Phnom Penh Post
By Joe Freeman
In early February of 1974, about 10 months before the Khmer Rouge
takeover, Brigadier General Les Kosem and other leaders of Cambodia’s
half million Cham Muslims gathered in Phnom Penh and made a public
appeal for help.
Kosem read a resolution condemning Khmer Rouge
atrocities against Sunni Muslim Cham, Cambodia’s largest ethnic
minority. Muslim nations were also urged to assist in brokering peaceful
negotiations.
The details of this long-ago event were embedded
in thousands of previously unclassified but hard-to-access US diplomatic
cables published on Monday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Dubbed
the “Kissinger Cables” after then-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
they shed light on the lead-up to the fall of Phnom Penh, but also on
once-prominent Cambodians who, like Kosem, may have slipped through the
lines of most history books.
Kosem was close to the military
apparatus supporting Lon Nol after the 1970 coup. He left Cambodia
before the Khmer Rouge seized the capital and died abroad under
mysterious circumstances. In the dwindling months of Lon Nol’s Khmer
Republic, he kept busy by trying to build diplomatic ties with Muslim
countries.
“At our meeting July 25, Prime Minister Long Boret
gave me on confidential bases copy of General Les Kosem’s report on the
Islamic Foreign Ministers Conference held [in] Kuala Lumpur from 21-25
June which he attended as head of a three-man delegation of Khmer
Moslems,” read one cable from US Ambassador John Dean.
Kosem is
remembered for his efforts to advocate for Muslims in danger and for
attempting to spirit some of them out of the country.
“Despite
his death, General Les Kosem is still well-known in the Cham Muslim
community for his military position and [as a] representative for the
Cham Muslim community at that time,” said Farina So, head of the Cham
Oral History Project at the Documentation Center of Cambodia. “Cham
Muslim leaders were trying to seek help from Malaysia, a Muslim country
which is close to Cambodia, in the 1970s to help rescue the people from
the communist control, but it did not work, because the situation was
already worse, there was limited support and a lack of political will.”
After
Phnom Penh was evacuated in April of 1975, the Khmer Rouge enlarged
existing policies targeting religious groups. Seen as enemies, the Cham
were hunted down, persecuted and killed by the thousands, their deaths
serving as part of the basis for genocide charges in the Khmer Rouge
tribunal’s Case 002.
According to So, the Khmer Rouge told some
of the Cham that they were headed for Muslim countries in an exchange
for oil, when they were really headed for work camps.
Kosem’s
widow, Meidine Natchear, who runs a resort in Kampot, said her husband’s
plan at the time was to bring all of the Cham to Malaysia. She says he
succeeded in helping a couple thousand make the trip by boat with a stop
in Thailand.
“He would never think about leaving Cambodia without his people,” she said.
11 comments:
Cham State inside Cambodia, what kind of an idiot idea ?
Cambodia and not Malaysia is the home of the Khmer Cham.
He must be a very dangerous person he did a great trouble not only for hime and his familiy, but also for other innocent Khmer Cham.
Like in nowadays Cambodia, there are aid and donation from Moslim foreign countries to strengthen Moslim communities and spirit (like Vietnamese in Cambodia). Once they are strong enough, they would do something against Khmer local people, at least fighting, prejudice, racist, religionism or separatist movement, chaos between Khmer, Vietnamese and Charm will happen in Cambodia. That's why foreign countries pay much attention over this issue.
As I said a long time ago, Cambodia will be divided along Viet, Chen, Lao, Khmer, Cham, Thai. Just watch and see.
None sense...stop insighting more problems in Cambodia. Khmer and Champ been living together peacefully. Champ communities are treated really well in Cambodia than in Thailand. They are Khmer citizens anyways.
If you were so good in seeing the future ! Why don't you foretell that you should go get an educations you idiot. Your dream of us Khmer nation exiting WILL NEVER HAPPEN. As long as still ONE Khmer left your dream WILL NOT COME TRUE YOU IGNORANT, UNEDUCATE. SILLY, LOW LIFE PEASANT, LOW CLASS TRAITOR. WHY DON'T YOU GO FUC YOURSELF OR YOUR MOTHER.
What the hell! Khmer territory is for the Khmer people. If these Chams want to act up, then they need to get the hell out of Cambodia for good! F*cking Chams. They don't assimilate with any of us and they are completely different, yet we continue to consider them as brothers and sisters of the greater Khmer family. It is time to look at the devils in their true form. Even the f*cking Lao inside the Khmer territory is are acting up. It is time for a new policy. Dr. PeangMeth is a Cham but he is a patriotic Khmer though. So not all Cham are disgusting as that Les Kosem dude.
The issue with the Cham people is that they have identity problem. With the loss of their Champa to Vietnam and got themselves kicked out, Cambodia is their saviour for their smelly life style, be that in Chhrui Changva or Chhrang Chomress.They never establish themselves as Khmer although Khmer gave them livelihood and no one else give a hood even their beloved Malaysians. And they maintain this attitude anywhere they go - case in fact this idiot named Sos Farib a cham from chhrui changvar got Colombo Plan scholarship for Khmer students to New Zealand still acting for cham's interest in the past 40 years - I say send all them back to Champa and let yuon eat them!!!
Remember in the 1850s, the Cham population in Oudong rebelled against King Ang Duong. King Ang Duong was not able to crush them before he died. The Cham rebellion was only crushed by King Norodom when he came to the throne in around 1863.
See, Cambodia gave them a place to live after their country, Champa, was swallowed by Vietnam and later they wanted to takeover Cambodia. Lucky, the Cambodian army at that time was able to crush the rebellion. I think what this general wanted to do was trying to secure the financial and military help or assurances from Muslim countries, particularly Malaysia, and then launch another rebellion when Cambodia was in chaos/turmoil due to the fighting with the Khmer Rouge. Bad luck they were not succeeded in doing so.
Cambodia should be divided up among Viet, Thais, Laos, Chams, and Hmong. Viet should take east Cambodia, Thais take west Cambodia, Laos take north Cambodia, Chams and Hmong can divide south Cambodia among them.
6:09 pm is an idiot, if you wish it so much, why don't you organize a rebellion and or lead a war against the state of Cambodia right now as you speak. I bet your head will be hacked off your body, your blood will be drained, and your internal organs will be boiled, and your flesh will be fish fillet and your bones ground up. That is your fate, you idiot.
The article says nothing that he wanted to create a Cham State in Cambodia. All it states is his determination to preserve the lives of his people. Some people here should get their facts right. I ain't no Cham, but seriously enough of this division, amongst our people and citizens. DCPP GUY
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