Open letter to the Khmerkrom

Open letter to the Khmerkrom

Dear Khmerkroms :
I am not one of yours but I am moved by your plight because we share
the same ethnicity, the same language
and the same culture. I reply to your article below with this : Do
you want your country back? If so, you will
have to take it back by force! Half a century ago colonized
countries in Asia and in Africa gained their
independence due to the military exhaustion of France, Netherlands,
Japan and the United Kingdom after World
War II.

Now in the twenty-first century in some of those independent
countries, minority people are claiming they were
mistreated by the national or central governments and are setting up
liberation armies and fighting actually for
independent homelands. They are called separatists. If you Khmerkroms
want your country back you will have to
do alike those separatists. Because international politics follow
common dynamics and politicians shall follow
the same logic. Please look at the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Karens and
the Shans in Myanma, the Muslims in the
Philippines. They have organized themselves with the same logic :
Khluon Tee Ping Khluon (self-sufficiency).
They raise money from their compatriots inside and abroad. With
that money they buy weaponry and
ammunitions, they fight and sacrifice a number of lives (pas
d'omelette sans casser des oeufs).

Of course you may choose to live peacefully, to struggle legally for
human rights and for democracy, and to
expect economic development in Vietnam. Vietnam will always be your
country and your children's country.
But don't ever repeat the mistake by thinking that Cambodia is also
your country! Cambodia belonged for
centuries to the royal family and is now private property of Poork
Ar Luok Srok, the homeland vendors.

Pen Nearovi, in Montreal on March 20, 2006



From: Khmer Blood <jeyvarman@...>
Date: Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:19 pm
Subject: Khmer Krom's Suffering (Author: KK's woman)
Khmer Krom's Suffering

It is only recently that people are starting to recognise
and hear
about Khmerkrom. Many have asked who are the Khmerkrom
people? They are a group of people with a true khmer identity but not
fully accepted by either Cambodia or Vietnam. Under the agreement
with France, Khmerkrom people are under the rule of the Vietnamese
Government, thus should be accepted as Vietnamese citizen and yet,
their human rights to be abused and violated even to this day.


What's left of the khmer culture within the Khmerkrom
people continues to be oppressed and forbidden despite the
fact that they were the original owners of South Vietnam. Falsely
accused, jailed and/or tortured, many of our brave
individuals died fighting for freedom, and those who survived
continued to live in fear and discrimination against a
government that refuses to acknowledge them as native owners. This
brings us to a question of whether or not there is any
shred of humanity or conscience in the hearts of the Vietnamese
Government? If we did not stage any protest and continued
to endure under their traitorous behaviour, would Khmerkrom be
eliminated by now as if they were unfit to be part of the
human kind? Despite the fact that many criminal and injustice acts
being continuous conspired against us, we continued to
put up a resistance that was as strong as an iron bar if not stronger.

An example of this inhumane act include the trapping of our
people between rice stocks and consequently burnt
alive. One lady recounted the day, said it was a day that would
remembered not with fondness but a deep sense of sadness
and regret. She told me that cries of our people caught in the inferno
could be heard across the rice fields and the rest of
Khmerkrom's land and would be forever imprinted in her mind and heart
like sharp daggers constantly poking holes in it.
She remembered the hopeless feeling of not being able to do anything
but standing there and watched as hundreds and
thousands of our people were being reduced to ashes. This human
burning inferno was not the last as our people found out
in another attempt by the Vietnamese to wipe out our brave leaders and
unfortunately, they almost succeeded to a point that
would discourage any sensible people from continued resistance.

My Khmer Compatriots, ask not what Cambodia and her People can do for
you, ask what you can do for
Cambodia and her People!

The Khmer Politicians have only interpreted the Cambodia and her
beloved people in various ways.
The point, however, is to change it...
---Jeyvarman Duong---

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