A Vietnamese academic claimed Vietnamese and Chinese were the original inhabitants of Kampuchea Krom

Mr. Thach Ngoc Thach, president of Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation.

By Khmerization
Source: Prey Nokors News

A Vietnamese academic has claimed that the Vietnamese and Chinese people were the original inhabitants of Kampuchea Krom territory, long claimed by Khmers as the homeland of ethnic Khmer Krom people who are still inhibiting in great numbers in the region, report Prey Nokor News.

In an interview with Radio Free Asia Vietnamese Program on 20th May, Prof. Nguyen Van Huy, expert anthropologist on indigenous studies and former professor of University of Diderot VII in Paris, claimed that Vietnamese and Chinese people were the original inhabitants of Kampuchea Krom territory who have cleared the forests and jungles to make their villages and towns in the 17th century. He claimed that later on the Khmer people migrated to settle in the areas and only started to rise up against the Vietnamese authority when the French colonialist power incited them to rise up against the Vietnamese administration in the late 1800s, telling them that the areas were once Cambodian territory.

Prof. Nguyen Van Huy said the areas where Kampuchea Krom is situated were once jungles with thick forests. He said the Vietnamese and Chinese people, called Nguoi Minh or Nguoi Tau, came to the areas in the 17th century and cleared all the forests to make villages and towns. He said the Khmers only began to claim the areas as theirs when the French colonised the areas in the late 1800s and they only rose up against the Vietnamese authority when the French parliament voted to cede Kampuchea Krom territory to Vietnam after it gave independence to Vietnam in 1954.

Mr. Thach Ngoc Thach, president of Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation, dismissed Prof. Nguyen's comments as fabrications and false, saying that the Khmer people had inhabited the Mekong delta areas even before the city of Hanoi was established. He said many Khmer temples and pagodas in Kampuchea Krom were constructed long before 17th century. He said Wat Sambor Raingsey or Wat Sambor pagoda was built in 373 AD which is now 1637 years old already. Hanoi was only established about 1000 years ago, which is still much younger than the Khmer pagoda of Wat Sambor Raingsey and other Khmer Buddhist temples, he said.

According to the history of Kampuchea Krom, the Vietnamese people had only been allowed to settle temporarily in Kampuchea Krom in 1623 by the Khmer King, King Chey Chetha II, to allow them to escape from the civil war between the Trinh and Nguyen dynasty. As they came in great numbers and due to the weakness of the Cambodian state, the Vietnamese emperor subsequently annexed 21 Cambodian provinces, one by one. In 1856, King Ang Duang of Cambodia wrote to Napoleon III asking him not accept the Kampuchea Krom territory as his colony if it was offered by the Vietnamese emperor. Napoleon III gave strong assurances to King Ang Duang that Kampuchea Krom would be returned to Cambodian control once France withdrew from the area. However, on 4th June 1949, the French parliament voted to ced all territories of Kampuchea Krom to Vietnam.