Jun 6, 2009 By Craig Guthrie
Asia Times (Hong Kong)
BANGKOK - As he secretly slipped away from his mother's funeral, donned his familiar saffron robes and fled by motorbike along a potholed road from southeast Cambodia into neighboring Thailand, Tim Sakhorn's status as a Khmer Krom hero was assured. On Thursday, as his ethnic group marked the 60th anniversary of the loss of its lands, the little-known movement for self-determination and improved human rights was desperately in need of one.
The ongoing saga of Sakhorn, a 41-year-old Buddhist monk who in 2007 was defrocked, deported and detained by Vietnamese authorities for alleged separatist activities, has brought the cause of the Khmer Krom - a million-strong community of ethnic Khmer who live in parts of Vietnam's Mekong Delta that was once part of an ancient Cambodian empire - some much-needed global attention.
Khmer Krom leaders say the Vietnamese government has suppressed their religious and cultural identity for decades. They say the government of Cambodia, their motherland, has disowned them for political reasons. Sakhorn's story, they believe, is indicative of both.
Soft spoken and diminutive, Sakhorn is an unlikely successor to Son Kuy, the swashbuckling Khmer Krom soldier who led guerilla warfare against imperial Vietnam in the early 19th century before being beheaded at the royal court at Hue. Sakhorn says he is no hero. He told Asia Times Online at a hidden location in Bangkok on May 25 that he is merely happy his story can show the world that "the oppression is real".
The pictures of both men adorned banners as Khmer Krom marched in the streets of Phnom Penh on Thursday to commemorate colonial France's June 4, 1949, ceding of what was then known as western Cochinchina to Vietnam. The demonstration was kept low key - an earlier incarnation of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was put in place by Hanoi in 1979, and its party leaders remain sensitive to any events critical of its important ally.
"Venerable Tim Sakhorn, is, by definition and through the examples of other great heroes in history, a true Cambodian hero," Washington-based economist and historian Naranhkiri Tith said by e-mail. He said Sakhorn deserves appreciation for "trying to defend Cambodia and her people against an unrelenting 'Vietnamization' of Cambodia".
Alien in your homeland
Khmer Krom leaders say the Vietnamese government targets their ethnic group in three ways: education, culture and economy. "Specifically, the Vietnamese government limits the teaching of the Khmer language, restricts the practice of Theravada Buddhism, and deprives the Khmer Krom of their lands," said Thach N Thach, the president of the Khmer Krom Federation.
The majority of Vietnam's Buddhists practice Mahayana Buddhism as opposed to the Khmer Krom's Theravada Buddhism. Hanoi's Minister of Culture and Information said in 2007 that Theravada enforces "backward" customs and habits that limit the group's development. The communist nation has restrictions on religious practices and all Theravada wats (temples) are overseen by the government-controlled Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha.
Perpetuating their life on the margins of Vietnamese society, large number of ethnic-Khmer students drop out of school at an early age. Many Khmer families are too poor to take their children out of wage labor. If they can, their children are only taught in Vietnamese. Khmer classes remain only available in small wats that girls, by custom, cannot attend.
"When I started first grade in public school I had to learn everything in Vietnamese, but I couldn't speak Vietnamese at all. The Vietnamese students, even teachers, made fun of us [Khmer Krom] and made us feel that we were not welcome," said Serey Chau, president of the Khmer Krom Federation's Youth Council.
In March 2008, the state-run VietnamNet news site reported that Khmer students were "dropping like flies" out of school. "Most of the students with bad learning capacity are of Khmer minority; they cannot speak Vietnamese well and cannot follow the study curriculum," a local teacher told them. The report said 56% of drop-outs are from the Khmer minority, with 30% of this figure leaving due to their "inability to learn".
Vietnam insists it has introduced wide-reaching housing, poverty reduction and education programs in an attempt to bring the Khmer Krom into mainstream society and join in the nation's economic progress. It claims some 358,000 new jobs were created for Khmer Krom in 2007, and that the average gross domestic product per capita in the region is 14.8 million dong (US$890).
'Eliminate without bleeding'
Khmer Krom leaders insist that poverty is rife in the area despite the delta being Vietnam's most fertile rice-growing region - Vietnam is the world's second-largest rice exporter. They claim the farmlands of ethnic-Khmer families have been confiscated by the authorities.
The World Bank found in a 2006-2010 socio-economic study that less than half of the Khmer households it surveyed (46%) had enough food to eat all year round, while poverty rates in Khmer Krom villages in 2005 reached between 50-70%. Of the main causes of poverty, 100% of village households surveyed said it was partly due to landlessness.
Thach says that after 1975, when the Khmer Rouge came into power in Phnom Penh, all Khmer Krom lands in the Delta were placed under state ownership. The government implemented collective land reform policies "with their eyes on the farmlands of Khmer Krom people", said Thach. "So far, this land-grabbing has succeeded and the majority of Khmer Krom are landless." He calls the aim of the program "to eliminate without bleeding".
An Oxfam Australia study in late 2008 found that the loss of culture is a primary cause of the poverty of the Khmer Krom in the Mekong Delta, "as cultural upheaval creates a sense of deep hopelessness and despondency".
This despondency has led to Khmer Krom activism. The case of Sakhorn suggests that the Vietnamese and Cambodian authorities are willing to collude to silence it.
A report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in February listed memos from Vietnamese government officials outlining their strategies to monitor and infiltrate ethnic-Khmer activist groups. In one, dated July 2007, General Luu Phuoc Luong, deputy commander of Vietnam's southwest region, accused "reactionary groups of the [Khmer] Krom" of "destabilizing us [Vietnam] politically ... Close cooperation with the Cambodian government is needed in order to nip these anti-government activities in the bud."
Hanoi dismissed the HRW report and Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dzung described it as a "total fabrication" in the state-controlled Viet Nam News Agency. "There is completely no repression or restrictions of freedom to religion and speech for Khmer ethnic people in the Mekong Delta region," Dung said.
Spirited away
When reports of Sakhorn's defrocking first made headlines in July 2007, the first statement from local authorities said he had been found guilty of "improper behavior" with a woman. Later, a witness from local human-rights group Adhoc said he had been bundled into a Toyota by unidentified men from Prime Minister Hun Sen's elite Brigade 70 bodyguard unit. Local newspapers then reported that he had been charged with "entering Vietnam illegally".
His whereabouts were unknown for weeks. Only in August 2007 was it confirmed he had been quietly shuttled to Vietnam by car to face charges of "undermining relations" between Vietnam and Cambodia by organizing Khmer Krom demonstrations and distributing propaganda leaflets while abbot of Phnom Den pagoda in Cambodia's southwestern Takeo province.
The defrocking order was signed by Great Supreme Patriach Tep Vong, Cambodia's highest religious figure. Vong has strong links to the ruling government and once served as deputy president of Cambodia's National Assembly when it was controlled by an earlier version of the CPP.
Human-rights groups said this was proof the structure of Buddhism in Cambodia was aligned so that religion was "politically entwined" with the government. "It is clear that the Ministry of Cults and Religions has an unhealthy degree of control over the Great Supreme Patriarch, and the structure of the Buddhism in Cambodia in general," said the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.
The outcry over his disappearance led Hun Sen to write to King Norodom Sihamoni justifying his defrocking - Cambodia's royal family has traditionally displayed more sympathy for the Khmer Krom than the government. Princess Norodom Arunrasmy presided over Thursday's ceremony. "Monk Tim Sakhorn was stubborn," he wrote in the leaked letter, adding that while the government knew Vietnam had detained him, "the exact cause of the imprisonment, we do not know yet".
Underweight and shackled, Tim Sakhorn finally surfaced at a People's Tribunal in Vietnam's southeastern An Giang province in November, 2007. He was initially sentenced to 15 years, but after a signing a confession - which he says was already written and translated into Khmer - this was reduced to just one.
After his detention ended, he says he was still kept under surveillance by Vietnamese agents, but he was allowed a brief visit to Takeo in April to visit 100-day funeral rights for his mother. Grasping the opportunity, he fled to Thailand on a motodop (motorbike taxi). He donned his saffron robes and was secretly re-ordained en route - enabling him to escape the attention of border police.
Sakhorn is staying in a safe house in Bangkok where he met with Asia Times Online. He said he is currently awaiting a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees decision on his status and hopes to go to the United States. "But even in a third country I will be afraid, Vietnamese agents have shadowed me and threatened me since I was released. It doesn't matter where I go, they can find you," said Sakhorn.
The Cambodian government has said it is safe for him to return and live there, but he does not believe them. "I had lived in Cambodia for years, from 1978 [until 2007], and Vietnamese authorities were still able to come and take me to their prison where I was mistreated, forced to confess and earth and grass mixed in with my daily rice. [Prime Minister] Hun Sen says he wants to help the Khmer Krom, but I have not seen anything happen."
For historian Tith, the Cambodian premier has no option but to support any demands from the Vietnam. "If the Vietnamese tell Hun Sen to turn right, he will turn right. If the Vietnamese tell him to turn left, he will turn left. Hun Sen is very scared of Vietnam because he was propped up by Vietnam."
Written out of history
Sakhorn's arrest and deportation sparked a wave of Khmer Krom demonstrations in Cambodia, with clashes in Phnom Penh between Khmer Krom monks and monks loyal to Tep Vong. Hun Sen warned after the street fights in a speech broadcast on national television in February 2008 that he would provide "free coffins" to anyone who attempted to reclaim Khmer Krom lands and "help bury their corpses".
The Khmer Krom maintain their cause is about human rights, not independence or the return of their lands to Cambodia. They claim to only want some say in their future, and for Vietnam to stop falsifying their history. In 2007, the Vietnamese Communist Party disseminated a freshly written history of southern Vietnam that asserted that the Khmer were not its indigenous inhabitants.
Shawn McHale, an Asia studies professor at George Washington University, says the fundamental problem in the historical dispute over the Khmer Krom's lands is using modern notions of sovereignty for pre-colonial situations that were ambiguous. He said a Khmer prince ceded Khmer Krom to Vietnam in 1757, but that not all branches of the royal families agreed.
In 1864, France made Cochinchina a colony, but Cambodia was merely a protectorate. When Hanoi and Phnom Penh both claimed the area in 1945, the French ultimately sided with the Vietnamese in 1949.
"So the Khmer Krom today are an ethnic minority greatly outnumbered in their land, they insist that their territory was seized by an enemy, and that this enemy does not have a legitimate claim to the area, but most of the world simply can't believe that such an account is true," McHale told Asia Times Online by e-mail. "Over time, the world has come to recognize the claims of the party that came later and used brute force to establish its claim."
Craig Guthrie is a correspondent for Asia Times Online based in Thailand. He has covered Cambodian affairs since 2004.
The ongoing saga of Sakhorn, a 41-year-old Buddhist monk who in 2007 was defrocked, deported and detained by Vietnamese authorities for alleged separatist activities, has brought the cause of the Khmer Krom - a million-strong community of ethnic Khmer who live in parts of Vietnam's Mekong Delta that was once part of an ancient Cambodian empire - some much-needed global attention.
Khmer Krom leaders say the Vietnamese government has suppressed their religious and cultural identity for decades. They say the government of Cambodia, their motherland, has disowned them for political reasons. Sakhorn's story, they believe, is indicative of both.
Soft spoken and diminutive, Sakhorn is an unlikely successor to Son Kuy, the swashbuckling Khmer Krom soldier who led guerilla warfare against imperial Vietnam in the early 19th century before being beheaded at the royal court at Hue. Sakhorn says he is no hero. He told Asia Times Online at a hidden location in Bangkok on May 25 that he is merely happy his story can show the world that "the oppression is real".
The pictures of both men adorned banners as Khmer Krom marched in the streets of Phnom Penh on Thursday to commemorate colonial France's June 4, 1949, ceding of what was then known as western Cochinchina to Vietnam. The demonstration was kept low key - an earlier incarnation of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was put in place by Hanoi in 1979, and its party leaders remain sensitive to any events critical of its important ally.
"Venerable Tim Sakhorn, is, by definition and through the examples of other great heroes in history, a true Cambodian hero," Washington-based economist and historian Naranhkiri Tith said by e-mail. He said Sakhorn deserves appreciation for "trying to defend Cambodia and her people against an unrelenting 'Vietnamization' of Cambodia".
Alien in your homeland
Khmer Krom leaders say the Vietnamese government targets their ethnic group in three ways: education, culture and economy. "Specifically, the Vietnamese government limits the teaching of the Khmer language, restricts the practice of Theravada Buddhism, and deprives the Khmer Krom of their lands," said Thach N Thach, the president of the Khmer Krom Federation.
The majority of Vietnam's Buddhists practice Mahayana Buddhism as opposed to the Khmer Krom's Theravada Buddhism. Hanoi's Minister of Culture and Information said in 2007 that Theravada enforces "backward" customs and habits that limit the group's development. The communist nation has restrictions on religious practices and all Theravada wats (temples) are overseen by the government-controlled Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha.
Perpetuating their life on the margins of Vietnamese society, large number of ethnic-Khmer students drop out of school at an early age. Many Khmer families are too poor to take their children out of wage labor. If they can, their children are only taught in Vietnamese. Khmer classes remain only available in small wats that girls, by custom, cannot attend.
"When I started first grade in public school I had to learn everything in Vietnamese, but I couldn't speak Vietnamese at all. The Vietnamese students, even teachers, made fun of us [Khmer Krom] and made us feel that we were not welcome," said Serey Chau, president of the Khmer Krom Federation's Youth Council.
In March 2008, the state-run VietnamNet news site reported that Khmer students were "dropping like flies" out of school. "Most of the students with bad learning capacity are of Khmer minority; they cannot speak Vietnamese well and cannot follow the study curriculum," a local teacher told them. The report said 56% of drop-outs are from the Khmer minority, with 30% of this figure leaving due to their "inability to learn".
Vietnam insists it has introduced wide-reaching housing, poverty reduction and education programs in an attempt to bring the Khmer Krom into mainstream society and join in the nation's economic progress. It claims some 358,000 new jobs were created for Khmer Krom in 2007, and that the average gross domestic product per capita in the region is 14.8 million dong (US$890).
'Eliminate without bleeding'
Khmer Krom leaders insist that poverty is rife in the area despite the delta being Vietnam's most fertile rice-growing region - Vietnam is the world's second-largest rice exporter. They claim the farmlands of ethnic-Khmer families have been confiscated by the authorities.
The World Bank found in a 2006-2010 socio-economic study that less than half of the Khmer households it surveyed (46%) had enough food to eat all year round, while poverty rates in Khmer Krom villages in 2005 reached between 50-70%. Of the main causes of poverty, 100% of village households surveyed said it was partly due to landlessness.
Thach says that after 1975, when the Khmer Rouge came into power in Phnom Penh, all Khmer Krom lands in the Delta were placed under state ownership. The government implemented collective land reform policies "with their eyes on the farmlands of Khmer Krom people", said Thach. "So far, this land-grabbing has succeeded and the majority of Khmer Krom are landless." He calls the aim of the program "to eliminate without bleeding".
An Oxfam Australia study in late 2008 found that the loss of culture is a primary cause of the poverty of the Khmer Krom in the Mekong Delta, "as cultural upheaval creates a sense of deep hopelessness and despondency".
This despondency has led to Khmer Krom activism. The case of Sakhorn suggests that the Vietnamese and Cambodian authorities are willing to collude to silence it.
A report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in February listed memos from Vietnamese government officials outlining their strategies to monitor and infiltrate ethnic-Khmer activist groups. In one, dated July 2007, General Luu Phuoc Luong, deputy commander of Vietnam's southwest region, accused "reactionary groups of the [Khmer] Krom" of "destabilizing us [Vietnam] politically ... Close cooperation with the Cambodian government is needed in order to nip these anti-government activities in the bud."
Hanoi dismissed the HRW report and Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dzung described it as a "total fabrication" in the state-controlled Viet Nam News Agency. "There is completely no repression or restrictions of freedom to religion and speech for Khmer ethnic people in the Mekong Delta region," Dung said.
Spirited away
When reports of Sakhorn's defrocking first made headlines in July 2007, the first statement from local authorities said he had been found guilty of "improper behavior" with a woman. Later, a witness from local human-rights group Adhoc said he had been bundled into a Toyota by unidentified men from Prime Minister Hun Sen's elite Brigade 70 bodyguard unit. Local newspapers then reported that he had been charged with "entering Vietnam illegally".
His whereabouts were unknown for weeks. Only in August 2007 was it confirmed he had been quietly shuttled to Vietnam by car to face charges of "undermining relations" between Vietnam and Cambodia by organizing Khmer Krom demonstrations and distributing propaganda leaflets while abbot of Phnom Den pagoda in Cambodia's southwestern Takeo province.
The defrocking order was signed by Great Supreme Patriach Tep Vong, Cambodia's highest religious figure. Vong has strong links to the ruling government and once served as deputy president of Cambodia's National Assembly when it was controlled by an earlier version of the CPP.
Human-rights groups said this was proof the structure of Buddhism in Cambodia was aligned so that religion was "politically entwined" with the government. "It is clear that the Ministry of Cults and Religions has an unhealthy degree of control over the Great Supreme Patriarch, and the structure of the Buddhism in Cambodia in general," said the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.
The outcry over his disappearance led Hun Sen to write to King Norodom Sihamoni justifying his defrocking - Cambodia's royal family has traditionally displayed more sympathy for the Khmer Krom than the government. Princess Norodom Arunrasmy presided over Thursday's ceremony. "Monk Tim Sakhorn was stubborn," he wrote in the leaked letter, adding that while the government knew Vietnam had detained him, "the exact cause of the imprisonment, we do not know yet".
Underweight and shackled, Tim Sakhorn finally surfaced at a People's Tribunal in Vietnam's southeastern An Giang province in November, 2007. He was initially sentenced to 15 years, but after a signing a confession - which he says was already written and translated into Khmer - this was reduced to just one.
After his detention ended, he says he was still kept under surveillance by Vietnamese agents, but he was allowed a brief visit to Takeo in April to visit 100-day funeral rights for his mother. Grasping the opportunity, he fled to Thailand on a motodop (motorbike taxi). He donned his saffron robes and was secretly re-ordained en route - enabling him to escape the attention of border police.
Sakhorn is staying in a safe house in Bangkok where he met with Asia Times Online. He said he is currently awaiting a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees decision on his status and hopes to go to the United States. "But even in a third country I will be afraid, Vietnamese agents have shadowed me and threatened me since I was released. It doesn't matter where I go, they can find you," said Sakhorn.
The Cambodian government has said it is safe for him to return and live there, but he does not believe them. "I had lived in Cambodia for years, from 1978 [until 2007], and Vietnamese authorities were still able to come and take me to their prison where I was mistreated, forced to confess and earth and grass mixed in with my daily rice. [Prime Minister] Hun Sen says he wants to help the Khmer Krom, but I have not seen anything happen."
For historian Tith, the Cambodian premier has no option but to support any demands from the Vietnam. "If the Vietnamese tell Hun Sen to turn right, he will turn right. If the Vietnamese tell him to turn left, he will turn left. Hun Sen is very scared of Vietnam because he was propped up by Vietnam."
Written out of history
Sakhorn's arrest and deportation sparked a wave of Khmer Krom demonstrations in Cambodia, with clashes in Phnom Penh between Khmer Krom monks and monks loyal to Tep Vong. Hun Sen warned after the street fights in a speech broadcast on national television in February 2008 that he would provide "free coffins" to anyone who attempted to reclaim Khmer Krom lands and "help bury their corpses".
The Khmer Krom maintain their cause is about human rights, not independence or the return of their lands to Cambodia. They claim to only want some say in their future, and for Vietnam to stop falsifying their history. In 2007, the Vietnamese Communist Party disseminated a freshly written history of southern Vietnam that asserted that the Khmer were not its indigenous inhabitants.
Shawn McHale, an Asia studies professor at George Washington University, says the fundamental problem in the historical dispute over the Khmer Krom's lands is using modern notions of sovereignty for pre-colonial situations that were ambiguous. He said a Khmer prince ceded Khmer Krom to Vietnam in 1757, but that not all branches of the royal families agreed.
In 1864, France made Cochinchina a colony, but Cambodia was merely a protectorate. When Hanoi and Phnom Penh both claimed the area in 1945, the French ultimately sided with the Vietnamese in 1949.
"So the Khmer Krom today are an ethnic minority greatly outnumbered in their land, they insist that their territory was seized by an enemy, and that this enemy does not have a legitimate claim to the area, but most of the world simply can't believe that such an account is true," McHale told Asia Times Online by e-mail. "Over time, the world has come to recognize the claims of the party that came later and used brute force to establish its claim."
Craig Guthrie is a correspondent for Asia Times Online based in Thailand. He has covered Cambodian affairs since 2004.
21 comments:
Believe it or not, Khmer Krom issue is well heard all over the world.
They came along way, and it is about time to tell all the dirtiest tactics that the Vietnam did to them.
Got to remember, the Turk has controlled the Greece for more than +400 years and they managed to free themselves out of the Turk.
Please stand up and unite to free ourselves. The more you speak up the more the YOUN will get the irritation.
Khmer Krom Phnom Penh,
AROUND 600 monks, opposition politicians and rights activists gathered in Phnom Penh on Thursday to mark the loss of Cambodia's southern territories - Kampuchea Krom - to Vietnam.
The rally at Wat Botum park celebrating the 60th anniversary of the handover of Kampuchea Krom also aimed to draw attention to the human rights abuses still reportedly suffered by southern Vietnam's ethnic Khmer residents, known locally as Khmer Krom.
"We are in sorrow. This date represents all our suffering since 1949, when we lost our land to Vietnam. Our rally today sends a message to the young generation of Khmer Krom to remember our sufferings and sacrifices," said Young Sin, chief of the Khmer Krom monks from Phnom Penh's Sammaki Raingsei pagoda.
Historical watershed
The annual gathering marks June 4, 1949, when an ailing French colonial administration transferred Cambodia's old Mekong Delta territories to its colony of Cochinchina, a precursor to today's Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
It is a loss that is still keenly felt by many Cambodians, compounded by reports of human rights violations against Khmer Krom monks.
A Human Rights Watch report released in January decried the "severe and often shrouded methods" used by the Vietnamese government to stifle demands for religious and cultural freedom.
We are in sorrow. This date represents all our suffering since 1949.
In a statement released Thursday, Son Soubert, president of the Permanent Committee of the Son Sann Foundation, said the anniversary was an important opportunity "to assert the Cambodian rights on this territory and to defend the rights of Khmer Krom living there".
Pich Seiha, 28, a Khmer Krom monk present at the rally, said he joined the protest to call attention to the situation in Vietnam.
"I joined the rally because I want the national government, as well as the international community, to bring us freedom to live our lives, to do the same work as Vietnamese citizens and the rights to make our own decisions," he said.
But participants claim a last-minute change of venue led to a lower turnout than expected.
On May 28, Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema approved the rally to be held at Chaktomuk Theatre, but it was relocated overnight to Wat Botum park.
Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Son Chhay expressed hopes that in the future the government would be more supportive of the rally.
"We hope that the government will give up its policy against commemorations of Khmer history [and that it] will not restrict or prohibit us from forming a rally," he said.
Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the Post on Wednesday that the gathering of Cambodia's Khmer Krom community would not affect the relationship between Cambodia and its former political patron Vietnam.
"I think that the assembly... is an expression of their freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by the government," he said.
We will insure that President Obama will raise this discussion at the UN for us. Former President Bill Clinton supported the independent of East Timore and President George Bush also supported the Kosovo independent.
The next one will be our turn.
Thanks the US for the support.
Vietnam authority allowing their people to build houses inside Khmer Krom Temples-lands, this is how rudeness they are! when Khmer refuse they lock them up and jails them, and also stop Khmer from pratice khmer culture, languages etc...Khemer krom ecape to cambodia for seeking help, but Phnom Penh Gov't do the same thing to them like Vietnam did! i would like to ask all of our brother and sister all around the world to please spread out the words and help our people as much as you can...please!!
Khmer/teuk khmao
That's my comments above, please don't mind me because my english is not goog...
khmer/teuk khmao
correction = good
It is now only time will tell that YOUN no longer can't control the Mekong Delta anymore.
They will pay the Khmer Krom back all kind of compensations.
Khmer Krom Australia,
Buddha blesses Khmer Krom all the way!!!!
This is from a guy in Thailand. Lok Ta in almost temples in Thailand really support the movement of Khmer Krom. They said they will help Khmer Krom to free themselves too.
YOUN wants to destroy the Khmer KRom religion there.
We will support them regardless!!!
Hey Folks!
I've found out that Kampuchea Krom is on the pending in French Parliament or court. Sihanouk have requested the French court to review this case over again but coincidently Khmer got into war from the early 70s and on. Now since Cambodia working toward stability we have to request the French court to revive this case again. They said the case is more likely to be review.
I am happy to hear this.
Bravo! Khmer!!!
If you want to know more please do research. Like you know nowaday is easy for us with this technology.
In 1856, after the French occupation of the provinces of the East Cochinchina, always through the intermediary of the Consul of Singapore, S.M. King ANG DUONG sent another letter and present to the Emperor Napoléon III, in a manner of protest, while drawing his attention over the territory of Cochinchina as Cambodian land, and while asking him not to receive from the Annamese King any territorial offer that was taken away from Khmer territory. Below is the content of the 1856’s letter extracted from the history of Thailand, 4th reign, 2394 to 2411 of the Buddhist era) and translated in French.
Some years later, in 1864, when S.M. King NORODOM paid a visit of admiral de Lagrandière in Saigon in company of Lieutenant Doudart de Lagrée, he had expressed his ardent desire to see France returned to Cambodia the three provinces of Vinh Long (Vinh Long, Sadec, and Travinh), Chaudoc (Chaudoc, Long Xuyen, Cantho and Son Trang) and Hatien (Hatien, Rach Gia and Bac Lieu) and the treaty of 1862 – nil and void since it is the fate of the Cambodian provinces, ever recognized as Annamese, ceded to Annam with no knowledge of Cambodia. He received a promise over the matter and went back convinced for a return in October 1864 to the Cambodian homeland the provinces that had been once detached (Cambodians of Cochinchine, G., Barrault) .
But in 1867, the Cambodian uprisings for the independence of Cochinchina, that was secretly supported by the Court of Hue, had brought France to occupy these three provinces and to evade the promise made through Admiral de Lagrandière’s word to S.M. NORODOM and to remain silent to the painful protests of the King (les Cambodgiens de Cochinchine, G., Barrault).
- Original text in French by Ung Bun Pheav, CFC-CBC/France
wow khmerkrom issue on asia time! it going to get bigger next will be on alzerra english on globcast and cnn internation or the bbc london. I'm so happy to hear the news about tim sokhon.
keep up the good work khmerkrom
When there are oppressions or suppression there will be a rebellion.
Freedom will prevail!!!!!
What happened to former Yugoslavia or the Balkan States??
They all split into at least 4-5 countries.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Yugoslav(Serbia)
Croatia
Slovenia
Montenegro
Kosovo
Yugoslav couldn't expected this to happen but it happened.
Under Marshal Tito, he has a tight grip on these smaller states. Now it has been splitting into many countries.
YOUN is next!! Mongtargnard and Khmer Krom will be next!!
"...a million-strong community of ethnic Khmer who live in parts of Vietnam's Mekong Delta..."
-AH Craig Guthrie is repeating the same bullshit of the Vietcong government statistic of Khmer Krom population in Southern Vietname! The real statistic of the Khmer Krom population is much higher than that! There are 10 million strong Khmer Krom populations in Khmer Kampuchea Krom!
The fact that the fucken Vietcong government chooses to lie that the Khmer Krom is just a million people to show the world that the Khmer Krom people are small and insignificant and the world don't need to pay any attention to the Khmer Krom people!
I want to remind the Vietcong government once again that when they invaded Cambodia and they sent 200,000 strong Vietcong armies supported by jet fighters and tanks and even after 10 years of fighting and the Vietcong army still withdrew their military from Cambodia! Now when 10 million and even 1 million Khmer Krom is asking from self-determination and that make them a militant already! But the Khmer Krom militant don't have a weapon in their hand yet and once they have it will be the same Cambodian war all over again! So right now, the million of Khmer Krom people are asking the Vietcong government peacefully for the right to self-determination and freedom and this is not the first or the last time that the Khmer Krom had been asking because they had been asking since 1949!
I believe in armed struggle! There is nothing more noble than to die for what you believe in!
Now, he should begin writing his books about his fabricated and fictitiousstory to sell to Puok Ah Scum Rainsy's supporters.
PPU
PPU is a motherfucking idiot!!!!Instead of supporting them he is cursing them. What a shame to have him as a fake Khmer.
KhmerPP,
PPU is son of Viet bitch coming along Viet invading troops, and continued to rape Khmer resources of all kinds: forests, fishes in Tonle Sap, Gems, lands grabbings....
Friday, July 20, 2007
Significant case of Venerable Tim Sakorn
Cambodian government is igniting the fire now. Playing game with Buddhism in Cambodia is very sensitive.
The case of Venerable Tim Sokhorn is a test by Vietnam and Hun Sen government to measure how influential of Buddhist institution in Cambodia. I think the test is continuously proving now. The newspapers and radios are endlessly reporting. The sensitivity of Cambodian people are endlessly, perceived, enlarged and ignited.
But Hun Sen government and Vietnam have been aware about this and their test aiming to intimidate and ban all Buddhist monks and KKK people movements in Cambodia, not only in Kampuchea Krom.
It is indisputable that Hun Sen government is actually incorporated with Vietnam to dismantle all Khmer Krom movements that are carrying out to protect their basic human rights. However, Hun Sen government will loss their credibility through this conspiracy with their lasting friend, Vietnam. Vietnam doesn't want international community named their country as high alert in religious freedom abuses, but now Vietnam can persuade Hun Sen government to be named through this forcibly defrocking, detention and kidnapping a Buddhist monk.
It is really illegal to deport Cambodian citizen to any foreign country even though it has some reasons to say. This deportation act is loud and aware by the international community. Vietnam and Cambodia is two separate countries, not one country. So what reason that Hun Sen authority forcibly deported Venerable Tim Sokhorn to Vietnam?
Hun Sen authority has accuracy in its claim that Venerable Tim Sokhorn agreed to go back the former land once threatened him to flee. Furthermore, it would be a lie to claim his consent to go back because the letter and signature don't reflect the reality of the defrocking and the situation.
If we say about international refugee act, though Venerable Tim Sokhorn agreed to go, Hun Sen government must prohibit him not to go because it is against the national and international law.
Soon or later, Hun Sen government might be named as an alert land for its religious freedom and human rights abuses.
Hun Sen government might hope to marginalize Khmer Kampuchea Krom people from Cambodian community, but it is a wrong calculation because how can they marginalize them when KKK people have been recognized by Cambodian constitution and they have shared same blood, identity, belief, language, diet and culture.
It is Buddhist sensitivity, Somdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk's plea, public news's concern, people's anger, illegality and human rights abuse that case of Venerable Tim Sakhorn can offer to Hun Sen government.
Finally, Venerable Tim Sokhorn will become another hero of KKK people though he is lost, alive, died or re-ordained. Previous heroes of KKK people are Son Kuy, Son Nguc Tanh...and Venerable Tim Sakhorn will become their modern-contemporary hero.
We have to keep call Venerable Tim Sokhorn or Dejkun Tim Sokhorn or other respectful words using for Buddhist monks because Venerable Tim Sokhorn's heart and spirit are likely still a monk. He wasn't consent to be disrobed, so that he is still be legally venerated. It is not different from Cambodian Buddhist monk during Khmer Rouge regime, they were disrobed but still practiced the way of Buddhism by heart and spirit and people still recognized them as the monk. After the collapse of Pol Pot regime, many of them became the full monks again automatically.
KY
To all Khmers must know your RIGHT, you are the rightful owner.
The Viet Namese never have the right to own any land in south Viet Nam.Under international laws, Viet Namese Just the Thieves who are trying to clam those land.
Long Live Khmer Krom... this story only bring one second of smile to most Khmer Krom. We all know that our existing as Khmer in Vietnam is real, and so as our daily struggle of sovereignty. We as Khmer Krom will always and forever take a stand against our human rights, our religious belief, and our existing as Khmer Krom. This is the 21st Century, Youn need to realize that it needs to end its brutality to Khmer. Chi Yo Khmer Krom!
Long Live Khmer Krom People! Long Live Khmer Krom People! Khmer Krom people are great! Down with all the YOUNs. Many great heart-fell thanks go to Craig Guthrie for being a VOICE of the Khmer Krom people. Craig is great and may he be blessed with good health and longevity so that he can contribute to the good cause of the Khmer Krom people.
What ta fuck! YOUNs allowed their people to build houses inside khmer temple?? shit man! mother fucken asshole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! fucken Viet will die like dogs!
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