Khmer Mchas Srok Movement of Minnesota holds its first conference

Mr. Sean Masavang and Dr. Chak Sakhon of the Khmer Mchas Srok Movement (Photo: KMSM Minnesota)
Audience participating in the conference (Photo: KMSM Minnesota)

Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Report by Khmer Quorum
Originally posted at http://khmerquorum.blogspot.com

On March 22, 2008 in Minnesota, although heavy snow and slippery roads, about 150 Cambodian Americans excitingly came to a conference to listen to a long but very important speech from Dr. Chak Sakhon, a General Representative of the world Khmer Mchas Srok Movement. The conference started from 1:00 PM to 6:10 PM, interrupting with applauses from the audiences and brief video shows.

After a brief welcome speech by Mr. Cheat Hungsa, a president of the KMSM of MN, Dr. Chak Sakhon and Mr. Sean Masavang deliver a key speech to the curious audiences outlining all significant issues that our nation is facing today. With enormous evidences from her studies and researches, Dr. Sakhon explains and convinces our Cambodian American audiences that our beloved nation is in a great danger of losing its independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national identity.

The great threat posed to our nation now is millions of illegal Vietnamese immigrants who have been granted full rights as Cambodian citizens to vote. Dr. Sakhon has projected that about 30 percent of registered voters would be Vietnamese in this 2008 election. Along with the rights to vote to decide the Khmer fade, those Vietnamese are free to form their associations in 19 provinces throughout the country. These Vietnamese associations are powerful and cannot be touched or monitored by the Khmer authority. In contrast to the illegal Vietnamese in Cambodia, our Khmer Krom people who have lived on their homeland for generations are not allowed to do the same thing as the Vietnamese in Cambodia.

Furthermore, Dr. Sakhon points out why too many illegal Vietnamese immigrants are in Cambodia. The answer is because Heng Somrin and Hun Sen had signed a number of illegal and unfair treaties with Vietnam--a 25 years Vietnam and Cambodia friendship treaty 1979, 1982 treaty that lost sea water and a number of islands including Kash Tral, 1982 Decree requiring Khmer authority to take care and support Vietnamese immigrants in the country, 1985 treaty that lost border land, and finally a 2005 additional border treaty that has legalized all previous treaties albeit the Paris Peace Accord required the Cambodian government to nullify all previous illegal treaties.

In addition to the unfair treaty with Vietnam, Dr. Sakhon raises another issue about the so-called Triangle Development Zone among the three countries in Indochina--Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Dr. Sakhon calls, “the first legal step toward Indochina Federation.” When they create this free economic zone, the Vietnamese are free to do businesses and settlement in our three provinces. And a combined population of Laos and Cambodia in a combined six provinces in this Free Economic Zone is less than half a million compared to the population of the three provinces in Vietnam in this zone by more than 6 million. For instance, when your family has only one child, and then you put all your property in common with the other family which has ten children. Who is the gainer and who is the loser? In this game, Khmer and Laos are clearly the losers.

Along with a fearful Vietnamese influence and trick on our nation, the natural resource destruction and negligence by the current government is another important key note in her speech-- deforestation, negligence of oil resource and islands in the Gulf of Thailand, and a lack of transparency in revenue collection from Angkor Wat and other tourist places. Dr. Sakhon emphasizes that if we manage our resources carefully and effectively, we can earn enough hard currency to sustain our economic growth and raise a living standard of our people without depending on foreign aids and loans. Currently, the government generates national debt more than $6 billion, and this enormous debt will create a big burden to our children for generations.

Another factor that creates poverty in our country is corruption. Cambodia is well- known as the most corrupt country in the world. Corruption has spread all over the country from the top to the bottom levels of government officials. Corruption costs hundred of million dollar a year for the state budget. Corruption has created more poverty--more than 5.5 million Khmer people live with less than $1 a day and the other 3 million live in extreme poverty with no land, proper shelters, clothing, and food. Also, corruption keeps the government from raising salaries to all civil servants to a livable level.

Finally, Dr. Chak Sakhon focuses on the KMSM’s major policies and goal. She explicitly declares that KMSM is not a political party but a political movement. The KMSM adheres to a principle of non-violence and a use of legal means. As a non-political party, the KMSM does not participate in an up-coming general election. However, the KMSM supports all political parties which have the same mission as KMSM’s. The KMSM encourages all Khmer people to vote for any political party which serves and defend our nation from foreign influence and promote human rights and a rule of law.

During her speech, Dr. Sakhon makes an analogy of the KMSM as a drop of water which dropped on a top of a mountain, but an ultimate place of this drop of water is an ocean. To reach an ocean, this drop of water will face with numerous obstacles such as rocks, stones, trees, and logs. However, those obstacles naturally cannot stop a drop of water from reaching an ocean but merely slowing it down. In the same way, nobody can stop the KMSM from reaching its goal -- independence and sovereign peace for our nation -- but only to slow it down.

After a long passionate speech, the conference moves into a question and answer session. A number of audiences including representatives from few political parties and Khmer Krom Federation raise many concerned questions related to the current situation in our country and the goal and policies of the KMSM. The conference is concluded at 6:10 PM following with food and beverage serving.

Vietnamese Communist Police lectured to Vietnamese Students Who Protested against China

Story forwarded by Info Asia

After China claimed its ownership over the Spratly and Paracel islands, there were hundreds of Vietnamese youths and students in both Hanoi and Sai Gon cities protest against China for invading Spratly and Paracel islands which Vietnamese people claim that those islands are the Vietnamese ancestral islands.

Vietnamese Communist (VC) government usually use forces to suppress the protesters, but in this case, the VC government just used polices to surround the protesters to prevent the violent may happen.

Below is a dialog between a VC police who was trying to lecture to a Vietnamese student protester (see picture) in Hanoi about why the VC government does not stand up to against China regarding to the invasion of those islands.

Student: We want to send a message first to China: that the Vietnamese people are brave and undaunted.

Police: Our government, especially our party leaders, understands your concern. At this time, we should not protest against China. We need to build a good relationship with China, so our former enemy, the US will not use Human Rights and Democracy strategies to interfere with our internal issues.

Student: (angrily screaming) I know we need a good relationship with China, but we cannot stand that China invades our ancestral islands. Our government must stand up to protect our land. We must unite to defend our lands.

Police: (he was angry now and pushed the student to step back) I know we need to protect our land. If our government does not allow you all to protest against China now, do you think you can organize a protest like this? You should be smart and understand it…

Student: (keep screaming) Spratly and Paracel islands are Vietnamese ancestral islands. China must return it back to Vietnam.

Police: (try to calm himself) Listen brother; I know you are young and our government doesn’t allow you to learn the real history of Champa in the central of Vietnam and Khmer history in south of Vietnam in our public school, so you don’t know that the center of Vietnam used to belong to Champa and the South of Vietnam used to belong to Cambodia. Our Vietnamese ancestral lands are just the part of North Vietnam. (He started pulling out a map and showed it to the student) Look at this map, you can see that the Paracel and Spratly islands are actually not our ancestral islands because those islands are closer to the central of Vietnam and the south of Vietnam. Thus, you cannot say that those islands are our Vietnamese ancestral islands. This is why our former Prime Minister, Pham Van Dong, gave those two islands to China on September 14, 1958 because he knew that those islands are not our ancestral islands.

Student: I don’t agree with you. Our ancestor fought to get those lands and islands, so we must be responsible to protect it. Our government already gave to China some of our lands and seas near the border of our country and China.

Police: Don’t worry brother, the up-north lands that our government gave to China are the useless lands. We cannot do any farming with it because they are just mountainous areas and our Vietnamese people are not living there. We just have some of the Indigenous peoples live there, so it is OK to give to China. We don’t need those lands.

You all are too young to understand our government policies. You just see our lands lost to China, but do you see how many kilometers of lands we took from Cambodia and Laos? We don’t just take lands from Laos and Cambodia; we even now control their current governments. China is a big country, but they don’t have that capability, only our great government can do it in the 21th century. I don’t think the US can do that either. Be proud about that brother.

In Laos now, most of the leaders of that country are our Vietnamese or Laotians whose wife are our Vietnamese women. We control their government, military, and economy. Actually, on the world map, Laos is a country, but it already belongs to Vietnam.

In Cambodia, the current Cambodia government is running by a party that is our puppet. We say A they never bravely to say B, they are basically just like our slave in a different form. Some of the leaders, especially the head of the Cambodian police and the staffs in the interior department, are our Vietnamese who disguised to be Khmer. We control their economy and we even control the selling tickets to the tourist entering their ancestral temple, Angkor Wat. We get almost what we need from Cambodia, so Cambodia is basically another Champa Kingdom soon.

Student: I admitted that we are controlling Laos and Cambodia now, but our population is increasing very fast, we need to protect our lands so our people can have place to live.

Police: Take it easy brother, Cambodia still has lots of lands and their population is still very small. We can send couple millions of our people to Cambodia next year, so they can help Cambodia People Party to vote in the election of 2008. After election 2008, our Vietnamese people will be more than the real population of the Khmer in Cambodia. This way, it doesn’t matter what Cambodia tries to do, we still use our Vietnamese people living in Cambodia to vote for our benefits, and of course, we will always win. Then, we can start using our Vietnamization strategies just like we did to Cham people in the central, the Khmer in South, the Laotian, to make Cambodia to be provinces of Vietnam.

I just want to let you know more that our goal to take over Cambodia and Laos is already done, we start implementing our goal to take over Thailand next year. We have embedded our people in Thailand since the 1930s. Our great Uncle Ho used to ordain to be a Buddhist monk in Thailand while he was acting as the leader of the Indochina Communist Party.

We have our Vietnamese people living in Thailand for years already. If you followed the news, the Thai government allowed our people to become the Thai citizen couple years ago. Those people will use their “Power of Vote” and with assistant of our government to influent the Thai government. One day soon, we will target Thailand from both Cambodia and Laos directions because those two countries are already our provinces.

Student: (quietly and seem to be convinced by the police) I believed what you said because that is the truth, but our Vietnamese must protect what we already took from someone else because our ancestor had used many efforts, tactics, and strategies to take over those lands for us, and we must protect it. We are Vietnamese. We are patriots. We love our country; we are not Cambodian or Laotian who are willing to sell their country for their own personal benefits. We don’t scare of China. We are ready to die for our country. China colonized us for 1000 years, but they could not assimilate us. We just colonized Champa for couple hundred years; we can eliminate Champa Kingdom from the world map. So, don’t think that China is strong. We must stand up to fight them to get our land back.

Police: (angrily yell to the student) Shut up, Stop screaming. Our government even can imprison the Religious leaders like Thich Quang Do, Father Ly, and the Khmer Monks, you all are just students, watch out. Don’t make me mad, I will send you to prison anytime.