Vietnamese Mobs Attacked Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks

Originally posted at khmerkrom.net: According to the Voice of Kampuchea-Krom (VOKK) broadcasted on April 19, 2012, around 3:30pm (local time) on April 19, 2012, there were eight Vietnam Mobs carried weapons to the Khmer-Krom Temple, Wat Ro, at Vinh Thuong commune, An Cu village, Tinh Bien district, An Giang province to attack the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks. The Buddhist monks had to run to seek the Khmer-Krom villagers for help.

Most of the Indigenous Khmer-Krom Peoples are Buddhist and really respect the Buddhist monks. When they saw the Buddhist monks running to their village asking for help, all the Khmer-Krom men, women, and youths, came out to help saving the Buddhist monks from the attack. A Buddhist monk and a sixteen year old Khmer-Krom girl were injured from the attack.

A Khmer-Krom man told the VOKK reporter that the attack might relate to the confiscated land incident that the Vietnamese took from the temple. In 1978, the Vietnamese government evacuated the Khmer-Krom from An Giang province to live in Soc Trang and Bac Lieu provinces. When they came back, most of the Khmer-Krom’s farmlands, included the temple’s lands and farmlands, were confiscated by the Vietnamese government and then gave to the Vietnamese people.

Wat Ro lost about 2 hectares its farmlands to the Vietnamese. The Buddhist monks and Committee members have filed many complaints to demand returning confiscated lands for years, but the Vietnamese government does not bother to response to resolve the issue. Instead of resolving the issue peacefully, the Vietnamese people who are now taking the temple’s lands might send those Vietnamese mobs to attack the Buddhist monks to make them scare and stop demanding to return confiscated farmlands.

After the incident happened, the Vietnamese authority sent the police over to do the investigation. Usually, the Vietnamese authority always accused and imprisoned the Khmer-Krom when there were a fight between the Khmer-Krom and the Vietnamese. Hopefully, this time, the Vietnamese authority does not abuse its power as previous times and find the justice for the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks.