Govt inaction means K Krom still in limbo

Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Cameron Wells and Tharum Bun
The Phnom Penh Post

POLICE in Boeung Tumpun commune have forwarded to their superiors information about a group of ethnic Khmer Krom who say they are fleeing persecution in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region, and a representative of the group said Monday that he was planning to meet today with the commune chief to discuss their plight.

Members of the group – deported on December 5 from Thailand after a failed asylum bid – have been seeking formal recognition of their citizenship since arriving in the Kingdom, but are poor and reportedly running out of food.

The deportees’ status has been uncertain since their arrival, despite repeated requests to the Ministry of Interior and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to formally recognise their citizenship.

Boeung Tumpun commune police officer Tep Bora said the basic identifying information, collected on January 14, was to be sent to Meanchey district police on Monday.

“Last time we got all the information about the group, and now it is being submitted to the police chief to process the legal documents for them,” Tep Bora said.

“We’re doing our work as they requested.”

Five of the original group of 24 have returned to Thailand so far this month in a second bid to gain asylum there, having lost confidence in Cambodia’s ability to help them, group representative Thach Soong said.

Last week, Thach Soong issued a public appeal to Surya Subedi, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, asking him for assistance in ensuring they receive formal permission to settle in the Kingdom permanently.

A sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen in December stipulated that the processing of asylum seekers would become the sole responsibility of the government.

Thach Soong said police briefly visited members of the group on January 22, marking the second time the deportees have been met by the authorities this month.

“We were checked in on briefly by commune police [officer] Taing Sopha last Friday, but I don’t know exactly what this visit was about,” Thach Soong said. “He left quickly after seeing us; there was no talk.”

Without identity cards, Thach Soong said, the deportees, who have been receiving aid from a local NGO, will remain unable to rent property, attend school or seek medical care at hospitals.

In advance of today’s meeting with Thach Soong, Boeung Tumpun commune chief Sous Sarin said Monday that only local police had the authority to give the deportees the documents they need to remain in Cambodia legally.

A Human Rights Watch report released last week reiterated concerns about the government’s processing of Khmer Krom who flee Vietnam and seek refuge in Cambodia.

“While the Cambodian government stated that it considers Khmer Krom (ethnic Khmers from southern Vietnam) who move to Cambodia from Vietnam to be Cambodian citizens, authorities routinely failed to provide protection in the form of political asylum, let alone full citizen’s rights, to many Khmer Krom living in Cambodia,” the report said.

Khmer Krom migrants appeal to UN envoy as conditions deteriorate

Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

They had no confidence in the government’s ability to help them.

A GROUP of ethnic Khmer Krom who say they are fleeing persecution in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region are making a public appeal to a UN-appointed rights watchdog, claiming Cambodian officials have not been receptive to their pleas for citizenship.

Thach Soong, a representative of 19 Khmer Krom still seeking asylum after fleeing to Phnom Penh following their deportation from Thailand on December 5, said the government has ignored their repeated requests to formally recognise them as Cambodian citizens.

The group now hopes the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi, who began his second official visit to the Kingdom on Monday, can step in.

“We know he is visiting Cambodia, so we want to ask him for help,” Thach Soong said.

“If he doesn’t help us, then we will die.”

The group has remained in limbo since arriving in December. They have asked for formal identity cards, food, housing and official recognition as Cambodian citizens.

Officials have so far brushed aside requests for identity cards and housing, causing alarm among the asylum seekers.

Already, five among the group – a woman, two men and two girls – have returned to Thailand in another attempt to seek asylum there, Thach Soong said.

“They had no confidence in the government’s ability to help them,” he added.

Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, could not be reached for comment Monday. But he has previously said that any Khmer Krom is entitled under the constitution to live in Cambodia.

Accused monks hiding

Also, five Khmer Krom monks who claim police are accusing them of distributing anti-Vietnamese leaflets that have outraged senior government officials remain in hiding.

“We dare not show our faces, because we fear arrest,” said Liv Phally, one of the five, who believe authorities have targeted them.

Interior Ministry officials, however, have stated that they have never threatened to arrest the monks.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY THARUM BUN

Khmer Krom: Police collect information from K Krom

Friday, 15 January 2010
Source: UNPO

Khmer Krom refugees in Cambodia suspiciously visited by information collecting police.

Below is an article published by Phnom Penh Daily :

The 24 Khmer Krom refugees deported from Thailand last month were visited Tuesday by district police in Phnom Penh, who gathered information that the group believes may be used to produce identification cards.

The deportees – who have been staying at an unspecified location – had originally planned to visit the chief of Boeung Tumpun commune in a bid to confirm that they were eligible to stay there, but the police officers visited them instead. They have been without identification since being deported from Thailand on December 5 after fleeing Vietnam to escape what they described as persecution and religious repression.

Khmer Krom spokesman Thach Song, 49, said the police requested information including names, birthplaces and ages, as well as details on where the deportees were living and where they came from.

“I think the police came to gather information for identification cards,” he said. “I asked whether the district police will issue the documents, and the police said it was up to the district chief.”

The deputy Boeung Tumpun commune chief confirmed that the police had visited the group in person. “This is a preliminary step,” he said of the visit, during which each member of the group thumbprinted the documents recording the information.

Naly Pilorge, president of the rights group Licadho, said it was somewhat curious that police would be used to collect information for identification cards.

“It’s unusual, and to me the alarm bell rings,” she said. “The normal way does not involve police.”

The deportees – exhausted and poor – have been awaiting official identification of their citizenship since arriving in Cambodia. Without it, they cannot rent a house, go to hospitals or enroll in schools. Five of them have fallen ill, and all are reportedly low on food. On Tuesday they sent a letter to the Red Cross requesting both food and medicine.

Khmer Krom arrivals seek local residency

Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Kim Yuthana
The Phnom Penh Post

A PETITION was submitted to the governor of Poipet town in Banteay Meanchey province on Monday, asking for government intervention in the matter of 24 Khmer Krom asylum seekers who were deported to Cambodia by Thai authorities on December 5.

“We hope that local authorities will try to help us as soon as possible in gaining equal rights to residency in Cambodia because, at the moment, we are living in difficult conditions and lack enough food,” said Thach Soong, 49, a representative of the group that filed the petition, which has also been sent to senior officials in Phnom Penh.

Try Narin, governor of Poipet town, said Monday that he had yet to receive a copy of the petition.

“We will examine their identities, and if they prove to be ethnic minority Khmer Krom, then that will help in the process of granting them permission to settle in Cambodia,” he said.

Chea Sokun, secretary of the Independent Democratic Association of Non-formal Economy, said that his organisation will continue to support the group until they are found permanent homes in the Kingdom, but will need some outside assistance.

“I would like to appeal to local and international NGOs to help support them by donating food,” he said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said Khmer Krom have the right to live in Cambodia if they choose, but that the 24 recent arrivals had not yet been clearly identified as ethnic Khmers.

Deportees at border cite fears

Khmer Krom refugees repatriated from Thailand (Photo: Prey Nokor News)
The green area in the map above denotes a region of southern Vietnam that Khmer Krom claim as their ancient homeland and refer to as Kampuchea Krom.

Monday, 13 July 2009
CHEANG SOKHA and HOLLY PHAM
The Phnom Penh Post

Khmer Krom sent from Thailand to Poipet face hunger, deportation.

Banteay Meanchey Province

NEARLY a fortnight after their deportation by Thai immigration authorities, Khmer Krom asylum seekers staying in Banteay Meanchey province say they are suffering from hunger and fear as they encounter the uncertainty of life in a strange country.

Since their July 2 deportation, 33 of the 56 deported have left the border, counting on friends and relatives across the country for food and shelter.

But the remaining 23 deportees, born and raised in southern Vietnam, have no family in the Kingdom and are now living in limbo at a small pagoda outside Poipet town. The deportees did not want their exact location to be published.

Several deportees told the Post Friday that the group had endured harsh living conditions since arriving in Poipet. Despite aid from a Christian charity, they said they have been forced to survive on a single meal a day, drink pond water and sleep on the floor in cramped living quarters with no mosquito nets.

"We can't leave the house and can't go to the market, let alone go to work to try and sustain ourselves. It's dangerous out there. We can't trust anyone," said deportee Nguyen Van Hai (names have been changed).

Worst of all, said Pham Van Thanh, another deportee, was the constant fear of repatriation to Vietnam, where Khmer Krom claim they face restrictions of freedom of expression and religion.

"What we are most concerned about is that Cambodian authorities do not allow us to stay here and will send us back to Vietnam," he told the Post.

"If we are sent back, we will be jailed."

The 56 Khmer Krom fled southern Vietnam for Thailand between six months and six years ago and were awaiting the results of their asylum applications when arrested as illegal immigrants by Thai police and detained at Bangkok's Immigration Detention Centre on June 12.

The Khmer Krom said they had been living in isolation from the rest of Thai society and had received no news from home prior to their arrest.

"We have absolutely no contact with our families in Vietnam. We have no idea what's happening to them now. It's likely that they're being spied on," said Vu Van Ba, another of the deportees.

Nguyen Van Hai said it had been hard to live a normal life in Thailand.

"We could not do anything there. No work, no business, and we were under surveillance at all times," he said

At the time of their deportation, the Bangkok office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was in the middle of processing their asylum applications. The deportees said they were angry the UNHCR had been unable to intervene after their arrest.

"UNHCR did not provide any assistance when we were in Bangkok," Pham Van Thanh told the Post. "When arrested by the Thai police, we called UNHCR officials in Bangkok asking for intervention, but their hands were tied."

Sara Colm, a Human Rights Watch researcher, said Sunday that the deportation might put an end to the group's attempt to seek asylum abroad.

"It's difficult for the refugee process to be completed now that they have been deported to Cambodia," she said, noting that UNHCR Cambodia will not consider the asylum claims of Khmer Krom.

She said that UNHCR operates according to Cambodian government assurances that all ethnic Khmers - including those from southern Vietnam - have the automatic right to Cambodian citizenship, making it technically impossible for them to claim refugee status while staying in the country.

Article 4 of the 1996 Nationality Law also states that any person with one Khmer parent can become a citizen.

But the difficulty facing the deportees is that the government does not seem willing to grant them the rights of citizenship enshrined in law, with one official saying they face deportation to Vietnam.

"We do not have any principle of providing these people with shelter or accommodation," said Try Narin, the governor of Poipet town. "I have asked local authorities to find them, and if we [do] we will send them back to their homeland."

UNHCR's office in Phnom Penh could not be reached for comment Sunday.