KUALA LUMPUR, 25 May 2009: The communists have no place in the country because their sins for killing thousands of people in the then Malaya cannot be forgotten, said Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.
As such, he urged leaders who had expressed positive sentiments for the former leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), Chin Peng, to state their stand clearly without hiding behind the cloak of their respective political parties.
“My comment is simple, Chin Peng and his commandos who had killed many people in the past certainly do not deserve any consideration from us,” he told reporters after delivering a lecture on 1Malaysia to senior officers of his ministry at Angkasapuri, here today.
He said this when asked to comment on the call by the Penang Parti Gerakan that Chin Peng be allowed to return to Malaysia on humanitarian grounds.
Rais also called on Malaysians not to be hasty in following and supporting the innovations made by certain groups particularly bloggers who tried to idolise communism.
“The communists had abused this country. The thousands who had died at the hands of the communists should be sufficient for us to be remorseful so that we do not issue statements that can make us forget the atrocities committed by the regime then,” he said.
Asked whether the government would take action such as those provided under the Internal Security Act (ISA) against those who tried to give a positive picture of the communists, Rais said he would bring the matter up at the cabinet meeting later.
“The ISA is not under my jurisdiction, but I’m discussing with the minister concerned so that he too would be prepared to look at such a tendency,” he said.
Recently, Penang Gerakan chairperson Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan asked the government to allow Chin Peng to return to Malaysia on humanitarian grounds as the communist terrorism which was rampant around the 1950s throughout the world including in China and Russia had undergone transformation. — Bernama
Bob K says
Using the same criteria, shouldn’t Barisan Nasional and what was formerly the Alliance Party have no place in this country as well due to the uncountable human rights abuses committed in the name of the state over the last 5 decades or more?
mike says
Minister Rais, I have always thought old is gold, but after reading what you have been saying this past months I beg to defer.
You want to arrest people who give a positive picture about communists under the ISA … what’s wrong with you people? This is a good example of ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Phua Kai Lit says
Aiyah! The Communist movement has been defanged ever since the collapse of the East European police state regimes during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The “communist bogey” propaganda won’t work anymore. “Communists” today are out-and-out capitalists (as in China) or taking part in democratic politics (as in Kerala, West Bengal and even Nepal). And many communists have turned to social democracy in Europe too.
Harris says
What about those Malay communists which Malaysia has “welcomed” back in the past? Let the past be in the past. Chin Peng is not going to shake the government and the communists are a spent force.
walski69 says
It’s not as if Chin Peng wants to return to resurrect the MCP. Nor is it a case of “glorifying” communism, as simplistically alleged by Rais.
Ong Boon Hua, aka Chin Peng, wants to spend his remaining years where he was born. What “moral” victory does the government achieve by denying Chin Peng’s return? None, is the answer. Yes, we should not forget history, but let’s put that history into perspective. Let’s also not forget the role that the MCP played in the MPAJA, or the fact that the so-called ideological war with the MCP is another thing Malaya inherited from her former [British] colonialist.
If we are to be mindful of history, let’s do it in totality, and not simply [highlight] bits and pieces of history that fit into our narrow political agendas.
Going by Rais’s logic, why then does Malaysia have diplomatic relations with China (CPM’s benefactor)? Or Cuba – one of the last unrepentant communist states on planet earth?
If Malaysia can rationalise having a relationship with these bigger ‘bogey’, it really makes one wonder why the irrational fear over one man.
poison says
One man’s meat is another man’s poison. No Big deal….