KKKCC to join the CPP
This afternoon (4 January), the Cambodian People's Party [CPP] will hold a ceremony under the chairmanship of Sar Kheng, deputy prime minister and minister of interior from the CPP, at the party headquarters near the State House Chamka Mon in Phnom Penh to welcome a group of 300 new defectors.
A source in the defectors group disclosed that the event was to welcome more than 200 Khmer Kampuchea Krom [KKK] people [indigenous Cambodians from southern Vietnam] as well as a number of officials and members from the FUNCINPEC [National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia] and other parties.
In September and October last year, a group of KKK people led by Kim Van-chheng, president of the KKK Coordination Committee; Son Yoeung, president of the KKK Association for Development; and Thach Sang, president of the KKK Friendship Association, as well as some of their colleagues asked to join as CPP members. That was to exhort KKK people living in Cambodia to support the CPP, for they were optimistic that the approach could help those KKK compatriots currently living in Cambodia get rid of sufferings, such as their being refused to be issued with Cambodian identity cards and other documents.
The KKK people defecting to the CPP claimed that there would be more than 200 people, the largest number ever, to be introduced and welcomed at the party's headquarters this afternoon.
It should be recalled that about 50 percent of the KKK people currently living in Cambodia have Cambodia ID cards and are entitled to vote and take part in all social activities here. However, the other half has not yet obtained documents to prove that they are full Cambodian citizens, with local authorities claiming that KKK people do not have clear identity cards as the Vietnamese compatriots. This is the reason that some of the KKK Association officials have joined the ruling CPP in order to seek its intervention to legalize the KKK compatriots as full Cambodian citizens.
This afternoon (4 January), the Cambodian People's Party [CPP] will hold a ceremony under the chairmanship of Sar Kheng, deputy prime minister and minister of interior from the CPP, at the party headquarters near the State House Chamka Mon in Phnom Penh to welcome a group of 300 new defectors.
A source in the defectors group disclosed that the event was to welcome more than 200 Khmer Kampuchea Krom [KKK] people [indigenous Cambodians from southern Vietnam] as well as a number of officials and members from the FUNCINPEC [National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia] and other parties.
In September and October last year, a group of KKK people led by Kim Van-chheng, president of the KKK Coordination Committee; Son Yoeung, president of the KKK Association for Development; and Thach Sang, president of the KKK Friendship Association, as well as some of their colleagues asked to join as CPP members. That was to exhort KKK people living in Cambodia to support the CPP, for they were optimistic that the approach could help those KKK compatriots currently living in Cambodia get rid of sufferings, such as their being refused to be issued with Cambodian identity cards and other documents.
The KKK people defecting to the CPP claimed that there would be more than 200 people, the largest number ever, to be introduced and welcomed at the party's headquarters this afternoon.
It should be recalled that about 50 percent of the KKK people currently living in Cambodia have Cambodia ID cards and are entitled to vote and take part in all social activities here. However, the other half has not yet obtained documents to prove that they are full Cambodian citizens, with local authorities claiming that KKK people do not have clear identity cards as the Vietnamese compatriots. This is the reason that some of the KKK Association officials have joined the ruling CPP in order to seek its intervention to legalize the KKK compatriots as full Cambodian citizens.
