VietNamNet Bridge – Southern An Giang Province has handed out VND300mil for restoration work on 65 of the province's Khmer pagodas, in order to celebrate the Khmer New Year Festival, Chol Chnam Thmay.

A further VND50mil was given to the pagodas to be used for the teaching of Pali, an ancient Khmer script.

During the harvest festival, which falls on April 12-14, officials of the province paid congratulatory visits to over 60 Khmer families.

An Giang Province is home to over 86,000 Khmer people, who account for four percent of the total provincial population. They live mainly in the districts of Tri Ton, Tinh Bien, Chau Phu, Chau Thanh, and Thoai Son.

(Source: VNA)

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So much "destruction" of Khmer's culture in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Khmer Krom Prepares for Global Demonstration on April 20, 2007
Submitted by kkf on Thu, 2007-04-12 12:42.
According to a Radio Free Asia report in the Khmer program on 11 April 2007, Mr. Thach Ngoc Thach has appealed to all Khmers to take part in a global demonstration on next Friday, 20 April 2007.

The global non violent demonstration will be conducted in Australia, Canada, USA, France and Cambodia to demand Vietnam respect the basic fundamental freedoms and human rights of the Khmer Krom people. In particular, it seeks to obtain greater international attention on the recent issue of religious prosecution against Khmer Krom Buddhist monks for taking part in a similar peaceful protest demanding religious freedom.

Since the fateful demonstration in February, three of the nine disrobed monks residing in various temples across Soc Trang remain imprisoned in an undisclosed location.

Mr. Thach Setha, President of the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Community has also urged all people to take part in the demonstration and to find justice for the Khmer Krom people.



An Appeal for a Peaceful Demonstration to Demand Religious Freedom for Khmer-Krom in Kampuchea Krom on April 20, 2007Submitted by kkf on Tue, 2007-04-10 12:04.
Read Appeal in Khmer

Belief in a religion is a foundation of the human beings and also a human being heritage. The United Nations has recognized the freedom of belief as a fundamental right of human beings and none of the authorities are allowed to use force to oppress and violate that right.

The Khmer-Krom people have been living in a suffered condition because of the Vietnamese government has intentionally planned to abolish The Theravada Buddhism that Khmer-Krom is practicing in Kampuchea Krom. The peaceful demonstration on February 8th, 2007 in Kleang (Soc Trang) province by the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks from the Pali language school to demand for religious freedom was cracked down by the Vietnamese Communist (VC) government. The Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks who were involved with that peaceful demonstration were arrested, defrocked, and imprisoned by the VC government. Currently, three of them are still imprisoned.

The Khmer-Krom people around the world have protested to demand the VC government to stop persecuting Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks and release them without any conditions. Unfortunately, the VC government has no attempted to stop persecuting and releasing the three Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks.

We would like to appeal the world community to help solving this urgent issue because the victims are living in the endangered situation. The Human Rights violations toward Khmer-Krom and Khmer-Krom Buddhist monk and other religions by the VC government is an inhumanity, disrespected, and totally violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Vietnam signed with the United Nations. The VC government must stop and be responsible for its evil acts for violating the Khmer-Krom’s Human Rights.

We would like to appeal the Asian Nations and World community to find a proper solution to stop the Human Rights violations committed by the VC government and pressure on the VC government to respect the fundamental Human Rights of the Khmer-Krom in Kampuchea Krom as follows:

Release Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks without any conditions

Stop confiscating Khmer-Krom’s lands
Freedom of speech
Freedom of religion and belief of their own culture
Freedom of assembly
To demand for the requests above, we would like to appeal to all Venerable, Khmer-Krom, and Khmer, to come and join the universal peaceful demonstration on April 20th, 2007 in front of Vietnamese Embassy in your country. For more information, please contact our local KKF representatives in your country.

Respectfully Yours,

Thach N. Thach
KKF President

Contact Details for each region:

Austalia
Miss. Sothy Kien: 0402538465

U.S.A
Mr. Tran Giap: 856-655-3838

Canada
Venerable Thach Truong: (905) 664-5547, cell (905) 920-3320

France
Mr. Thach Vien 33(1) 4383-5187, cell: 06-3561-1961

Press Releases

There are many things to learn, but they mien choose to follow puppet vnch footstep. Those things mean nothing.

You mien should do what the people in Southern Thailand are doing.

Remember to call puppet vnch to join you guys. The more people, the more fun it gets.

You are indeed very civilize by using the derogotory term for Khmer people. Ah sa kei dong is what khmer should use for the Vietnamese officially.

16:11' 03/03/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – The Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang has implemented a series of policies to upgrade its socio-economic infrastructure and to improve living conditions for the Khmer ethnic people.

Thanks to the Government's Programmes 134 and 135, national projects on agriculture and forestry development, and other local contributions, the province has built 397 facilities with a combined investment capital of more than VND247bil (roughly US$15.5mil). Transport constructions accounted for 70% of the projects, while irrigation, power and school facilities made up 30%.

By early 2007, the province had spent nearly VND161bil to build 28,600 houses for poor families, of which, 17,300 houses were handed over to Khmer ethnic people.

The province also carried out various social policies, including subsidies worth VND21.4bil on necessaries, housing assistance for 45,000 poor households and production development assistance for 3,400 households, most of them of Khmer ethnic community.

Through these efforts, hopefully Soc Trang province will successfully reduce the rate of Khmer poor households to 20% by the end of 2006 or 38.5% (according to the country's new criteria).

So far, 65.5% of Khmer households in rural areas have access to safe water, and more than 64% have access to the national electricity grid. 120,000 poor Khmer households in the province were provided with heath care insurance cards each year and nearly 500,000 patients benefited from free medical examinations.

The provincial authorities this year plan to build more than 10,000 new houses for poor Khmer ethnic people and speed up the transition of agricultural structure in order to facilitate socio-economic development in Khmer-inhabited areas.

The province is also working out a preferential credit policy for poor people, particularly those of Khmer ethnic minority, to help them increase their production.

(Source: VNA)

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So much opperssion for Khmer, yay!

The bigger you mien play, the more we like it. Play without blood is not fun, so make it as violence as possible. At the end, we will count bodies to see who has more death.

The UN should step into the area to take a look at it if what Vietnamnet bridge news is true or false.

Demostration is not fun at all ... do something more violence, mien.

The downfall of the Khmer Empire was because of the useless mien doing sissy things. Be manly for god sake.

It’s nice to know some efforts have been made to encourage the practice of Khmer cultures in Vietnam.

I have always believed that diversity is a good thing. My ancestors valued it so much that they claimed themselves children of the “Bách Việt” as oppose to the Hán mentality of one people, one language, one sex, one culture and everything under one boring governing system.

As for the erosion of Khmer cultures, I feel sad about it, but in this age of globalization every culture will be twisted out of shape and those who oppose it will only know the bitter taste of defeat. Slowly but surely humans will be one humongous boring collective of drones. Until that day, long live diversity wherever you may be.

Did you joit the orgie when you witnessed thsoe khmer doing sissy thing? ah sa kei dong?

Man. You mien are so sissy. I don't want to waste my time talking to sissy mien.