Cambodians oppressed, distracted, divided

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth

via CAAI News Media

By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth • February 24, 2010

Cambodians' public discussions of Cambodia's past, present and future churn through cyberspace. A discussion that targets domestic political developments, particularly the perennial tensions between those who advocate civil rights and freedoms and those who support stability and economic development, foments passionate debate.

When the debate turns to Cambodia's external problems with her neighbors to the east and west -- Vietnam and Thailand, both viewed historically as "swallowers of Khmer land" -- the conversation has fallen to the depths of racial slurs and intensified hatred.

Premier Hun Sen's supporters and critics are deaf to each other's arguments. Persuasion and compromise are foreign concepts. Those who comment do so anonymously to more easily demonize the opposition.

Hun Sen has successfully used governmental administrative machinery to keep Cambodians intimidated and ignorant of their civil rights and the principles of good governance. He dangled showy projects and physical improvements to infrastructure, while many scavenge the city's dumps and live on rodent meat.

Of late, Sen has succeeded, with Cambodians' complicity, to divert attention from his peoples' domestic plight to focus on the Thais, whose leader Sen has cursed publicly almost every day. His call to protect Cambodia's Preah Vihear Temple from the Thais brings many Cambodians to his side, though they are mute over Vietnamese expansionism from the east.

There is endless and mindless debate over the use of the term "Yuon," because some non-Khmers say it's "racial pejorative." Yet, the authoritative Buddhist Institute's "Dictionnaire Cambodgien," 5th edition, 1967, defines "Yuon" as "Vietnamese," pure and simple. Sen's supporters love the debate: it divides and distracts critics.

I have written on the history of Vietnam's southward movement since the Vietnamese ended their thousand-year bondage to China in 939. They physically moved away from Chinese threat while seizing and absorbing territories before them. Johns Hopkins retired professor Naranhkiri Tith's Web site deals at length with the fundamentals of Vietnam's "Nam Tien" (southward movement) and his proposed roadmap to save Cambodia from it.

Vietnam's more recent attempts to integrate Cambodia into a Greater Vietnam may be read in the Vietnam Workers' Party's (Lao Dong) political report to its second congress in February 1951: "We must strive to help our Cambodian and Laotian brothers ... and arrive at setting up a Vietnam-Cambodian-Laotian Front" against the French.

In March 1951, the "Joint National United Front for Indochina" was formed. In November, the Lao Dong created the "Dang Nhan Dan Cach Mang Cao Mien" (Revolutionary Cambodian People's Party) -- with name and statute drafted in the Vietnamese language.

Brian Crozier, a former Reuters correspondent, quoted a captured November 1951 Viet Minh document: "The Vietnamese Party reserves the right to supervise the activities of its brother parties in Cambodian and Laos." Crozier also quoted a Viet Minh radio broadcast of April 1953: "The Lao Dong Party and the people of Vietnam have the mission to make revolution in Cambodia and Laos. We, the Viet Minh elements, have been sent to serve this revolution and to build the union of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos."

Viet Minh administrations with their own armed forces and system of tax collection were established in Cambodia and Laos.

But more than one reader has told me, "That was then, and this is now."

Now, Cambodians inside the country affirm that one cannot distinguish who is Khmer and who is Vietnamese anymore: Khmers speak Vietnamese and do business in Vietnamese language; and Vietnamese speak Khmer and have Khmer names.

When the July 1954 Geneva Accords ordered Viet Minh forces to leave Cambodia, they took with them between 4,500 (a conservative figure) and 8,000 (reportedly claimed by Vo Nguyen Giap in 1971) Cambodians, mostly young children, who were raised, cultured and given political and military training. These Cambodians -- with "Khmer bodies but Vietnamese heads" -- returned to Cambodia after 1970 to fight Lon Nol, and to unsuccessfully wrest control of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from Pol Pot.

Some were arrested, others purged. In May 1977, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge units entered Vietnam's border towns between Ha Tien and Chau Doc, and by November they operated as deep as four miles inside Vietnam and inflicted casualties.

In response, the Vietnamese built up units in Tay Ninh and by December operated as deep as 10 to 15 miles inside Cambodia.

After Christmas 1977, eight Vietnamese military divisions, supported by artillery, tanks and planes, invaded Cambodia, cut off the Parrot's Beak area and advanced as far as Neak Loeung, 40 miles from Phnom Penh. Out of fuel, they pulled back.

On Nov. 3, 1978, Hanoi signed a 25-year peace and cooperation treaty with Moscow. A month later, on Dec. 3, Hanoi Radio announced the birth of the "Kampuchean National United Front of National Salvation," led by a 14-member Central Committee under Heng Samrin, a former commander of the Khmer Rouge's 4th Division. Hun Sen was a former chief of staff and regimental deputy commander in Sector 21.

On Christmas Eve 1978, 100,000 Vietnamese troops led 18,000 KNUFNS soldiers across the border into Cambodia. They captured Phnom Penh on Jan. 7, 1979.

On Feb. 18, 1979, Heng Samrin and Pham Van Dong signed a 25-year treaty of peace, friendship and cooperation, a treaty that effectively integrated Cambodia into a Greater Vietnam. I will discuss the treaty in my next column.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com