Hit this link: Khmerization (Cambodian Daily News.) // Khmer Krom Network // Khmer Krom Recipes // Phu Quoc Island //
IT IS NOT TOO OFTEN YOU DISCOVER A NEW COUNTRY AND A NEW CIVILIZATION IN THIS CROWDED OLD WORLD, ESPECIALLY ONE RIGHT BENEATH YOUR NOSE. It is not often you learn of a new anti-colonial struggle in a mediascape saturated with noble causes, but learn of one I have done. And it sits right beneath my coming new home, my southeast Asian home, once I manage to move there.
KAMPUCHEA KROM. Do you know Nhoam krote klong krum? (Hint: it's a Cambodian food from Vietnam!) I asked my Vietnamese girlfriend Nga this question tonight, and she replied that she had never heard of it. Which kind of proved my point, in advance of me making it. Hint: even Viet's don't really comprehend this place, even though it is essentially their place, a big part of the place where they live. KAMPUCHEA KROM IS THE OLDEST LAND IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. I was not the one to say this.
The Khmers called this part of the Khmer Empire [Present day Kingdom of Cambodia], KAMPUCHEA KROM. It is also known as Lower Cambodia, Mekong Delta, or Cochin China (hence the name of this website, the Cochin China Debate). The Khmer populations of this beautiful landscapes share the same race, religion, national language, culture, custom, tradition, and great history as the Khmers in Cambodia. Kampuchea Krom is slightly smaller in size than her motherland, Kingdom of Cambodia.
Kampuchea Krom or Cochinchina becomes part of French Indochina on October 17, 1887.
Kampuchea Krom is composed of 68,965 square kilometers, 21 provinces and municipalities, two large islands - Koh Tral and Koh Tralach, 171 districts, 1,368 communes, 14,778 villages, more than 13 million Khmers, more than 567 Buddhist pagodas and more than 20,000 Theravada Buddhist monks.
99% of populations are Theravada Buddhists.
The Khmer kings, governments, regimes and citizens have never relinquish (give up) this part of their country to foreigners.
June 4, 1949 is the date that the Khmer Kampuchea Krom citizens grieve. The Khmer Kampuchea Krom people have organized Buddhist Service annually to honor the fallen Khmer Buddhist monks and heroes, who sacrificed their lives for Kampuchea Krom and Theravada Buddhism.
Colonial France divided, ceded and transferred Kampuchea Krom to colonial Vietnam on this date. The freedom of Khmer Kampuchea Krom has been mostly stripped by the Vietnamese ruling regimes and governments since. The French colonial administration committed injustice upon the more than 13 million Khmers of this beautiful fertile land.
And...
The followings are Khmer provincial, municipal and island names that the Vietnamese authorities have changed repeatedly.
1. Preah Trapeang province
in Vietnamese - Tra Vinh
(Vinh Binh)
circa 1731, 1840 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
2. Khleang province
in Vietnamese - Soc Trang
circa 1758, 1840 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
3. Mort Chrouk province
in Vietnamese - Chau Doc
circa 1715, 1757 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
4. Kramuon Sor province
in Vietnamese - Rach Gia
circa 1715, 1757, 1758 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
5. Pol Leav province
in Vietnamese - Bac Lieu
circa 1840 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
6. Tuk Khmau province
in Vietnamese - Ca Mau
circa 1840 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
7. Peam Banteay Meas province
in Vietnamese - Ha Tien
circa 1715 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
8. Prek Russey province
in Vietnamese - Can Tho
circa 1758, 1840 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
9. Long Hor province
in Vietnamese - Vinh Long
circa 1731 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
10. Peam Barach province
in Vietnamese - Long Xuyen
circa 1715, 1731 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
11. Raung Domrei province
in Vietnamese - Tay Ninh
circa 1770 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
12. Prey Nokor city
in Vietnamese - Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon)
circa 1696 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
13. Tuol Tamoak province
in Vietnamese - Thu Du Mot
circa 1696 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
14. Phsar Dek province
in Vietnamese - Sadec
circa 1757 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
15. Changva Trapeang Sraka Trey
province in Vietnamese - Bien Hoa
circa 1651 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
16. Me Sor province
in Vietnamese - My Tho
circa 1731 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
17. Preah Suorkea province
in Vietnamese - Baria
circa 1651 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
18. Koh Koang province
in Vietnamese - Go Cong
circa 1731 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
19. Kampong Russey province
in Vietnamese - Ben Tre
circa 1732 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
20. Kampong Kou province
(New name) in Vietnamese - Tan An
circa 1669 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
21. O Kab province
in Vietnamese - Vung Tau
circa 1651 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
22. Koh Tralach (Tralach Island)
in Vietnamese - Con Dao (Con Son)
circa 1765 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
23. Koh Tral (Tral Island)
in Vietnamese - Phu Quoc island
circa 1939 Vietnamese encroached and conquered
Koh Tral Island has an area of 567 square kilometers; about 62 kilometers long and between 3 kilometers and 28 kilometers wide. The island physically is located closest to Cambodia's Kep seaside city. Visitors can see Koh Tral Island from the coastline of Kep. It is about a 30-minute motorized boat ride.
A story I can explore in vast stretches of the future -- Krom Cambodia!
As Craig Guthrie wrote in The Asia Times Online on June 6 2009: "BANGKOK - As he secretly slipped away from his mother's funeral, donned his familiar saffron robes and fled by motorbike along a potholed road from southeast Cambodia into neighboring Thailand, Tim Sakhorn's status as a Khmer Krom hero was assured. On Thursday, as his ethnic group marked the 60th anniversary of the loss of its lands, the little-known movement for self-determination and improved human rights was desperately in need of one.
The ongoing saga of Sakhorn, a 41-year-old Buddhist monk who in 2007 was defrocked, deported and detained by Vietnamese authorities for alleged separatist activities, has brought the cause of the Khmer Krom - a million-strong community of ethnic Khmer who live in parts of Vietnam's Mekong Delta that was once part of an ancient Cambodian empire - some much-needed global attention.
Khmer Krom leaders say the Vietnamese government has suppressed their religious and cultural identity for decades. They say the government of Cambodia, their motherland, has disowned them for political reasons. Sakhorn's story, they believe, is indicative of both.
Soft spoken and diminutive, Sakhorn is an unlikely successor to Son Kuy, the swashbuckling Khmer Krom soldier who led guerilla warfare against imperial Vietnam in the early 19th century before being beheaded at the royal court at Hue. Sakhorn says he is no hero. He told Asia Times Online at a hidden location in Bangkok on May 25 that he is merely happy his story can show the world that "the oppression is real".
The pictures of both men adorned banners as Khmer Krom marched in the streets of Phnom Penh on Thursday to commemorate colonial France's June 4, 1949, ceding of what was then known as western Cochinchina to Vietnam. The demonstration was kept low key - an earlier incarnation of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was put in place by Hanoi in 1979, and its party leaders remain sensitive to any events critical of its important ally.
"Venerable Tim Sakhorn, is, by definition and through the examples of other great heroes in history, a true Cambodian hero," Washington-based economist and historian Naranhkiri Tith said by e-mail. He said Sakhorn deserves appreciation for "trying to defend Cambodia and her people against an unrelenting 'Vietnamization' of Cambodia".
Alien in your homeland
Khmer Krom leaders say the Vietnamese government targets their ethnic group in three ways: education, culture and economy. "Specifically, the Vietnamese government limits the teaching of the Khmer language, restricts the practice of Theravada Buddhism, and deprives the Khmer Krom of their lands," said Thach N Thach, the president of the Khmer Krom Federation.
The majority of Vietnam's Buddhists practice Mahayana Buddhism as opposed to the Khmer Krom's Theravada Buddhism. Hanoi's Minister of Culture and Information said in 2007 that Theravada enforces "backward" customs and habits that limit the group's development. The communist nation has restrictions on religious practices and all Theravada wats (temples) are overseen by the government-controlled Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha.
Perpetuating their life on the margins of Vietnamese society, large number of ethnic-Khmer students drop out of school at an early age. Many Khmer families are too poor to take their children out of wage labor. If they can, their children are only taught in Vietnamese. Khmer classes remain only available in small wats that girls, by custom, cannot attend.
"When I started first grade in public school I had to learn everything in Vietnamese, but I couldn't speak Vietnamese at all. The Vietnamese students, even teachers, made fun of us [Khmer Krom] and made us feel that we were not welcome," said Serey Chau, president of the Khmer Krom Federation's Youth Council....
Thach says that after 1975, when the Khmer Rouge came into power in Phnom Penh, all Khmer Krom lands in the Delta were placed under state ownership. The government implemented collective land reform policies "with their eyes on the farmlands of Khmer Krom people", said Thach. "So far, this land-grabbing has succeeded and the majority of Khmer Krom are landless." He calls the aim of the program "to eliminate without bleeding".
An Oxfam Australia study in late 2008 found that the loss of culture is a primary cause of the poverty of the Khmer Krom in the Mekong Delta, "as cultural upheaval creates a sense of deep hopelessness and despondency".
This despondency has led to Khmer Krom activism. The case of Sakhorn suggests that the Vietnamese and Cambodian authorities are willing to collude to silence it.
A report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in February listed memos from Vietnamese government officials outlining their strategies to monitor and infiltrate ethnic-Khmer activist groups. In one, dated July 2007, General Luu Phuoc Luong, deputy commander of Vietnam's southwest region, accused "reactionary groups of the [Khmer] Krom" of "destabilizing us [Vietnam] politically ... Close cooperation with the Cambodian government is needed in order to nip these anti-government activities in the bud."
Hanoi dismissed the HRW report and Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dzung described it as a "total fabrication" in the state-controlled Viet Nam News Agency. "There is completely no repression or restrictions of freedom to religion and speech for Khmer ethnic people in the Mekong Delta region," Dung said.
