Khmer Krom
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), are the indigenous ethnic Khmer minority living in southern
Vietnam, especially in the delta of the
Mekong River.
Khmer Krom, ethnically the same as the Khmer people of
Cambodia, are descendants of the Khmer that inhabited the delta of the Mekong prior to the arrival of the Vietnamese.
According to Vietnamese government figures (1999 census), Khmer Krom total 1,055,174 people. However, this number is disputed as a gross underestimate by Khmer Krom organizations. While the (KKF), an organization that claims to represent the Khmer Kro worldwide, estimates that there is 7 million Khmer Krom in
Vietnam.
http://www.khmerkrom.org/en/culture.php?articleID=11 {1}Beginning in the 17th century, the colonization of the area by Vietnamese settlers migrating south has isolated the
Khmer from their brethren in Cambodia proper and resulted in the native Khmer becoming a minority in that part of their homeland.
Prey Nokor was the most important commercial port to the Khmers. The city's name was changed by Vietnam to
Saigon and then
Ho Chi Minh City. The loss of the city prevented the Cambodians access to the sea. began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor.
It began as a small fishing village known as Prey Nokor. The area that the city now occupies was originally swampland, and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese.
In
1623,
King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (
1618-
1628) allowed
Vietnamese refugees fleeing the
Trinh-Nguyen civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor, and to set up a custom house at Prey Nokor. Increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers, which the Cambodian kingdom, weakened because of war with Thailand, could not impede, slowly vietnamized the area. In time, Prey Nokor became known as Saigon.
In
1698,
Nguyen Huu Canh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyen rulers of
Huế to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus detaching the area from Cambodia, which was not strong enough to intervene.
The plight of the Khmer Krom has been a contentious issue between the governments of Vietnam and Cambodia. 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 included in 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 this military adventure was a total disaster and precipitated the invasion of Cambodia by the Vietnamese army and subsequent downfall of the
Khmer Rouge, with Vietnam occupying Cambodia.
Many independent
NGOs have reported that the human rights of the Khmer Krom are being violated by the Vietnamese government. Khmer Krom are reportedly forced to Vietnamize and adopt Vietnamese family names and
Vietnamese language.
http://www.khmerkrom.org/en/history.php?articleID=6 {2} Education of Khmer Krom is neglected and they face many hardships in everyday life, such as difficult access to Vietnamese health services (recent epidemics of blindness affecting children have been reported in the predominantly Khmer Krom areas of the Mekong delta), difficulty in practicing their religion (Khmer Krom are
Theravada Buddhists, like Cambodian and Thai people, but unlike Vietnamese who are
Mahayana Buddhists or
Catholics), difficulty in finding jobs outside of the fields, and societal racism. The Khmer Krom are the poorest segment of the population in southern Vietnam.
Unlike other minority people groups of Vietnam, the Khmer Krom are largely unknown in the western world, despite efforts by associations of exiled Khmer Krom such as the
Khmers Kampuchea Krom Federation to publicize their issues with the
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation. No western government has raised the matter of the Khmer Krom's human rights with the Vietnamese government.
*
Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF)*
Khmer Krom news and information network*
Khmer Krom: A Royal Solution for a Nationalist Vietnam reported by
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation
