A Khmer Krom Perspective on CLV-DTA
By Soben Ung
August 25, 2024
Lowell, Massachusetts –in the last six weeks, tens of thousands Cambodian around the world have rallied protesting the Cambodian government, demanding withdrawal from the Cambodia Laos Vietnam – Development Triangle Area also known as CLV-DTA. They are concerned that Cambodia will lose control of its territories to Vietnam like Kampuchea Krom.
By allowing Vietnamese coming in to develop trade on Cambodia land, it reminds us of the history of Cambodian King Chey Chetha II who allowed Vietnamese warlord Nguyen to conduct trade at Prei Norkor (Saigon) and permission to collect taxes in 1623 as his father-in-law. With that authority, Lord Nguyen began expansion into Kampuchea Krom (South Cambodia) territories by sending Vietnamese to settle there. The expansion continued for over 200 years until 1840 when Vietnam took complete control of all Kampuchea Krom, which consist of 23 provinces – about the size of Great Britain.
Shortly after, in 1858 the French began taking control of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and called it Union of Indochina. Cambodian people entered a period of peace and stability living under French occupation. After French withdrawal in 1954, it gave the control of Kampuchea Krom to the South Vietnam government.
During the Vietnam war, Vietnam again wanted to invade Cambodia. The Vietcong launched several attacks on Cambodia, one was in 1970 but was pushed back by Lon Nol, an American-backed general, and again on Jan 7, 1979 that ironically put an end to Khmer Rouge regime but resulted in Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia for the next 10 years killing an additional 2 million Cambodian after the killing field.
After the Vietnam War, North Vietnam took over the South Vietnam which is really made up mostly of South Cambodia or Kampuchea Krom, the indigenous Khmer Krom were oppressed no matter South or North Vietnamese ruled our land. For generations, our Khmer elders made sure we know our roots and speak Khmer language despite it was not allowed to be taught at school.
I was born in Kampuchea Krom in the 1980s. My families were farmers, like a majority of Khmer Krom people. We struggle to survive living and working on our farms because our harvest would be sold at a government set prices that are below break even levels. We became poorer and poorer from one generation to the next. We cannot prosper no matter how hard we tried and most had to sell our lands to survive. We were not accepted to the mainstream Vietnamese society because we were born speaking another language other than Vietnamese and have darker skin, were considered inferior and less educated. We were not allowed to work in government jobs, or hold supervisory positions. Our only job was to be a Vietnamese teacher and teach Khmer children the Vietnamese language. And those who were allowed to join the village police are because their parents were Vietcongs, helping the North Vietnamese take over our land. A village chief police is always a Vietnamese. Khmer Krom people live on without seeing any hope for their future.
This is the story of our lives for 70 years. Now looking at Cambodia and watching the Vietnamese’s influence in the Cambodian government grow daily, our hearts ache, our body is numb, and our tears shed because we know they are the next victims. It’s like you are enslaved and watch your brothers and sisters being fooled by the same perpetrators to come and work for them. Little do they know what will happen next when they too will join our fate. Cambodia is the only remaining territory where we can go to and feel we are home. For 70 years, we live on our land without freedom, without acceptance, without recognition and they somehow made us feel it’s our fault that we were born Khmers.
The CLV-DTA project is nothing but a political strategy that secretly aim to Vietnamize Cambodia like Kampuchea Krom. Established in 1999 with the ruling party, Cambodian People’s Party, headed by Hun Sen –a Vietnamese puppet government. This project is disguised as economic development along the border of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. However, with 600,000 Cambodians and 7 million Vietnamese within the development region, and 100 million Vietnamese overall population, it is inevitable that a massive influx of Vietnamese will come to settle in Cambodia. Thousands of families are victims of forced evictions through these economic development zone policies and still have not received fair compensation. With 99 years lease of hundreds of thousand hectare to Vietnam, there has been no benefit in term of job creation for the local people but only the loss of Cambodian timber and other natural resources. Vietnam smuggles luxury timber out of Cambodia and sells them throughout the world. “Made in Vietnam” furniture can be widely found in American stores.
According to the latest CLV-DTA annual meeting, their goal is to have a complete economic connectivity by 2030 that include trade, tourism, mining and many more. The questions are who will own the tourism company? Who will mine our gems and rubies, how will the Cambodian people benefit from it and will nature be protected?
We see CLV-DTA is only a pretext for Vietnam to colonize all of Cambodia. It’s the same strategy as Lord Nguyen used “Nguoi Gian Di Truoc, Nuoc Lang Di Sau” basically means sending the people to live there first than the government will follow. The slow yet effective strategy that Lord Nguyen used for 200 years to finally take control all of Kampuchea Krom, which was almost half of Cambodia. Today, in what remains of Cambodia, millions of new Vietnamese immigrants come to Cambodia and have control over Cambodian politics. After the invasion of Cambodia in 1979, Vietnam installed Hun Sen in 1985 as Prime Minister after Chan Sy and Penn Sovann were removed because they did not obey orders from Vietnam. Since then, Hun Sen has been the Vietnamese right hand man and was the main obstacle for Cambodia to truly achieve the objectives of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement.
Through Hun Sen, Vietnam established Friendship treaties that make Cambodia loose its land, its sea and become subordinate to Vietnam. This regime help legitimize Vietnam’s invasion in Jan 7, 1979 by turning around the facts and actually celebrating a foreign invasion of Cambodia – known as “Victory Day”. Through Hun Sen, Cambodia lost Koh Trol Island to Vietnam. Historians said Vietnam collects tax on the island because it was harder for Cambodia to manage. It’s always the tax collection. That’s how Cambodia lost Kampuchea Krom, then Koh Trol, and now CLV-TDA will also pay port fees to Saigon. It is certain that Cambodia will lose the four provinces if not the entire country.
Presently, through Hun Sen, Vietnam had brought Cambodia into its communist party umbrella of Indochina, a plan of Ho Chi Minh since the 1950s. Cambodia is losing its hard-earned freedom that millions of people died fighting against Vietnam 1970-1975 and again 1979-1990, the hard work by King Norodom Sihanouk and many others had done to bring about the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement. The Cambodian people must stand up once again for the survival of their country. The “Peace” offered by Hun Sen means joining hands with Vietnam, lose our territorial integrity, our autonomy, and sovereignty. It must be stopped.
