- Vietnamese Imperialism and Colonialism

"The Annamites simply moved in, took possession of the land and remained there. The Siamese claimed the country from a distance and subjected it to intermittent raids, carrying off properties and inhabitants."

Lawrence Palmer Briggs; "A Sketch of Cambodian History;" (The Far Eastern quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4, August 1947)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Introduction:

To most casual observers the evil ideology of imperialism-colonialism was only practiced by Europeans. However, in reality, imperialsm was a world-wide phenomenon. Imperialism is color-blind. Japan was an imperialist power as China (under the Yuan dynasty), England, France, Holland, Portugal, Russia, the former Soviet Union and Spain were. But, for whatever reason, most scholars speicialized in Asian affairs tend to ignore or play down the role of smaller countries as imperial powers, such as Thailand, Vietnam in Asia.

Let us start by trying to define what imperialism is. According to Ikenberry:

"The term "empire" refers to the political control by a dominant country of the domestic and foreign policies of weaker countries. The European colonial empires of the late nineteenth century were the most direct, formal kind. The Soviet "sphere of influence" in Eastern Europe entailed an equally coercive but less direct form of control. The British Empire included both direct colonial rule and "informal empire." If empire is defined loosely, as a hierarchical system of political relationships in which the most powerful state exercises decisive influence, then the United States today indeed qualifies." (John Ikenberry, Illusions of Empire: Defining the New American Order; Foreign Afairs, March-April, 2004)

This page is an attempt to correct this historical omission and injustice in the analysis of Vietnamese imperialism - colonialism and to show how Vietnamese imperialism-colonialism is threatening the very existence of Cambodia and Laos as a nation and as a distinct cultural group. This anlysis is based on the writings of some selected Asian and Western as well as Asian scholars.

Vietnam did not become an independent country until the 10th century. Before that time, Vietnam or Dai Viet was a province of China. With a very prolific people with little land, since 938 A.D., Vietnam has been pushing its border Southward under the name of "Nam Tien" in order to find space to feed its fast growing people. Thailand was also imperialistic. But, unlike Vietnam (see Bernard Fall's article below entitled "Vietnam Imperial March and Nationalism" and also "The Imperial March of Vietnam or Nam Tien as Perceived and Explained by a Vietnamese Scholar,").

Thailand had more land compared to the size of its population. Therefore, Thailand or Siam needed people to populate its empty land. This makes these two regional colonialist powers very different as far as their impact on Cambodia is concerned. Vietnam had to commit some form of genocide or ethnicide in order to get hold of the land that belonged to Champa and Cambodia. as Bernard Fall had written that;

"But the Vietnamese yoke on Cambodia was to take a shape far more direct than the highly theoretical suzerainty China still exercised over Viet-Nam. The declining Khmer state was split into three Vietnamese "residences" under the control of a Vietnamese Chief Resident at the Cambodian court at Oudong. The Vietnamese began an acculturation process that, as in the neighboring provinces and in the case of the Chams, amounted to veritable genocide: destruction of the Buddhist temples and shrines, compulsory wearing of Vietnamese clothing and hairdress, Vietnamization of city and provincial names, and, finally, abolition of the royal title of the Cambodian sovereigns. By the early nineteenth century, the queen, Ang Mey (1834-41), held a virtual prisoner in her palace, was officially referred to as merely 'chief of the territory of My-Lam.'3"

While Thailand took prisoners from Cambodia as slaves to populate and till the empty land but did not occupy the Khmer land.

The first victim of Vietnam's imperial March was Champa, an old indianized kingdom located in the present day central Vietnam. It was a seafarer country. Like most indianized countries, its borders were not well defined. The border concept was based on personal loyalty than on any physical markers.

In the Indianized countries, the borders were more like a no-mansland than a precise physical demarcation, Whereas in the case of the sinicized countries such as China and Vietnam as well as in the Western countries, the border concept is very precise and marked by clear and visible physical markers. This imprecise concept of borders in Cambodia can explain why the border disputes between Vietnam and Cambodia is still going on, today. The difference between the two concepts of borders can also help to understand why the French has sided with Vietnam in the border dispute between Cambodia and Vietnam during their colonial tenure in Indochina (information on this subject please see P B Lafont editor; Les Frontiere du Vietnam, Editions L'hermattan, Paris, France 1989). Perhaps, more deadly for Cambodia in the future, is the fact that Vietnam still considers its borders with Cambodia is a movable one, and only valid from Vietnam legal system, and not from the Cambodia's legal framework. In order words, Vietnam will continue to change its borders at its will and at the expenses of Cambodia's national integrity and sovereignty (as well as Laos's).

Champa disappeared from the face of the earth in less than four centuries and is now totally absorbed by Vietnam. The only remaining group of Chams is to be found nowadays in Cambodia, not in Vietnam.

The next victim of Vietnam colonialism was Cambodia. Starting in the 17th century (when a Khmer king married a Vietnamese princess) and by the middle of the nineteenth century, Cambodia came under Vietnam's control, jointly with Thailand. Only when French colonialism arrived in Cambodia did it regain its partial identity, at least within the French colonial empire. However, Vietnam imperialism did not stop under French colonialism. Using their special connection with the French (Vietnamese are used by the French as their second rank administrators in Cambodia and Laos) through the Catholic Church or through the French colonial administration, the Vietnamese were able to continue to expand their occupation of Cambodia throughout the whole period of French colonization.

This creeping conquest is known as "the leopard's skin strategy," (Please, see an article entitled Sam Rainsy Lawmaker Asks for Vietnamese Associations to Be Removed from 19 Provinces and Towns, posted below) which consisted of allowing a small group of Vietnamese colonizers to occupy a stretch of territory in the middle of the Khmer land and later on this core group of Vietnamese settlers would expand their control to the whole region by bringing new settlers who were either former prisoners or former soldiers. This creeping method of silent invasion is still going on with the approval of Hun Sen and his CPP through several unequal treaties with Vietnam(1979, 1982, 1983, 1985 1991). The recent occupaion of Cambodia which lasted from 1978 until 1989, is a testimony to that continued effort by vietnam to conquer Cambodia. It was not for the sake of "saving" Cambodia that Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978, but to bring the recalcitrant Khmer Rouge into their firm control as the following excerpt has showed:

"Relations between Khmer and Vietnamese communists have passed through some major periods of development. In the first period, which can be determined to span from 1930 to 1954, a small Khmer section of the Indochina Communist Party (ICP), was under full ideological and organizational control of the Vietnamese communists. During the years of struggle for liberation from the governance of France (1946-1954), the strength of this section grew continuously due to ICP recruitment of the most radical participants in the anti-colonial struggle. The Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP) was founded in June 1951 on this basis. The leaders of this party, Son Ngoc Minh, Sieu Heng, and Tou Samut, acted hand in hand in the anti-colonial war with the Vietnamese and were truly valid allies and strict executors of all the plans drafted by the ICP. " ........ and

"The “cat and mouse” game between Pol Pot and Hanoi ended after the Vietnamese Deputy minister of Foreign Affairs Hoang Van Loi’s confidential visit to Phnom Penh in February 1977. Pol Pot declined his proposal of a summit of Vietnamese and Cambodian leaders (Chanda, Brother Enemy, New York, 1986, p. 186). After the obvious failure of this visit, Hanoi, apparently, was finally SRV, Hoang Bich Son, on December 31, 1977, the Vietnamese representative said that “during the war with the United States, Nuon Chea’s attitude towards Vietnam was positive and now in his personal contacts with Vietnamese leaders he is to a certain extent sympathetic to Vietnam, but the current situation in Kampuchea makes such people unable to do anything” (RSAMH, Fund 5, inventory 75, file 1061. Record of the conversation of the Soviet ambassador with the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs of the SRV, Hoang Bich Son. December 31, 1977. p. 10). "convinced that it was impossible to come to terms with the Cambodian leadership. Gone were the hopes that Nuon Chea could change the situation for the benefit of Vietnam. At least during the Soviet ambassador’s meeting with the deputy minister of Foreign affairs of the SRV, Hoang Bich Son. December 31, 1977. p. 10). (Dmitry Mosyakov; The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A history of their relations as told in the Soviet archives, and from Chang Pao Min, Kampuchea and Sino-Vietnamese Relations From: Kampuchea Between China and Vietnam. Singapore University Press, Singapore, 1985, posted below)

Posted below, are some selected articles showing how Vietnamese imperialism is working against Cambodia. However, It should be added that it is not entirely Vietnam's doing. It is also Cambodia's faults. Vietnam colonialism against Cambodia can only be reversed when the Cambodian leaders stopped appealing to Vietnam for help whenever there is a dispute between them, as so often happened throughout the Cambodian history, especially during the "Dark Age" period after the fall of Angkor until the French colonial intervention in 1886, and again during the Khmer Rouge regime, and more recently under Hun Sen and the CPP 's control. These requests for support from Vietnam only give the latter country a pretext to come and "save" Cambodia with all the ensuing disaster in terms of loss of Cambodian sovereignty and territories. As Bernard Fall had again noted that:

"Vietnamese intervention in Cambodian affairs had begun in 1623 when Chey Chettha II, a king of Cambodia who had married a Vietnamese princess, attempted to shake Siam's overlordship with the help of the Nguyen. In exchange for that help, the Hue govern-ment requested Cambodia's authorization to send settlers to Prey Kor, and a Vietnamese general was sent with a security detachment to protect the new settlers. In 1658, a Vietnamese expeditionary force again had to intervene in the endless internecine struggles of the various pretenders to the Cambodian throne, and in 1660, Cambodia began to pay a regular tribute to the Vietnamese court."

Today, only Vietnam is still pursuing this colonialist policy and practice. Vietnam's claim to have their 'manifest destiny' right to colonize Cambodia and Laos was clearly stated in an excerpt from a Congressional Quarterly Report as follows:

"Finally, there are historic factors that buttress the argument that Vietnam has no interest in expanding its influence beyond Laos and Cambodia. Vietnam's domination of Cambodia and Laos, Allan Goodman said, "is much more consistent historically with what the Vietnamese have seen as their patrimony and their sphere of influence, and is not an 'opening wedge' in an effort to export their revolution throughout Southeast Asia. They own Indochina and they want to make sure they do." (Cambodia: A Country in Turmoil, by Marc Leepson, (Editorial Research Reports; Congressional Quarterly, Inc., Washington D.C. April 1985)

Vietnam still carries out genocide against the Cambodian ethnic minority in Southern part of Vietnam known as "Khmer Krom." (see an article pasted below entitled 'Vietnamese Genocide against Khmer Krom, Wikipedia Encyclopedia, 2005). While Thailand - being more open society and democratic - does no longer interfere with Cambodia's internal affairs. Of course, Thailand could not be expected to remain totally respectful of Cambodia's sovereignty when Vietnam is expanding its control into Cambodia. Sooner or later, Thailand will have to intervene in Cambodia in order to safeguard its borders and national interests.

Cambodians must be aware that - under the era of globalization, - nationalism carries a stigma comparable to racism, at least to narrow-mindedness. The majority of Cambodians being so emotional about the Vietnamese continued aggression against their homeland make things worse by often advocating violent means to get rid of the Vietnamese settlers in Cambodia, even though this is clearly a loosing proposition.

Those who advocated violent means for liberating Cambodia should know that it cannot work because in the era of globalization where the notion of nation-state, thus the concept of nationalism is seriously weakened. In addition, because presently, there is no capable and honest leadership among Cambodian intelligentsia who would be able to lead this demanding task of liberating the country as it was tragically weakened by mass killings during the Khmer Rouge regime, and by constant and severe oppression of all who favor a more democratic and open society under Hun Sen's dictatorship, and during Sihanouk's egomaniac and autocratic regime, against a militarily powerful and united Vietnam. It can only backfire against Cambodia, as the international community may interprete this violent act as being very narrow-minded, or much worst as racist.

If Cambodians were to have any chance at all to survive the Vietnamese unrelenting onslaught, they must never resort to use violent means to liberate themselves. They must follow the non-violent road that other great leaders had taken in liberating their respective countries (India, South Africa, and Czechoslovakia). These men include Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Vaslav Havel to name only a few. Because of the bad image of Cambodians in the world given by the violent attacks against the Vietnamese during the Lon Nol and Khmer Rouge regimes, the Cambodian people has no choice but to use only non-violent means such as civil disobedience as a means to protest and fight against Hun Sen's oppression and dictatorship under Vietnam's supervision.

However, they must avoid, at all costs, the expedient means such as the one used by Sam Rainsy to incite the people to riot. This is a very delicate and difficult road to follow and to implement in order to achieve freedom. Those Cambodians who chose non-violence as a means to free themselves from tyranny should also remind themselves that Non Violence is not equivalent to Inaction. Fro instance, civil disobedience is one action that is compatible with non-violence. But, non-violence is the only one strategy left for the Cambodian people to regain their freedom and dignity as a society and as a free and as a democratic nation. (for more information on the non-violent means used by other people to liberate themselves from oppression and dictatorship, see Gene Sharp; From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation; The Albert Einstein Institution, Boston, Mass; 2003; web site: www.aeinstein.org )

Washngton,DC. August 16, 2005

Naranhkiri Tith, Ph.D.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Hun Sen defends new border deal

(Editor: the border markers are useless if The CPP dominated government not only does not defend the borders, but by the 1985 treaty with Vietnam Hun Sen and the CPP practically open the border for Vietnamese to immigrate to Cambodia. That why there are now 19 Vietnamese Associations in 19 provinces of Cambodia. While until today the millions of Khmer Kroms are not even recognized as a minority in Vietnam by the Government of Vietnam)

By Vong Sokheng

Prime Minister Hun Sen has warned that anyone accusing him of ceding land to the Vietnamese during coming border talks would be jailed and fined.

"If there were any number of people who believed [that the government had sold land to Vietnam], there would be chaos or armed force against the government," Hun Sen said during an October 6 graduation ceremony at the University of Pedagogy.

"I will follow up to sue them in a French court and put them in jail and get compensation," he said.

Hun Sen said he will leave for Vietnam on October 10 to meet the Vietnamese prime minister and jointly sign six points of the total seven points on border issues that have been negotiated.

He said that once the border agreement with Vietnam was signed, Cambodian people along the border will no longer have to ask permission from Vietnam to fish or travel by boat in waters along the border.

Hun Sen said that in the past, where a river or canal had separated Cambodia and Vietnam, the waterway had been treated as being entirely in Vietnamese territory, with the line of demarcation along the Cambodian shore.

Now Vietnam had agreed that the border would run along the midline of the river or canal, or the line where the water was deepest.

Hun Sen said he would continue to work towards a similar agreement with Laos, but negotiations on border issues take more than a few days.

Hun Sen dismissed voices in Phnom Penh who suggested that territory had been ceded to Vietnam.

"If border territory were sold to Vietnam the reaction would came from the people living along the border, not people in Phnom Penh," he said.

Opposition parliamentarians issued a statement on October 5 saying the planned signing of the Supplementary Convention on the 1985 Treaty on Boundary Delimitation between the People's Republic of Kampuchea and Socialist Republic of Vietnam will be unconstitutional.

"The Convention is to be signed by the head of a governmental authority in violation of Article 26 of the 1993 Constitution which stipulates that only the King/Head of State can sign an international treaty," opposition lawmakers wrote in statement.

Phnom Penh Post, Issue 14/20, October 7 - 20, 2005

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Letter to the editor of Cambodia Daily 2005

By ambassador Bindra, former Head of the International Control Commission, 1954 Geneva Accords

Letter to the editor of Cambodian Daily 2005

By Ambassador Bindra, International Control Commission, Geneva Accords 1954

Letter to the editor of Cambodia Daily, 2005

by Ambassador Bindra of the ICC on Vietnamization of Cambodia

______________________________________________________

Long term Vietnamization of Cambodia: The endoctrination of a new generation of Pen Sovan for the control of Cambodia

Army best friends with China and Vietnam

By Sam Rith and Liam Cochrane

China is the biggest source of military aid to Cambodia, contributing more than $5 million a year, although Vietnam helps train more Cambodian soldiers, senior defense officials said.

Tea Banh, Co-minister of the Ministry of Defense and a deputy prime minister, said China gives the most military assistance but the exact amount depends on the demands of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) each year.

"China sometimes helps Cambodia with more than $5 million a year," Banh said.

A senior official at the Ministry of Defense, who asked not to be named because of the current political climate, said China started helping the RCAF in 1999.

"At that time, Cambodia had completely finished with the war, had stable armed forces and peace - that was a good chance for China to start planning projects to help the RCAF," the official said.

Over the past three years, China had spent approximately 40 million yuan (or about $5 million) a year, the official said.

Projects have included building the High Command Headquarters on National Highway 4, developing the Combined Arms Officer School Thlok Tasek near the town of Pich Nil in Kampong Speu province and constructing a five-story building at Preah Ket Melea military hospital, which was recently completed.

China sponsors an average of 40 Cambodian soldiers every year to study military strategy in China, and this year supplied parachutes to Cambodian paratroopers.

Despite the generous military aid, the official said there were no strings attached.

"So far I have not seen that China needs anything from our country," the official said. "It is a fantasy that [if] China helps Cambodia, China must want something from Cambodia."

Despite repeated requests to the Chinese embassy over the past month, Chinese officials declined to comment on this story.

For defense experts posted to foreign embassies in Phnom Penh, China's role in developing Cambodia's military comes as no surprise.

"I think the Chinese have the same kind of influence in the military as in [Cambodia's] economy and elsewhere," said Colonel Patrick Chanoine, the French embassy defense attaché.

Vietnam is the second biggest benefactor to the RCAF, according to the Ministry of Defense official and embassy sources.

Nguyen Van Mai, deputy defense attaché at the Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh, said that since 2003, Vietnam has helped train at least 200 RCAF soldiers a year in Vietnam.

"We help [the RCAF] only on training ... and we help depending on Cambodia's demands," Van Mai said. "On average, we spend about $300 on the accommodation, food and stipends for each Cambodian soldier training in Vietnam."

Tea Banh said: "Now, Vietnam takes up to 500 Cambodian soldiers a year to study in Vietnam," but added that this figure included those studying long term in Vietnam, some up to six years.

The past decade has seen a shift in the provision of military aid to the RCAF. Prior to the coup in July 1997, the United States had been the biggest supplier of military aid to Cambodia, the official said, but defense assistance has been prohibited by the US since then.

On August 2, the White House announced it would overturn its ban on military aid to Cambodia, in return for Cambodia signing the so-called "Article 98" agreement not to send US citizens in Cambodia to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Since then, however, embassy officials in Phnom Penh have stressed that the move does not assure Cambodia of actually receiving defense assistance.

Nowadays, two of Cambodia's other major military donors are Australia and France.

Australia spends approximately $750,000 a year developing the English language skills of RCAF troops, training mid-to-high-ranking officers and assisting with the maintenance, curriculum and uniforms for officers at the Pich Nil officer school, according to embassy sources. They are looking for cooperation projects between the two navies.

France focuses much of its military aid on the 7,800-strong gendarmerie, or military police, said Chanoine, who declined to quantify the amount of money spent on defense cooperation.

However, their military presence in Cambodia represents the largest commitment of French military aid in Asia, Chanoine said.

Around 40 RCAF soldiers travel to France each year for training.

Japan, the biggest donor of aid to civilian development projects, provides scholarships to three Cambodian soldiers to study engineering and officer training in Japan each year, said the Ministry of Defense official.

The future of military cooperation and reform of the RCAF will be outlined in a five-year strategic "white paper," which is being fine-tuned by a committee and is expected to be released in early 2006, after it is approved by the National Assembly.

Phnom Penh Post, Issue 14/21, October 21 - November 3, 2005

For permission to publish any part of this publication, contact Michael Hayes, Editor-in-Chief

_____________________________________________________________

Thanks to Hun Sen and Sihanouk's deadly Alliance, the Vietnamese Leopard's Skin Strategy is very much Alive, Today in Cambodia
Sam Rainsy Lawmaker Asks for Vietnamese Associations to Be Removed from 19 Provinces and Towns

A lawmaker from the Sam Rainsy Party has submitted a proposal asking the Co-Minister of the Interior to remove the authorization for Vietnamese Associations in 19 towns and provinces. The proposal said that after the Ministry of the Interior made an irresponsible

decision to allow illegal Vietnamese immigrants to set up the association and its branches in 19 provinces and towns, the number of illegal Vietnamese immigrants has doubled in the last 10 months, as could be seen in areas where Vietnamese live – Chhnok Tru in Kompong Chhnang, Chong Khnies in Siem Reap, and Svay Pak or Chbar Ampov district in Phnom Penh.

The proposal continued that the huge influx of illegal Vietnamese within a short period, their illegal settlement along rivers and in populated areas without respect for respectable Khmer society, and their arrogant destruction of natural resources such as fish cause damage to the Khmer social order and tradition. In fact, they have worked as prostitutes, whom authorities have arrested for trafficking young girls. Moreover, they compete with Khmers for work. They inflame the anger of Cambodians, which leads to prejudice because Cambodia has always had a bitter history with Vietnam.

The decision of the Ministry of the Interior is contrary to the world view that is now calling for eliminating all kinds of prejudice and discrimination.

The proposal also raised the association’s bylaws, which specify in their chapter 3, ‘The main purpose of the Vietnamese Association is to educate Vietnamese brothers and sisters living throughout Cambodia in respect for Cambodian law and tradition ... to enhance the good relationship between Cambodians and Vietnamese ... to promote the living standards of poor people and so on.’ However, Cambodians never see the association doing anything to comply with that bylaw. Furthermore, their chapter 4 says that both sexes aged 18 or over have the right to ask for membership in the association; they must be of Vietnamese origin and have relatives living legally in Cambodia. This chapter has enabled illegal Vietnamese to enter Cambodia as much as they wish because we do not know what relationship they are, or who certifies such a relationship. In addition, the so-called legal Vietnamese immigrants who are currently living in Cambodia, are not yet taken into account. Who did they get permission from to live in Cambodia?

Despite the many Khmers living in Kampuchea Krom, the Vietnamese authorities have never allowed them to form an association or to bring Buddhist books from Cambodia for the pagodas there.

Observers do not expect that the proposal by the opposition lawmaker will receive a positive reply.

The Mirror of Cambodian Society (Koh Santepheap, Vol.37, #5202, 18.8.2004)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cambodia Government Says It Will Sign Border Agreement with Vietnam

Ratana Seng

Phnom Penh

26/09/2005

Seng Ratana report (788 KB)

Listen Seng Ratana report (788 KB)

The Cambodian government says it is committed to sign the additional agreement to the 1985 Cambodia-Vietnam border treaty although there's strong protest from civil societies and the opposition party.

Government Border Committee president Var Kim Hong said Prime Minister Hun Sen will lead a delegation to Vietnam from October 10-12 to sign the additional agreement.

The Cambodian Watchdog Council and the opposition party condemned the additional agreement saying Cambodia would not benefit from it.

Var Kim Hong said he disagreed and said the government would be paralyzed if it listens to the NGOs too much. The border committee president said if US president Bush listens to the NGOs then Cambodia will consider listening to them too.

Vice president of the Supreme Council on Border Issues Princess Norodom Vichara said the government should discuss the additional agreement with the council first before signing it with Vietnam ___________________________________________________________________________________

Border Treaty with Vietnam

Sakada Chun

Phnom Penh

26/09/2005

Chun Sakada report (885 KB)

Listen Chun Sakada report (885 KB)

Cambodia's Border Committee based in Paris France urges the government to cancel the additional agreement to the 1985 Cambodia-Vietnam border treaty.

Sean Pengse

In a letter to National Assembly President Norodom Ranariddh dated September 25, President of the Border's Committee Sean Pengse said the 1985 treaty was an illegal one because it was signed during the time when Cambodia was under Vietnam's occupation.

President of the Khmer Border Protection Chuap Kampuchea said Cambodia will lose its territory to Vietnam under the additional agreement.

Border activists plan to carry out a peaceful protest in front of the National Assembly building against the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister when he visits Cambodia tomorrow (Tuesday) even though the Phnom Penh City Hall has denied them permission.

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the border activists should write a letter to the National Assembly pinpointing where Cambodia would lose its territory so that the national assembly can be prepared to tell the government before approving the additional agreement.

The government spokesman admitted the 1985 Cambodia-Vietnam border treaty is not a fair one for Cambodia because Vietnam occupied Cambodia at the time. However he said it's up to the National Assembly to approve the continuation of that treaty.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said this additional agreement will not result in the loss of Cambodian territory but will give Cambodia a clear border demarcation with Vietnam.

National Assembly President Norodom Ranariddh has not yet responded to Sean Pengse's letter.

Opposition party and NGOs are against the signing of the additional agreement saying the 1985 border treaty with Vietnam is illegal under the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Vietnam, Cambodia mull border issue

(26-09-2005)

HA NOI — Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan affirmed Viet Nam’s commitment to solving border issues through dialogue while receiving Cambodian Senior Minister in charge of Border Affairs Var Kim Hong in Ha Noi on September 24.

Var Kim Hong and his entourage from the Cambodian Royal Government’s Border Committee are on a working visit to Viet Nam.

Vietnamese and Cambodian leaders place great importance to the signing of a supplementary agreement on the 1985 land border treaty in order to build the common borderline into a friendly area as soon as possible," Deputy PM Khoan said after praising the Viet Nam-Cambodia Joint Border Committee for its recent hard work.

"Viet Nam’s policy is to try its best to solve definitively the border issuse through dialogue with Cambodia", he said.

The Vietnamese leader emphasised the importance of demarcating and planting landmarks on the borderline, adding that "close cooperation between the two border committees in particular and between the two countries in general is needed to execute this task."

He spoke of the huge human and financial resources needed in planting landmarks on the common borderline and expressed his hope that the two countries would formulate a detailed roadmap and a cooperation mechanism for the task.

The Cambodian senior minister thanked his host for his warm reception, which he said reflected the Vietnamese leaders’ concern over the border issues. He said Cambodia wanted to work closely with Viet Nam to set up landmarks along the border as soon as possible. Var Kim Hong added that the border demarcation and the setting up of landmarks were historical events.

"Joint efforts are needed for the sake of peace and stability in the border areas. To have a definitive borderline is the highest desire of the leaders, and the common aspiration of the peoples of the two countries," he said. — VNS

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Vietnamese Genocide Against Khmer Krom

Note: Khmer Krom territory Khmer Krom (Khmer: ; Vietnamese: Khơ-me Crôm or Khơ-me dưới), which literally means "Khmer from below" ("below" referring to the lower areas of the Mekong delta), is the ethnic Khmer minority living in southern Vietnam, especially in the delta of the Mekong River. See Kampuchea Krom map pasted below.

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2005 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Krom)

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Adopted by the U.N. General Assembly

(9 December 1948)

Article I. The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

Article II. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a) Killing members of the group;

b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III. The following acts shall be punishable:

a) Genocide;

b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;

c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;

d) Attempt to commit genocide;

e) Complicity in genocide.

Article IV. Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.

Article V. The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or of any of the other acts enumerated in Article III.

Article VI. Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.

Article VII. Genocide and the other acts enumerated in Article III shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition. The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force.

Article VIII. Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article III.

Article IX. Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfillment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in Article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.

Khmer Krom, who are ethnically the same as the Khmer people of Cambodia, are the original native inhabitants of southern Vietnam. Starting in the 17th century, the colonization of the area by Vietnamese settlers coming from northern Vietnam has turned the native Khmer Krom into a minority in their native homeland.

Some estimates (denied by the Vietnamese government) put the Khmer Krom living inside Vietnam at 7 million people (almost half as numerous as the Khmer living in Cambodia), which would mean the Khmer Krom are 27% of the approximately 26 million people living in the delta of the Mekong and in the region of Ho Chi Minh City. What's more, Khmer Krom are essentially rural, and do not live in cities. Thus, if cities are discounted, Khmer Krom are still in the majority in several rural parts of southern Vietnam. On the other hand, according to Vietnamese government figures (1999 census), Khmer Krom are only 1,055,174 people. South Vietnamese population surveys released before 1975 present a different picture, however, prompting claims that the 1,055,174 figure is a gross underestimate. The 7 million figure is more in tune with the pre-1975 population surveys.

The Khmer Krom have been a contentious issue between Vietnam and Cambodia ever since the colonization of the Mekong delta by the Vietnamese starting in the 17th century. After the French conquest in 1859, the French colonial administration confirmed the separation of the Mekong delta from the rest of Cambodia, administering it as the separate colony of Cochinchina, despite the fact that the Khmer Krom were still largely the majority in the area at the time. When independence was granted to French Indochina in 1954, the delta of the Mekong was given to the state of South Vietnam, despite protests from Cambodia. In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge regime attacked Vietnam in an attempt to reconquer those areas of the delta still predominantly inhabited by Khmer Krom people, but, faced by Viet Cong long accustomed to war, this military adventure was a total disaster and precipitated the downfall of the Khmer Rouge, with Vietnam occupying Cambodia.

Many independent NGOs have reported violations of Khmer Krom's human rights by the Vietnamese government. Khmer Krom are reportedly forced to Vietnamize and adopt Vietnamese family names and Vietnamese language. Education of Khmer Krom is neglected and they face many hardships in their everyday life, such as difficulty to access Vietnamese health services (recent epidemics of blindness affecting children have been reported in the predominantly Khmer Krom areas of the Mekong delta), difficulty to practice their own religion (Khmer Krom are Theravada Buddhists, like Cambodian and Thai people, but unlike Vietnamese who are Mahayana Buddhists or Catholics), difficulty to find jobs outside of the fields, racism, and so on. Khmer Krom are the poorest segment of population of southern Vietnam.

Contrary to other national minorities, the Khmer Krom are largely unknown in the western world, despite efforts by exiled Khmer Krom associations such as the Khmers Kampuchea Krom Federation to publicize their issues with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, and until now no western government has raised the matter of Khmer Krom's human rights with the Vietnamese government.

added permission given by http://www.baden-http://www.geocities.com/khmerkrom2000/HISTORY.html for Free License

Vietnam occupation of Cambodia

Vietnam's imperialism in up to 1840

From the "Horse's Mouth"
The Imperial March of Vietnam or Nam Tien (as Perceived and Explained by a Vietnamese Scholar)

"Beyond the gate of Annam, the border had been shifting, moving in the southern direction along with the expansion of Vietnamese territory at the expenses of the ancient kingdoms of Champa and Chenla. But we should talk less of the notion of border and more of border movement recognized by slow sliding movement toward the south, so much so that this phenomenon called "Nam Tien" (Progression toward the south) which had been taking place during a period of several centuries, has been considered as one of the constants in the Vietnamese history.

The expansion has taken this determined direction, because in the North and in the west there are insurmountable natural and political obstacles, whereas the south provided plentiful of sparely populated and welcoming low land available to the rice farmers. The conditions were ripe for the penetration for the Vietnamese monarchy to abandon its policy of "Confucian persuasion" based only on the prestige of the "royal virtue" and to replace it by an act purely imperialistic, by imposing its administrative and cultural framework to the regions newly acquired, in order to better integrate them in the Vietnamese space."

(Please, also see map of "Nam Tien", just below this excerpt)

Source: Nguyen The Anh; Le Nam tien dans les textes Vietnamiens; in P.B. Lafont; Les frontieres du Vietnam; Edition l’Harmattan, Paris 1989

Sihanouk and N. Vietnam Prime Minist Phan Van Dong

Indochina friendship conference in China, early 1970s

Vietnamization of Cambodia: Culture at risk:

For ten years, the Vietnamese tried to apply to Cambodia a policy of ethnicide - the destruction of a culture within those who carry it - insidiously carried out, particularly in the beginning, in the educational domain; the main features are summarized below:

In the administration centers of communes and districts, and in the towns, the curriculum was based on that of Vietnam, even school names come from Vietnamese

The first edition of books were printed in Ho Chi Minh City at Cambodia’s expense, even though Cambodia had three printing houses in working condition
As evidence of the fraternal bounds uniting the three countries in, the cover of a history book showed a map of unified ‘Indochina’ - entirely red.
Teaching of geography focused on the communist in the Indochinese peninsular and, as Hanoi clarified elsewhere, excluded Thailand
Parents reluctantly permitted their children to take the required courses in Vietnamese the language
Khmer officials in charge of arts could decide nothing without the approval of the Vietnamese expert, on the pain of loss of their positions. Thus Peou Chanda , who was openly opposed to the wearing of Vietnamese pants by dancers and to the modification of certain movements, lost his position at the school of Fine Arts and the presidency of Phnom Penh revolutionary committee.

_______________________________________________

Legalization of Settlement of Vietnamese civilians

In the same name of pairing of provinces, Vietnam sent teams of specialists particularly in construction. But it was the legalized settlement of Vietnamese civilians that most alarmed Cambodians. In May and autumn 1982 Phnom Penh issued memoranda on the reception of Vietnamese settlers and the facilities to be accorded to them. Some of these texts crossed the borders (see appendix 10); they undercut one journalist’s denial of the plan. There would have been no reason for these measures if the plan had consisted of bringing a number of Vietnamese equal to that of the 1960s - four hundred fifty thousand. Newspapers recorded this demographic colonization.

The problem of the massive implantation of Vietnamese civilians in Cambodia was raised by Thailand at the meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations on 26 October 1983. For his part Willibald Pahr, president of the international conference on Kampuchea, expressed his concern on 7 September 1984, during a stay in Southeast Asia.

The refugees’ protest, beginning in 1984, raised personal, cultural, and national issues. On the one hand, Khmer had to give up sections of their houses or - slightly better - garden and help build houses for the Vietnamese civilians. On the other hand, Cambodian society was still reeling from the shocks of the Khmer Rouge period and could not adequately reconstitute its structure under these conditions. Khmer peasants and lower-class city dwellers no longer felt at home, village, or neighborhood life became impossible when it included enemy colonists who, to make matters worse, had a culture very different from Khmer culture. Cultural conflicts aggravated by political interests broke out between the two communities. Refugees expressed their anguish at Cambodia’s loss of national identity; Vietnamese acquired Khmer nationality with the privileges it conferred, particularly the right to vote. Hanoi’s plan called for several millions settlers, approximately one million of whom seem to have been in place by the close of 1980s. Report of other in markers came from many refugees in Prey Veng and from Takeo, kompong Cham, and Svay Rieng provinces.

These usurpations were confirmed by the signing of treaties. The first dated 12 November 1982, dealt with maritime borders, in the annexed region to which Khmers no longer had access the Vietnamese then drilled for oil. The second in importance, eight pages long, concerned territorial borders and was signed on 27 December 1985 ‘in order officially to demarcate the national border between the SRV and the RKP with the goal of constructing a common border of lasting peace and friendship.’ The border that the same Vietnamese leaders had recognized in 1967 in the name of the DRV and South Vietnam’s NLF, Hanoi now acknowledged, was in its eyes no longer valid.

During the two first year peasants complied with the state’s levies and endured the consequences without flinching. They were sent into unhealthy and mine-infested forests where they had to construct strategic roads; the north-east-south transversal through the cardamons mountain; network in the border regions of the west and north that made possible the seizure of the guerrillas’ sanctuaries early 1985.

______________________________________________

Sihanouk legitimizing Hun Sen:

On 16 November Sihanouk announced an alliance between the CPP and his own party, the FUNCINEC, now under his son Ranariddh’s authority. He declared that Hun Sen’s party’ will win the elections, it’s inevitable, I’ll bet on it.’ He considered himself ‘the state of Cambodia’s guest,’ and declared that ‘I shall not interfere in the internal affairs of the CPP or in the government of the state of Cambodia. I strictly respect [the status quo],’ which amounts to a disclaimer of any responsibility for the machinations of Phnom Penh leaders. This not, however, the view of the population, and at a meeting the next morning, the cheerleader who leads the young people in repeating phrases for the prince’s benefit, was specific ‘Samdech is back, not as a guest, but as president of the CNS. The next few days, while touring villages near Phnom Penh, Sihanouk encouraged peasants to vote for Hun Sen as member of parliament; Hun Sen, for his part, urged people to elect Sihanouk as chief of state of Cambodia. People wondered why they should vote for Hun Sen, of whom they wished to be rid; and why did Sihanouk not remain neutral to act as arbitrator, as had been previously agreed? They are convinced that Ranariddh does not decide anything without the agreement or the pressure from his father, including the alliance with the CCP, which will benefit Phnom Penh and its Vietnamese allies.’

According to a ‘reliable source’ cited by the press, Hanoi sought this alliance. Hun Sen himself had proposed that the CPP back Sihanouk for the presidency, a recommendation already agreed on during the party’s extraordinary congress. And the Khmer Rouge, sensing the danger, supposedly tried to prevent it. The CPP and FUNCINPEC strengthened their ties by signing two treaties, one political (20 November) and the other military (25 November).

Marie A. Martin; Cambodia: A shattered Nation; (University of Californ ia Press, Berkley, 1994)

The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A history of their relations as told in the Soviet archives

Dmitry Mosyakov

To this day, the real history of relations between the Khmer communists and their Vietnamese colleagues is enclosed in a veil of secrecy. Despite extensive research on this theme in Russia and abroad, there are still no reliable answers to many key questions. The history of relations between Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is construed in Vietnam in a way which sometimes has nothing to do with the story told in the West. Statements of some Khmer Rouge leaders like Khieu Samphan or Ieng Sari, who have recently defected to the governmental camp in Phnom Penh and say what people want to hear, are not to be trusted either. All this supports the assumption that analysis of relations between Hanoi and the Khmer Rouge is not only a historical problem. There is still a political component, which encumbers its objective study.

The author endeavours to tackle this problem and to present to the reader an objective and impartial picture of what was happening. *The research is based on a study of the former USSR’s archival materials (diaries of Soviet ambassadors in Vietnam, records of conversations with ranking members of the Vietnamese government, analytical notes, political letters of the Soviet embassy in the SRV, and other documents) deposited in the Russian State Archive of Modern History (RSAMH). Along with other sources, such as the French colonial archives and interviews with Vietnamese and Cambodian participants (see Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power: A History of Communism in Kampuchea, 1930-1975, London, Verso, 1985), this work allows us to give objective and reasonably complete answers to the question at issue.

Relations between Khmer and Vietnamese communists have passed through some major periods of development. In the first period, which can be determined to span from 1930 to 1954, a small Khmer section of the Indochina Communist Party (ICP), was under full ideological and organizational control of the Vietnamese communists. During the years of struggle for liberation from the governance of France (1946-1954), the strength of this section grew continuously due to ICP recruitment of the most radical participants in the anti-colonial struggle. The Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP) was founded in June 1951 on this basis. The leaders of this party, Son Ngoc Minh, Sieu Heng, and Tou Samut, acted hand in hand in the anti-colonial war with the Vietnamese and were truly valid allies and strict executors of all the plans drafted by the ICP.

The 1954 Geneva Agreements on Indochina drastically changed relations between Khmer and Vietnamese communists. The Vietnamese withdrew their forces from Cambodia in accordance with the Agreements, but as distinct from Laos (where the so-called free zone in the region of Sam Neua was controlled by the communists), Hanoi could not ensure the same conditions for their Khmer allies. The Vietnamese, under pressure from the Sihanouk regime and its Western allies, did not even let the Khmer communists participate in the Geneva negotiations, and by the end of 1954 had withdrawn their combat forces from the regions of underground. The consolation offered by Hanoi - granting two thousand of their allies the possibility of taking cover in the territory of North Vietnam (Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy, N.Y., 1986, p. 59) - was obviously disproportionate to their contribution to a joint struggle. Therefore among the Khmer communists remaining in Cambodia the story gained currency that Hanoi had simply betrayed them, used them as hostages for the sake of reaching the agreement with the then leader of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk. The evaluation of the Vietnamese operations of those days as an “unrighteous betrayal of the Cambodian revolution” (W. Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia, N.Y., 1987, p. 238) was later more than once reproduced in official documents of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot himself claimed it many times. Interestingly, Hanoi’s decision was remembered in Phnom Penh even in the eighties, when such a high-ranking official in the Phnom Penh hierarchy as the executive secretary of the pro-Vietnam United Front for National Salvation of Kampuchea, Chan Ven, was of the opinion that in 1953, “the Vietnamese had acted incorrectly by leaving us alone to face with the ruling regime” (conversation with Chan Ven, Phnom Penh, July 15, 1984).

The events in Indochina in 1954 marked the beginning of a new period in relations between the Khmer and Vietnamese communists. The close partnership of 1949-1953 promptly came to naught, and the KPRP, which had lost a considerable number of its members, went underground and fell out of the field of vision of Hanoi for many years. The North Vietnamese leaders who were preparing for a renewal of armed struggle in the South, found in Sihanouk, with his anti-imperialist and anti-American rhetoric, a far more important ally than the KPRP. Moreover, Sihanouk had real power. Hanoi placed its bets on the alliance with Sihanouk, who was not only critical of the United States but also granted North Vietnam the possibility to use his territory for creating rear bases on the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail and even to deliver ammunition and arms for the fighting in the South through the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville. (However, the Khmers retained approximately 10 % of all deliveries - see Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy, N.Y., 1986, pp. 61, 420). The Vietnamese did their best to strengthen this regime, and went out of their way to scrap any plans of the local communists to fight Sihanouk. Hanoi believed that “the armed struggle with the government of Sihanouk slackened it and opened a path to the intrigues of American imperialism against Kampuchea" (On the History of the Vietnamese-Kampuchean Conflict, Hanoi, 1979, p. 9). The Vietnamese even tried not to allow Khmer communists to leave Hanoi for Cambodia to carry out illegal work in their home country, and tried to have them keep different official positions in Vietnam (RSAMH, Fund 5, inventory 50, file 721: Document of the USSR embassy in the DRV, April 1, 1965, p. 142).

As to the communists, operating on the territory of Cambodia, their underground organization had broken up into rather isolated fractions under heavy pressure from the authorities, and its illegal leaders wandered through the country from one secret address to another at the not saved. end of their tether. Authentic documents of this epoch were However, according to the evidence of such an informed person as Tep Khen - a former ambassador of Heng Samrin's regime in Phnom Penh, all documentation of the party fitted into a schoolbag, which general secretary Tou Samut and his two bodyguards carried while travelling through the country. (Conversation with Tep Khen, Moscow, March 10, 1985). The treachery of Sieu Heng - the second most important person in the KPRP - dealt a heavy blow against the underground organization. This party leader, who had been in charge of KPRP work among peasants for several years, secretly cooperated with the special services of the ruling regime and during the period from 1955 to 1959 gave away practically all communist activities in the country to the authorities.

The prevailing obvious chaos inside the party and the absence of serious control from the Vietnamese party presented Saloth Sar (later he took the revolutionary pseudonym Pol Pot) who arrived home from France, and his radical friends who had studied with him there, with huge possibilities for elevation to the highest positions in a semi-destroyed, isolated organization. The treachery of Sieu Heng did not affect them seriously, because they belonged to an urban wing of the party, headed by Tou Samut. The career growth of Pol Pot was vigorous: in 1953 he was secretary of a regional party cell, while in 1959 he made it to the post of the secretary of Phnom Penh city committee of CPRP (Conversation with Chan Ven, Phnom Penh, July 15, 1984).

Then in 1962, the Sihanouk secret police laid its hands on and killed Tou Samut at a secret hide-out in Phnom Penh (four years before - in 1958 - another prominent leader of the KPRP, editor of the party newspaper Nop Bophan had been shot and killed), Pol Pot and his friends got the unique chance to actually head the party or, more precisely, what was left of it. As early as 1960, Pol Pot had managed to assure that his evaluation of the situation in the country and his views on the tactics and strategy of political struggle were accepted as a basis for drafting a new program of the KPRP. It declared as the main cause of the party the realization of a national-democratic revolution, that is to say the struggle for the overthrow of the regime existing in the country, a policy that went counter to the interests of Hanoi. The congress approved a new Charter and formed a new Central Committee, where Pol Pot assumed the responsibilities of deputy chairman of the party.

The prevalence of new personnel was consolidated at the next Party congress, which took place in January 1963. It was also held underground at a secret address and according to veteran communists there were not more than 20 persons at it (conversation with Chan Ven, Phnom Penh, July 14, 1984). During this meeting a new Central Committee, wherein young radicals held one third of all 12 posts, was elected. Pas avant-garde of the Kampuchean people’, Cong Shang, 1983, N11-12. Cited from the Russian translation, "Questions of the history of the CPSU," N10, 1984, p. 68). Unexpectedly for the Vietnamese, Pol Pot then renamed the party: from the People’s Revolutionary Party to the Communist Party of Kampuchea or CPK (conversation with Tep Khen, Moscow, March 10, 1985). Much later, explaining the reason for changing the name, Pol Pot claimed that "The Communist Party of Indochina and consequently its successor the KPRP was in due course created by the Vietnamese to occupy Cambodian and Lao lands" (Provotesat songkhep ol Pot himself took up the post of the general secretary, and Ieng Sari became a member of the permanent bureau (To Kuyen, ‘The CPRP nei pak protiatyun padevoat Kampuchea – ‘A Brief history of the KPRP – The vanguard of the working class and all the people of Kampuchea,’ Phnom Penh, 1984, p. 7).

Vietnamese for a long time calmly watched the changes in Khmer communist underground, practically not interfering into its business, unaware of the fact that with their involuntary help an evil, dictatorial bunch led by Pol Pot and Ieng Sari was emerging. In January 1978, the first deputy chief