SHOULD CHIN PENG BE ALLOWED IN?

Being the eldest son of a Police Field Force sergeant, I have personal experience of seeing my father leaving the camp one or two days before Hari Raya to go on duty somewhere along Malaysian-Thai border, not once or twice but a couple of times!

Can you imagine how we felt at the time? When others of our age were looking forward to spending happy times with our parents in celebrating Hari Raya, we were there in the rain sending our father off to some jungles to chase communist guerilla out of our country.

Why couldn't they wait after Hari Raya?

Then there was this tragic incident where Police Field Force men were ambushed by the commies near Kroh way back in 1967/68. At that time my father was also at the border, but I was unsure where exactly it was. Was my father involved in the ambush???

I immediately rushed back to the camp. As I reached the camp I saw a big crowd in the camp's main building. I saw some women were crying. As I approached the building I saw bullet-riddled bodies of men...

"Har...Your father was in Sarawak.." I heard a voice from the crowd. It was my mother. I ran to her and hugged her.

I was relieved. My father was not involved.

There were many other occassions where my father was involved in skirmishes with them communists.

Having recollected my experience with them communists, now let us look at the old man's request. Chin Peng wanted to come back, may be he want to die here.

There are hugh public protests over his request. "He should not be pardoned for his atrocities." "Never allow him back into the country." These were playing high in the print media of late.

Are we too emotional in this issue? Where is our sense of fair play? I remember well how we went all out to smuggle out Musa Ahmad, the then MCP Chairman, and his wife from China. Why the double standard?

If we say that Chin Peng had killed many, then what about the Japanese? They had killed much more and had caused much more sufferings to us, but why we are so friendly with Japan and even had that look east policy?

The Germans, they too had killed many in Europe, but everybody has forgiven them.

I never ask anyone to forgive him. All I say is to allow him to come in and die here. Just give the old man some time to come back...Nobody will feel or lose anything for his comeback....