Khmer Group Says It Shares Goals of Other Minorities in Vietnam

Thach Ngoc Thach, left and newly re-ordained monk Tim Sakhorn, middle, drops by VOA Khmer while on a visit in the US, file photo.

Originally posted at khmerkrom.net: Members of the Khmer minority in Vietnam recently met with State Department officials and are now looking for ways to unite with other minorities like the Hmong and Montagnards to protect themselves from persecution, a leading advocate says.

Thach Ngoc Thach, president of the US-based Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation, told VOA Khmer the main goals of these minorities are the same.

Khmer groups in Vietnam face persecution for their religion and separate culture, activists say, including land seizures and arbitrary arrest.

“Khmer Krom, Montagnards, and Hmong face similar social and economic issues,” a US State Department official said. “We continue to encourage Vietnam to implement policy that will encourage greater economic and social opportunities for all ethnic minorities.”

The State Deparment “continues to press Vietnam to improve its human rights practices, including in minority regions,” the official said.

“The government of Vietnam has always accused us of being a terrorist group, a group to break up the country,” Thach Ngoc Thach said.

Kok Ksor, president of the Montagnard Foundation, in South Carolina, told VOA Khmer his group too had met with State officials to outline continued rights concerns in Vietnam.

“In our church, they placed a statue of Ho Chi Minh, to worship him before we worship God,” he said. “We have to put the [communist] party above all. But that is not right according to our beliefs in Jesus Christ.”

Large congregational worship is also banned, he said. “If we do, they will arrest us and send us to prison to torture our people.”

Vietnamese officials have in the past denied accusations of human rights abuses and persecution.

Kok Ksor said that as a member of the United Nations, Vietnam should better respect people’s rights.

Joshua Cooper, a senior adviser to the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation, said indigenous groups must now come together to push for more rights, especially because Asean is creating its own rights doctrine.

“So that is bringing people together in the Lower Mekong Initiative, to make sure human rights is at the forefront of it,” he said.

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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.

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No Water for Khmer Krom Village

Reported by RFA’s Khmer service. 

Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.  

Ethnic Khmer who fled Vietnam and built a new life in Cambodia now find themselves disenfranchised.

Khmer Krom monks demanding asylum

in Cambodia rally in front of the UNHCR

offices in Phnom Penh, Aug. 2, 2005.AFP

Members of the Khmer Krom minority in Vietnam who moved to Cambodia say they cannot get a clean water system in their village because they are ignored by local authorities.

The residents of Bek Krong, in the Prey Nop commune in southern Cambodia’s Sihanoukville province, say that life has been more difficult for them in Cambodia than they expected because they lack access to the most basic necessity.

“It is hard because we don’t have fresh water,” said Krom Soeung Thy, a Bek Krong resident who fled Vietnam 20 years ago.

“The fresh water has to be supplied from elsewhere and the price is so expensive,” he said.

The isolated village, where homes are built on stilts above sea water, is the only Khmer Krom village in the commune and the only one without access to clean water.

Most of the 200 families of Bek Krong moved to Cambodia between 1985 and 1988, seeking better livelihoods and fleeing persecution as members of an ethnic minority in Vietnam.

The Khmer Krom are from southern Vietnam’s lower Mekong delta region, which Cambodians sometimes call "Kampuchea Krom," or "Lower Cambodia." As Khmers, they are ethnically similar to most Cambodians, and are considered outsiders in Vietnam.

Livelihoods

But even after moving to Cambodia, the Khmer Krom residents of Bek Krong have found their economic situation strained.

“I had hoped to flee Cambodia to grow rice, but when I arrived, all the land for rice fields was already bought. Now I am leasing fields to grow rice,” one resident named Chao Den, said. 

Chao Den said life was freer in Cambodia than in Vietnam, where he had faced “emotional stress because of pressures and persecution.”

But now in Bek Krong, taking care of water needs is a problem, he said.

Chao Den said he spends 5,000 to 10,000 riel (U.S. $1.25 to $2.50) a day to buy clean water.

The village is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the nearest highway, making transporting water expensive. Until the highway was built, villagers had to bring water by boat. 

Prey Nop Commune Chief Pen Sambo acknowledged that the village faces water shortages, but said little could be done about the problem.

“Experts have conducted studies for four years, but there is no way to dig wells. The only solution is to connect with fresh water from the highway,” he said.

He added that he had asked NGOs to dig wells there, but there was no way to do so that would produce fresh water.

Moving on

Finding it hard to make a living in the village, some of Bek Krong’s residents have moved on to Thailand in search of a better life.

One villager said that even though he has enjoyed more freedom in Cambodia, living in such a remote area—while relying on fishing and growing crops for a livelihood—is too difficult for some.

“Some of us, we work for fishermen, and some are having difficulty making ends meet, so they are migrating to work in Thailand,” he said. 

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said the Khmer Krom face serious restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly, association, information, and movement in Vietnam. 

The Vietnamese government has banned Khmer Krom human rights publications and tightly controls the Theravada Buddhism by the minority, who see the religion as a foundation of their distinct culture and ethnic identity.

In 2007, the Vietnamese government suppressed protests by over 200 ethnic Khmer Buddhist monks in Suc Trang who were calling for religious freedom and more Khmer-language education.

On the other side of the border, the Khmer Krom who leave Vietnam for Cambodia remain one of the country’s “most disenfranchised groups,” HRW said. 

Because they are often perceived as Vietnamese by Cambodians, many Khmer Krom in Cambodia face social and economic discrimination.

They also face hurdles in legalizing their status in the country, as despite promises to treat them as Cambodian citizens, authorities have failed to grant many Khmer Krom citizenship or residence rights, according to HRW.

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