Discussion on the ownership of the island taken away by Vietnam
The Free Press Magazine
Vol. 1, No. 2
January 2008
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
On the busy island which looks like a modern city, no more than 10 families of Cambodian-origin people are living there. Their lives are likened to those of slaves, they do not own lands, have no land titles to survive, unlike the Vietnamese people who settled on the Khmer Koh Tral Island, dubbed Phu Quoc by the Vietnamese.
61-year-old Ly Kim Chin and his family live in a miserable hut next to the beach on the southern side of Koh Tral Island. His livelihood and that his 63-year-old wife, Chau Thi Linh, depends on his fishing labor job, and construction work for a group of rich group of Vietnamese people and businessmen.
60-year-old Chau Si Dorn indicated that he was born and always lived on Koh Tral Island, but he claimed that he does not own lands to grow crops like the Vietnamese people: “I live in a hut along the beach for almost 60-year already, but I don’t own land and I don’t have a steady job besides working as a laborer for the Vietnamese.”
Cambodian people living on the island said that the Vietnamese people who lived there became rich and owned hotels, guesthouses, boats, motorboats, large ships, and they collect incomes from fishing, tourism, and Casinos.
Currently, Koh Tral (Phu Quoc) has a seaport, an airport, and the Duong Dong city was also established here.
A Vietnamese teacher, who provides tourism training in hotels and boat stewardship on the island, told The Free Press Magazine (FPM) that this island is located about 15-km from Kampot province, and 45-km from Ha Tien province (Peam province in Khmer), Vietnam, and about 120-km from Rach Gia (Kramuon Sar in Khmer) port, Vietnam. She added that Koh Tral is currently a district of Kien Giang province, Vietnam (Kramuon Sar province in Khmer).
Cambodian fishermen living along the seas said that Cambodian people not holding the Vietnamese citizenship are prohibited from entering Koh Tral, and they are required to obtain a visa to visit the island.
An anonymous Cambodian navy soldier based in the Cambodian seas in Kampot province, revealed that if someone owns a CPP party membership card, then he/she is allowed to visit the island by Vietnamese border patrol and immigration officers, and that person does not need any visa.
Ly Kim Chin said that Koh Tral Island is really a Cambodian island, he said that several generations of Cambodians living there have passed down this information to their offspring. Originally, there were only 4 to 5 Cambodian families living there, however, starting from the 17th century, a flow of Vietnamese settlers came to occupy the island. “From what I know, Koh Tral is a Cambodian island, but the French gave this Cambodian island to Vietnam in 1939.”
Lawyer Touch Bora from Sydney, Australia, wrote that, in spite of the fact that France gave this island to Vietnam, the sovereignty of the island by Cambodia is not lost yet. He recognized that the Vietnamese people came to settle on this island in the past centuries, however, past Cambodian kings have claimed the ownership of this island, as well as several other territories occupied by Vietnam by force, from one generation to the next.
Touch Bora added that, since the mid-19th century, i.e. starting from 1856, King Ang Duong demanded these lands and island back to Cambodia, and this action continued all the way to his great-grandson, King Norodom Sihanouk.
Sean Pengse, President of the Cambodia’s Border Committee and former Mining, Industry and Energy Minister, indicated that the 01 July 1972 decree issued by Marshall Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic regime claimed anew the sovereignty of Koh Tral Island as being Cambodian territories.
Prince Sisowath Thomico, the former secretary of the king, used to say that, based on recent Cambodian historical documents, Koh Tral was lost in 1982, following the border treaty concluded between Hun Sen, then-foreign minister of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea regime, and Nguyen Co Thach, the Democratic Vietnam minister. The prince was threatened with a lawsuit by the Hun Sen’s regime for expressing this opinion.
