Introduction:

To most casual observers, only Europeans are seen as the ones who practiced the evil ideology of imperialism-colonialism. However, in reality, imperialism was a worldwide 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, Spain, andeven the United States (manifest Destiny) were. But, for whatever reason, most scholars specialized in Asian affairs tend to ignore or play down the role of smaller countries as imperial powers, such as Thailand, Vietnam in Asia.

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 analysis is based on the writings of some selected Asian, Western, as well as Eastern European 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 AD, 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, Thailand had more land

(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,")

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

(For more information on this subject please see P B Lafont editor; Les Frontiere du Vietnam, Editions L'hermattan, Paris, France 1989).

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 tiers 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," 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 occupation 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 shown:

"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)

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 stop 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, after the fall of Angkor in 1431" period after the fall of Angkor until the French colonial intervention in 1866, and again during the Khmer Rouge regime, and more recently under Hun Sen and the CPP 's control.

(See Pen Nearovi's article posted below on Khmer Vietminh and Ohter Khmers under Vietnamese control to destroy Cambodia; also see the article posted below written by Trudy Jacobsen entitled "Kampuchea Krom: Facts behind Friction) 

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."

Cambodia's ability to survive also stems from the organization of its society since the Angkor period. Not much has changed since then. This organizational and leadership problems facing Cambodia were well summarized by Bernard Philippe Groslier, a French archeologist when he wrote that:

"In spite of the extraordinary development of the State in Cambodia, she appears never to have formulated any theory of power or public welfare such as was bequeathed to all Europe by Rome and to the Far East by China. In Cambodia there was no society, nothing but an undefined juxtaposition of elementary and undifferentiated cells. There were no classes, none of those intermediate and unstable structures which alone provide any possibility of evolution. There was nothing but a vast anonymous proletariat, with a head which may have been wonderful but was, after all, severed from the body. It was a polypous society , a hive incapable of self-reproduction other than by swarming, doomed inexorably to die, as soon as queen, is destroyed."

(B P Groslier, 'An Uncertain Legacy: The Khmer Paradox"). 

Today, only Vietnam is still pursuing this colonialist policy and practice. 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 sovreignty 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. Because Cambodia does not have, at the moment, any material, organizational means. and especially no capable leaders. 

Those who are advocating violent means for liberating Cambodia should know that it cannot work for another main reason. 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 and continued deceitfulness, against a militarily powerful and united Vietnam.

(For more details on Sihanouk's disastrous influence in Cambodia see an article entetled; Twilight falls on Cambodia's towering 20th century figure, but his legacy - good and bad – endures; posted below).

It can only backfire against Cambodia, as the international community may interpret 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 the use of 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 resulting from 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 with Sihanouk's support to oppress the Cambodian people under Vietnam's supervision. 

For instance, 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 toachieve freedom. But, that is the only one left for the Cambodian people to regain their freedom and dignity as a society and as a free and as a democratic nation.  Also important is the choice of moment to come to help the Cambodian people. That moment will come when starvation and general degradation of living conditions resulting from land grabbing by Hun Sen and his associates would push the mass of poor people to rise up against Hun Sen's greed and deadly oppression. 

(For a description of land grabbing in Cambodia this see an article posted below entitled "After touring the country, UN envoy proclaims evictions a 'national crisis' " the Phnom Penh Post, September, 2005; and for non-violent means to reach democracy see Gene Sharp; "From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation"; The Albert Einstein Institution, Boston, Mass; 2003; web site: www.aeinstein.org)

Washington, DC. August 16, 2005

Naranhkiri Tith, Ph.D.

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Kampuchea Krom: facts behind the friction

By Trudy Jacobsen

Many Cambodians harbor a deepseated cultural aversion towards their neighbors to the east, the Vietnamese. Yuon, a term denoting Vietnamese ethnicity, is one of the most derogatory insults Cambodians can hurl at each other during arguments. Prostitutes are popularly believed to be of Vietnamese descent, as no Cambodian girl - the model of propriety and virtue - would allow herself to be compromised in such a fashion. Past sovereigns of Cambodia supported by the Vietnamese are loathed, whereas those placed on the throne and maintained there by the Thais are lauded.

Explanations for Cambodian ill-will toward the Vietnamese are vague and unsatisfactory, usually referring to a time in the distant past when the Vietnamese are alleged to have killed hundreds of Cambodians in the course of constructing a canal between the two countries, or elucidated in terms of Vietnamese invasions of Cambodian territory and culture over the past 150 years. More recently, politicians have manipulated old concerns in this regard to garner support for their own party platforms. Yet these "justifications", always implied to have been based upon historical facts, appear to be unfounded by the very sources that would reasonably seek to demonstrate their veracity - the Cambodian Chronicles.

Let us first consider the issue of a Vietnamese "invasion" of Cambodia in the 17th century. It is true that Cambodia shrank to one-fifth its original size between the 14th and 19th centuries; but constant skirmishes with the Thais, Chams and multiple Viet dynasties were to blame rather than a wholesale invasion. The loss of Prey Nokor, the Cambodian name for what is now Ho Chi Minh City, and the area [broadly all the territory to its west] known as Kampuchea Krom in southern Vietnam, are particularly lamented. However, far from documenting any invasion, the Cambodian Chronicles reveal that the decision to part with these territories was made by a Cambodian king.

King Paramaraja IV (reigned 1603-1618) married his son and heir to a Vietnamese princess just before he died, in the hopes that the alliance would prevent the Thais from attacking. It was this Cambodian prince, who ruled as King Jai Jettha II (reigned 1618-1627), who made over the Cambodian lands along the east coast to Vietnamese hegemony.

In 1623, Jai Jettha II received a request from his father-in-law's court at Hue, asking that the territories of Prey Nokor and Kampong Krabei be handed over to Vietnamese administration. Fearing reprisal from the Vietnamese queen if they did not acquiesce, Jai Jettha II and his officials agreed, and Vietnamese settlers began moving into the area now known as Kampuchea Krom.

At the same time, Vietnamese officials began collecting the import taxes paid by merchant ships seeking entrance upriver.

On the surface this could be dismissed as a bad decision on the part of a young and inexperienced king concerned at potentially alienating his powerful in-laws. Yet it is possible that the administration of these territories had simply passed beyond the control of the Cambodian state by this point. Armies were constantly being faced to the northwest and northeast in order to stave off Thai offensives; there was no standing army available to maintain a presence on the east coast. The very name "Prey Nokor" is telling - it translates to "Wild City," implying that it was at the very least sparsely populated and ill-maintained, if not completely abandoned.

Whether the decision to part with Prey Nokor and its surrounds was made out of relief or in fear, there seems little doubt that this was a decision made by a Cambodian king, and not as a result of an invasion.

Another story exists in contemporary Cambodia to explain why the Vietnamese are dangerous and not to be trusted. The story goes that in the beginning of the 19th century, the Vietnamese wanted to build a canal between Phnom Penh and Chau Doc to facilitate transport. They conscripted a large number of both Cambodians and Vietnamese to do the work, although the foremen of the labor groups were solely Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese were very cruel toward the Cambodians, beating them with sticks to make them work faster. One day, two Vietnamese overseers were angry that the Cambodians were not fulfilling the quota of work despite repeated beatings. They selected three workers from the Cambodian contingent and buried them up to their necks in a triangular formation. Then they lit a fire in the middle and used the Cambodians' heads as cooking stones for their kettle.

The Vinh Te canal - which runs from Chau Doc to Ha Tien - itself is a historical fact; construction was begun in 1810 and continued into the 1820s, at a time when the king of Cambodia, Ang Chan (reigned 1797-1835) had turned to the Vietnamese for protection and assistance against the Thais. In return, Ang Chan was forced to embrace Vietnamese customs and language, and appoint Vietnamese officials to administrative positions. No doubt many Vietnamese abused their powers over what they saw as "backward" and "uncivilized" Cambodians. Yet this is hardly different from how Cambodians had in the past treated Chams, or Mons, or their own countrypeople from lower social classes conscripted to participate in the grandiose public works programs of Udong or Angkor.

Indeed, it is the enforced cultural changes that seem to have resonated most strongly with witnesses from the time. The Chronicles speak of enclaves of noble Cambodians taking to the forest rather than adopt Vietnamese customs, including a more "rational" taxation system, and the humiliations meted out to Ang Chan's daughters by their Vietnamese protectors.

It is hardly surprising that the almost total loss of Cambodian identity [from the former Kampuchea Krom] causes strong emotion today. Yet it is important to note that this occurred not as a result of marauding Vietnamese intent upon world domination, but as a result of policies adopted by Cambodian kings in the best interests of their people. These kings could not have foreseen how their decisions would impact upon later events; but it is imprudent to misrepresent the part that they have had in shaping relations between Cambodia and Vietnam.

There are 35 complete and fragmentary documents in Khmer that make up the Cambodian chronicles, found by the French in various wats, the Royal Palace, and in the possession of elite families. None date earlier than 1796.

They incorporate earlier oral histories and texts that have since been lost to the climate and upheaval of civil wars. Together these 35 documents make up eight different versions of Cambodian history.

Two Khmer scholars working in France, Khin Sok and Mak Phoeun, have translated the most comprehensive account of the chronicles into French, also offering commentaries upon dates and events, and supplying in appendices the different or missing accounts.

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Letter to  Editor                                  
 Phnom Penh Post June 3, 2006

"Flying kouprey and Vietnam"

I read with great interest and surprise Dr. Jacobsen's letter to the editor entitled "Maybe Kouprey can Fly" (PPPost, May 19, 2006). I especially found this paragraph disturbing:

"This episode has at least dispelled my naïve conviction that if Cambodians knew what their own records said about the two events constantly held up as evidence of a historical tradition of Vietnamese aggression prior to the 20th century, perhaps they would rethink their hatred of Vietnamese living in Cambodia and be less inclined to turn a blind eye when Vietnamese fishing villages are massacred; that perhaps they would be less suspicious of the motives of the Vietnamese government when treaties between the two countries are signed, and see such events as two countries moving forward into a shared future of goodwill and cooperation; that perhaps those who feel alienated from Cambodia after many years of living elsewhere will stop perpetuating this hatred in a frantic attempt to have an impact upon Cambodian politics, however tangentially."

What she wrote in her letter to the editor entitled "Maybe Kouprey Can Fly" is really nothing new. The Cambodian-Vietnamese relations have been well researched and well published. In this context, in a book entitled  'Les Frontieres du Vietnam' edited by Pierre Philippe Lafont, presents a comprehensive look at the various aspects of the border issues of Vietnam with her neighbors. The contributors to this book include Cambodian, Cham, French, and Vietnamese authors, namely ; Mak Phoeun, Po Dharama, Pierre Lucien Lamant, and Nugyen The Anh. So, her contribution does not amount to very much as far as new information is concerned. Worse still is Jacobsen's unfair and unsupported by historical documents accusation that Cambodians' hatred and unreasonable suspicion against the Vietnamese are unfounded and irrational.

Finally, I would like to remind Dr Jacobsen that there are numerous well written historical documents about Vietnam's grand design to conquer its weaker neighbors like Champa and Cambodia. It is well known under the Vietnamese name "Nam Tien" or "Southward movement" which is nothing more or less than Vietnam's grand design to subjugate Cambodia, after it had totally obliterated Champa in the 17th century. Perhaps the following excerpt from a book entitled A History of Cambodia, written by  a well-known historian in Cambodian affairs, David Chandler, would give Jacobsen a little different perspective than hers on Vietnam's contempt and condescending behavior toward the Cambodian people:

"Ironically, Vietnamese policies toward Cambodia in the 1830s foreshadowed the French mission civilisatrice ("civilizing mission") that was, during the colonial era, to weaken and dismantle so many Vietnamese in to Truong Minh Giang, the emperor outlined his policy:

'The barbarians [in Cambodia] have become my children now, and you should help them, and teach them our customs.... I have heard, for example, that the land is plentiful and fertile, and that there are plenty of oxen [for plowing] ... but the people have no knowledge of [advanced] agriculture, using picks and hoes, rather than oxen. They grow enough rice for two meals a day, but they don't store any surplus. Daily necessities like cloth, silk, ducks and pork are very expensive.... Now all these shortcomings stem from the laziness of the Cambodians ... and my instructions to you are these: teach them to use oxen, teach them to grow more rice, teach them to raise mulberry trees, pigs and ducks.... As for language, they should be taught to speak Vietnamese. [Our habits of] dress and table manners must also be followed. If there is any out-dated or barbarous custom that can be simplified, or repressed, then do so.'"

I agree with Dr Jacobsen that some overemotional Cambodians have unfortunately used epithets against the Vietnamese, more as a result of an uncontrollable and inexcusable rage resulting from their frustration of being powerless to defend against Vietnam's well designed policy and strategy to subjugate Cambodia under "Nam Tien."

Cambodians should learn to contain their rage and to behave as the real victims as they really are and not as victimizers.

Naranhkiri Tith, PhD - Washington, DC

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US Envoy Defends Expensive Cambodian Genocide Trials

For the full text of Ambaasador Mussomeli of his remark, please see the article posted just below this one.

Tuesday July 25th, 2006 / 13h22  

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)--The U.S. ambassador to Cambodia on Tuesday defended holding genocide trials for the former Khmer Rouge, saying the multimillion dollar tribunal would help to heal the country's psychological and spiritual wounds.

His comment followed recent remarks by retired King Norodom Sihanouk, who questioned the value of spending $56.3 million on a U.N.-backed tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity during their 1975-1979 rule.

Sihanouk said the money would be better spent alleviating poverty because the tribunal targets too few of those responsible for the Khmer Rouge's extremist policies that led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.

Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli said he agreed that people's basic needs have to be met, but added that "man does not live by bread alone."

"Cambodians deserve to have their hunger for justice satisfied," he said during a meeting with some 500 Khmer Rouge survivors on Tuesday.

Nearly 30 years after the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, Cambodia "is still lost and broken," he said. This "brokenness is more than just political and economic," he said. "It is also psychological and spiritual."

He said the brokenness fosters a culture of impunity "rooted in the belief ... that no crime is so great that it must be punished, and that whatever any Cambodian does is fine because it cannot possibly be worse than what the Khmer Rouge did - and got away with doing."

Prosecutors are now gathering evidence for the Khmer Rouge trials, expected to begin in 2007.

Washington has not given any money to the tribunal, although it has provided some $7 million over the last decade to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group researching Khmer Rouge atrocities, according to an embassy statement.

Mussomeli urged the tribunal's investigators to move "as quickly as possible," noting the death last week of Ta Mok, the group's former military chief.

He said he is concerned that other Khmer Rouge leaders could die "within the next decade, perhaps in the next year or two."

"If these criminals all die peaceful deaths, then there'll be a loss for Cambodia that they will never be able to clarify what really happened. That would be a great frustration, I think," he said.