«ដែនដីខ្មែរ»
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALhAVJEDmjU&feature=youtu.be*
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALhAVJEDmjU&feature=youtu.be>
By *Professor Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D*
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Best Regards,
*Khmer Forum*
*A place for sharing community events and public news.*
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gaffar Peang-Meth <peangm...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 8:32 PM
Subject: *ដែនដីខ្មែរ*
«ដែនដីខ្មែរ»
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALhAVJEDmjU&feature=youtu.be
On Christmas Eve 1978, thirteen armed divisions of about 150,000 Vietnamese
troops, backed by heavy artillery and aircraft, invaded Democratic
Kampuchea. In two weeks, they routed the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge
Kampuchean Revolutionary Army, took over Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979, and
proclaimed the birth of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea the day after.
Hun Sen, a former deputy commander of Battalion 55 of Pol Pot’s Eastern
Zone that was known for brutality and massacres, fled to Vietnam during Pol
Pot’s purges, returned to Cambodia under the wing of Vietnam’s troops and
affiliated with the “Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation”
(KUFNS) created by Hanoi on December 2, 1978 with a few hundred former
Khmer Rouge defectors. In 1985, Hun Sen was made Prime Minister by the
occupation troops.
Hun Sen has retained this post for 30 years through threats,
divide-and-rule tactics, by buying loyalty and accumulating unto himself
executive, legislative, and judicial powers. Now 63 years old, Hun Sen who
has said he wants to stay in power until he is 74, is increasingly
threatened by restive voters.
Hun Sen calls January 7th the day of liberation from Pol Pot’s genocidal
regime. Others call it a day of infamy and regret the failure of the
United Nations to oust the Vietnamese occupiers and install a freely
elected government as the organization was charged to do.
In commemoration of the date, I present here a new PowerPoint titled «
ដែនដីខ្មែរ» or “Khmer Land.” This title is also that of a favorite old
Khmer song composed by the Great Buddhist Mohanikai Patriarch Samdech Chuon
Nath.
The PowerPoint begins with photos from the public domain of Vietnamese
troops taking Khmer Rouge soldiers prisoner and a Vietnamese parade in
front of the Royal Palace, accompanied by a modern Khmer patriotic song,
“Khmer sons and daughters, Awake!” Samdech Chuon Nath’s nationalistic
martial song follows, with photos of Khmer school children and young men
and women marching proudly carrying banners on a dirt road in Chumrom
Rithisen in October 1989 as military and civilian leaders of the Khmer
People’s National Liberation Front look on and applaud.
The gist of the song is, on the Khmer Land called the Golden Land, the
inhabitants lived happily together; but one day the enemy aggressed, the
people rose up and made supreme sacrifices to protect it.
This PowerPoint is created to honor the children and young adults who
marched on that dirt road and is intended as a tribute also to their
parents and to the men and women with whom I had the honor to serve in
1980-1989 in the fight for liberation and justice.
I am reminded of the words of US President Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you
can, with what you have, where you are.”
May the New Year 2016 be a better one for the Khmer people, who have
suffered enough.
Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D.
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