Two world-renowned Cambridge historians specialising in the British Empire in Asia reaffirm the fact that Malaysia's communist veteran Chin Peng was born in Sitiawan, Perak.

In the recently released 673-page Forgotten Wars The End of Britain's Asian Empire (London, Penguin/Allen Lane), Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper record that "Chin Peng was born as Ong Boon Hua, in Sitiawan in Perak." (p.35)

Bayly is Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. His books include Imperial Meridian , Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire and The Birth of the Modern World , 1780 -1914 .

Harper is a senior lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is the author of The End of Empire and the Making of Modern Malaya . Both Bayly and Harper jointly wrote the widely and highly acclaimed Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-45 .

The Malayan/Malaysian identity of Chin Peng suddenly became a matter of public attention following a decision made by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Tuesday, ordering him to produce his birth or citizenship papers within 14 days for his homecoming case proper to proceed further.

Chin Peng, 82, is suing the government of Malaysia and three other plaintiffs for breaching the 1989 Peace Accords signed in Haadyai with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) by not allowing him to return and settle in Malaysia. Besides Chin Peng, two other signatories for the party are Abdullah CD and the late Rashid Maidin.

Seized by the authorities

However, according to Chin Peng's lawyer Darshan Singh, Chin Peng's birth or citizenship papers had long been seized by the authorities at the onset of the 'Emergency' in June 1948.

Chin Peng's legal team, which comprises prominent human rights and constitutional lawyers and former Bar Council president Raja Aziz Addruse, argued that there is no such requirement stipulated in the 1989 Peace Accords.

Darshan also reasoned that in any event, the court should allow testimonies of Chin Peng's local relatives and acquaintances to serve the purpose.

Malaysiakini understands that Chin Peng's legal team has prepared such testimonies in the form of sworn affidavits and that an appeal against the court decision would be filed as a matter of urgency.

In his popular memoirs Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History (Singapore, Media Masters, 2003), Chin Peng reveals that he was born on Oct 21, 1924, " in an upstairs backroom of No 36, Jalan Kampong Koh, a two-storey shophouse in a long row of similar small business establishments the likes of which still dominate the southern Perak township of Sitiawan, some 50 miles southwest of Ipoh " (p.31), attended the Nan Hwa school in Sitiawan (p.33) and " the graves of my grandfather, parents and my brothers " are still located in a Chinese cemetery, " halfway between Sitiawan and Lumut." (p.509)

A Singapore-based estimate has it that his memoirs has sold some 50,000 copies (including the Chinese-language edition) in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Britain, Australia, China and other countries.

Chin Peng also visited Britain in 1998, Australia in 1999 as well as Singapore in 2004 and 2006. In 1998, he was interviewed by BBC and also Sin Chew Jit Poh.

No objection from general readers or scholars against his basic biodata, including the place of his birth, has been reported or publicly heard anywhere in the world so far.