Chin Peng’s ashes to be divided among kin and former comrade

With Putrajaya adamant that Chin Peng's remains cannot be returned to Malaysia, his family decided to divide the former communist leader's ashes among relatives and comrades after the funeral in Bangkok today.

The Bangkok Post quoted family sources as saying that some of Chin Peng’s ashes would be kept by his children and grandchildren.

“While the rest will be divided among his former comrades and be interred in the four villages in Southern Thailand that the former guerillas had settled in,” the report added.

It did not say where they would be storing the remains.

The former secretary-general of the banned Communist Party of Malaya, who died in a Bangkok hospital on September 16 at the age of 89, will be cremated today at the Wat That Thong in Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok.

The Bangkok Post also reported that former Thai prime minister Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh will be the guest-of-honour at the cremation ceremony. Chavalit, the army commander at the height of the communist insurgency in the south of the country, is highly regarded by Chin Peng's family as are other CPM members.

The daily reported that former leaders of the defunct Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) – Thong Chamsri, 90, and Vichai Chutham, in his mid-80s – turned-up to pay their respects on the first day of prayer services for Chin Peng on Friday. Some 40 ex-CPM members also attended the ceremony, it added.

Chin Peng’s death sparked a controversy following Putrajaya's refusal to allow his ashes to be interred in his hometown in Sitiawan, Perak.

The goverment argued that thousands of Malaysians were killed or had suffered at the hands of the communists.

The decision drew flak from opposition parties, and also prompted a rare criticism from Barisan Nasional component party MCA. The Chinese party said Putrajaya had allowed the bodies of two Malaysian terrorists killed in Indonesia to be brought back to the country for burial in their hometowns.

On Saturday, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar reminded Putrajaya that there were no laws to stop Chin Peng’s ashes from being brought back.