THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PEACE ACCORD BETWEEN THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE MALAYAN COMMUNIST PARTY
AT HATYAT, THAILAND AND THEIR PIYAMIT TUNNEL NEAR BETONG…AND WHERE WERE THE BRITISH MILITARY INTELLIGENCE THEH?
By Mansor bin Puteh
I took a trip up north to cross into Thailand and went to Betong and the next day some of us went to the Pyamit Tunnel, about a half-drive where there was what looked like a ‘tourist attraction’ with stall selling souvenirs of many types and across the narrow road is the Piyamit Tunnel.
It is not an ordinary tunnel, and could confuse first-time visitors to it; it is the camp where the cadres of the now defunct Malayan Communist Party (MCP) was located and from there they made their move against Tanah Melayu or Malaya.
I was told the camp for the cadres from amongst the Malays were near Hatyai, and the one in Piyamit was for the Chinese.
And it is evident when there was no Malay cadre or name that is mentioned here and the village nearby where many former MCP cadres now live are mostly Chinese.
Most of them are old and their children who are mostly Chinese had assimilated so much like the other Chinese of Thailand that no one could tell if they were Chinese or Native Thais, unlike the Malays who are found in large numbers in Betong Town can be distinguished by their unique ways even though all of them speak perfect Thai other than the Malay language.
The one question that came to my mind the whole time I was there was how the place or camp that was supposed to be hidden in the jungle is actually not so hidden and it can be reached quite easily, and even during the communist insurgency, they would be easily located, and if need be, surrounded, with the only narrow road that meanders from there to Betong closed.
But it seemed that the Thai military and especially their intelligence did not do that so that the MCP was able to do pretty much the ugly things that they had done over so nany years, resulting in the death of ten thousand people in Malaya or Tanah Melayu, most of whom, unfortunately, were the Malays in the villages and those in the Army, and not forgetting their ‘biggest prize’ which was Sir Henry Templer, who was killed by accident because the communists didn’t know that he was being driven towards Cameron Highlands.
Their other big catch was when they managed to assassinate the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) in the center of Kuala Lumpur.
I spoke to some of the former communists who I met at the Piyamit Tunnel as it is now called and was told that they were enlisted when they were students studying mostly in the Chinese vernacular schools in Seri Kembangan, which was a predominantly Chinese area outside of Kuala Lumpur.
They are mostly in the sixties so thirty years ago, when the peace accord between the Malaysian government and the MCP was held on 2 December, 1989, they were at the ripe age when they were in their thirties and probably eager to fight on, until they were forced to lay down their arms.
Of course all of them spoke good Bahasa Melayu, despite not having studied the language the much because they were in Chinese vernacular schools in Malaysia before they were enlisted and enticed to join the MCP for whatever reason that they may have or was told by those who enlisted them.
They seemed friendly; and their children were working in food stalls and all of them did not seem to have much education that could allow them to leave that village to find employment elsewhere, with the older ones being able to work at the camp as guides or instructors to visitors who had to pay RM5.00 to take a peek inside it where he could see what facilities they had there that were used to provide food and shelter to the communist cadres.
And there is a shed which houses objects and things that they used including some musical instruments the used to entertain themselves.
So the camp that was supposed to be at a very secret place was not actually invisible that the Thai intelligence or those who lived near the area and along the narrow road linking the camp to Betong could not see.
I went to the Piyamit Tunnel to see how it was like and to try and imagine what the MCP could have done there throughout the years when they were ruthless. And it didn’t seem that they were not secretive at all but quite open and exposing themselves that even the Malayan and British Army could not pinpoint where they were hiding right close to the Malaya-Thai border.
I found this revelation to be quite funny to say the least; or maybe the strategy used by the British intelligence was not to nab them at the few places where they had camps at, at Betong and Hatyai, but to allow their cadres to infiltrate into Malaya and do harm so that the British soldiers and officers could do something afterwards, which ironically also allowed the assassination of a Malay IGP.
I also remember being able to actually tune into their radio and listened a bit of their programs which were mostly in Malay, right up to the late 1960s and early 1970s when I had my own small transistor radio to tune into their station and listen in the private.
In the end the MCP can only be remembered for the Piyamit Tunnel displays in what looks to be like a park for visitors most of whom might not be aware of what the MCP was and what they had done and failed to achieve.
And yesterday, some three former MCP cadres who had been allowed to return to Malaysia and take up Malaysian citizenship held a gathering to commemorate the Thirtieth anniversary of the peace accord, which looked like they had all planned it to happen, like a family reunion or meeting of old boys of the MCP.
Actually, there are many other former MCP members and cadres who declined to accept the Malaysian government’s deal to allow them to return to Malaysia, if they could provide information to prove that they were Malaysian citizens, because many of them were rejected because some of them were Thais or those who came from China.
And the only reason why any can have of the fanciful and dramatic performance that some of the former MCP to bring in some ashes belonging to their former leader, Chin Peng, to be strewn at few places in Perak, must have a special agenda, because if indeed they had just wanted to perform this last rites, they could have just done what they wanted to do and very quietly.
What bothers many is how brazen their actions were, considering that Chinese communists even in China do not really believe in doing such things which is to spray ashes of their dead leaders; and what they should have done was to embalm him for public display like what they had done to Chairman Mao Zedong and Chow Enlai.
Maybe Chin Peng was not of the same stature as these two communist leaders, and that he had failed to wrest control of Malaya to turn it into a government of their choice and all that his comrades who were still alive could do was to smuggle some ashes which were said to belong to their leader, to appease the souls of the living former MCP comrades and cadres.
By Mansor bin Puteh
I took a trip up north to cross into Thailand and went to Betong and the next day some of us went to the Pyamit Tunnel, about a half-drive where there was what looked like a ‘tourist attraction’ with stall selling souvenirs of many types and across the narrow road is the Piyamit Tunnel.
It is not an ordinary tunnel, and could confuse first-time visitors to it; it is the camp where the cadres of the now defunct Malayan Communist Party (MCP) was located and from there they made their move against Tanah Melayu or Malaya.
I was told the camp for the cadres from amongst the Malays were near Hatyai, and the one in Piyamit was for the Chinese.
And it is evident when there was no Malay cadre or name that is mentioned here and the village nearby where many former MCP cadres now live are mostly Chinese.
Most of them are old and their children who are mostly Chinese had assimilated so much like the other Chinese of Thailand that no one could tell if they were Chinese or Native Thais, unlike the Malays who are found in large numbers in Betong Town can be distinguished by their unique ways even though all of them speak perfect Thai other than the Malay language.
The one question that came to my mind the whole time I was there was how the place or camp that was supposed to be hidden in the jungle is actually not so hidden and it can be reached quite easily, and even during the communist insurgency, they would be easily located, and if need be, surrounded, with the only narrow road that meanders from there to Betong closed.
But it seemed that the Thai military and especially their intelligence did not do that so that the MCP was able to do pretty much the ugly things that they had done over so nany years, resulting in the death of ten thousand people in Malaya or Tanah Melayu, most of whom, unfortunately, were the Malays in the villages and those in the Army, and not forgetting their ‘biggest prize’ which was Sir Henry Templer, who was killed by accident because the communists didn’t know that he was being driven towards Cameron Highlands.
Their other big catch was when they managed to assassinate the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) in the center of Kuala Lumpur.
I spoke to some of the former communists who I met at the Piyamit Tunnel as it is now called and was told that they were enlisted when they were students studying mostly in the Chinese vernacular schools in Seri Kembangan, which was a predominantly Chinese area outside of Kuala Lumpur.
They are mostly in the sixties so thirty years ago, when the peace accord between the Malaysian government and the MCP was held on 2 December, 1989, they were at the ripe age when they were in their thirties and probably eager to fight on, until they were forced to lay down their arms.
Of course all of them spoke good Bahasa Melayu, despite not having studied the language the much because they were in Chinese vernacular schools in Malaysia before they were enlisted and enticed to join the MCP for whatever reason that they may have or was told by those who enlisted them.
They seemed friendly; and their children were working in food stalls and all of them did not seem to have much education that could allow them to leave that village to find employment elsewhere, with the older ones being able to work at the camp as guides or instructors to visitors who had to pay RM5.00 to take a peek inside it where he could see what facilities they had there that were used to provide food and shelter to the communist cadres.
And there is a shed which houses objects and things that they used including some musical instruments the used to entertain themselves.
So the camp that was supposed to be at a very secret place was not actually invisible that the Thai intelligence or those who lived near the area and along the narrow road linking the camp to Betong could not see.
I went to the Piyamit Tunnel to see how it was like and to try and imagine what the MCP could have done there throughout the years when they were ruthless. And it didn’t seem that they were not secretive at all but quite open and exposing themselves that even the Malayan and British Army could not pinpoint where they were hiding right close to the Malaya-Thai border.
I found this revelation to be quite funny to say the least; or maybe the strategy used by the British intelligence was not to nab them at the few places where they had camps at, at Betong and Hatyai, but to allow their cadres to infiltrate into Malaya and do harm so that the British soldiers and officers could do something afterwards, which ironically also allowed the assassination of a Malay IGP.
I also remember being able to actually tune into their radio and listened a bit of their programs which were mostly in Malay, right up to the late 1960s and early 1970s when I had my own small transistor radio to tune into their station and listen in the private.
In the end the MCP can only be remembered for the Piyamit Tunnel displays in what looks to be like a park for visitors most of whom might not be aware of what the MCP was and what they had done and failed to achieve.
And yesterday, some three former MCP cadres who had been allowed to return to Malaysia and take up Malaysian citizenship held a gathering to commemorate the Thirtieth anniversary of the peace accord, which looked like they had all planned it to happen, like a family reunion or meeting of old boys of the MCP.
Actually, there are many other former MCP members and cadres who declined to accept the Malaysian government’s deal to allow them to return to Malaysia, if they could provide information to prove that they were Malaysian citizens, because many of them were rejected because some of them were Thais or those who came from China.
And the only reason why any can have of the fanciful and dramatic performance that some of the former MCP to bring in some ashes belonging to their former leader, Chin Peng, to be strewn at few places in Perak, must have a special agenda, because if indeed they had just wanted to perform this last rites, they could have just done what they wanted to do and very quietly.
What bothers many is how brazen their actions were, considering that Chinese communists even in China do not really believe in doing such things which is to spray ashes of their dead leaders; and what they should have done was to embalm him for public display like what they had done to Chairman Mao Zedong and Chow Enlai.
Maybe Chin Peng was not of the same stature as these two communist leaders, and that he had failed to wrest control of Malaya to turn it into a government of their choice and all that his comrades who were still alive could do was to smuggle some ashes which were said to belong to their leader, to appease the souls of the living former MCP comrades and cadres.
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