The second installment of the memoirs of communist veteran Abdullah CD has been published in Kuala Lumpur and is in public circulation.

Titled Penaja dan Pemimpin Regiment Ke-10, the book accounts for the origin and operations of guerilla warfare of the 12-year anti-communist 'Emergency' (1948-1960) from the perspective of a communist veteran of ethnic Malay background.

Abdullah led the all-Malay 10th Regiment of the communists' Malayan People's National Liberation Army (MNLA).

In the memoirs, Abdullah CD reveals that the communist attack on the police station in Johor's Bukit Kepong on Feb 23, 1950 was led by Mat Indera who was later captured and sentenced to death by hanging.

According to Abdullah CD, Mat Indera was "poisoned" before he was captured.

Abdullah CD also criticises the colonial and pro-colonial authorities for 'distorting' the history of the Bukit Kepong attack in an official film titled Peristiwa Bukit Kepong.

"The family of Mat Indera also condemns that film because it does not reflect reality," writes Abdullah CD. (p 117)

Abdullah CD, whose real name is Cik Dat bin Anjang Abdullah, signed the 1989 Peace Accords in Haadyai between the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and the government as the chairman of the party.

The other two signatories on the side of CPM are Chin Peng and the late Rashid Maidin (1917-2006) who acted as secretary-general and central committee member.

Meeting Ghafar

Born in Lambor Kiri, Parit, Perak in October 1923, Abdullah CD and her sister Kamariah participated in the armed struggles of Malay youths against Japanese occupation along the Perak River.

In the first installment of his memoirs, Zaman Pergerakan Sehingga 1948 (Petaling Jaya, SIRD, 2005) reveals that he formally joined the CPM in May 1945 in his home kampong in Lambor Kiri.

In February 2005, Abdullah CD exclusively granted Malaysiakini his first-ever one-to-one public interview since 1948.

In a ground-breaking study of the history of the Malay Left, Gerakan Kiri Melayu Dalam Perjuangan Kemerdekaan (Bangi, Penerbit UKM, 2006), retired UKM historian Dr Mohamad Salleh Lamry reveals that the late former deputy premier Ghafar Baba (1925-2006) also privately met Abdullah CD in a hotel in southern Thailand in 2003 "to reminisce".

Before joining Umno, Ghafar is believed to be closely associated with the leftwing of the Malay nationalists in the Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM) who worked with the communists in a broad anti-colonial united front in the period of 1946-1948.

The slogan Merdeka! was first used by PKMM.

Abdullah CD, who visited Malaysia at least twice and was also granted an audience by Sultan Azlan Shah of Perak, now lives in southern Thailand with his wife Suriani Abdullah nee Eng Ming Ching @ Ah Ming and their children and grandchildren.