A Change of Guard

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Tuesday 8 June 2010

A Vietnamese academic claimed Vietnamese and Chinese were the original inhabitants of Kampuchea Krom

Mr. Thach Ngoc Thach, president of Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation.

By Khmerization
Source: Prey Nokors News

A Vietnamese academic has claimed that the Vietnamese and Chinese people were the original inhabitants of Kampuchea Krom territory, long claimed by Khmers as the homeland of ethnic Khmer Krom people who are still inhibiting in great numbers in the region, report Prey Nokor News.

In an interview with Radio Free Asia Vietnamese Program on 20th May, Prof. Nguyen Van Huy, expert anthropologist on indigenous studies and former professor of University of Diderot VII in Paris, claimed that Vietnamese and Chinese people were the original inhabitants of Kampuchea Krom territory who have cleared the forests and jungles to make their villages and towns in the 17th century. He claimed that later on the Khmer people migrated to settle in the areas and only started to rise up against the Vietnamese authority when the French colonialist power incited them to rise up against the Vietnamese administration in the late 1800s, telling them that the areas were once Cambodian territory.

Prof. Nguyen Van Huy said the areas where Kampuchea Krom is situated were once jungles with thick forests. He said the Vietnamese and Chinese people, called Nguoi Minh or Nguoi Tau, came to the areas in the 17th century and cleared all the forests to make villages and towns. He said the Khmers only began to claim the areas as theirs when the French colonised the areas in the late 1800s and they only rose up against the Vietnamese authority when the French parliament voted to cede Kampuchea Krom territory to Vietnam after it gave independence to Vietnam in 1954.

Mr. Thach Ngoc Thach, president of Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation, dismissed Prof. Nguyen's comments as fabrications and false, saying that the Khmer people had inhabited the Mekong delta areas even before the city of Hanoi was established. He said many Khmer temples and pagodas in Kampuchea Krom were constructed long before 17th century. He said Wat Sambor Raingsey or Wat Sambor pagoda was built in 373 AD which is now 1637 years old already. Hanoi was only established about 1000 years ago, which is still much younger than the Khmer pagoda of Wat Sambor Raingsey and other Khmer Buddhist temples, he said.

According to the history of Kampuchea Krom, the Vietnamese people had only been allowed to settle temporarily in Kampuchea Krom in 1623 by the Khmer King, King Chey Chetha II, to allow them to escape from the civil war between the Trinh and Nguyen dynasty. As they came in great numbers and due to the weakness of the Cambodian state, the Vietnamese emperor subsequently annexed 21 Cambodian provinces, one by one. In 1856, King Ang Duang of Cambodia wrote to Napoleon III asking him not accept the Kampuchea Krom territory as his colony if it was offered by the Vietnamese emperor. Napoleon III gave strong assurances to King Ang Duang that Kampuchea Krom would be returned to Cambodian control once France withdrew from the area. However, on 4th June 1949, the French parliament voted to cede all territories of Kampuchea Krom to Vietnam.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah right, now everything is under them they say anything. Since when Viet existed? how do they know who was living there before.

Anonymous said...

It is natural for the Vietnamese to twist the history of Kampuchea Krom.If Vietnamese were the original settlers in Kampuchea Krom, then how can they get to Kampuchea Krom when the Kingdom of Champa (in today's Hue)was situated between Vietnam and Kampuchea Krom. Also many Cambodian Buddhist pagodas were built long before 17th century in the areas. And who lived there before 17th century? Were the areas just jungles and bushes? It is a ridiculous claim, trying to twist history.

Anonymous said...

By 17th century, Annam( Vietnam) had already swallowed up Champa. The Cham of Champa either forced assimilated to become Vietnamese or killed off. After incorporating Champa into their collection of conquered territories, Annam made a move into Khmer's territory, starting with Kampuchea Krom or Mekong Delta or Cochinchina. Annam became Vietnam later on. Vietnamese historians will not want to mention Champa in their history. If Champa erased from being heard, Vietnamese can say that they migrated from China into the Mekong Delta. According to their history book, Mekong Delta(Cochinchina or Kampuchea Krom) was not inhabited by Khmer. In actuality, it was the Funanese or Mon-Khmer (ancestor of modern day Cambodian) who had inhabited the land thousands of years prior to Vietnamese claimed; another word, Khmer was there all along. With the Vietnamese mastery in cheat, lie, and deception to achieve their ambitions, they manipulated that truths, and when the truths reveal, they become dumbfounded and confused. Vietnamese scholars seemed to anchored and dwell their history on this irrelevant term " Cochinchina" The meaning of this term is pertains to a region that are culturally influenced by both India first and later by China. When Vietnamese history are put into questions, it is being cornered by too many facts, the only way out to survive with this overwhelming historical facts is to clinch onto something that kind of make sense. The sad thing is, Vietnamese populations are being educated into this false history of theirs'. They had twisted their own history to the point of no return.

I had an argument with one of my Vietnamese co-worker. He's supposedly this well educated high school principle in Saigon back in his old heydays. According to him, Vietnam obtained Kampuchea Krom through Khmer's king( Chey Chetta II) signed that territory sometime in 1600's to Vietnam when he married to a daughter of a Vietnamese king( Nguyen Sai Vuong). So there are a lot of wild historical guess for his knowledge in Vietnamese history when discussing the history between Cambodia and Vietnam.

Anonymous said...

"The Khmer Krom are ethnic Khmer who inhabited that area long before the arrival of the Vietnamese.

According to Vietnamese government figures (1999 census), there are 1,055,174 Khmer Krom in Vietnam."
This article was mentioned in Wikipedia. Link "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Krom"

Anonymous said...

It is absurd, these guys claimed that they are the academia, proclaimed themselves as proficiency on the territorial surrounding the southeast Asia, particularly Khmer territories. What else they're going to say, they educated in Hanoi, next they probably will say that Cambodian's lands used to be Vietnamese's territories. Every Cambodian people must keep in mine, that the Vietnamese people and government alike, they always contemplate night and day, the approaches of how to steal Cambodian's land, to decrease Cambodian's population counts, and to increase their population along the borders, and inside Cambodia, and one day the Central Cambodia will become another Kumpuchea Krom, every Cambodia will be living oppressively under the Vietnamese people and government. My fellow Cambodians, the upper, the central, and the lower Cambodian, we all must teach our children the truth about our neighbor, Vietnamese, the history had shown us over and over, that the Vietnamese never had any good intentions toward us, Cambodian. Every old, young, and newer generation of Cambodian People must keep in mind that the Vietnamese are the natural and blood enemy of our people. NEVER FORGET, YOU MUST TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THAT, AND TELL THEM WHY...

Anonymous said...

If you asked Khmer in Kampuchea Krom, they will tell you that the populations is somewhere close to 10 millions. The Vietnamese government will not reveal the correct numbers. Keeping an unofficial Khmer populations to a minimal, may allow the UN and the world to see that Khmer in Vietnam are just small ethnic minority and not a serious concern. The dirty Vietnamese government are doing their damn-est to down-play this very serious matter.

Anonymous said...

Hi all Khmer people, you all need to beware that, VN use the same approach to encroach Kampuchea Krom to encroach current Cambodia. They move step by step, and let their people to live and work and expand their poeple from breading their children. I think that, now is time to do something to protect our mother land. If we not do anything, we will become another Khmer Minority in our birth land like Kampuchea Krom.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure, they knew clearly about the history, but they pretend not to understand and they really want to change the history. This because they are a good poeple for their country, they want to expand their country like Thai and Vietnam. We should building up the spirit of loving the country and nation to our new generation. So far, nothing have been to build up the new generation related to that. Moreove, we done only created more fighting each other, and hate each other and killing each other. Come on all Khmer people, we should start to love each other from now on, we all khmer, we should love khmer and do not hate and kill each other like this.

Anonymous said...

By observing, i can tell that, khmer people like to kill each other rather then protect the country or protect the public property. Khmer people only care about their personal benefit, if we build one school for the village is not worth than we give them $100 each. This because of so far Khmer people sufferd so much from war and lack of patriotism.