Khmer Krom
The Khmer Krom - Khmer people living in the Delta and the Lower Mekong area.
Mostly regarded as the indigenous ethnic Khmer minority living in southern
Vietnam. In Vietnamese, they are known as Khơ-me Crộm or Khơ-me dưới, which
literally means “Khmer from below” (“below” referring to the lower areas of the
Mekong Delta).
Origins
The Khmer Krom is ethnic Khmerwho inhabited that area long before the arrival
of the Vietnamese.
According to Vietnamese government figures (2006 census), there are 1,371,726
Khmer Krom in Vietnam. According to Khmer Krom Federation there are 9,100,000
in Vietnam and 1,560,000 in Cambodia.
History
Beginning in the early 17th century, colonization of the area by Vietnamese
settlers gradually isolated the Khmer of the Mekong Delta from their brethren
in Cambodia proper and resulted in their becoming a minority in the delta.
Prey Nokorwas the most important commercial seaport to the Khmers. The city’s
name was changed by Vietnam to Sài Gònand then Hồ Chí Minh City. The loss of
the city prevented the Cambodians access to the South China Sea. Subsequently,
the Khmers' access to the sea was now limited to the Gulf of Thailand. 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 IIof Cambodia (1618-1628) allowedVietnamese refugees
fleeing the Trịnh-Nguyễn War in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor,
and to set up a custom houseat 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
Huếto establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus
detachingthe area fromCambodia, which was not strong enough to intervene. Since
1698, the area has been firmly under Vietnamese administration. The Vietnamese
became the majority population in most places.
When independence was granted to French Indochinain 1954, the Mekong Deltawas
included in the state of South Vietnam, despite protests from Cambodia. In the
1970s, the Khmer Rougeregime attacked Vietnam in an attempt to reconquerthose
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.
Son Ngoc Thanh, the nationalist Cambodian, was a Khmer krom, born in Trà Vinh,
Vietnam. Cambodia got independence in Geneva, 1954, through the Vietnamese
struggle in the First Indochina War.
In 1757, the Vietnamese colonizedthe provinces of Psar Dèk (renamed Sa Đécin
Vietnamese) and Moat Chrouk (vietnamized to Châu Đốc).
Current Situation
Many independent NGOsreport the human rights of the Khmer Krom are still being
violated by the Vietnamese government. Khmer Krom are reportedly forced to
adopt Vietnamese family names and speak the Vietnamese language. The education
of the 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 TheravadaBuddhists, like Cambodian and Thai people, but unlike Vietnamese
who are mostly MahayanaBuddhistsor few Roman Catholics), difficulty in finding
jobs outside of the fields, and societal racism. The Khmer Krom is among the
poorestsegments 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 Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federationto 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.
The Khmer Krom culture could become better known through its tourist sites in
the Mekong Delta. Khmer Buddhist templeslocated in places such as Long An, Tiền
Giang, Vĩnh Long, TràVinh, Bạc Liêu, Đồng Tháp, and Sóc Trăngare now very
popular as tourist destinations.
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