The United Issarak Front (UIF) (in Khmer : សមាគមខ្មែរឥស្សរៈ , Samakhum Khmer Issarak , lit. 'Khmer Issarak Front') was a Cambodian anti-colonial movement 1950–1954, organized by the left-wing members of the Khmer Issarak movement. The UIF coordinated the efforts of the movement as of 1950, and waged war against the French Union forces. At the time of the Geneva Peace Conference in 1954, it is estimated that UIF controlled about half of the Cambodian territory.
35-852: The founding conference of UIF was held in Kompong Som Loeu, Kampot province April 17–April 19, 1950. Around 200 delegates assisted the conference, out of whom 105 were Buddhist monks. Ung Sao, a Viet Minh general assisted the conference. At the conference venue Khmer, Vietnamese and Laotian flags were displayed. The conference elected a National Central Executive committee headed by Son Ngoc Minh . Other committee members were Chan Samay (deputy), Sieu Heng (secretary), Chan Dara (military commander), Meas Vong (military commander), Meas Vannak (military commander), Chau Yin (military commander), Nhem Sun (military commander), Sok Saphai (military commander), Ngin Hor (military commander), Keo Moni, Ney Sarann,
70-677: A Phnom Penh representative (possibly Keo Meas) and two representative of expatriate Khmers. The latter are believed to have been the Khmer Krom representatives Meas Vong and Meas Vannak. It is estimated at five of the committee members were affiliated with the Indochinese Communist Party . The founding conference of the UIF decided to launch a revolutionary proto-government, the People's Liberation Central Committee. The PLCC
105-577: A multi-ethnic community: Kampot town consisted of "Cambodian Kampot" on the Prek-Kampot River and "Chinese Kampot" on the right riverbank of the west branch of the Prek-Thom River. Nearby was also a Vietnamese village, called Tien-Thanh and another Vietnamese village on Traeuy Koh Island. A Malay also existed on Traeuy Koh Island. Additional villages of mixed ethnicity are listed. Destruction and mass murder happened throughout
140-584: A safe haven to launch their operations inside Vietnam. The "White Scarves" arrived in Kiri Vong District in 1976, making overture to the Khmer Rouge and appealing to the leader Khieu Samphan directly for assistance. The force was disarmed and welcomed initially. Subsequent orders from the Khmer Rouge leadership however had Samouk Sen arrested, taken to Phnom Penh, tortured, and killed. His force of 67 Khmer Krom fighters were all massacred. During
175-549: A third of the country. In 1952, the UIF effectively incorporated the rival Issarak grouping of the Khmer National Liberation Committee , led by Leav Keo Moni and based in the country's north-west, though some anticommunist elements of the KNLC continued to operate independently. The UIF then formed a 'Khmer Resistance Government', with the following composition: In August 1950 a UIF military school
210-532: A thousand of UIF cadres left for Vietnam along with the departing Viet Minh forces, on Polish ships provided by the ICSC on the Mekong river . Vietnamese sources claimed that UIF membership had reached 150,000 before the end of 1950. However, a more conservative estimate would be that UIF membership never crossed 20,000. Considering that two of the main leaders of UIF, Son Ngoc Minh and Tou Samouth, were former monks,
245-574: A total of 477 villages. Touk Meas City is located in the province. In the 19th century, during the French Indochina period, Kampot became a regional administrative center with the status of a state border district as a result of the delimitation of the Kingdom of Cambodia . The Circonscription Résidentielle de Kampot contained the arrondissements of Kampot, Kompong-Som, Trang and Kong-Pisey. In 1889, French colonial census reports
280-583: Is Theravada Buddhism . More than 96.9% of the people in Kampot are Buddhists. Chams have been practicing Islam for hundreds of years. A small percentage follow Christianity. Khmer Krom The Khmer Krom ( Khmer : ជនជាតិខ្មែរក្រោម , Chónchéatĕ Khmêr Kraôm , [cɔnciət kʰmae kraom] ; lit. ' Lower Khmer people ' or 'Southern Khmer people'; Vietnamese : người Khmer Nam Bộ, người Khmer Việt Nam, người Việt gốc Miên (used before 1975)) are ethnically Khmer people living in or from
315-754: Is as follows: Sóc Trăng (362,029 people, constituting 30.18% of the province's population and 27.43% of all Khmer in Vietnam), Trà Vinh (318,231 people, constituting 31.53% of the province's population and 24.11% of all Khmer in Vietnam), Kiên Giang (211,282 people, constituting 12.26% of the province's population and 16.01% of all Khmer in Vietnam), An Giang (75,878 people), Bạc Liêu (73,968 people), Bình Dương (65,233 people), Hồ Chí Minh City (50,422 people), Cà Mau (26,110 people), Đồng Nai (23,560 people), Vĩnh Long (22,630 people) each constituting less than 10% of all Khmer in Vietnam. Other estimates vary considerably, with
350-632: The Bassac River . After establishment of the Nguyễn dynasty , emperor Minh Mạng enacted compulsory assimilation policies upon the Khmer such as forcing them to adopt Sino-Vietnamese surnames, culture, and clothing. Minh Mang sinicized ethnic minorities including the Cambodians, in line with Confucianism as he diffused Vietnamese culture with China's Han civilization using the term Han people 漢人 for
385-554: The Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Federation claiming that there are about 7 million Khmer Krom . A significant number of Khmer Krom also fled to Cambodia, estimated at 1.20 million by one source. In other parts of the world, there are approximately 40,000 Khmer Krom emigrants notably in the United States (30,000), France (3,000), Australia (1,000), Canada (500). Khmer Krom emigrant communities in
SECTION 10
#1732765476102420-699: The Khmer Rouge , with Vietnam occupying Kampuchea and set up the People's Republic of Kampuchea . Many independent NGOs report that the human rights of the Khmer Krom are being violated by the Vietnamese government. Khmer Krom are reportedly forced to adopt Vietnamese family names and speak the Vietnamese language . As well, the Vietnamese government has cracked down on non-violent demonstrations by
455-657: The Mekong Delta (Tây Nam Bộ), the south western part of Vietnam known in Khmer as Kampuchea Krom ( Khmer : កម្ពុជាក្រោម , Kâmpŭchéa Kraôm [kampuciə kraom] lit. ' Lower Cambodia ' ). The Khmer Krom people are considered an the indigenous people of parts of Southern Vietnam and have the oldest extant recorded history of inhabiting in the region. In Vietnam, they are recognized as one of Vietnam's fifty-three ethnic minorities . In Accordance to Resolution 117-CT/TƯ issued September 29, 1981 of
490-1075: The Mekong Delta , which used to be the southeasternmost territory of the Khmer Empire until its incorporation into Vietnam under the Nguyễn lords in the early 18th century. This marks the final stage of the Vietnamese " March to the South " ( Nam tiến ). Khmer Krom people have been members of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization since 15 July 2001. According to the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) "the Khmer Krom people face serious restrictions of freedom of expression, assembly, association, information, and movement". The majority of Khmer Krom live in Southern Vietnam . According to Vietnamese government figures (2019 census), there are 1,319,652 Khmer Krom in Vietnam. Their distribution
525-818: The Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam and Resolution 122-CT issued on May 12, 1982 from the Vietnamese Ministry Committee, the term Khmer (as well as its Vietnamese transliteration Khơ Me and Khơ-me ) was sanctioned by the government as the only state-recognized ethnonym of the Khmer Krom people, stated that all other colloquial exonyms previously used by Vietnamese to refer to Khmer people "are incorrect and have negative racial connotations." Both Resolutions declared that any acts of misuse to misspelling that intended to incite and direct hate speech and discrimination toward
560-763: The Khmer Krom were recruited by the United States Armed Forces to serve in MIKE Force . The force fought on the side of South Vietnam against the Viet Cong but in time the militia regrouped as the "Front for the Struggle of Kampuchea Krom" ( French : Front de Lutte du Kampuchea Krom ). Headed by a Khmer Krom Buddhist monk , Samouk Sen, the group was nicknamed the "White Scarves" ( Khmer : Kangsaing Sar ; Vietnamese : Can Sen So ) and allied itself with FULRO against South Vietnam. FULRO
595-542: The Khmer Krom. Unlike some other minority people groups in Vietnam , the Khmer Krom are largely unknown by the Western world, despite efforts by associations of exiled Khmer Krom such as the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation to publicize their plight with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation . No Western government has yet raised the matter of the Khmer Krom's human rights with
630-703: The Khmer people are prohibited by the law. In fact, the term Khmer Krom is not popularly used due to its association with Khmer separatism as well as anti-Vietnamese and anti- government rhetorics. In Khmer , Krom ( ក្រោម kraôm ) means 'low' or 'below'. It is added to differentiate from the Khmers in Cambodia . Most Khmer Krom live in Tây Nam Bộ , the southern lowland region of historical Cambodia covering an area of 89,000 square kilometres (34,363 sq mi) around modern day Ho Chi Minh City and
665-419: The UIF was able to wield a significant influence amongst Buddhist religious circles. In February 1951, the UIF had organized a Khmer Buddhist conference led by Son Ngoc Minh. In 1952 Son Ngoc Minh, Prom Samith (a monk who had joined UIF and become the editor of the publication Issarak ), Chan Dara and five monks conducted a tour in the Khmer Krom areas. During the tour, they emphasized the role of Buddhism in
700-514: The US are located near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , and in Washington state . The Khmer Krom identify ethnically with the Khmer people , who founded the Khmer Empire under the rule of King Jayavarman II in 802 C.E. They retain deep linguistic, religious, customary and cultural links to Cambodia . The Mekong Delta region constituted for more than 800 years an integral part of the empire and
735-505: The Vietnamese immigrants to operate a custom house at Prey Nokor, then a small fishing village. The settlement steadily grew soon becoming a major regional port, attracting even more settlers. In 1698 the Nguyễn Lords of Huế commissioned Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh , a Vietnamese noble to organize the territory along Vietnamese administrative lines, thus by de facto detaching it from the Kingdom of Cambodia and incorporating it into Vietnam. With
SECTION 20
#1732765476102770-501: The Vietnamese. Minh Mang declared that "We must hope that their barbarian habits will be subconsciously dissipated, and that they will daily become more infected by Han [Sino-Vietnamese] customs." These policies were directed at the Khmer and hill tribes. Khmer nationalist Son Ngoc Thanh (1908–77) was a Khmer krom, born in Trà Vinh , Vietnam. Thanh was active in the independence movement for Cambodia. With Japanese support he became
805-594: The following months, some 2,000 "White Scarves" fighters crossing into Kampuchea were systematically killed by the Khmer Rouge. In the late 1970s, the Kampuchean Revolutionary Army 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 Democratic Kampuchea by the People's Army of Vietnam and subsequent downfall of
840-636: The loss of the port of Prey Nokor, then renamed Saigon , Cambodia's control of the area grew increasingly tenuous while increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers to the Delta isolated the Khmer of the Mekong Delta from the Cambodian kingdom. By 1757 the Vietnamese had absorbed the provinces of Psar Dèk (renamed Sa Đéc in Vietnamese) on the Mekong itself, and Moat Chrouk (Vietnamized to Châu Đốc ) on
875-420: The national liberation struggle. In the same year Son Ngoc Minh convinced the abbotts of three monasteries in Kampot, that they hold counsel deserters from the UIF to return to the UIF ranks. Kampot Province Kampot ( Khmer : កំពត [kɑmpɔːt] , lit. ' The Kampot's Fish ' ) is a province in southwestern Cambodia . It borders the provinces of Koh Kong and Kampong Speu to
910-479: The north, Takéo to the east, Kep and the country of Vietnam ( Kiên Giang ) to the south, and Sihanoukville to the west. To its south it has a coastline of around 45 km on the Gulf of Thailand . It is rich in low arable lands and has abundant natural resources. Its capital is the city of Kampot . Kampot Province had a population of 627,884 in 2010 and consist of eight districts divided into 92 communes with
945-721: The prime minister of Cambodia in March 1945 but was then quickly ousted with the return of the French later that year. Widely supported by the Khmer Krom during the First Indochina War , Thanh's role faded in Vietnam after 1954 as he became more embroiled with politics in Cambodia proper, forming an opposition movement against Prince Sihanouk . During the Vietnam War and direct American involvement between 1964 and 1974,
980-719: The promises of Prince Sihanouk of achieving independence from France. The UIF sent two delegates, Keo Moni and Mey Pho, to the 1954 conference on a peaceful solution to the conflicts in Indochina. The two accompanied the Viet Minh delegation, which arrived in Geneva on May 8. The UIF was, however, officially invited to the conference. In the first speech by the Viet Minh delegate urged that the UIF-led Khmer Resistance Government should be included in
1015-460: The subsequent kingdom. The region's economic center was the city of Prey Nokor, now Ho Chi Minh City . In the 17th century a weakened Khmer state left the Mekong Delta poorly administered after repeated warfare with Siam . Concurrently Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trịnh–Nguyễn War in Vietnam migrated into the area. In 1623 Cambodian king Chey Chettha II (1618–1628) officially sanctioned
1050-542: The talks, on equal footing with the Royal Government of Cambodia. This plea was supported by the delegates of the Soviet Union and China , V. M. Molotov and Zhou Enlai . Zhou Enlai was, however, convinced by Western powers to withdraw his support for UIF participation in the conference. The outcome of the conference included a cease-fire that included the UIF, independence of Cambodia under Sihanouk and
1085-542: The whole area of Kampot province, as the Cambodian genocide and bloody massacres engulfed Kampot province under the terror of Khmer Rouge rule. A total 90,450 persons were massacred throughout the province. Ta Mok himself massacred 30,000 people in the Angkor Chey District of Kampot. The province is subdivided into 7 districts and 1 municipality. Religion in Kampot (2019 census) The state religion
United Issarak Front - Misplaced Pages Continue
1120-511: The withdrawal of Viet Minh forces from Cambodia. The UIF ceased to function. Later, Cambodian communists would argue that the Viet Minh had betrayed the UIF at the conference. The outcome of the Geneva talks provided that former UIF guerrillas would have been protected by the International Commission of Supervision and Control during the election campaign, but in reality such guarantees were not given. With this backdrop around
1155-697: Was an alliance of Khmer Krom, Montagnard, and Cham groups. The anti-Communist prime minister of the Khmer Republic (1970 - 1975) Lon Nol planned to recapture the Mekong Delta from South Vietnam. After the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the Communist take-over of all of Vietnam, the Kampuchea Krom militia found itself embattled with People's Army of Vietnam . Many of the fighters fled to Khmer Rouge -controlled Democratic Kampuchea hoping to find
1190-511: Was founded, with about a hundred armed UIF cadres as its first batch. In September 1950, the French Union forces stepped up their campaign against the UIF. At the time the UIF rebel army had the support of around 3000 Vietnamese Viet Minh troops. In February 1953 UIF and Viet Minh forces ambushed and killed the governor of Prey Veng . The action constituted a major propaganda victory for the UIF, whose recruitment appeal had been curtailed by
1225-477: Was led by Son Ngoc Minh . Assisting him the PLCC had three vice-presidents; Chan Samay , Sieu Heng (the PLCC defence minister) and Tou Samouth (all three ICP cadres). Son Phouc Rattana , became the administrative secretary of PLCC. Non Suon was the sixth member of the PLCC leadership. On June 19, 1950, Son Ngoc Minh declared Cambodia independent. At the same time, he claimed that the UIF armed forces controlled
#101898