A Change of Guard

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Wednesday 25 May 2011

The Thai crimes against Khmer refugees

Anonymous said...

Cambodians had suffered enough at the hands of the Thais. To those who said Thais helped Cambodians a lot is a wrong claim. Thai treatment of Khmer refugees and their attitude toward those refugees who escaped Cambodia, under Khmer Rouge, can only be described as appalling. Many Khmer refugees were sent back by Thai authority to the Khmer Rouge’s killing machine. . . . The second wave, in 1979, Thai soldiers gathered all the refugees, robbed them and sent them back down the Phnom Dangrek mountains which resulted in thousands of deaths where many were blown into pieces by landmines, some were executed by Thai soldiers on the spot. Khmer refugees who lived along the border who have disputed with Thai people about their trade were bombed by military airplane and shelled by Thai artillery. Khmer refugees living in the camps, set up by UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees], were surrounded by barbed wire made by Thai soldiers and Khmer refugees in the camps were mistreated by Thai authority, some were kicked, some were beaten for the crime of just trying to learn English or holding English book in their hands, which was prohibited by Thai authority. The new refugees who tried to get into the camps were shot to death. There were many mistreatment beyond description that Thai soldiers have committed against innocent Cambodian refugees. Even currently, along the border there were incidents that had happened many times, many Cambodians were shot to death and they were blamed as robbers . . . . This is just a few examples that should cause the Thais to review their attitude toward Khmers and stop looking down on the people of their neighboring countries and stop acting arrogant toward them.

The 2002 ‘landmine trap’ incident and the infamous event – the mass deportation of Khmer refugees on foot through minefields, which has been referred to as ‘the Dangrek genocide’–are a few examples of the Thai crimes against Cambodians. On 8 June 1979, 45,000 Cambodian refugees were forced at gunpoint to descend down the heavily mined and booby-trapped Phnom Dangrek mountains near Preah Vihear temple. Many of those Cambodian refugees were killed or injured during their descent down the ravines; some were even robbed or shot by Thai soldiers.

As ‘To Thai’ notes, those Cambodians who were allowed to remain on Thai soil in camps were sometimes abused by their Thai guards and administrators, who wielded enormous power over them and, ironically, often profited from local trades and the international aid that have been pouring into the camps. Thai soldiers and businessmen also benefited from trades with various Cambodian ‘resistance groups’, including the Khmer Rouge, who sometimes operated from Thai soil and were receiving international support to battle the Vietnamese-backed regime of Cambodia.

source:Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 37 (3), pp 445–468 October 2006. Printed in the United Kingdom.
© 2006 The National University of Singapore doi:10.1017/S0022463406000737

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The jaws of the Thai ‘tiger’ and the Vietnamese ‘crocodile’

The positioning between the jaws of the Thai ‘tiger’ and the Vietnamese ‘crocodile’has proven pivotal in Cambodia’s post-Angkorean history, as the Khmer court was split by in-fighting, rebellion and war. A dismal cycle began in which contending rivals for the throne would ask for backing from either the Thai or the Vietnamese, paying for this military patronage with money, land, manpower and foreign domination. The size and power of the kingdom shrank as the court lost territory and revenue, ultimately leading Cambodian kings to seek French protection from the encroachments of these neighbours. Cambodia became a French Protectorate in 1863. By this time, it had lost two key tracts of land that would feature prominently in later ethnonationalist discourse. The southeastern territories in the Mekong Delta (which Cambodians refer to as ‘lower Cambodia’ or Kampuchea Krom), including Saigon (which Cambodians still call by its Khmer name, Prey Nokor), gradually passed into Vietnamese hands beginning in the 1600s, while the northwestern provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap, which included Angkor Wat, came under Thai control in the 1790s.


History also could be used to reassert claims over Angkor Wat and the lost northwestern provinces, which were returned to Cambodia by the 1907 Franco-Siamese Treaty. On the other hand, the ‘gift’ of Angkorean history fits with French colonial ideology, which legitimated its dominion as part of a ‘civilizing mission’. Invoking turn-of-the-century stage theory, the French
depicted Cambodians as a ‘fallen’ race that had ‘degenerated’ into a child-like state of ‘ignorance’ and ‘primitivism’. The French would help the child-like race regain some of its former grandeur through modernization, the restoration of its (now reinvented) traditions and reconstruction of the Angkorean past.
1

Anonymous said...

At the same time, the French also essentialized and eulogized certain aspects of the national character of this ‘fallen’ race. If Khmer were lazy, backward and ignorant, they could still be commended for their ‘gentle’ soul. Here we find an origin for the stereotype of Cambodians as a ‘gentle, smiling people’ who, as Penny Edwards has noted, came to be characterized as altruistic, peaceful and morally superior. This moral superiority was often justified in racial terms as the more ‘Aryan’ Khmer were contrasted to ‘yellow’ people, the ‘“mendacious, dirty, thieving” Vietnamese and the “wily, greedy, heartless”

In fact that many Cambodians strongly believe that the Thai ‘tiger’, like the Vietnamese ‘crocodile’, covets Cambodian territory. If the French reinvented Cambodia’s historical trajectory in terms of Angkor and gave the Thai a prominent role in the demise and territorial diminishment of the empire, a number of twentieth-century events reinforced the idea of a continued
Thai desire to annex Cambodian land. As recently as the start of World War Two, for example, Thailand ‘swallowed’ a large chunk of Cambodia, taking back Battambang and most of Siem Reap (though not Angkor Wat) at the end of the Franco-Siamese conflict. While Bangkok returned the territories in 1947, the annexation occurred at a key moment in the Cambodian independence movement and contributed to ethnonationalist misgivings about Thai intentions.
2

Anonymous said...

3
Thai had even stolen Cambodian script including and later tried to claim that ‘Cambodia had stolen the letters from the Thai!’ To highlight the scheming and dangerous nature of Thais .Thai king is able to capture Lovek and take possession of the two statues, which contain books filled with sacred knowledge. To breach the dense bamboo fortifications surrounding Lovek, the Thai fire cannons full of coins into this bamboo forest. After the Thai retreat, the Cambodians cut down the bamboo to get the coins, thereby enabling the Thai to sack Lovek upon their return. At this time, the Thai took the "Preah Ko (the Sacred Cow) and Preah Kaev (the Sacred Crystal)– a legend "statues, and the wealth of knowledge they contained, back to Siam.

Preah Kor and Preah Kaev ‘is a very matter to the Cambodian people. . . . Thai strategy to take our Cambodian base. . . . They took over Cambodian territory and killed many people.’ For Cambodians this highly symbolic legend condenses a number of referents: a history of Thai invasion, trickery and aggression; Cambodia’s loss of knowledge and resulting inferiority to Thailand; and its decline and weakness in relationship to its neighbour after the fall of Lovek.

(thanks L.C)
reference
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, October 2006. Printed in the United Kingdom.
© 2006 The National University of Singapore doi:10.1017/S0022463406000737

Anonymous said...

Not only khmer refugees suffered, abused, rape by Thai soldiers during 1979...Vietnamese people also got killed, rape by Thai soldiers, i, myself used to lived in K.I.D refugees Camp, i've seen Thai soldier beaten, abused khmer refugees for little thing...like not wearing ID TAG#? Thai soldiers even force khmer boy and khmer girl(his sister) to sleep within each other...This is how cruel Thai soldiers were that time!!


K.I.D refugee 1979-82

Anonymous said...

I am very please with PM Hun Sen today...for standing up against Thailand aggression toward cambodian...Well, atleast Khmer army has tought Thai soldier some lesson for invading cambodian territory...I heard alot of stroy about khmer refugees suffering from Thailand abusive...Yes! I used to smuggling goods in ChumRum Thmey, Kok Kjoong, Nang Chan in 1979

Anonymous said...

Nuke Thailand!

Anonymous said...

Me too, I was playing in the park/soccer field in the refugee camp and a Thai soldier riding a bike in the middle of the park like he owned the park and expecting me to give way to him, but I did not see him and he kicked me while his bike was still moving and fell to the ground. I was just a teenager.

Anonymous said...

Thai soldier look down on khmer refugees like dirt..I have seen lots of khmer refugees people beaten with M16-Butt, then throwing them into the back of the pickup truck like animals...Usually Thai soldier who can speak khmer languages..?

Anonymous said...

I'm very proud that our soldiers kick and killed Thai's ass so bad in last fighting...I hope our leader provide them more heavy weapons though! Teach motherfucker a lesson...

Anonymous said...

I live through that infamous journey. Now I live in United state. I have learn so much about human behavior when desperate situation force people to do the unspeakable act. but most of all I have learn that Thai government and soldier are evil beyond human. They did not kill me or my family. I got stronger from that journey. Thai will have their day soon.