Khmer Krom Supporters Meet in Paris

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
17 June 2009

Overseas members of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom community gathered in Paris on Saturday to mark the day of a loss of their territory to Vietnam and to call for more freedoms there.

Kampuchea Krom, or Lower Kampuchea, was portioned to Vietnam by French authorities in June 1949. Advocates for the Khmer ethnic group now living in the Mekong Delta region say they want more religious freedoms under the Vietnamese.

“We will force the Vietnamese government to have a clear administration and to make sure that Khmer Krom have a self governance,” Thach Ngoc Thach, president of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation, told VOA Khmer by phone from Paris.

A statement issued by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization said that for decades, indigenous people have had the desire to address their status and continued maltreatment by settler societies in their own homelands.

UNPO Secretary-General Marino Busdachin said in a speech Saturday that France had contributed Khmer Krom “inequality” due to “the lack of awareness or lack of acknowledgement of the position of the Khmer Krom internationally.”

Vietnamese officials were not immediately available for comment.

Bun Phalla, a participant from France, expressed optimism for the group’s struggle.

“It is like drops of water filling a pot,” she told VOA Khmer by phone. “One day it will be full. I hope that in the future we will get our land back.”

Khmer Krom Groups To Gather in Paris

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
11 June 2009

Worldwide members of the Khmer ethnic group from southern Vietnam will meet in Paris on Saturday to mark the loss of territory from Cambodia to Vietnam in the colonial period and push for greater freedoms under Vietnamese authorities.

Maggie Murphy, project coordinator for the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization and one of the organizers for the weekend conference, said that 60 years after Khmers lost the land, they are now living in poor conditions, with few rights.

“There is a lot of oppression,” she told VOA Khmer from her group’s office in the Hague. “There is a lack of ability to express one’s religious freedom, and the socio-economic situation of the Khmer Krom is not what it should be. It is far below that of the ethnic Vietnamese.”

Participants of Saturday’s conference will include French authorities, the secretary-general of Murphy’s organization and an Italian member of the European Parliament.

Kampuchea Krom was awarded by the French to Vietnam on June 4, 1949, when the countries were part of Indochina, a partitioning that nettles many Cambodians today and is a focal point for nationalistic rhetoric.

Millions of Khmer Krom now live without freedom of expression or religion, according to the US-based Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation.

Vietnamese authorities impose restrictions on all forms of protest. Recently, they arrested a Khmer monk for hostile acts against good relations between Cambodia and Vietnam.

“In the future, the main purpose of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation is to properly prepare legal work to demand more [work against] human rights violations by the Vietnamese authorities,” Thach Ngoc Thach, president of the federation, told VOA Khmer by phone. “Our purpose is to move toward in what we call a journey toward self determination.”