Thum Pingtjin responded to Burhan Gafoor's letter with a FB posting that he is “happy that the government is
engaging with my work”; he claims that his article on Coldstore
“which was peer-reviewed and has extensive citations, does address
the issues and evidence that Burhan raises”.
Thum's article does nothing of the
sort. It fails to include several important revelations by Chin Peng,
Fong Chong Pik aka The Plan, Eu Chooi Yip and other CPM/ABL leaders
and activists that demolishes his arguments. Eu's revelations that
the Barisan was formed on the instruction of The Plen completely
undermines his whole thesis that the Barisan was just an ordinary
left-wing political party instead of being the principal communist
united front organisation (CUF) in Singapore that it was. His
allegation that the CUF was an “invention” by the authorities has
now been proven to be false.
Click here to read earlier article on what Chin Peng and The Plen say in their own memoirs.
Click here to read earlier article on what Chin Peng and The Plen say in their own memoirs.
In another article which also touched
on Coldstore and merger, Thum declares that his work quoted
extensively the Chinese press – did he know that The Plen has
written in his book that many of the articles in the Chinese press
originated from him?
Many of these revelations have been in
the public domain for the last 15 years. His entire unsubstantiated
case against the government over Coldstore collapses now that it has
been proven that the Barisan was indeed a political front of the CPM
and that the communists were actively driving Barisan's disruptive
activities and that the communists conspiracy was real and not
imagined as alleged. Will Thum now revise his article?
Thum's response to Burhan was a
repetition of his old line that his article was “peer reviewed”
as though that in itself authenticates his work as a truthful account
and addresses all concerns about inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
Since he relies heavily on peer reviews, and give the many misleading
arguments in his article, readers are entitled to know who are these
peers who reviewed his work and how were they chosen? What are their
areas of specialisation and research interests? How familiar are they
with Communism in Southeast Asia, in particular Malaya and Singapore?
How familiar are they with Singapore history? Have they conducted
research on Singapore history and politics?
Further, would Thum address all the
evidence and arguments highlighted in Burhan's reply in his
forthcoming works on Coldstore or is it going to be an expanded
version of his flawed articles? In particular, would he include all
the revelations by Chin Peng, The Plen, Eu Chooi Yip and former
CPM/ABL members that contradict his thesis? Would he also include the
revelations and exhaustive research conducted by authors like C C
Chin, Cheah Boon Kheng, Lee Ting Hui, Drysdale and Bloodworth and
other British colonial records that argue against his own arguments?
Like Thum, I too hope that the state
would declassify more documents. But when academics do not use
materials that are publicly available and shoddily analyse those that
they have access to, then I wonder when that day will come.
