The Khmer-Krom people living abroad, especially in the United States, have their own reason to celebrate both the Fourth of July 2009—the American National Independence Day—and the Freedom Day of Tim Sakhorn. By the way, who is he?
Venerable Tim Sakhorn, prior to his capture by the Vietnamese Government in June 2007, was “Nobody”—an ordinary local Buddhist monk, not well known at all, at his temple in North Phnom Denh Village, Kirivong District, Takeo Province, Cambodia. During the past two years of his survival through extremely severe hardship in the Vietnamese prison, including physical and mental tortures, as well as his dangerous journey to escape from Vietnam to Cambodia and Thailand before being accepted for a special resettlement in Sweden under the political asylum program, Tim Sakhorn has become “Somebody”—the kind of “Khmer-Krom’s Dalai Lama” who is symbolizing as one of our Khmer-Krom’s national heroes in this modern time.
His name has been recognized in the international spotlights, from the Internet search engine websites, such as the Google.com and Yahoo.com, to the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Congress, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), the European Parliament, and the Transnational Radical Party (TRP) in Italy.
The international press/news media and other major radio broadcasting programs have been constantly keeping the world informed about the current situation of Tim Sakhorn during his hardship, among them the Radio Free Asia/Khmer Services (RFA), Voice of America/Khmer Program (VOA), the Voice of Khmer-Krom (VOKK), the Radio France International (RFI), the radio broadcasting service in Australia, the Beehive Radio Program of Mr. Mam Sonando, and the Asia Times Magazine. The documentary film produced by Ms. Rebecca Sommer, entitled “Eliminated Without Bleeding”, was clearly illustrated about the atrocity committed by the Vietnamese Communist Government against the Khmer-Krom people.
The Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) which advocate for the respects for human rights and religious freedom have also been very helpful to the Khmer-Krom’s causes, among them the Human Rights Watch (HRW)--a well-admired Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)—which recently published a book about Khmer-Kroms entitled “Vietnam on the Margins: Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta”.
Two other important individuals who are in charge of the Cambodian NGOs in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, who have been working tirelessly to advocate the human rights for the Khmer-Kroms are greatly appreciated. They are Dr. Kek Galabru who is the president of the Cambodia League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) and Mr. Ang Chanrith, presently serving as the Executive Director of the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Human Rights Defense Association. Why Venerable Tim Sakhorn has gained a lot of sympathy from the world community?
It was the Vietnamese government’s secret services agents with a full collaboration from a small group of top ranking Cambodian Buddhist monks under an order from the Hanoi-backed Great Patriarch Tep Vong who arrested Venerable Tim Sakhorn, defrocked him, and deported him to be imprisoned in Vietnam.
One of Tep Vong’s top monk cadres, who engineered Venerable Tim Sakhorn’s arrest, was Venerable Long Kim Leang. According to Tim Sakhorn who already arrived in Sweden on July 4th 2009, Long Kim Leang was the one who directly stripped off his frock when he refused to be unjustly defrocked. Tep Vong and his band accused Venerable Tim Sakhorn of undermining the Cambodia-Vietnam’s relations. The Vietnamese judge, on the other hand, sentenced Tim Sakhorn for one year of imprisonment. Both of Tep Vong and the Vietnamese Communist government were lying to their teeth regarding Venerable Tim Sakhorn’s matter.
As a matter of fact, Venerable Tim Sakhorn was just a Good Samaritan with a true compassion to help the poor and needy Khmer-Krom refugees who escaped from the Communist repressions in Vietnam. As an Abbot of his temple, Venerable Tim Sakhorn provided his pagoda as a sanctuary place for these refugees to stay temporarily and gave them foods as well as other necessary assistance before these people could find other means to live on their own.
His monastery is located just less than a few miles from the border of Vietnam at the province of An Giang and this monk had never crossed the boundary into that country at all. Tim Sakhorn is a former Khmer-Krom refugee who fled to Takeo Province, Cambodia in 1978 from the Vietnamese government’s oppression in his hometown in Svay Tong District (Huyen Tri Ton), Mot Chrouk Province (used to be Chau Doc and is presently changed to An Giang Province in Vietnamese). Who are these Khmer-Krom people?
Khmer-Krom people are the Indigenous Peoples who have been living on their ancestral lands in Kampuchea-Krom which is now known as southern Vietnam for thousands of years. Presently, this most fertile region is the major rice basket of Vietnam, making this country to become the second biggest rice exporter in the world, next to Thailand.
During nearly a century of occupation in Indochina from 1863 to 1954, the French colonial power ceded Kampuchea-Krom to Vietnam on the 4th of June 1949 without any prior consultation with the Cambodian government or a permission from the Khmer-Krom populations at all. There were countless atrocities committed by the Vietnamese governments of all regimes through their secret ethnic cleansing policies against the Khmer-Krom.
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