Vietnamese authority deployed troops to crack down on Khmer Krom farmers

Khmer Krom Buddhist monks harvesting rice in their ancestral lands in Kampuchea Krom.

10 Sept 2009
By Sok Serey
Source: Radio Free Asia
Reported in English by Khmerization

The Vietnamese authority has deployed nearly 600 troops and police to crack down on 40 Khmer Krom farmers in Tinh Bienh [Krobao in Khmer] district of An Giang [Motr Chrouk in Khmer] province who planned to stage a protest against the digging of a canal cutting through their rice-fields.

A Khmer Krom from Ang commune in Tinh Bienh district of An Giang province, who is one of the 40 protesters who is in hiding for fear of arrest, has told RFA that the Vietnamese authority had brought a large number of machinery to dig the canal. "Our people just sit there and watch them dig the canal and they blocked the view of the area where they are digging. Wherever they dig, they block the view in that area. They have deployed 330-350 troops, 230 policemen and 5 dogs", he said.

The troop deployment took place after 8 Khmer Krom farmers went to see the Vietnamese authority on 9th September to enquire about compensation but was told that there won't be any compensation and there will be a crack down if people resist or disturb the canal works.

Another Khmer Krom has appealed for intervention from the international community. "I am appealing to the international community to help me because that land (that they confiscate for the canal) is the only land I had. If the authority does not pay me compensation I have nowhere else to live and I have nothing to feed my family because I have 7-8 family members", he said.

A Khmer Krom Buddhist monk who is a spokesperson for those 40 farmers affected by the canal digging said those people will not agree to let the Vietnamese take their lands without compensation. "The Vietnamese does not pay attention to the plight of the Khmer Krom people, so that's why our Khmer Krom people will never agree (to let them take their lands)", he said.

The Vietnamese plans to dig a 50-metre-wide 10-kilometre-long canal cutting through 400 hectares of ancestral lands owning by 400 Khmer Krom families without any compensation.

Mr. Trinh Ba Cam, spokesman for the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh, cannot be reached for comments as a telephone call to his mobile went unanswered.