I believe the vast majority of loyal and peace-loving Malaysians will deeply regret if Chin Peng passes away without being allowed to fulfil his traditional and cultural obligation to pray at the graves of his departed parents, which apparently is a necessary condition for their souls to rest in peace.

Therefore, despite the understandably strong objections against Chin Peng's return to the place of his birth, particularly among local members of the former British colonial security forces, whose duty it was to fight the ‘China communists', it is also necessary to recognise that the Malayan Communist Party's ‘war' with the British was beneficial to Malaya.

The militant revolt is widely acknowledged by the Malaysian government and even the colonial government as that which hastened the granting of independence

Indeed, the book titled ‘The Finest Hour: Malaysian-MCP Peace Accord in Perspective' goes further to point out that the struggle against colonial rule was relentlessly pursued by the Malay left and the indigenous Malay protest movements as well.

In fact these movements date back to the very beginning of colonial intervention itself in the ‘Perak War' and included almost all the other states as well.

By singlehandedly initiating and successfully orchestrating the peace accord, Dr Mahathir Mohamad correctly recognised that it was absolutely necessary that peace conditions existed in the country before there can be any real development in the political economy of independent Malaysia.

He therefore managed to engage the CPM for peace talks (which they initially refused to do). Chin Peng finally agreed only because Mahathir himself was directly involved and because he was a ‘problem solver'.

To Mahathir, Chin Peng's acceptance of the peace accord was a basic and fundamental necessary condition for FDI as well as offering an attractive magnet for highly-regarded foreign companies to be located in an industrial climate that was peaceful.

Indeed, without stretching the point, it can be argued that the Petronas Twin Towers can be seen as the symbolic culmination of this strategy.

The negotiation for peace was unexpectedly extremely cordial on both sides. The Malaysian chief negotiator Rahim Noor and Chin Peng seemed to have got on well as friends. Rahim even commented: ‘Chin Peng is an honest man, I trust him'.

Chin Peng, for his part, totally surprised the audience at the talks conclusion by speaking in fluent Malay.

I am taking the unprecedented liberty of appealing to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to sympathetically consider granting Chin Peng a ‘Visitor's Pass' for a few days so that the latter could perform his filial ritual funeral rites for his departed parents.

Chin Peng is now 84 years old and I have no doubt that this gesture will strike at the heart of the ‘1Malaysia' concept as proposed by the prime minister.

This is purely a personal request and I am uncertain if Chin Peng himself will respond positively. At the same time I am aware of the heaps of scorn that will be directed onto me for being condescending, compromising and indeed kowtowing to the powers-that-be.

On the other hand as the author of the abovementioned book, I feel confident and am prepared to face the consequences of my suggestion.