Khmer Krom Continue Push for Rights in Vietnam

KI Media

May 22,2010 at 7:06 pm

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

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Washington, D.C
Friday, 21 May 2010

Activists for the Khmer Kampuchea Krom have been asking for more help from US officials in what they say are rights abuses in Vietnam, but in a statement to VOA Khmer this week, the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington said their efforts amounted to “sabotage.”

“The purpose of distorting history and slandering Vietnam’s policy toward the Khmer community is to undermine our national solidarity and to sabotage the fine relationship between the S.R.Vietnam and the Kingdom of Cambodia,” the Vietnamese Embassy said in a statement to VOA Khmer.

The statement referred to a delegation of Khmer Krom to policymakers in Washington in recent weeks that included Tim Sakhorn, a monk who was imprisoned in Vietnam in 2007, and other monks and representatives.

The delegation is seeking a congressional hearing on their rights along with laws to protect ethnic Khmers in southern Vietnam, where they say rights to religion, education, land and other freedoms are limited by Vietnamese authorities.

In its statement, the Vietnamese Embassy said the government does not discriminate against the Khmer in the Mekong Delta, sometimes referred to in Cambodia as Kampuchea Krom, or Lower Cambodia.

“The Vietnamese State pursues a policy that ensures equality, unity and mutual assistance between and among these ethnic groups,” the embassy said. “Ethnic minorities including the Khmers are equally treated and receive due care from the State, which is trying its best to unceasingly improve their material and spiritual life including the needs of cultivation and housing land. Vietnamese laws ensure the right to freedom of beliefs and religions and freedom of non-beliefs or religion of all citizens.”

Thach Ngoc Thach, president of the US-based Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation, who was also a member of the Washington delegation, urged Vietnam to open itself to a fact-finding mission between the UN, US, human rights groups and other diplomats.

“The Khmer Kampuchea Krom delegation also wants to visit Kampuchea Krom with an escort by the media and an international delegation to find out the truth, as we do not want to see mutual accusations,” he said.

Khmer Krom activists want Vietnam to publicly apologize for rights abuses there and to grant more freedom of religion to Khmers in Vietnam, who practice a different form of Buddhism than the Vietnamese.

The issue of the Khmer Krom is highly charged in Cambodia, where many are still rankled by the loss of the Mekong Delta from a former Cambodian empire to the Vietnamese.

Thach Ngoc Thach said the region should be recognized as formerly Cambodian, as evidenced by Khmer Krom temples in the delta.

The Vietnamese Embassy said the area “has been a part of Vietnamese territory for hundreds of years” and called the Khmers living there “an inseparable part of the community of 54 ethnic groups of Vietnam.”

Nevertheless, each year a number of Khmer Krom seek to flee Vietnam, and Human Rights Watch has said their religious freedoms are often restricted in Vietnam, where many Khmer Krom fought alongside the US in the Vietnam War.

Some 100 asylum seekers are currently in Thailand, where they are seeking protection. However, those like Leang Sokha, a 50-year-old monk, say they are living in deteriorating circumstances and are not always able to achieve asylum status with the UN’s refugee office.

“The reason that the UNHCR rejected my refugee status was because they first asked me what nationality I was, and where did I come from,” Leang Sokha told VOA Khmer by phone from Thailand. Without the proper documents, he was unable to answer them convincingly.

Leang Sokha said he had fled Vietnam after the authorities there asked him to watch members of his Khmer Krom community, jailing him when he refused. He declined a second offer and fled, he said.

A UNHCR representative in Washington referred Khmer Krom questions to the office in Bangkok. Officials there could not be reached for comment.

Another 25 Khmer Krom who have fled Vietnam are seeking protection in Cambodia, but they two face hardships, activists say.

Thach Ngoc Thach said Cambodian policies that would allow citizenship for Khmer Krom have many criteria, including a Cambodian residence, birth certificate as Khmer, Khmer parentage and other documents.

He said he was confidence US officials would take a closer look at the Khmer Krom issue.

Venerable monk Kim Moul, who was another member of the Washington delegation, told VOA Khmer in a recent interview that he hoped the US would follow up.

He said he and other monks were defrocked by Vietnamese authorities, imprisoned and monitored after they were freed.

“We all fled to Cambodia and they came to arrest us in Cambodia,” he said. “Until I fled to Thailand, then UNHCR sent me to Sweden.”

61st Anniversary of the Painful Loss of Kampuchea Krom – Organized by KKF Europe

Original Post: The Son Of the Khmer Empire

May 21,2010 at 9:45 pm

Khmer Krom Activists Meet US Officials

KI Media

May 09,2010 at 5:34 pm

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Friday, 07 May 2010

Newly re-ordained monk Tim Sakhorn, middle, drops by VOA Khmer while on a visit in the US last week. (Photo: by Lenny)

“We want to see the Vietnamese government recognize that Khmer Krom land belongs to Cambodia.”

Advocates for ethnic Khmers from Vietnam met with US State Department officials this week in an effort to improve human rights and religious freedoms there. The delegation included three Khmer monks who had spent about one year in jail each in Vietnam, in what they say is religious persecution.

Khmers from southern Vietnam, land often referred to in Cambodia as Kampuchea Krom, or “Lower Cambodia,” say Vietnamese authorities continue to suppress their rights, including land seizures and a lack of access to education. Kampuchea Krom, in the Mekong Delta region, was ceded to Vietnam by the French in 1949.

“We want to see the Vietnamese government recognize that Khmer Krom land belongs to Cambodia,” said Thach Ngoc Thach, president of the Khmer Kampucha Krom Federation, who met with State Department officials on Tuesday. “Vietnam has to apologize to the Cambodian people for the persecution of Khmer Krom people.”

The State Department meeting included officials that work with Vietnam, Cambodia and refugees, he said, and particularly focused on helping Khmer Krom find asylum once they flee Vietnam. The Cambodian government has said it will grant citizenship to any Khmer Krom, but that has not always happened, leading some to flee to Thailand in search of asylum.

Also attending the meeting were Tim Sakhorn, a former Khmer Krom monk who was defrocked by Cambodian Buddhists in 2007 and expelled to Vietnam, and monks Dinh Tol and Kim Moul. All three spent time in Vietnamese prisons that year but have since been granted asylum status. They were each re-ordained in the US last week.

“I came to the US this time to submit documents and be present as a live witness to US officials,” Tim Sakhorn told VOA Khmer after the meeting.

Vietnamese and State Department officials declined to comment on Tuesday’s meeting.

Tell me why?

By: UnitedKhmer

Why? ( A Tep Vong )

When i saw one news that khmer krom wanted to take the limpid borderland of Khmer Krom i ready suffer A Tep Vong because A Tep Vong install to fright Khmer krom monks it is unbelieving that A Tep Vong can do like this.

Why? ( A Hun Sen ) call ( A Kvak )

Nowadays Hun Sen, a prime minister of Cambodia nowadays, thinks about only his personal interest and especially his grandchild. Hun Sen never thinks about territorial integrity of Cambodia and he personally said he is a slave of You.

Have many people destitute in cambodia nowadays meeting the hunger and they always to request generosity to help. This is a regime of Hun Sen. Click here to watch and listen.