Khmer Krom
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Khmer Krom (Khmer: 
) are the indigenous ethnic Khmer minority living in southern Vietnam, especially in the delta of the Mekong River.[citation needed] In Vietnamese, they are known as Khơ-me Crộm or Khơ-me dưới, which literally means "Khmer from below" ("below" referring to the lower areas of the Mekong Delta).
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[edit] Origins
The Khmer Krom are ethnic Khmer that inhabited the delta of the Mekong prior to the arrvial of the Vietnamese.
According to Vietnamese government figures (1999 census), there are 1,055,174 Khmer Krom in Vietnam.
[edit] History
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Beginning in the 17th century, the colonization of the area by Vietnamese settlers migrating south has isolated the Khmer from their brethren in Cambodia proper and resulted in the native Khmer becoming a minority in that part of their homeland.
Prey Nokor was the most important commercial port to the Khmers. It began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor. The area that the city now occupies was originally swampland, and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese.
The city's name was changed by Vietnam to Saigon and then Ho Chi Minh City.
In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (1618-1628) allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trinh-Nguyen civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor, and to set up a custom house at Prey Nokor. Increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers, which the Cambodian kingdom, weakened because of war with Thailand, could not impede, slowly vietnamized the area. In time, Prey Nokor became known as Saigon.
In 1698, Nguyen Huu Canh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyen rulers of Huế to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus detaching the area from Cambodia, which was not strong enough to intervene.
The plight of the Khmer Krom has been a contentious issue between the governments of Vietnam and Cambodia. After the French conquest in 1859, the French colonial administration confirmed the separation of the Mekong delta from the rest of Cambodia, administering it as the separate colony of Cochinchina, despite the fact that the Khmer Krom were still largely the majority in the area at the time.
On June 04 1949, just before their complete withdrawal from Indochina for more than a hundred years; the French government illegally gave Kampuchea Krom to Vietnam.
Shortly thereafter the Vietnamese government took over all Kampuchea Krom land. They renamed Khmer land to Vietnamese names. All the streets and anything that had a Khmer name were changed to Vietnamese.
They forced all Khmer in Kampuchea Krom to change or convert their Khmer names to Vietnamese. If the Khmer people couldn’t convert their Khmer name to Vietnamese then they must choose one of these Vietnamese last names assigned for them, and it didn’t matter if they were blood relatives or not. For example, Khmer Krom from Khleang (Soc Trang),Trapeang ( Tra Vinh), Pov Lieu (Bac Lieu) and Tirk Khmao ( Ca Mau) provinces had their last names changed to either Son,Thach or Kim. Khmer Krom from Karmourn Sor (Kien Giang), Prek Reussey (Can Tho), Long Ho (Vinh Long) and Mott Chrouk (Chau Doc) last names were changed to Danh, Chau or Ly. The same was ordered for Khmer Krom from other provinces. Those Vietnamese last names were for them to easily identify Khmer Krom, and which province we came from.
Vietnam also shut down all Khmer public schools. Any Khmer Krom wanting an education must go to a Vietnamese school. It was difficult adjusting to sudden language changes for the majority of Khmer Krom students who spoke only Khmer. At first, there were large groups Khmer Krom students enrolled in Vietnamese schools, but only a handful hung on, the majority being bi-lingual. The reasons many Khmer Krom students dropped out was because their parents were too poor to buy school supplies and school uniforms, didn't speak Vietnamese, also because they were not able to cope with the unfair treatment, mental and physical abuse from Vietnamese teachers and Vietnamese students. Instead of helping Khmer students over come language barriers, and treating all students equally, many Vietnamese teachers made the situation worse and unbearable for Khmer students to continue their studies. It did not matter how well Khmer Krom students studied it was never good enough.
Struggling to preserve Khmer language on Kampuchea Krom, most Khmer Krom parents would send the children, mostly boys, to local temples to study Khmer language from Buddhist monks. The boys usually stayed at the local temple for several months up to years.
June 1949, after the Vietnamese government shut down Khmer schools, they drove Khmer Krom out of homes and businesses from big cities (such as Prey Nokor (now know as Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City), to undeveloped land in the countryside. Once Khmer Krom people moved out the cities, Vietnamese people moved in. Vietnamese took over Khmer homes; Khmer businesses, while the Khmer Krom people struggled to survive, starting all over, with only clothes on back and empty hands. During that time, a large group of Khmer Krom villagers fled to Cambodia, hoping for peaceful life.
Many Khmer Krom men fought for the American and South Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. Many Khmer Krom lives were lost on Kampuchea Krom. Till today, no sympathy, no monument, no special treatment, and no word ever mention from either American or South Vietnamese that many Khmer Krom soldiers has fought and died for Kampuchea Krom in the Vietnam War.
In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge regime attacked Vietnam in an attempt to reconquer those areas of the delta still predominantly inhabited by Khmer Krom people, but this military adventure was a total disaster and precipitated the invasion of Cambodia by the Vietnamese army and subsequent downfall of the Khmer Rouge, with Vietnam occupying Cambodia.
[edit] Current Situation
Many independent NGOs have reported that the human rights of the Khmer Krom are being violated by the Vietnamese government. Khmer Krom are reportedly forced to adopt Vietnamese family names and Vietnamese language. {2} Education of Khmer Krom is neglected and they face many hardships in everyday life, such as difficult access to Vietnamese health services (recent epidemics of blindness affecting children have been reported in the predominantly Khmer Krom areas of the Mekong delta[citation needed]), difficulty in practicing their religion (Khmer Krom are Theravada Buddhists, like Cambodian and Thai people, but unlike Vietnamese who are Mahayana Buddhists or Catholics), difficulty in finding jobs outside of the fields, and societal racism.[citation needed] The Khmer Krom are the poorest segment of the population in southern Vietnam.[citation needed]
Unlike other minority people groups of Vietnam, the Khmer Krom are largely unknown in the western world, despite efforts by associations of exiled Khmer Krom such as the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation to publicize their issues with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation. No western government has raised the matter of the Khmer Krom's human rights with the Vietnamese government.
[edit] External links
- Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF)
- Khmer Krom news and information network
- Khmer Krom news and information in Khmer language
- Khmer Krom: A Royal Solution for a Nationalist Vietnam reported by Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation
- Video clips of Rebecca Sommer's film "Eliminated without Bleeding" documenting human rights violation claims of the Khmer Krom in Vietnam
- March 2007- Article on religious oppression by Vietnam
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