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Warning: Hostile groups exploit Khmer nationalism to undermine Vietnam’s national solidarity
Warning: Hostile groups exploit Khmer nationalism to undermine Vietnam’s national solidarity
8/9/16
Now,
many Vietnamese Cambodian have suffered unfair treatments from Cambodian
government. Each month, many Vietnamese people who have lived and worked in Cambodia are
expelled for illegally living and working there, even they have lived there for
years. But, no one, no international organizations as normal, raises their
voice for them. Many Vietnamese people have lost their properties and
livelihood, have been violated human rights, but no complaint is made except
from the Vietnamese government. So sad for human rights organizations which are
always ready to criticize Vietnam when they have chance, but dumb in these.
Vietnamese Cambodian have suffered not only
from the Cambodian government but also from anti-Vietnam sentiment of the Khmer
Krom who are indigenous Khmer people in
southern Vietnam.
They groundlessly consider themselves as Vietnam ’s
victims when Vietnam
took their land in the past. There’s no evidence and no good reason for these
nonsense, but still there are many groups in the name of preserving the Khmer
rights and even requesting for a Khmer State like The Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF)
and Montagnard
Foundation (Vietnamese: Tổ chức Quỹ người
Thượng). Who are they? And
Who do they represent for? Let find out and see their true face, true purpose.
In the Khmer
language, Krom means "lower" or "below", as it
refers to the lower reaches of the Mekong Delta,
south of Cambodia proper.
In the Vietnamese language, they are known as Khơ-me
Crộm or Khơ-me dưới, which literally means "Khmer from
below", a translation of the Khmer term.
The
Khmer Krom are ethnic Khmer who inhabit Kampuchea Krom, an area
in southern Vietnam
that was once part of the Khmer Empire.[2]Among
the Khmer Krom the belief is held that they are the descendants of
ancient Funan, the core of Suvarnabhumi,
which covered a vast extent of Southeast Asia including present day Cambodia,
southern Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Burma, Malaya, Sumatra and other parts of
Indonesia. Now, there are about nearly two million Khmer Krom in Vietnam .
In
history, a weakened Khmer state after repeated warfare with Siam in the 17th
century left the Mekong Delta poorly administered. Concurrently Vietnamese
refugees fleeing the Trịnh–Nguyễn War in Vietnam pushed
into the area. Cambodian king Chey Chettha
II (1618–1628) in 1623 officially sanctioned the Vietnamese to
operate a custom house at Prey Nokor, then a small fishing village. The
settlement grew steadily as a major regional port, attracting even more
settlers.
The Nguyễn Lords of
Huế in
1698 commissioned Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble, to
organize the territory along Vietnamese administrative lines, thus by de
facto detaching it from Cambodia and joining it to Vietnam. With the
loss of the port of Prey Nokor , then renamed Sài Gòn,
Cambodia 's control of the
area grew increasingly tenuous while increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers to
the Delta isolated the Khmer of the Mekong Delta from their brethren in Cambodia
proper. By 1757, the Vietnamese had absorbed the provinces of Psar Dèk (renamed
Sa Đéc in
Vietnamese) on the Mekong itself, and Moat Chrouk (Vietnamized to Châu Đốc)
on the Bassac River Vietnam ’s
peoples community.
The
Party and State of Vietnam always pay attention to create favourable conditions
for the Khmer Krom, as one of the 54 ethnic peoples in the country, to live and
develop their livelihood and culture.
But
now, there are some elements, for various purposes, try to reclaim land for the
Khmer Krom as an independent state. Many independent NGOs report that the human rights of
the Khmer Krom are being violated by the Vietnamese government, and that Khmer
Krom are reportedly forced to adopt Vietnamese family names and speak the Vietnamese language. In these elements, we can
see two prominent groups The Khmers
Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF) and Montagnard Foundation, Inc.
The Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF) (1985)
is an organization self-declared representing the Indigenous Khmer-Krom Peoples
living in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam,
internationally advocating for human rights,
religious freedom and self determination.
Montagnard
Foundation is an anti-communist organization that claims to protect
the rights of the Montagnard people. It is a non-profit
organization, founded in 1990 and based inSouth
Carolina in the United States , led by exiled leader Kok Ksor
that has spoken out against Vietnam's
polices.
Those groups have raised budget by
deceiving Khmer-Krom exiles living in the United
States , Canada ,
Australia , New Zealand , Europe and sympathizers who have no
knowledge about the real situation in Vietnam .
Deceived
by their alleges, ethnic minority Khmer Krom in Cambodia has held anti-Vietnam
rallies, especially last year after a Vietnamese diplomat said the former
Kampuchea Krom provinces belonged to Vietnam long before France's official
transfer of the land in 1949. And, they even call to boycott Vietnamese people
who are living in Cambodia .
Many Vietnamese have been suffer unfair treatments and lost their properties.
The
Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh has many times
vehemently condemns any fabrication, distortion, slander, legally-groundless
opposition by any organization or individual against the unity and territorial
integrity of Vietnam .
Vietnam urges that countries
and international organizations encourage citizens of all countries to respect
the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Vietnam , in
compliance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations.
It
can see that these moves as acts of intervention into the sovereignty and
internal affairs of Vietnam, going contrary to the laws of Cambodia, which
stipulates "Cambodia does not allow any force or individual to use its territory
to counter any other country".
In conclusion, Southern Vietnam (Kampuchea Krom)
is an integral part of the territory of Vietnam, in compliance with
international law, fully recognized by the United Nations, international
organizations and all countries in the world./.
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All comments [ 10 ]
It's so warning that Anti-Vietnamese sentiment dominates Cambodia, even among otherwise progressive NGOs and political groups.
The Vietnamese community had been pushed away from the land they considered their home – since the early 1990s they had been forced to relocate several times. Although most in the community were in fact born in Cambodia, without proper identification they had few avenues to challenge the eviction.
We do not support those who used freedom of speech to make personal insults and provocative attitude in order to drive a wedge between the peoples of the two countries
Cambodian government should have measures to stop these elements ruin the two countries' relations.
We request that Cambodian authorities take measures to satisfactorily settle the incident and prevent similar actions from recurring in the future in order to ensure the smooth implementation of border delineation and marker planting for the common interest of both peoples
Vietnam has shown its willingness to solve the border issue by agreeing to have a third party, especially France, joining in the demarcating process.
The problem here is that ultra-nationalism has quietly colonized emerging opposition to the current regime. So entrenched is the idea that the current regime is a Vietnamese puppet (i.e. it is quintessentially opposed to Khmerness) that opposition to the Hun Sen regime and opposition to Vietnamese are too often one and the same thing. It's so totally wrong and dangerous.
The sad tragedy is that in fact hundreds of thousands of Viet Cambodians are already disenfranchised and with such limited political space to discuss the issue, any fair and just resolution remains far off in the future.
Among these Cambodian extremists were a number of parliamentarians from the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party.
Vietnam attaches great importance to neighborly friendship and comprehensive cooperation with Cambodia, and wants to build a border of peace and friendship with that country.
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