An opposition leader today took parliamentarians to task for concentrating on issues like excessive claims while ignoring the "bigger questions confronting the people and country" such as Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) former leader Chin Peng's request to return home.

In order to confirm their relevance, DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang urged the MPs to raise this issue and the14-year Haadyai Peace Accords during the 2004 Budget Committee Stage deliberation on the Home Ministry scheduled for Oct 27.

"In the past few weeks, the issue whether Chin Peng should be allowed to return home has become a major and heated topic of discussion, including in the letter-to-editor sections of the media, except for Parliament.

"If MPs continue to ignore this issue, they will confirm their irrelevance in the Malaysian scheme of things, who could not rise above issues like excessive parliamentary claims to address bigger questions confronting the people and country," he said in a press statement.

The veteran politician was reacting to Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's confirmation yesterday that the Sitiawan-born Ching Peng would not be allowed to return .

Three questions

Lim said it was pertinent to debate this issue since the former Communist leader had made revelations about the Haadyai Peace Accords in his book, My Side of History ,

which until now has been kept from the public.

He added that this warranted a response from the government regarding the veracity of this information.

The former parliamentary opposition leader said MPs should be informed of the government's reasons to bar Chin Peng and obtain a progress report of the Haadyai Peace Accords, detailing in particular:

1) Whether CPM had honoured the agreement to cease all armed activities?

2) Whether Chin Peng had honoured his end of the agreement and if so why is he barred when more than 300 former CPM guerillas were allowed to return following the inking of the Peace Accords?

3) Whether it is true, as Ching Peng claimed in his book, that the government through its chief representative at the Haadyai talks, then police special branch chief Rahim Noor, had acknowledged CPM's contribution to gaining independence and that there were video recordings of this?

Zam's version

Meanwhile, Lim said the MPs should also call on Deputy Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin to explain his statement, "Once a communist, always a communist", his charge that Ching Peng was a "rebel and traitor to this country" and how these squared with the return of two top CPM leaders in the 90s.

He added that the return of former CPM chairperson Musa Ahmad and the head of its women's wing Shamsiah Fakir was given immense media coverage, including the Malay media then.

"Zainuddin should also be asked to explain whether he is aware and accepts that his view of CPM leaders as traitors is only one view of Malaysian history as there is another view in the universities and among Malaysians regardless of race and political belief, who although disagree with CPM's armed struggle and deplore the loss of lives and sufferings, regard them as nationalists who chose the wrong path of struggle," he said.

Chin Peng, 79, is currently living in exile in neighbouring Thailand. He had requested to return to Malaysia in order to launch his book and visit the graves of his parents.