I refer to the Malaysiakini report Chin Peng loses bid to return home: lawyer.

The Oxford Dictionary refers to the swan song as a ‘mythical song sung by a dying swan’. While I am obviously not suggesting that this is exactly applicable to Chin Peng in terms of his health and well-being, your readers will forgive me for alluding that it may have some relevance to his plight in being allowed to return to Malaysia.

Another international panel of eminently qualified legal experts has recently called for a review of the case for his return. While it is sub judice to take up any of the points raised by the court of appeal, with the greatest of respect I wish to call on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and especially the newly appointed national legal ‘trouble shooter’ Zaid Ibrahim, to reconsider this case on ‘compassionate’ grounds.

By the latter term I am not referring to 'taking pity' on Chin Peng's present plight but to the social climate and the extreme goodwill shown by both the government and the Malayan Communist Party, despite the extremely complex yet 'sensitive' dimensions involved that finally led to the successful signing of the peace accord between the two respective parties.

Indeed I have a book out entitled The Finest Hour: The Malaysian-MCP Peace Accord in Perspective that documents the sentiments of the Thai government and especially that of Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Rahim Noor in some detail and I certainly do not wish to repeat them here.

More importantly there are forewords in the book by Mahathir and Zaid that clearly reflect the perspective that the peace accord was possible only because in the final analysis all the Malaysian communities cooperated and worked together to achieve political independence.

As mentioned by Suriani Abdullah, wife of the communist leader Abdullah CD in her book Rejkimen Ke-10 dan Kemerdekaan, the peace talks ‘were a victory for all sides’.

Finally we should not forget the statements of the leaders on both sides. The book has documented that without the official and personal initiative of Mahathir, there would have been no peace talks.

Chin Peng himself fully endorsed this position when he concluded that ‘Dr Mahathir is a problem solver’.

As for Chin Peng himself, there could have been no greater tribute than that of Rahim Noor who said that ‘Chin Peng is an honest man. I trust him’.