One afternoon, some 57 years ago, a small boy was lazing around in a rubber plantation where his home was, after a tiff with one of his siblings. A group of men cycled past him with rifles slung across the handlebars of their bicycles and side arms strapped to their waists.

One of them saw the kid, pointed his rifle at the kid and said, "This is the son." Another commented, "He is only a boy, leave him alone".

They left and cycled into the heart of the Chinese settlement just 200 yards away, leaving the boy wondering what that conversation was all about. It was much later when he realised he was that close to death. The thought that had the rifleman fired at him, the sound of gun fire could have given the victim of their evil mission a chance to flee, had many times occurred to the young lad over the years. Why had the second gunman had to ask the first to leave him alone?

All too soon, gunfire was heard. Then, silence. The boy was still sitting on the stump of the rubber tree when the cyclists peddled along the same earthen path back to where they came from, deep in the Malayan jungles, whistling a tune unknown to the kid. Mission accomplished. Another murder. Another civilian died untimely and very cruelly, murdered by the communist terrorists (or CTs).

A good 10 minutes passed. A neighbour rushed over, shouting incoherently. The boy's mother came out and pandemonium broke loose when she and her children found out that a man - her husband and their father - had been brutally gunned down.

Why should an unarmed man be hunted by well-armed men in uniform and caps, from his bicycle repair shop, out to the back door, across a lalang field, into the primary school compound, faced his assassins, took bullets on his left thigh and left side of his forehead, laid dead next to the sand pit of the school field, with his brains blown out? Why did his eldest, a son, kept massaging his dead father? Hoping that he could revive him, in the middle of trampled lalang?

Was being a speaker in a Kuomintang (KMT) rally calling for donations for the Chiang Kai Shek campaign a crime? Was respecting Sun Yat Sen's overthrowing of the Manchu Dynasty a threat to Mao Zedong? No, the murdered victim did not think so. Some months ago, his friend, the main speaker, was brutally murdered, a few weeks later, posters, broadsheet size, were found with images of many men. One of the images was the latest victim, and another had a big red cross over it, was his dead fellow speaker. There were some others with big crosses. Others, whose images were not crossed, ran and hid themselves. Not this target.

Why did he not also go into hiding? Why should he hide? They, Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army, were the war heroes who fought against the Japanese. He had regularly supplied them with whatever food he could etch out of the land along the fringes of the jungle during the Japanese occupation. One of his brothers was one of their fighters and had not returned; presumably dead.

This man had paid the supreme price, his life, for this mistake. His children lost their father; his young wife lost her husband and had to bring up their four young children by herself. Similarly, her friend, the other widow, also had four young children to bring up.

Chiang and Mao were fighting the then mother of battles after World War Two, killing and shooting each other all over China. Did it meant that Malayan Chinese must also follow suit? Why murder the KMT members? They were not the KMT brought in by the British from Taiwan, they were, like your forefathers, Chinese who came to Nanyang looking for fortunes before returning to their fatherland.

Were there armed KMT members who were Malayan Chinese who had threatened CPM, ambushed their members, terrorise and burned their settlements, tortured and kill CPM members, or hunted them down like wild dogs. Were they betraying the CPM?

Why, Chin Peng, didn't you give them a fair go in your book? Why did you call them KMT bandits? Why did you object to be called a communist terrorist? Who do terrorists do? Don't they burn, terrorise, torture and kill the innocent, loot from the poor and frightened, and fight the authorities? Who should be called terrorists during those days? Armed men in uniform or civilians making speeches or headmasters, principals, teachers and village leaders?

Your son, Chin Peng, was the schoolmate of many of us at Anglo-Chinese School, Sitiawan. Did the children of the people CPM murdered ever bully him? Your brother, when your photograph appeared on the cover of Young Malayan had triumphantly waved his copy openly in school. Did anyone of us pounce on him and beat him up? Or knife him? Or even just berate him? Did they had their buses burnt and had to cycle or ride pillion to school? We had ours burnt. Our taxi driver had his car shot full of holes and warned not to send us to school, after the bus was burnt.

I am very glad that our Tunku had made the fullest use of you, Chin Peng, to gain independence for our country. Tunku and the older generations knew of CPM's atrocities against unarmed civilians; he knew that your CPM was already a spent force being starved by the Briggs Plan.

More importantly, he knew that your and your comrades would never be accepted back into Malayan society as all of you are murderers. He out-smarted you at Baling. It was a move Sun Tzu would have approved and be proud of, to use you and your CPM to pressure the British to give us independence. Appreciate this tactical and strategic, non-violent, non-bloody, not cowardly and an extremely brilliant move. You played into his hands. This was your only contribution.

Your selective recall of the events of years gone by may be able to fool younger generations. Not Tunku and the Alliance leaders, not the orphans you and your CPM had made, not the widows, both civilian and armed forces, you and your CPM had made. They, even in old age, remember their terrible losses.

Yes, I saw the corpses of your comrades being carried out from the jungles tied hand and foot hanging across bamboo poles, like killed wild boar. I saw the corpses displayed in the compound of the police station in Simpang Tiga, I went to the police station every time they came back from the jungle, because I wanted to find out whether those on the bicycle party were there. Yes, I was the kid. I wanted to find out whether my father's murderers had been killed in fair fight. These sights were satisfying because I could recognise some of them and I kept going.

Wishing to go back to Sitiawan? Visit your parents' and siblings' graves? These acts will not atone you of your crimes to your fellow Chinese who were unarmed, who had only used words in their battles, no guns, no tortures, no bombs and no fire. They were community leaders, teachers, bicycle repairers like your father and mother, headmasters like David Chen, who you had admitted that you could not find any evidence of spying, after your CTs had murdered him. Even if there were evidence, you have no justification or right to murder him. CPM was not the government. There was not trial, just an execution. Your hands are tainted with the blood of thousands.

Yes, I was in Simpang Tiga when your men razed it to the ground. Almost everybody lost everything and a villager lost his life. Why? For what purpose? Did you achieve your objectives? Punishing us for not giving your men enough food? We did not even have enough to feed ourselves.

Remember, it was soon after the Japanese surrendered, we were trying our very best to survive after losing everything during the occupation. Remember, the British had made the Japanese banana currency valueless overnight. Simpang Tiga is now Pekan Gurney. Recognise the name Gurney?

Yes, we agree with Pak Lah that you should not be allowed back. If you are allowed, are you prepared to visit the graves of the many CT victims at the Simpang Dua cemetery where my father and his friend and their many friends who were brutally murdered are buried, to lay some flowers or burn joss sticks?

Perhaps, this may be the first step for truth and reconciliation and the redemption of your soul, Chin Peng or Ong Boon Hua.