Vietnamese Cambodian - History

History

Vietnamese settlers began to settle in Cambodian territory from the 1620s onwards during the reign of Chey Chettha II. Chettha III, whose consort was the daughter of Nguyen Phuc Nguyen, played a key role in convincing Chettha III to allow Vietnamese settlers to establish themselves at Prey Nokor and Ba Ria. Large influxes of Vietnamese migration due to civil war in the north ensued, and the Vietnamese set up new townlets and villages in the Mekong Delta region (also referred to as Kampuchea Krom). As Siam began its initial incursions into Cambodia starting with the burning of Kompong Som in the early 18th century, the Khmers was no longer able to exert authority over the Mekong Delta and Chey Chettha V formally ceded the region to Vietnam in 1749. In the late 18th century, Taksin and his successor Rama I subjugated Cambodia to Siamese rule, and members of the royal family travelled to Bangkok for education. The pattern of Thai dominance over Cambodia stirred resentment in Ang Chan II during the early 19th century, who called on Gia Long to invade Cambodia in 1811.

The Nguyễn army at times also clashed with the Siamese army to establish influence over Chenla. Historically, Vietnamese emperors had a policy of settling Vietnamese in sparsely populated areas that the Khmer regarded as part of Cambodian territory. Vietnamese rice farmers and fishermen continued to migrate into Cambodia during the 19th and 20th centuries. During the French colonial period, France staffed much of its colonial administration in Cambodia with French-speaking Catholic Vietnamese. The French also imported Vietnamese plantation workers. In the 19th century Vietnam permanently took over part of Cambodia, and, during one occupation of Phnom Penh, attempted to impose the Vietnamese language and political structures and Sinicized or Confucianized Vietnamese cultural norms and practices on the Hinduized Theravada Buddhist Khmers. Thus many Cambodian nationalists came to perceive Vietnamese as a threat not only to their political independence but also to the survival of the Khmer people and culture.

Under Prince Sihanouk's rule during the post-independence period, ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia were, like ethnic Chinese, regarded as foreign residents. However, extreme Cambodian nationalists regarded ethnic Vietnamese as agents or instruments of a Vietnamese intention to take over Cambodia. Ethnic Vietnamese were severely persecuted under the successive regimes of Lon Nol (1970-5) and Pol Pot (1975-9). Almost immediately after Lon Nol's coup against Prince Sihanouk, pogroms were initiated against ethnic Vietnamese in Phnom Penh that left several thousand dead and caused more than 100,000 to flee back to Vietnam.

When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 perhaps as many as 150,000 Vietnamese who had not fled or been expelled during the Lon Nol years were expelled to Vietnam. Those Vietnamese who remained, often because they were married to Khmer, were massacred, along with, in many instances, the children of mixed Khmer-Vietnamese families. While Cambodia was under Vietnamese occupation, ethnic Vietnamese who had been expelled during the Lon Nol and Pot Pot regimes returned to Cambodia. Additional Vietnamese artisans entered the country in response to an economic boom that followed the signing of the Cambodian peace treaty in 1991.

In the early 1990s the Khmer Rouge and some right-wing Cambodian politicians started several campaigns of ethnic cleansing against the ethnic Vietnamese living in isolated fishing villages, which led to an exodus of perhaps 25,000 Vietnamese to the Cambodia-Vietnamese border. Vietnam admitted the majority of them.

Anti-Vietnamese sentiments remained so strong in the 1990s that a new immigration law - primarily aimed at the Vietnamese - which allows for the mass expulsion of non-citizens, was passed with a large majority in the elected Assembly, though the government pledged that there would be no mass expulsions.

The Vietnamese come to Cambodia for many reasons. Some have lived here for generations. Vietnamese began migrating to Cambodia as early as the 17th century. In 1863, when Cambodia became a French colony, many Vietnamese were brought to Cambodia by the French to work on plantations and occupy civil servant positions. During the Lon Nol Regime (1970–1975) and Pol Pot regime (1975–1979), many of the Vietnamese living in Cambodia were killed. Others were either repatriated or escaped to Vietnam or Thailand. During the ten year Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia from 1979 until 1989 many of the Vietnamese who had previously lived in Cambodia returned. Along with them came friends and relatives. Also, many former South Vietnamese soldiers came to Cambodia fleeing persecution from the communist government. In recent times, the number of Vietnamese immigration to Cambodia is still relatively high, and they are also the highest number of foreign visitors in Cambodia as of 2011.