From Truong Minh Giang to Nguyen Tan Dung (Sam Rainsy)

April 22, 2011

VIETNAM-CAMBODIA RELATIONS
FROM TRUONG MINH GIANG TO NGUYEN TAN DUNG

To welcome Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung who is starting an official visit in Cambodia on April 23, opposition radio stations in Phnom Penh started today to broadcast an interview with Sam Rainsy in which the latter compares Nguyen Tan Dung to Truong Minh Giang.

Truong Minh Giang was an army general from Annam (precursor of Vietnam) in the first half of the 19th century who administered Cambodia as a colony of the imperial court of Hue (capital of Annam). At that time, Cambodia’s King named Ang Chan was just a puppet, having been installed on the throne by a foreign occupation army led by Truong Minh Giang. Cambodia’s territories were being seized by Annam which started to annex Cambodia’s southern part known as Kampucha Krom where a massive and steady flow of Vietnamese immigrants were establishing an increasing number of foreign settlements.

French researcher Michel Blanchard (in “Vietnam-Cambodge: Une frontière contestée”, L’Harmattan, 1999) wrote: « Très affaibli, le royaume khmer [capitale à Oudong] maintint cependant une administration dans les provinces du Kampuchea Krom jusque dans les années 1840. Nous sommes alors encore dans le système de la “peau de léopard”, l’unité du territoire khmer étant brisée par de enclaves vietnamiennes, mais la souveraineté étant partagée entre les cours de Hué et de Oudong sur leurs nationaux respectifs. La frontière entre les deux pays, de ce fait, est donc difficile à tracer et n’a, à ce moment, rien de linéaire (…).

L’expansion vietnamienne s’accéléra sous le règne de la reine cambodgienne Ang Mi, placée sur le trône par les Vietnamiens en 1834. Des fortins [vietnamiens] furent construits un peu partout, et les révoltes [cambodgiennes] réprimées dans le sang. Mais les Vietnamiens, conduits par Truong Minh Giang, allèrent trop loin en pratiquant une vietnamisation à outrance. En 1840, un soulèvement général des populations cambodgiennes se produisit tant au Cambodge lui-même que dans les provinces du delta du Mékong [Kampuchea Krom] en voie d’annexion ».

« Much weakened, the Khmer kingdom [capital city at Oudong] nevertheless maintained an administration in the provinces of Kampuchea Krom until the years 1840s. We were still then in the system of “leopard skin”, the Khmer territorial unity being broken par Vietnamese enclaves [represented by the dark spots on a leopard skin], with sovereignty being shared between the imperial/royal courts of Hue and Oudong on their respective nationals. Subsequently, the border between the two countries was difficult to trace and was, at that time, anything but a straight line (...).

Vietnamese expansion accelerated under the reign of Cambodian Queen Ang Mi, who was put on the throne by the Vietnamese in 1834. Vietnamese military forts were built all over the country and revolts
by the Cambodian people repressed in blood. But the Vietnamese, led by Truong Minh Giang, went too far by implementing a systematic vietnamization of the country. En 1840, a general uprising of the Cambodian populations took place in Cambodia itself as well as in the Mekong delta provinces of Kampuchea Krom in the process of being annexed by Vietnam. »

The current puppet Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen, who was installed in power by another Vietnamese invasion army in 1979, is as harmful for Cambodia as the former puppet Cambodian monarchs Ang Chan and Ang Mi. Even though the current Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is more subtle politically than General Truong Minh Giang, their objective remains the same: To swallow Khmer lands until Cambodia’s extinction.

In the 19th century, the “dark spots” on the “leopard skin” were Vietnamese settlements and military fortifications. At the beginning of this 21st century, they are the “economic concessions” and other huge “land concessions” granted in increasing number by Hun Sen to Vietnamese companies for the colonization of Cambodia. Nguyen Tan Dung is now in Cambodia to inspect the ongoing colonization process. Truong Minh Giang in his tomb can be proud of his successors.

Listen to Sam Rainsy’s interview in Khmer at http://tinyurl.com/3l2avzl

SRP Members of Parliament