General questions and answers on the issues of Khmer Krom people in Vietnam
1. Could you tell me how the UN has helped or has not helped the Khmer Krom people in their search for human rights?
Recently, the UN (United Nations) officials at Geneva have been made aware of the religious oppression of the Khmer Krom people in Vietnam, in violation of one of their major human rights.
Although the government of Vietnam has caused many difficulties for UN officials during their visit to Vietnam in October 1998, at least the UN has observed a part of the truth for the first time in the history of the Khmer Krom people. The Khmer Krom are glad that the surface of mountains of sufferings of their people which have been accumulated layer by layer over tens of decades, has been scratched and observed for the first time by the world body.
Much more awareness and action by the world community to peacefully force the Vietnamese government to abide by international law is needed, if the Khmer Krom people are to be saved from a gradual extinction.
2. What exactly are the Khmer Krom looking for in term of freedoms?
The Khmer Krom people are indigenous people of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. They do not expect anything more than recognition of their legitimacy as a people. They are peaceful citizens of the world and they are a peaceful nation within the family of nations. Their rights have been decreed by the Charter of the United Nations and by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They peacefully demand no more than what the norms of the world have to offer, which has been prescribed by international law. Naturally, as a member of the international community and the UN, the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has the duty (if not obligation) to fully exercise those international legal instruments.
3. Would they like to be in their own country?
In consideration of the relationship of the Khmer Krom and the Vietnamese for a duration of over 300 of years since the two people have begun interfacing, the following facts have been observed and recorded:
1) The Vietnamese have always held government powers.
2) The Khmer Krom people are allowed no chance to succeed by peaceful means and have not been able to foster a trustworthy relationship with Vietnam.
3) The Khmer Krom have suffered multiple wholesale massacres of their general population.
4) Many of the Khmer Krom leaders have been assassinated.
5) Their resources, especially land, has been robbed.
6) Their cultural characteristics as a people are gradually being tempered by forced assimilation and population transfer.
7) Their social identities in relation to foreigners who visit Vietnam are suppressed to zero.
8) There is no future for Khmer Krom children generation after generation.
9) The longevity of the Khmer Krom as a people under Vietnamese domination is in question.
Absolutely, they would like to have their own independent country and be responsible for their own future. However, one of their major objectives is "to develop peace, harmony, respect, understanding and cooperation between the Khmer Krom people and others, including the Vietnamese people". Therefore, the Khmer Krom people did not rule out other forms of self-determination.
4. Would they like to be able to govern themselves?
Definitely, with the involvement of international communities, they would like to self-govern as intermediate steps toward greater independence. The examples of the peoples of Palestine, Kosovo or East Timor could be used as typical models.
5. Would they like to stay citizens of Vietnam, but have equal rights in terms of becoming elected officials, etc.?
In 1949, in a fait accompli, France illegally transferred its Cochin-China colony (current south Vietnam) to Bao Dai, the emperor of Vietnam; since then, successive governments of Vietnam have forced the Khmer Krom people to be citizens of Vietnam. As a matter of fact, both France and Vietnam have betrayed their own signatures on this transfer by not implementing their treaty in full in regard to the Khmer Krom's rights, namely the Deferre Motion. This motion has been part of the Bill of Transfer (of French Cochin-China to Vietnam) and unanimously passed by the French National Assembly, which spelled out specific rights of the Khmer Krom people.
After 50 years of imposed Vietnamese citizenship upon the Khmer Krom people, the following question should be asked:
Did Vietnam really want to see the Khmer Krom advance as a nation within Vietnam? Or was Vietnamese citizenship imposed on the Khmer Krom used as a rationale for Vietnamese governments to exterminate the Khmer Krom people while claiming this as an internal affair? Aside from their gradual extinction, has there been anything at all that the Khmer Krom people have gained from their citizenship imposed by Vietnam?
Objectively, no favourable answers can be found to those basic questions. Therefore, with respect to international laws of citizenship, the longer Vietnamese citizenship is imposed upon the Khmer Krom people, the deeper the grave which the Vietnam government has dug to bury the Khmer Krom people as a whole.
Without real democratisation, it is meaningless to have the Khmers as elected officials in Vietnam. Many Vietnamese governments in the past and present have used elected positions to mislead the Khmer Krom people. They portray Khmer Krom elected officials in many different forms and shapes to serve their purposes: to appease the Khmer Krom, to suppress the Khmer Krom. Those officials who have displayed real vision for Khmer Krom advancement and equality normally will not survive. Cosmetically, on the Khmer Krom issues, Vietnam has successfully misled the world all along.
Naturally, there is no reason why the Khmer Krom people would want to remain citizens of Vietnam. However, as to compromise, which must be built on mutual trust and respect, the Khmer Krom people are keeping all options open.
6. How do you think the Khmer Krom people's position in Vietnam has changed during this century?
The guiding principles of the peaceful struggles of the Khmer Krom people have been very consistent throughout history. They seek to achieve the following objectives:
1) To take appropriate measures based on the principles of non-violence to assure the rights of the Khmer Krom people to fundamental freedoms, human dignity, and self-determination according to the Charter of the United Nations.
2) To protect the culture, religions, traditions and identity of the Khmer Krom people from assimilationist forces.
3) To advocate for the conservation of the hereditary natural resources of the Khmer Krom people such as farmland and forest in the face of illegal and deceitful deprivation.
4) To promote social, economic and intellectual development of the Khmer Krom people who live in their homeland and abroad.
5) To develop peace, harmony, respect, understanding and cooperation between the Khmer Krom people and others, including the Vietnamese people.
There have been many Khmer Krom lives sacrificed toward these beliefs, and they've always suffered vicious treatment from Vietnam as a result.
In 1841, the Khmer Krom leader Chauvay Son Kuy, a Buddhist pacifist, gave up his life and his head was cut off by the Court of Hue in exchange for preservation of the Khmer Krom's religion, rights and freedoms. This heroic deed took place during the reign of the Emperor of Vietnam, Thieu Tri. By taking down his life, Vietnam had agreed to respect the Khmer Krom's rights and freedoms.
Did Vietnam ever honor its agreements with Chauvay Son Kuy for Khmer Krom rights and freedoms? Subsequently, many other Khmer Krom leaders have dedicated their lives for the same principles. The latest victims were Venerable Kim Toc Chuong, the Buddhist patriarch of Tra Vinh province and 21 other religious leaders, who were murdered in cold blood by the government of Vietnam in 1986.
7. Do you think you now have more power as a people?
Let us specifically define the term `power'. Per Webster's New World Dictionary, the first definition of the word is the following: Power = ability to do or act. In this case, for the Khmer Krom people, the term `power' in the question is ` the ability to control their own destiny'.
The basic components of their ability to control their own destiny are their rights and freedoms, which have been universally accepted as international standards, and defined in the Charter of the United Nations and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Unfortunately, until today the Khmer Krom people in Vietnam have been denied their entitlement and their opportunity to enjoy such rights and freedoms. The government of Vietnam could advocate anything it wants as far as rights and freedoms for people, but in reality it only provides lip service and uses such propaganda to appease the world community when seeking international aid.
As an example of the above, a recent newspaper report on March 16, 1999 about the religious rights and freedoms in Vietnam noted the following:
GENEVA, March 16 (Reuters) - The United Nations special investigator on religion on Tuesday accused Vietnam of continuing to deny people freedom of worship and called for reforms. Abdelfattah Amor, in his report on the situation in Vietnam, said all of the religious communities there were prevented from conducting activities freely....
``Religion appears as an instrument of policy rather than a component of society, free to develop as it wishes, something which is ultimately contrary to freedom of religion or belief as governed by international law,'' said Amor, a former dean of the University of Tunis law faculty who visited Vietnam in October."
Evidently, in their own homeland, the Khmer Krom people's ability to determine their own future has been hindered by the Vietnamese government.
8. Do you feel as though the Khmer Krom are going to become assimilated into the Vietnamese culture and eventually lose their identity as a people?
The eventuality of total assimilation into Vietnamese culture is a reality. It is not a threat. Khmer Krom identity as a people will be erased from the face of the earth, if immediate actions are not taken by the Khmer Krom people themselves with generous help from the international community. The following evidence has outraged the Khmer Krom people of all generations:
According to A History of Southeast Asia, professor D.G.E. Hall has pointed out: "The Saigon area, the Water Chen-la of the ancient Khmer Kingdom, was a tempting field for Vietnamese expansion. It had a population of only about 40,000 families so there were vast empty spaces." Obviously, there were a significant number of Khmer Krom families in the areas around Saigon before the arrival of Vietnamese settlers. How did they come to disappear? There are only a few Khmer Buddhist temples remaining in the area. Some of those temples have been confiscated by the government of Vietnam.
Originally, there were about 700 Khmer Buddhist temples all over South Vietnam or former French Cochin-China. However, under the Vietnam government's hostile policies of assimilation toward the Khmer Krom people, there were many temples destroyed as were the Khmer communities around them. As a result, the Khmer Krom people in those areas have been uprooted or completely wiped out. The number of Khmer Buddhist temples now remaining is reduced to between only 460 to 500. The Khmer Krom temples are constantly scrutinized by the agents of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (a branch of the Vietnam communist government). They dictate the religious practices as well as changing the built-in character of the Khmer to assimilate them into Vietnamese culture.
Moreover, the government of Vietnam has accomplished the complete forced assimilation and decimation of the Khmer Krom people in many provinces such as Dong Nai, Baria, Long An, Dong Thap, Sadec, Ben Tre, Vung Tau, and Ho Chi Minh city (formerly Saigon). The Khmer Krom people in the above provinces could be traced only through careful study and research.
9. Are there programs in place to protect your culture and to make sure your children learn who they are and where they come from?
To teach and learn the real Khmer Krom cultural heritage, who they are and where they come from, has been a crime in the past and is a crime today by the Vietnamese government's standards of treatment of the Khmer Krom people. Vietnamese historians did not elaborate on facts, which might answer the following questions: How did Vietnam encroach on the Khmer's land? How have the Khmer Krom people and their Buddhist temples been uprooted from about 50% of the provinces of former Cochin-China? How were the 40,000 Khmer families who were once residents of Saigon squeezed out? Etc. For that reason, a very low percentage of Khmer Krom children are aware of their true heritage.
The children of the Khmer Krom, generation after generation, have been misled by Vietnam's educational systems. The Khmer language is barely surviving in the Khmer Buddhist temples. While in the public school, to appease Khmer Krom parents, the government of Vietnam has added a few hours per week of Khmer language to grade schools for Khmer children, government officials do not care about the quality of the curriculum.
The Khmer Krom people abroad are fortunate to enjoy the "REAL" freedoms from the host countries and have opportunities to teach their children the heritage and the true history of their people.
There are studies in place of how to protect Khmer culture and to make sure Khmer children learn who they are and where they come from. However due to a severe lack of resources, the Khmer Krom people could only do so much within their level of affordability. External aid is implored to help and save this unfortunate people. Generous help from any individual, any organization, and any government to educate the Khmer Krom children concerning their true values is greatly appreciated and welcomed.
10. What do you see happening in the near future in terms of what actions the Khmer Krom will take in order to further their goals?
The Khmer Krom intends:
1) To bring the Khmer Krom cause to the world's attention using today's communication facilities (television, radio, internet, printing, etc.)
2) To lobby the countries in which the Khmer Krom are residing, for political and material support.
3) To request world agencies and international organizations for humanitarian aid, such as medicines, vocational training, and improvement of the living standards of Khmer Krom inside the country.
4) To engage with international organizations such as UN, UNPO, IHRAAM and the ICHR for diplomatic solidarity with people and nations that share common aspirations.
