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| Cambodia after Angkor Era |
www.khmerwathanak.blogspot.com
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| Khmer King Ang Duong |
The collapse of Angkor Empire was visibly caused by Khmer internal conflicts and fast growing power of her two neighbors especially Thailand in that time when Vietnam was busy to conquer Champa Kingdom. Thailand did not exist prior to Angkor Empire, but several small kingdoms had gradually merged into a great powerful nation under a leadership of Ayutthya Kingdom along Chaos Phraya Valley. Thailand had ruled most part of Laos and western part of Cambodia until French colonial period. Vietnam though has much older history than Thailand, a small kingdom of Dai Viet or Anam was continuously under Chinese suzerainty over 1,000 years. But after it had got rid of Chinese yoke in 10th century, Vietnamese Emperor Le Dai Hanh relentlessly expanded southward, conquering Champa Kingdom through military power and smooth political marriage. By 14th century, Vietnam completely took over Champa when a Vietnamese Princess Huyen Tran was married to Cham King to cement its conquest.
After a successful conquest over Champa, the Vietnamese dynasty eyed on Kampuchea Krom. Unlike Champa, the Nguyen Lord did not attack Kampuchea Krom by forces but through political marriage with Khmer King Chey Chettha II who had escaped Phnom Penh from Thai invasion, requesting Vietnamese Emperor to restore his throne. Then King Chey Chetta II was married to a Vietnamese Princess Nguyen Thi Ngoc Van in 1618. In return, Chey Chettha granted settlement rights and land lease to Vietnamese settlers in Prey Nokor and Mekong Delta area. By 1690, Khmer people in the area found themselves as a minority group when the Vietnamese settlers outnumbered them in their homeland. Then the Vietnamese declared Kampuchea Krom as their land, and they no longer obeyed Khmer laws and paid taxes to Khmer King.
The Vietnamese had used similar strategy practicing by European pilgrims in North America; wherever they had settled, they claimed the lands. Such a strategy was successfully practiced by the Vietnamese settlers on Khmer land since they had outnumbered the local Khmer people in comparison with the European settlers to local American Indians. Yet, a successful conquer of Kampuchea Krom did not satisfy Vietnam's ambition; a proper Cambodia again fell into Hanoi's final target to create a future greater Vietnam. Using Kampuchea Krom as its spring board, Vietnam went to war directly with Thailand at least three times--1811-12, 1831-34, and 1841-44 to protect its puppet rulers-- King Ang Chan II and his successor Queen Mei. Thai and Vietnamese expeditionary forces occasionally engaged in battles around Oudong and Phnom Penh. All Khmer Kings were crowned according to the wishes of the two rival neighbors; without support from either side, Khmer kings had no chance to stay on their throne.
King Ang Duong, (reigned 1841-1860)-- a poet, classical writer, and a wise king after Angkor Era-- saw his kingdom was being torn apart by the two enemies. Though he was groomed and crowned by Thai, he chose not to fallow Thai patronage. He quietly seek outside powers to help his beloved nation from being a prey of Thai and Vietnamese. His action had paved the way for France to establish a French protectorate in 1863, witnessing by his successor King Norodom. Albeit French protectorate made Cambodia officially lost her independence, Cambodian people were able to preserve their identity,culture, traditions, ways of life, and more important than these, an existing of Khmer nation until today; otherwise Vietnam and Thailand would share their common border around Oudong today.
Over 400 years later, Khmer history seems repeat itself. Now the continuous rampant influx of Vietnamese immigrants into Cambodia has echoed King Chey Chettha II Era when he granted land lease to Vietnamese settlers in Kampuchea Krom in exchange with his political marriage with a Vietnamese princess, and later it has become Vietnamese land. Now Hun Sen has been practicing a policy that even much worse than King Chey Chettha II's political marriage since he has opened border to Vietnamese immigrants to settle in Cambodia without condition, and he even has helped to accommodate and protect them while Khmer people are being persecuted and forcibly chased out of their homes and land without mercy. This analogy of Chey Chettha II and Hun Sen has provided Khmer people a clear picture of the Vietnamese's modus operandi in conquering Khmer nation in the past and the present day. If Hun Sen has played King Chey Chettha's role, Sam Rainsey has had to play King Ang Duong or Jayavaraman VII's role in order to save Khmer nation from her demise on time.
11 comments:
Dear Khmer Wathanakam:
Thank you so much for sharing the article about History of Khmer (Kampuchea or Cambodia) a century after century.
It would be nice to translate into Khmer language for Khmer people to read and they will learn the lesson.
Again, thank you for your input.
Khmer Yeurng
Thank Khmer Yeurng for your request, I wish I want to write in Khmer too since I can write much better in Khmer but Khmer language makes me type slower and longer time, and due to time constrains now I can't do both at the same time. I will try to accommodate readers in future in order to reach wider and more people.
Thank for your input and support.
Wow ! Such a history!! Very unfortunate that King of Cambodia did not learn from its past. Sihanook marry to Monique Izzi 1/2 Italian father and vietnamese mother and Hun Sen definitely has a Vietnamese wife. The man can be the head of state but the woman is the neck. This explain the continuous downfall of Cambodia. What is very shameful is that Hun Sen should look in the mirror ... he really doesn't like his more pure Cambodian looks ...since he praises and protects vietnamese and has no mercy for Cambodians. What a shame !! May god protect Sam Rainsy , Kem sokha and all Khmers nationalists. Together we will rescue Cambodia.
You continue to underestimate the enemy, you will continue to lose.
The Ming soldiers refused to surrender to the Qing empire, they headed South, to the Nguyen lord's domain. Vietnam was having a civil war, there was a surplus of women in the Nguyen lord's domain. A lot of Ming soldiers took up these women as wives, then they headed to the Mekong delta area. The Cambodian king allowed these Ming soldiers to stay.
20 years later, their children were half Vietnamese, half Chinese. They wanted to remain independent, but when Cambodia and Siam pressured them, they joined Vietnam for protection.
Thus, we can deduce the Vietnamese folks figured this out many years in advance. They were far more sophisticated than you think. Be as it may, if you continue to portray the wrong history, it shows your ignorant and weak mental capability.
-Drgunzet-
Drgunzet ....how much did Hun Sen or his master pay you to defend him and his new beloved people the Viet that much ? Nobody knows better than you about your low self esteem and that you suffer of weak mentality for defending devils. You always have that idea about belittle others. You must have been bullied badly as a child... I bet. Poor you.... hope god will one day forgive you so that you can differentiate between black and white. You betray yourself for distorting the truth and for supporting evil minded people. Anyway you are who you hanging with. Hope you can understand what I mean.
-Sereysoursdey
Dear Khmer Wathanakam:
Please remove the nonsense comment of -Drgunzet- because it is not good for Khmer readers who might take their energy to be upset or angry. It is not good for our Khmer reader's mind. We are well educated enough to understand that Khmer people have been suffering enough. So, the poster -Drgunzet- is not fair when it comes to his made-up ideas to be flip-flopped and not away to tease the readers or educated the readers online. We need to protect our Khmer readers' mentality and foreigner's confusion when the posters from communist Vietnamese and other groups who protected their own interests posted outrageous made-up and hypocrite articles or comments. We don't want our Khmer readers to feel discouraged and give up hopes. Yes, there are many hopes for Khmer people who have been struggling for more than three decades. There come CNRP led by Mr. Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha and other Khmer heroes.
For Ki-Media, Khmerican, Jenndha, SOV, and other authors, please do the same things. Thank you so much for your loving and caring natures for Khmer/Cambodian people and other ethnicity in Cambodian.
Thank you,
Khmer Yeurng.
Why you guy load your mind with garbage drgunzet he pointed out in very intellectual civilized ways what wrong with you. In fact you should know being manipulate and exaggerate your own people is an evil act and it conected to evil soul wasn't it true.? .Stop your destructive mind set and try to enlightened others and yourself ad well. Mike
Here you go ...Mike another type of Drgunzet and a big supporter of Hun Sen. The CPP supporter like you worship the ideology of gaining power and wealth by sucking others blood . Communist Vietnam has played a very dirty political game since the downfall of Angkor until now. Goodness you don't even know the different between evil act and angel act. Just look at the recent current event, who sent the police and thugs to killed innocent and poor garment workers? Which party always ready to rescue those who are most in need? Not sure if you can figure this out. However the general population can see clearly who's angel and who's devil from their everyday life experience. Unless you are blind or deaf, well recently there are over 1 millions people demonstrating on the street peacefully and asked loudly for Hun Sen to step down. But the devil has enjoyed for too long power and wealth and refuse to step down and of course along with his supporters just like you, the devil team, are planning to come up with a very evil act. We all will die one day, my recommendation is for you and Drgunget to start collecting some good deed... because the bad karma will go after you generation after generation in some ways or another. What goes around comes around. You will pay for you own action.
-Sereysoursdey
that is the problem when people inbreed .. their children become stupid just like the royal family... khmer immigration and law should require all foreigners to speak khmer and learn and assimilate into khmer culture ... also that is the best way to get new and better genes [ DNA ]for intelligence and better health... each american has more than one ''blood '' mixed in their DNA.. a bit of native indian, a bit of black and from different european ethnic all mixed into their genes..lately they start to ''add'' some asian blood into their children as well...
Yes, the above post is good.
In Japan, the Anhui people were pressed on by the Japanese. They survived by intermarrying with the Japanese, eventually the conflict stopped.
While there are only 20-30,000 pure Anhui people left, but there area lot of mixed Anhui and Japanese on Hokaido island, the home land of the Anhui.
I read thousand and thousand of books, and I do know a lot.
You folks need to stop being angry like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hPxGmTGarM
Try to be more compassionate like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpH6NBgqQCk
-Drgunzet-
Can you tell me more about Khmer culter after Angkor era
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