CNRP and Racism – an Enigma

Khmer Times/T. Mohan

Tuesday, 29 September 2015

Tran Yaing Chang’s brother was standing among onlookers in 2014 following a minor road accident when someone shouted “yuon,” a derogatory term for Vietnamese. Seconds later, the crowd turned on him and killed him. Reuters/Samrang Pring

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Editorial note by School of Vice

The message is clear: Criticise Hanoi or Vietnam's policies over Cambodia and you risk being labelled "racist" or "anti-Vietnamese"! If an ethnic Vietnamese falls off his bed or toilet seat and dies from broken neck, he must be a victim of Cambodian racism? A Vietnamese coffee shop was ransacked; no one was injured, but this is sufficient evidence needed to prove the link between "anti-Vietnamese rhetoric" from CNRP politicians and mob violence? 

Before any of these incidents had even taken place, the Opposition leadership pleaded with its supporters NOT to use violence; 'not even so much as to touch a single hair on anyone's head' - in Sam Rainsy's words - in the course of their public activities and demonstrations before and following the July 2013 general election. Not that I personally want to wish ill on any Vietnamese person, or want to see innocents hurt. But, in fairness, given the historical context of the two countries' turbulent uneasy relations, the recent military occupation of Cambodia by Vietnamese troops, the sacrifices in thousands of Cambodian lives resisting that occupation, the numerous counts of killings and assassinations meted out to even prominent figures within the Hanoi-installed regime itself to ensure that only the most subservient and compliant among them would be retained to advance Vietnam's geo-political interests, the assassinations of Khmer Krom and other Cambodian monks, the killings of opposition and trade union activists, the brutal deployment of armed forces to quell unarmed [unless you count sticks and stones as arms deserving of lethal military response?] protesting workers and so forth, in addition to the public clamour for a change in how it wants to be governed, it is something of a miracle, and in my understanding, owing in no small measure to the CNRP leadership's deliberate decision to embrace a peaceful 'non-violent' struggle for change that we had - and have - not witnessed bloodshed on a far greater scale. Unless, again, one excuses killing unarmed innocents as an example of the regime's "genius", because at least this helps restore "national stability"? 

What did the peoples of Europe, France, Britain, Scandinavia, Russian etc. do when their nations were either under Nazi German military occupation, or faced with the spectre of that occupation and invasion? Well, among other things, they had to arouse their masses' patriotic fervour [Stalin - a 'communist' - said his country/Soviet Union was waging the 'Great Patriotic War' against the invaders], and yes, that necessarily entailed a certain amount of 'anti-German' rhetoric and feed. I doubt, the people of Russia have quite forgotten or forgiven the Germans for or over all their great endurance and sufferings. 20 million Russian/Soviet lives, in fact, consumed in that conflict. The point is: were all these peoples 'racist' too, or had their leaders been guilty of using the "race card" in their respective national war effort? 

To Hanoi: Stop interfering in Cambodia's national affairs; respect her right to exist as an independent nation; the right to self-determination; honour international treaties which you had signed; respect her territorial sovereignty and borders; agree to the French government's proposal to jointly request French technical assistance in mapping the border line between the two countries, instead of locking away nationalists and critics in jail for even daring to question the status quo. Then, and only then, will we be nearer to resolving the underlying tension and strife that still engulf this long suffering country today.

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Investors in Vietnam, as well as China, have been linked to the spate of evictions that have left 20 percent of Cambodians without land.

 

In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. Part of the CPP and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s  genius is a remarkable ability to soothe race consciousness among the ethnic people, the majority Khmer Buddhists, the resident expatriate foreigners who practice a multitude of religions, the Chams  and of course the Vietnamese who have been here for decades.

On one  trip to Cambodia, then United Nations human rights envoy Surya Subedi had said: “I am alarmed by the anti-Vietnamese language allegedly used in public by the opposition.” Before his visit, a Vietnamese-owned coffee shop was looted in an escalation of an already deeply worrying trend.

In yet another case, a man of Vietnamese descent but born in Cambodia, Tran Van Chien, was mercilessly beaten to death after a traffic altercation when some bystanders yelled, “Yuon were fighting Khmer”. The result: He is dead and his pregnant Khmer wife became a widow.

One of the few local voices that have condemned this anti-Vietnamese rhetoric and violence is the president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR). For his trouble, Ou Virak received death threats and a torrent of appalling abuse over the Internet.

Race Card

When asked by Asian Correspondent about this latest incident, he responded: “Who knows where it could lead, with these level of frustration, racism and hatred, all it needs is something to ignite it for it to get out of hand.”

Throughout the history of Cambodia, politicians have used the race card to win votes and mobilize people against sitting government or ruling party and vice versa and sometimes against one another.

It is  scary to think, but the opposition CNRP has provided a frightening example of seemingly acceptable racist rhetoric which is actually quite unacceptable.

Sporadic anti-Vietnamese violence continues under the Cambodian People’s Party rule after their Vietnamese patrons withdrew. This was largely fanned by opposition groups, unlike the state-sponsored violence of earlier regimes, particularly the Khmer Rouge.

In demonstrations after the 2013 elections, protestors had claimed the security forces are ‘Yuon’ and that ‘Khmer would not kill Khmer, implying the police were Vietnamese and that is why they were cracking down on the protestors who were almost certainly 100 percent Khmers.

Vice president of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) Kem Sokha last week denied his party was using anti-Vietnamese sentiment to stir up support as the country gears up for elections.

“Generally, as far as I can see, the Cambodian people do not discriminate against any race or religion as you often see in other countries,” he said.

He added that the CNRP also did not discriminate against ethnic Vietnamese or any other minority group.

“We do not discriminate against the Vietnamese and Yuon [Vietnamese] as well.”  With this statement alone, Kem Sokha has revealed the deeply rooted race card by referring to the Vietnamese as “Yuon”, which is often accepted as a derogatory word to describe the Vietnamese. 

Land Issue Clouded

On close examination, although the platform of the opposition is pro-human rights, it is not friendly to the beleaguered Vietnamese minority that has been living in Cambodia for generations. Investors in Vietnam, as well as China, have been linked to the spate of evictions that have left 20 percent of Cambodians without land.

An ironic assessment as before the land was awarded to these Vietnamese and Chinese companies in the form of economic land concessions, everyone, especially the opposition, had ignored the fact that there were hardly any people staying on these parcels of land. In this regard, the government too has been at fault as they failed to seize the initiative to publicize this. 

The 2013 election results were called into question and ethnic Vietnamese Cambodian’s safety had also been a concern among activists.  Media reports linked the riots in Stung Meanchey to claims that  Vietnamese  had tried to vote.

Who inflamed this scenario into an explosive tinder box leading to the rioting and torching of private and state vehicles? The CNRP, irrespective e of what they claim now. 

The CNRP had also made serious allegations that large numbers of Vietnamese had been brought in by the CPP to slant the vote in their favour. However, this too turned out to be mere political rhetoric.

“The opposition always point out that there are ‘Vietnamese sounding names’ on the voter registration lists. Of course there are. There are tens of thousands of ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia and many are citizens. Some Cambodians don’t think ethnic Vietnamese who live here permanently should have citizenship rights,” explained Bill Herod, a retired NGO worker living in Mondulkiri.
Vietnamese Flee
An Asian Correspondent report in July 2013 by Michelle Tolson revealed that the mistrust of the Vietnamese in Cambodia had historical roots in the previous war.

While Vietnam’s invasion of the country in 1979 ended the Khmer Rouge starvation camps, the foreign government also occupied Cambodia until 1989.  During UNTAC-sponsored elections in 1993, Vietnamese living in the country were targeted for ethnic cleansing.  

Foreign media had reported 20,000 to 40,000 Vietnamese refugees fled to Vietnam during elections.  Of the estimated 200,000 ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia at the time, Hanoi had considered half to be ‘Cambodian’ as they had lived there for generations.

Presently, this group has a sizeable but shrinking number of Vietnamese still residing in Cambodia, thanks to the daily raids on “paperless” Vietnamese by the immigration authorities, many of whom are considered “stateless” as they are not recognized by either the Vietnamese or the Cambodian government.

Nayan Chanda of the Far Eastern Economic Review in an Op-Ed in the New York Times in 1990 traced the root cause of the  ethnic strife in Kampuchea. During the 19-nation Paris Conference in the summer of 1989, the Representatives of the US, France, the UK, and the Soviet Union were disconcerted by China’s insistent claim that thousands of Vietnamese were still in Cambodia. 

The US Defense Intelligence Agency reported that all the Vietnamese troops had been withdrawn. Chanda writes but that what the Chinese had in mind is not so much the troops as Vietnamese civilians living here.

Hanoi and Phnom Penh fought hard, if unsuccessfully, to replace the formulation of “foreign forces” with “foreign military forces”, precisely to avoid having China and the Khmer Rouge (KR) try to lump the citizens of Vietnamese origin together with the troops. 

The Khmer Rouge claimed that the Vietnamese settlers were spies and soldiers in mufti. The Statement released from the Paris Conference called for the “verified withdrawal of foreign forces”. 

Chanda was of the opinion that by accepting the notion that ethnic Vietnamese were agents of Hanoi, even when they have lived for centuries in Cambodia, the Big Five had opened the door to potentially bloody ethnic strife. 

Chanda might be right about the intentions of China and the KR, but anti-Vietnamese feelings among Cambodians are centuries old. These were manifest most violently in the 1970s and again revealed themselves in the 1990s and again in the 21st century in the form of an “ethnic cleansing” drive.

In the prelude to the first UN-sponsored general election in 1993, most of the 20 parties participating in the election promised to send the ethnic Vietnamese back home after they won. Prince Sihanouk advised the ethnic Vietnamese to go to Vietnam for their own safety.

Just Rhetoric

This obviously had set the tone for the anti-Vietnamese stance adopted by Funcinpec, followed by the SRP and now the CNRP.

Mere words declaring the party did not discriminate against Vietnamese is just rhetoric, as CNRP’s  actions defy this claim. Their actions in every election whereby they play the Vietnamese voter card to raise voter sentiments are a clear indication of this.

The ongoing sweep against illegal immigrants – economic or refugees – is a clear example of the government wanting to resolve this issue in a legal and transparent way even though Hanoi has put tremendous pressure on the authorities to slow down this process or find alternatives.

The nationality Law, which defines Cambodian citizenship, has clear rules that state anybody applying for naturalization must have a paper which certifies that they have been living in the country continuously for at least five years since receiving a residential card.


CNRP and Racism, T. Mohan