Government to require the production of the birth or citizenship certificate of Chin Peng, whose real name is Ong Boon Hua, for the latter's homecoming case to proceed.

But, Darshan Singh also said Chin Peng's legal team which argues that there is no such requirement under the 1989 Peace Accords signed between the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and the Government of Malaysia, will file an appeal to the Court of Appeal tomorrow against the decision made by Justice Mohd Zabidin bin Mohd Diah.

A news report in an online Chinese-language daily Merdeka Review quoted Darshan Singh as arguing that the birth and citizenship papers of the Sitiawan-born Chin Peng had long been confiscated by the authorities and that, in any event, the court should allow testimonies of Chin Peng's local relatives and acquaintances to serve the purpose.

In his popular memoirs Alias Chin Peng : My Side of History (Singapore, Media Masters, 2003), he reveals that he was born on October 21, 1924, " in an upstairs backroom of No.36, Jalan Kampong Koh, a two-storey shophouse in a long row of similar small business establishments the likes of which still dominate the southern Perak township of Sitiawan, some 50 miles southwest of Ipoh " (p.31), attended the Nan Hwa school in Sitiawan (p.33) and " the graves of my grandfather, parents and my brothers " are still located in a Chinese cemetery, " halfway between Sitiawan and Lumut ". (p.509)

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