Khmer Krom tradition

Khmer Krom Village Tradition
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From: Kh. Kung (baphuon@aol.com)
Subject: Khmer Krom Village Tradition
Newsgroups: soc.culture.cambodia
Date: 2003-06-14 08:38:30 PST

In Kampuchea Krom, it was our tradition rooted deeply in our cultural heritage to take in our own hand the destiny of our village. The royal power was too far away to take care of our today's life. Maybe sometime when Cambodian central power was defeated, or silenced or hold in hostage by our neighbor enemies, it was always the village committee under the leadership of Buddhist monks which was in charge of the village interests notably security, administrative, economic, financial, education, social and land affairs.

It was the committee of village who assured the security and enforced law and order of the village. Very often some committee village members were by tradition master of Khmer Boxing and Kong Fu. My brother Dara Kieng is a master of Khmer boxing and Kong Fu. My grand father Kong Kung, and my father Kung Sim were also master of Kung Fu in Preah Trapeang village.

In 1958, King Sihanouk had invited Kung Fu Hong Kong Chinese stars of the famous movies trilogy "The Blind Man, Ta Kwak ee Chee" Yasaky, Tee Lung etc to demonstrate their martial art in Phnom Penh. Yasaky, the Japanese master, very sure of his superiority, fought before the King with only one hand against any Cambodian Khmer Boxing fighter. Yasaky did not want to hurt, just demonstrated that he had won by blocking his opponent moves. If he wanted to hurt, he might break his opponent's bones, arms, legs, ribs or face. Yasaky beat all Khmer renowned fighters in the first round one by one.

Then the King invited my brother Dara to fight Yasaky. Even with all his two hands, Yasaky cannot beat my brother. Yasaky did not win. It was a match nul. He asked my brother after the fight, who is your Kung Fu teacher? My brother said, a Cambodian master of Khmer Boxing.

King Sihanouk awarded each Hong Kong Kung Fu master, Yasaky, Tee Lung and Kim Sea $5,000. My brother got a new French Velo Solex (Scooter).

It was the village committee which paid the teachers, distribute land to families without land and make loans to families by networking with elderly rich families. That was the tradition of Khmer Kampuchea Krom village: take care by ourselves the destiny of our village.

Immediately after the World War II, in the 1947, Vietnamese communist leadership proposed to Khmer Krom leadership an alliance to fight the colonialism for the independence of Vietnam and Kampuchea Krom.

For the independence, Khmer Krom leaders participated with good heart and honesty, but the Vietnamese communists had a macabre plan. Vietnamese communist wanted to eliminate all Cambodian leadership. If their plan succeeded, they expected that Khmer Krom leadership would never survive to the French colonialist onslaught that suppressed any movement for the independence. If their macabre plan succeeded, Vietnam would swallow easily Kampuchea Krom once France colonialism was defeated.

Vietnamese communist leaders wanted to prohibit Khmer to learn the Kong Fu. When Khmer Krom trained their young in Kong Fu, they informed secretly French officials that Khmer Krom organized to struggle for the independence of Kampuchea Krom. Khmer Krom leaders were arrested, killed or thrown in prison. Khmer Krom had to hide and trained their young in secret the martial art. Vietnamese communists strategy was all azimuth. They double-crossed everybody. With French colonial power, they were pro-French and they fought implacably any local movement struggling for the independence. But in alliance with independent movements they were fervent anti-French colonialist.

In one meeting the Vietnamese leaders proposed to Khmer Krom leaders to come to the great meeting to celebrate the alliance between Vietnamese people and Khmer people in their struggle for independence from France. The meetings took place in the same time, the same day in different villages in the great warehouse of each village in remote area all over Kampuchea Krom.

During the meeting, Vietnamese leaders left the warehouse one by one secretly and finally locked and torched the warehouses. Khmer Krom leaders were torched alive to death. Thirty thousand Khmer Kroms perished that day. Khmer Krom would never forget that Betrayal Day. Khmer Krom perished silently in remote area without eyewitness of the world. Grand children of that generation lived right now in the States. They are ready to witness before any international public opinion of what happen to their grand parents, torched to death by Vietnamese communists.

Vietnamese leaders knew pertinently that Khmer Krom leaders would react savagely. So the second fold of their macabre strategy was to expose before the world the savagery of Khmer Krom reaction. They informed their good friends to hide in the forest, leaving only some Vietnamese without importance in the village. They invited French journalists to the village and told them to watch something big and savage would happen. Khmer Krom killed any Vietnamese they put hand on, and this before the camera of French journalists. Maybe they killed three hundred Vietnamese in all. But the world knew what Khmer Krom had done to Vietnamese. French public opinion, then French administration sided with the Vietnamese. They condemned Khmer Krom leaders. That Day was the watershed of Khmer Krom history. From that Day, Khmer Krom lost all administrative power in Kampuchea Krom. All administrative positions hold by Khmer Krom in Kampuchea Krom were replaced by Vietnamese.

French Colonial power, Guy Mollet government, had signed a law ceding Kampuchea Krom to Vietnam, on November 1949. Kampuchea Krom was and is Khmer Land. France had no right to cede Khmer Land to Vietnamese. Khmer Krom leaders revolted and signed petition to protest this unjust law. Royal Cambodian government at that time was so afraid of French colonial power.

Sure, right now, Khmer had no might to claim our land back but we have the right. Just Law defended and worked tirelessly for the weak ones and the have-nots. Therefore, first thing first, we want the law on our side to defend our Khmer Krom Land. Can someone imagine that one day the Soviet Union Empire implode and did not exist anymore?

French colonial power arrested Khmer Krom leaders and all opponents to colonialist policy. French colonial administration used their Vietnamese henchmen to liquidate hundred and hundred of Khmer Krom leaders.

Kung Sim, my father, for his security, fled to Battambang, Cambodia. But in Cambodia, at Battambang, in 1949, Vietnamese organizations to annex Cambodia was already much more advanced and strong than in Kampuchea Krom.

My father helped financially their friends, Khmer Krom leaders who escaped Kampuchea Krom and took refuge in Cambodia. Some of his friends felt that Cambodia was not secure enough; then they left Cambodia and took refuge in Chantabury, a well organized Khmer Krom village in Thailand. Chanbury was built by Venerable Thach Chan.

When the Vietnamese knew that my father was a Khmer Krom leader organizer of Cambodian resistance against the Vietnamese annexion of Cambodia, they poisoned my father. My father and nine members of his committee village died together atrociously before my eye that same night during a dinner banquet.
Baphuon - (Update Jan-Fev2005)