During the American involvement in the Vietnam War, so many Khmer-Krom people were severely suffered by the atrocity and ethnic cleansing policy committed against them by the Vietnamese Communist insurgency and the Ngo Dinh Diem regime as well as other subsequent Saigon Governments. Being caught between the rocks and the hard places, so many Khmer-Krom people voluntarily served in the U.S. Army Special Forces to fight against the Communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Armies (VC/NVA).
Like the Montagnard Hill Tribes in Vietnam’s Central Highlands and the Hmong Hill Tribes in Laos, significant numbers of Khmer-Krom people were specially selected to operate in top secret missions behind the enemy’s lines along the infamous Ho-Chi-Minh Trails in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. These Khmer-Krom people fought bravely, courageously, daringly, and loyally side by side with their American commanding officers of the elite U.S. Green Berets against the out-numbered, out-gunned, and well-trained VC/NVA in the most inhospitable environment in the triple canopy jungles of those Ho-Chi-Minh Trails.
After the complete withdrawal of the American troops from South Vietnam and the subsequent fall of that country into the Communist occupation in April 1975, the situation regarding the Khmer-Krom holocaust became worst. The Hanoi regime began to intensify their oppression to eliminate the Khmer-Krom race, especially to seek revenges against these poor indigenous populations for their collaborations and loyalties with the U.S. Special Forces during the war.
At the present time, even after nearly two decades of U.S.-Vietnam normalized relationship, Hanoi still continues to oppress the Khmer-Krom through their tremendous human rights violations, religious persecutions, confiscations of their ancestral lands, and other socio-economic deprivations. The Khmer-Krom indigenous peoples are not allowed to learn their own language and history in public schools or to freely practice their Theravada Buddhism without the interference and strict control of the Vietnamese government. When Khmer-Krom people stood up for their rights, the Vietnamese Communist authorities arrested these poor people, imprisoned, tortured, and executed them. These ethnic cleansing policies as mentioned in the above have secretly become one of Vietnam’s grand strategies, regardless of its political or ideological consideration. Why Tim Sakhorn and other Khmer Krom refugees have to escape from Vietnam to Thailand via Cambodia?
The UNHCR should do more to protect the Khmer-Krom refugees in Bangkok from being arrested and deported back to Cambodia by the Thai government. What was the major reason of the Khmer-Krom’s recent escape to Thailand?
On 8 February 2007, approximately two hundred Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks in Soc Trang province of Vietnam organized a peaceful demonstration to demand religious freedom. Instead of solving this problem non-violently, the Vietnamese government cracked down on these Khmer-Krom protesters. The police arrested, defrocked, and imprisoned some of the monks whom they considered of leading this peaceful demonstration. Other Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks who were fearful for their safety regarding this repression escaped to Cambodia.
Unfortunately, there is a double discrepancy in Cambodia by the Ministry of Interior regarding their handling of the Khmer-Krom refugee situation. First, the UNHCR refused to grant the refugee status for these Khmer-Krom people, claiming that according to the Cambodian constitution, any Khmer-Krom who escaped from Vietnam to Cambodia will be automatically given the full Cambodian citizenship. So, the UNHCR could not accept the Khmer refugees in their Cambodian homeland.
But the Cambodian Ministry of Interior which oversees many important aspects of the Cambodian domestic affairs including the immigration, local administration, and internal securities has never issued the official document recognizing the legitimacy of these Khmer-Krom people as the Cambodian citizenship, such as the birth certificate, national identification card, the rights to attend public school, to work and to vote. As a result these Khmer-Krom people became illegal aliens in Cambodia resulting in their inability to find employment, enrolling in schools, have the rights to vote, or to obtain the Cambodian passport. In contrast, the same Cambodian Ministry of Interior secretly granted the full Cambodian citizenship to almost all of the Vietnamese who are able to migrate freely into Cambodia by issuing them the above mentioned government document to legitimize their status.
Subsequently, to express their support and sympathy for the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks who were arrested and imprisoned in Vietnam, the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks in Cambodia organized a peaceful protest in front of the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh to demand the release their fellow Buddhist monks. Unfortunately, the Cambodian Ministry of Interior ordered the Police and even the Cambodian Buddhist monks to violently attack these peaceful protesters. Again, Venerable Long Kim Leang, was among the Cambodian high ranking Buddhist monks receiving order from the Hanoi puppet monk—the Great Patriarch Tep Vong-- who ordered other monks under his command to crack down on these Khmer-Krom monks, making this violent chaos look like the fighting between the monks and the monks.
Left image: Cambodia police chased Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks
Right image: Long Kim Leang was leading his “pro-Communist Vietnamese” monks to oppress the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks
0 comments:
Post a Comment