16 years after the Paris Peace Agreements: Cambodia is becoming more and more Vietnamized

16 years after the Paris Peace Agreements:

Cambodia is becoming more and more Vietnamized

In 2007, almost every week, the number of “friendship” visits between Hanoi and Phnom Penh by communist Vietnamese leaders has multiplied, along with the signing of “cooperation” agreements in all fields, such as political, judicial, parliamentarian, military, administrative, economic, technology, cultural religious, etc… with their Cambodian counterparts. For the Cambodian leaders, these are obviously a systematic cooperation-alignment of their parties, of the national institutions at all levels, and of all the activities in Cambodia with those in Vietnam. That is how a communist Vietnam came to teach to a liberal Cambodia, for example, on how to create laws, how to organize internal elections, how to manage its economy, how to broadcast information, how to develop its literature, how to supervise the youth, and how to rule religious practice of Cambodians. Any opposition to this domination by Hanoi is punishable by jail sentence, or by kidnapping “sentence” and deportation to Vietnam by the secret police, such as the case of the alleged crime against “the Cambodia-Vietnam” friendship accused on Venerable Tim Sakhorn.

At the same time, after some 5 million Vietnamese people are counted in Cambodia between 1979 and 2003, the wild colonization of Cambodia by Vietnamese “immigrants” is being pursued unabated throughout Cambodia, thanks to the illegal agreements dated from the 80s, and thanks to the protection of Associations of Vietnamese people already established in Cambodia. Currently, Vietnamese people form the majority in Cambodia eastern provinces, such as Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, and with the so-called “common economic zones,” the Vietnamese in fact control the economy and the administration in these two provinces. Higher north, our provinces of Kampong Cham, Kratie, Mondulkiri, Ratanakiri and Stung Treng are again under the domination of Vietnamese troops, militias, workers and their families, again thanks to the “economic cooperation,” with huge land concessions – and national sovereignty – lasting 70 years of more, granted by the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) directly to the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). Similar concessions were also granted in the provinces of Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear.

At the end, nobody talk or dare talk about the forced annexations by Hanoi of the Koh Tral and Krachak Ses Islands in 1982, as well as a large swath of Cambodia maritime territories. The so-called “historical waters and common waters between Vietnam and Cambodia” are totally under Vietnam’s law and boot. Furthermore, the Vietnamese forces arrogate itself the right to control the entire maritime space located in front of Cambodia’s costs in the province of Kampot: the weak vessels of Cambodian fishermen who are found there, risk being sunk by Vietnamese patrol boats, or they risk being arrested by the Vietnamese guns, and even last month, Cambodian fishermen from Kampot who were protesting the incursions of Vietnamese fishermen in Cambodian waters, were taken and severely beaten by the Vietnamese maritime police from Koh Tral island, before they were later released.

Therefore, the Vietnamization of Cambodia inexorably moves forward in great strides. Those among the Cambodians and foreigners who concluded and promised to respect scrupulously, the October 23, 1991 Paris Peace Agreements on Cambodia, in order to restore the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and inviolability of Cambodia against all external aggressions and interference – from Vietnam, in particular, which occupied Cambodia militarily – shamefully remain silent. Some even found “normal” this unremitting invasion of the “weak” Cambodia by the “powerful” Vietnam.

In reality, the Paris Agreements were not elaborated or adopted by the governments uniquely, but they were adopted for the Right and the Action of the citizens who can find in them their landmarks and their inseparable guaranties.

Cambodian citizens must continue to protest, they must support the legitimate protests by the victims, they must demonstrate against the Cambodian Government and its accomplices. Cambodian citizens must protest against the Superpower and Powerful governments which maintain the corruption and the dictatorship of Mr. Hun Sen and his CPP. Cambodian citizens must, at the very least, write to these governments, even personally, to alert them and to ask them to honor their engagements for a fair application of the Paris Agreements which they also signed. Cambodian citizens must tell these governments that their support to this regime must come to an end, if they sincerely want peace for Cambodia and the wellbeing for its citizens.

The Cambodian citizens must react, and they should not expect anything from those who betrayed them and abandoned them, if they want their Nation to still survive.

Paris, October 23, 2007
The Cambodia’s Border Committee
in France and Worldwide

(Singed) Dy Kareth,
Vice-President