Wednesday 16 April 2008

Hostage drama in 1975

To date, most of the emails I receive are from BBGSians who write to tell me their stories. Last week, I received an interesting email from Sheith Faikis (a 26-year old male!) from Malaysia who is doing some research for a TV program. This involves tracking down a BBGSian named Chong Fei Fei who was caught up in a hostage drama way back in 1975. I'll let him tell you the story in his own words, and if you can help him locate Fei Fei, please email him directly at faikster@yahoo.com

Hello Joanna Yeoh,

I just visited your blog.

My name is Sheith Faikis Abu Bakar. I work as a researcher at FM Production: A production house that provides content for Astro. We are currently in the making of a documentary on the terrorist organization, The Japanese Red Army (JRA).

In 1975, the JRA stormed the AIA Building in Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, and held over 50 hostages. Among the hostages was Chong Fei Fei. She was 13 at the time, and was a student at Bukit Bintang Girls' School.

I am now trying to locate this former student. I write to you hoping that you could give me some ideas on where I should begin my search.

About 3 months ago, I was asked to start research on this historic incident. Historic it may be, it has, however, surprised me that not much has been covered on this incident. I myself had never heard of the events of 1975, let alone the Japanese Red Army.

I started by first reading old newspaper articles and started listing names of everyone involved. Sometimes, in the news stories, they only mention names and don't furnish the reader with other details, and so not much can be researched from there. But in this girl's case (Chong Fei Fei) it mentions that she's a student of BBGS, and this is helpful.

This investigation has begun to get very interesting indeed. To date, I have managed to get in touch with a total of nine (out of 53) former hostages. Apart from those who are here, we have managed to get in touch with three who are now in the United States, and a Swedish woman. Why Swedish and Americans involved? Well, the AIA building housed a number of embassies back then, including the Swedish and American Embassies.

You will not believe how I got hold of this Swedish woman. All I can say is, "Thank you, Google!" She came down to Malaysia two weeks ago to be interviewed and stayed for five nights. The American hostages are waiting for us to go there, but I doubt the company would want to go all the way to the United States.

It's unfortunate that the ones here, are so unwilling to be interviewed. But I respect everyone's wishes. I am hoping that I can find more of these people from the past, and get interviews with them.

Last week, we went to see a Mr Sukdave Singh, an AIA security guard back then who was shot below the right eye by the terrorists.

I have attached here a news story (NST) on Chong Fei Fei dated August 7th 1975. If she was 13 back then, this means she was at that time either in secondary 1 or 2. Do you know anyone from this batch?

I look forward to hearing from you again.

Thanks so much,

Faikis

2 comments:

Pink Ribbon said...

hello, ben reading all the blogs and this one caught my eye. I used to be chong fei fei's classmate and I would love to know where she is too, today.

we used to have MIss Moey as our add maths teacher,mrs Kwan as our geog teacher ,

I still bump into Mrs Thanen, Mrs Jega once in a while at the Bangsar wet market as recent as a few weeks ago.

MANISAH said...

Hi Wendy, I was in Lower and Upper Six Arts, BBGS, years 80-81. I remember there was Wendy in my class. Are you the one? The teachers you mentioned, yes, I can still remember them clearly especially Mrs Thanen (the class trip to Penang and Cameron Highland). Yes, I remember Fei Fei too,,, she was a school librarian I think. And there were Rozila, Boey Lai Yin, Jackie (where are you dear? Still at no 8 Jln Belangkas, Kg Pandan?), Maimunah (who left early to do her teacher training)and the rest I can still remember the faces but my apologies I need to check my photo album for the names. Keep in touch you guys.