"Jika
kerajaan - pihak berkuasa - tunduk kepada tekanan awam tidak
membenarkan abu Chin Peng dibawa pulang, saya fikir, kita menjadikan
Malaysia bahan ketawa seluruh dunia ," katanya dalam satu temubual yang
disiarkan di BFM semalam.Abdul Rahim, yang mengetuai rundingan damai antara pihak Malaysia dengan Parti Komunis Malaya (PKM ) pada akhir tahun 1980-an , berkata keengganan untuk membenarkan Chin Peng pulang ke negara ini, walaupun sewaktu beliau masih hidup, umpama memperolok-olokkan Perjanjian Damai Hatyai pada 1989.
Beliau yang ketika itu merupakan Ketua Cawangan Khas Malaysia , berkata beliau telah dapat menyakinkan kerajaan pada masa itu untuk mengadakan perbincangan dengan pihak komunis, lebih 30 tahun selepas kegagalan rundingan Baling pada 1955.
Abdul Rahim berkata walaupun tempoh darurat selama 12 tahun telah ditarik balik pada tahun 1960 , pasukan keselamatan masih berperang dengan saki baki komunis pada 1980-an, tetapi kejatuhan komunisme di rantau ini merupakan satu peluang untuk mengadakan rundingan damai yang baru.
Pada masa itu, katanya, masih terdapat kira-kira 2,000 komunis di sepanjang sempadan Malaysia- Thailand, dengan dua kumpulan terbesarnya ialah Biro Malayan Utara dan Rejimen ke-10, yang sebahagian besar anggotainya adalah Melayu.
Dengan sokongan perdana menteri ketika itu, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Abdul Rahim berkata, Cawangan Khas, secara rahsia , dimulakan rundingan dengan komunis pada akhir tahun 1987 dan pada awal tahun 1988 di Pulau Phuket, yang berlangsung selama lima pusingan.
Ini, katanya, berakhir dengan perjanjian damai 1989 ditandatangani di Hatyai, dan terdiri daripada dua perjanjian, satu yang mengandungi syarat-syarat utama dan satu lagi mengenai butiran pentadbiran bagaimana syarat-syarat akan dilaksanakan.
"Saya terlibat dalam menderaf kedua-dua perjanjian itu, jadi saya tahu sepenuhnya bahawa di bawah syarat-syarat perjanjian , pertama sekali, perjanjian itu mengikat semua anggota PKM , dari yang tertinggi, paling atas hingga ke bawah, yang paling rendah .
"Jika anda mengatakan bahawa Chin Peng sebagai setiausaha agung parti (PKM) adalah anggota yang paling tertinggi , maka dia layak untuk mendapatkan semua keistimewaan, kelebihan atau apa sahaja janji-janji yang dibuat dalam perjanjian itu yang termasuk untuk dia dibenarkan untuk datang (ke Malaysia)," kata Abdul Rahim.
Selain itu, katanya, mengikut perjanjian tersebut, sekiranya bekas anggota komunis tidak dibenarkan untuk pulang tinggal di Malaysia, mereka masih perlu dibenarkan masuk ke negara ini atas lawatan sosial.
"Tapi dalam kes Chin Peng, dia tidak dibenarkan kedua-duanya. Bagi saya, ia adalah tidak masuk akal, sama sekali tidak masuk akal. Ia adalah tidak adil, tidak adil...
"Terdapat (bekas komunis) lain yang dibenarkan untuk pulang dan mereka kebanyakannya adalah Melayu. Abdullah CD dibenarkan untuk pulang ke Malaysia dan telah diperkenan menghadap Sultan Perak sekarang.
"Rashid Maidin, saya diberitahu, mengerjakan haji melalui KL dengan bantuan pihak berkuasa Malaysia. Apa semua ini?" kata Abdul Rahim.
Abdullah CD adalah pengerusi PKM manakala Rashid Maidin adalah ahli jawatankuasa pusat PKM.
Ditanya sama ada ketegasan untuk tidak membenarkan Chin Peng pulang, walaupun dia telah meninggal, berasaskan garis kaum, Abdul Rahim yang teragak-agak seketika, kemudian berkata: " Saya tidak bersedia untuk membuat andaian seperti itu "
"Setakat kes Chin Peng ini, kita telah mewujudkan keadaan di mana kita memperolok-olokkan prjanjian (damai) tersebut," katanya.
Beliau mengingatkan bahawa pendirian kerajaan melarang abu Chin Peng disemadikan di kampung halamannya di Sitiawan, Perak, telah menjadikan bekas pemimpin komunis sebagai satu ikon.
"Secara khusus, saya fikir ia tidak baik untuk parti pemerintah, terutamanya dalam usaha mereka dalam pasca pilihan raya umum ke-13, untuk memenangi kembali sokongan kaum Cina Malaysia," katanya.
Kerajaan telah menjustifikasikan keputusannya itu dengan mengatakan bahawa Chin Peng bertanggungjawab atas kematian ramai anggota pasukan keselamatan , yang kebanyakannya adalah orang Melayu.
Abdul Rahim mengeluh kerana orang seolah-olah tidak memahami konteks perjuangan komunis antarabangsa dan sebaliknya melihat bahawa 40 tahun pemberontakan komunis di Malaya adalah "Chin Peng melawan seluruh jentera kerajaan".
Beliau menegaskan bahawa kajian menunjukkan struktur komunis adalah secara kolektif dan ia bukan "one-man-show" di Chin Peng yang membuat semua keputusannya.
"Saya
tidak tahu mengapa ia perlu jadi begini (Chin Peng lawan kerajaan).
Hakikatnya adalah bahawa baik atau buruknya - siapa pun Chin Peng, latar
belakangnya ialah perjanjian damai telah ditandatangani. Kita mesti
menghormati terma dan syarat-syaratnya," katanya.Ditanya oleh stesen radio itu bagaimana pada pandangannya sejarah akan mengenang Chin Peng, Abdul Rahim berkata: "Mereka (ahli sejarah) sepatutnya boleh menganalisis Chin Peng sebagai pemimpin komunis - peranannya dan peranan partinya - dalam menentang British, dalam menghalau British.
"Peranan beliau dalam proses damai - kegagalan rundingan Baling dan kejayaan rundingan damai Phuket yang membawa kepada Perjanjian Damai Hatyai."
Abdul Rahim sentiasa konsisten mahukan kerajaan berpegang kepada syarat-syarat perjanjian damai itu dan telah membuat gesaan yang sama dalam satu temubual pada tahun 2009 dengan Malaysiakini supaya Chin Peng dibenarkan pulang ke Malaysia.
Chin Peng meninggal dunia pada 16 September pada usia tua, yang kebetulan adalah tanggal Hari Malaysia.-malaysiakini
'Barring Chin Peng's ashes makes us laughing stock'...
Former inspector-general of police Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor warned that Malaysia will become a laughing stock if the government adamantly refuses to allow Chin Peng’s remains to be brought into the country.
“There is a hue and cry from the public not to even allow his ashes (back into Malaysia). My God... This is stretching the argument a bit too far. It’s a bit naive I think.
“If the government - the authorities - succumb to this public pressure not to allow Chin Peng's ashes to be brought back, I think, we are making Malaysia a laughing stock of the whole world,” he said in an interview aired on BFM yesterday.
Abdul
Rahim, who led the successful peace negotiations on behalf of Malaysia
with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) in the late 1980s, said the
refusal to allow Chin Peng into the country, even when he was alive,
made a mockery of the 1989 Hatyai Peace Treaty.The retired top cop, who was then chief of the Malaysian Special Branch, said he had convinced the government at that time to engage in talks with the communists, over 30 years after the failed 1955 Baling negotiations.
Abdul Rahim said that even though the 12-year Emergency was lifted in 1960, security forces were still battling communist remnants in the 1980s, but the decline of communism in the region was an opportunity for renewed peace negotiations.
At that time, there were still around 2,000 communists along the Malaysian-Thai border, with the two largest groups being the North Malayan Bureau and the 10th Regiment, which comprised largely Malays, he said.
With the backing of then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Abdul Rahim said, the Special Branch, in secrecy, initiated negotiations with the communists at the end of 1987 and early 1988 on Phuket Island, which lasted for five rounds.
This, he said, culminated in the 1989 peace treaty signed in Hatyai, and comprised two agreements, one containing the core terms and another on administrative details on how the terms would be implemented.
‘Other ex-communist returned, met sultan’
“I was involved in the drafting of both agreements, so I know full well that under the terms of agreements, first of all, the agreements are binding on every CPM member, from the highest, topmost to the bottom, lowest most.
“If you say that Chin Peng as secretary-general of the party (CPM) is the highest-most member, then he qualifies to get all the privileges, advantages or whatever promises made in the agreements, which includes for him to be allowed to come back (to Malaysia),” explained Abdul Rahim.
Furthermore, he said, in the event these former communist members were not allowed to permanently return to Malaysia, they must still be allowed to enter the country on social visits, according to the agreements.
“But in the case of Chin Peng, he was not allowed both. To me, it’s absurd, totally absurd. It’s unfair, grossly unfair...
“There were others (ex-communists) who were allowed to come back and they were mainly Malays. Abdullah CD was allowed to come back to Malaysia and was even given an audience with the current Sultan of Perak.
“Rashid Maidin, I was told, performed his pilgrimage through KL with the help of the Malaysian authorities. What’s all these?” Abdul Rahim said in an exasperated voice.
Abdullah CD was CPM chairperson while Rashid Maidin was a CPM central committee member.
Asked if the fixation on not allowing Chin Peng to return home, even when dead, was along racial lines, Abdul Rahim hesitated for a moment, then replied: “I am not prepared to make presumptions like that.”
“As far as Chin Peng’s case is concerned, we created a situation where we made a mockery of the (peace) agreements,” he added.
‘Gov’t turning Chin Peng into an icon’
He warned that the government’s stance in preventing Chin Peng’s ashes from being buried in his hometown in Sitiawan, Perak, was transforming the ex-communist leader an icon.
“Specifically, I think it is not good for the ruling party, particularly in their attempts post the 13th general election, to win back Chinese Malaysian support,” he said.
The government had justified its decision by declaring that Chin Peng was responsible for the deaths of countless members of the security forces, most being Malays.
Abdul Rahim lamented that the people do not seem to understand the context of the international communist struggle and instead perceive that the over 40 years of insurrection in Malaya was “Chin Peng versus the entire government machinery”.
He pointed out that research showed the communist structure was collective in nature and it was not a one-man-show with Chin Peng calling all the shots.
“I
do not know why it should develop along this line (Chin Peng versus
government). The fact is that good or bad - whatever Chin Peng is, the
background is a peace treaty had been signed. We got to jolly well
honour the terms and conditions,” he said.Asked by the radio station how he thought history would remember Chin Peng, Abdul Rahim replied: “They (historians) should be able to analyse Chin Peng as a communist leader - his role and his party’s role - in battling the British, in getting rid of the British.
“His role in the peace process - the failure of the Baling talks and the success of the Phuket peace talks leading to the Hatyai Peace Treaty.”
Abdul Rahim has been consistent in wanting the government to uphold the terms of the peace treaty and had made a similar urging during a 2009 interview with Malaysiakini for Chin Peng to be allowed back to Malaysia.
Another senior cop who was also directly involved in combating the communists and was shot by them twice, Yuen Yuet Leng, had similarly urged reconciliation.
Chin Peng passed away on on Sept 16 of cancer, which incidentally was also Malaysia Day.-malaysiakini
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