Khmer Krom - History

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 Nokor was the most important commercial seaport to the Khmers. It began as a small fishing village, and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese. The city's name was changed by Vietnam to Sài Gòn and then Hồ Chí Minh City. The loss of the city prevented the Cambodians from access to the South China Sea. Subsequently, the Khmers' access to the sea was now limited to the Gulf of Thailand. The area that Saigon/Hồ Chí Minh City now occupies was originally swampland.

In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia (1618–1628) allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trịnh-Nguyễn War in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor, and to set up a custom house at 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, Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyễn rulers of Huế to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the area, thus detaching the area from Cambodia, 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.

In 1757, the Vietnamese colonized the provinces of Psar Dèk (renamed Sa Đéc in Vietnamese) and Moat Chrouk (vietnamized to Châu Đốc)

In 1802 Nguyễn Ánh crowned himself emperor Gia Long and had unified all territories which are now modern Vietnam, including the Khmer Krom territory.

Cambodian nationalist Son Ngoc Thanh (1908 – 1977) was a Khmer krom, born in Trà Vinh, Vietnam. Cambodia got independence in Geneva, 1954, through the Vietnamese struggle in the First Indochina War.

Between 1964 and 1974 Khmer Krom people were recruited by the US Military to serve in MIKE Force during the Vietnam War. First they fought on the side of South Vietnam against the Viet Cong, but in time these militia groups named themselves the "Struggling Front of Kampuchea Krom" (French: Front de Lutte du Kampuchea Krom) of southern Vietnam. This group, originally founded by a Khmer Krom Buddhist monk named Samouk Sen were nicknamed "White Scarves" (Khmer: Kangsaing Sar; Vietnamese: Can Sen So) and were affiliated to FULRO.

After the 1975 Communist victory the Kampuchea Krom militias found it hard to struggle against the onslaughts of the Vietnamese Armed Forces and went across the border to Democratic Kampuchea hoping to find a safe haven from which to launch their operations. In 1976 a group of 68 "White Scarves" and their leader sought refuge in a village close to the Vietnamese border in Kiri Vong District and approached the Khmer Rouge authorities telling them to communicate their decision to Khieu Samphan. Initially they were welcomed and disarmed, but when the orders from the DK rulers reached the local authorities, the "White Scarves" were separated from their leader. He was subsequently brought to Phnom Penh where he was murdered after being tortured, meanwhile his 67 Khmer Krom troops were massacred to the last man. During the following months, a total of around 2,000 "White Scarves" that crossed the border seeking refuge in Democratic Kampuchea were systematically killed by the Khmer Rouge.

In the late 1970s, the Khmer Rouge regime attacked Vietnam in an attempt to reconquer the areas which were formerly part of the Khmer Empire, 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.