V. Cambodia Cracks Down on Khmer Krom Activists

Our temples are under surveillance by undercover police. Outsiders are trying to infiltrate our pagodas and create divisions among the monks. Monks who were active in the demonstrations have received threats by telephone. Many monks are afraid now--there was one lesson already with the monk who was killed, another lesson with Tim Sakhorn. Some monks have left the monkhood; others have gone into hiding or fled to Thailand to try to seek asylum there.

--A Khmer Krom monk who has lived in Cambodia since 2005

The Vietnamese government's crackdown after the 2007 Buddhist protests led to several dozen Khmer Krom monks and followers fleeing to Cambodia, where they sought refuge in Buddhist pagodas there. The deepening Vietnamese crackdown on Khmer Krom protesters in Vietnam met with increasing levels of outrage--and protest--from Khmer Krom activists in Cambodia. During 2007 the Cambodian government responded to peaceful demonstrations by Khmer Krom monks in Phnom Penh with increasing levels of violence, as well as tightening up on other basic freedoms of Khmer Krom within its jurisdiction. "Minea," a Khmer Krom Buddhist student activist in Cambodia explained:

In Vietnam Khmer Krom monks have been arrested, defrocked, and sent to prison. Over there they have no voice to raise in protest. So the monks who come to Cambodia have to make their voices heard. Because they make demands like this, there is some discrimination against Khmer Krom monks in Cambodia--they are accused of making problems. Some are intimidated or threatened here.[178]

Discrimination and pressure on Khmer Krom for their political activities adds to the hardships faced by Khmer Krom living in Cambodia, the vast majority of whom do not engage in political activity. Although Khmer Krom are often able to assimilate into Cambodian society because of their common language, ethnicity, and culture, the Khmer Krom remain among Cambodia's most disenfranchised communities. Many cannot obtain national identification documents from Cambodian authorities that would make it easier to find regular employment, register births and marriages, and own property. Because they are often perceived as ethnic Vietnamese by Cambodians, many Khmer Krom face social and economic discrimination and unnecessary hurdles to legalizing their status in Cambodia.[179] This is the case even for those who specifically request identification cards by petitioning governmental authorities with the help of human rights organizations.[180]

Attacks on freedom of assembly

During 2007 Khmer Krom monks conducted a series of peaceful rallies and marches in Phnom Penh calling for the release of imprisoned monks in Vietnam. While Khmer Krom demonstrations in Cambodia in the past have called for the return of "Kampuchea Krom" to Cambodia, written appeals and speeches by the monk protesters during 2007 called for Vietnam to respect the rights of indigenous people, resolve Khmer Krom farmers' land conflicts, and release Khmer Krom monks imprisoned in Vietnam.[181]

On February 27, 2007, more than 150 Cambodian police armed with shields, tear gas, electric batons, and guns dispersed a peaceful demonstration of 52 Khmer Krom monks outside the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh during the state visit to Cambodia of Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet.[182] Sao Chanthol, representative of the chief of monks for the Phnom Penh municipality, ordered the monks to cease demonstrating and threatened to have all the protesters defrocked and investigated. A stand-off ensued, as police officers began to push the monks into a bus, ostensibly to be defrocked and sent to Vietnam.

Phnom Penh authorities ordered police to load protesting monks onto busses during a demonstration in Phnom Penh on February 27, 2007, for defrocking and deportation to Vietnam. © 2007 Tang Chhin Sothy

After intervention by monitors from several Cambodian human rights organizations and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia, the monks were allowed to leave the bus. Rights groups transported most of the monks to Samaki Reangsay Pagoda, whose abbot heads the Khmer Krom Krom Buddhist Monk Association in Cambodia and has long provided shelter to Khmer Krom monks and laypeople from the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam.[183]

Khmer Krom monk Eang Sok Thoeun was murdered after participating in a demonstration in Phnom Penh. © 2008 Human Rights Watch

That evening Khmer Krom monk Eang Sok Thoeun, who had participated in the demonstration and was very close to the abbot of Samaki Reangsay Pagoda, was found dead in his pagoda in Kandal Province, with his throat repeatedly slit. Police labeled the killing a suicide, ordered his immediate burial, and prohibited monks from conducting funeral proceedings.[184] Repeated requests to have his body exhumed for autopsy were refused by the Kandal court.[185] Human rights groups who investigated the killing determined it was a murder, not suicide.[186]

On April 20, 2007, police forcefully dispersed another demonstration by around 50 Khmer Krom monks at the Vietnamese and US embassies in Phnom Penh.[187]Later that night one of the monks who had joined in the march was badly beaten by a group of unknown men after returning to his pagoda.[188]

Counter-demonstrators physically attacked Khmer Krom protesters on April 20, 2007 in front of Phnom Penh's Ounalom Pagoda. © 2007 Chor Sokunthea

On June 8, 2007, Cambodia's National Buddhist Monk Committee (Kanna Sang Niyok) issued an order, co-signed by the Ministry of Cults and Religion, banning Buddhist monks from participating in demonstrations. While the order applied only to Cambodia, it was translated into Vietnamese and distributed in pagodas in southern Vietnam--a clear indication that it was targeted at ethnic Khmer on both sides of the border.

The order was no idle threat. On December 17, 2007, riot police carrying shields, and wooden and electric shock batons--and some with assault rifles and revolvers--violently attacked a group of 48 Khmer Krom monks as they attempted to deliver a petition to the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh protesting Vietnam's imprisonment of monks.[189] As the monks pressed against police lines, the commanding police officer called on his officers to shoot. About 10 police officers moved their rifles and revolvers into a menacing position, but no shots were fired.

When some of the monks again tried to move toward the embassy, anti-riot police beat the monks with their shields and wooden batons, shocked them with the electric batons, hit them with their fists, and kicked them with their boots. The monks tried to defend themselves using their hands and their feet--clad only in plastic sandals--and some threw their plastic water bottles at the police.Two monks were seriously injured after being hit in the head with electric batons, causing one to lose consciousness, and several other monks suffered leg and knee injuries.[190]

Discrimination against Khmer Krom Monks in Cambodia

Cambodian authorities have threatened Khmer Krom monks in Phnom Penh, Banteay Meanchey,[191] and Kompong Speu provinces with expulsion from temples or with being forcibly sent or returned to Vietnam if they meet with Khmer Krom groups, distribute Khmer Krom bulletins covering cultural, religious, and political affairs, or participate in protests. They have pressured Khmer Krom Buddhist and student associations to cease activities and confiscated or banned Kampuchea Krom political and religious bulletins. A leader of a Khmer Krom association in Cambodia explained how the situation had deteriorated since the demonstrations in Vietnam and Cambodia:

Before, we had permission from the Ministry of Interior and from the pagoda to set up our office. Then there was the problem in Vietnam and they asked us to leave the pagoda. Now all of our activities are deadlocked. Other pagodas face the same problems. They ban the monks from joining meetings, ceremonies, and demonstrations held by other Khmer Krom monks. Now some Khmer Krom monks don't dare to speak. It's the same in the provinces. If Khmer Krom monks go to a pagoda, they dare not accept them.[192]

The restrictions the Cambodian government placed on Khmer Krom monks from Vietnam, together with the murder of monk Eang Sok Thoeun, the arrest and imprisonment of Tim Sakhorn, and the government's crackdown on protests by Khmer Krom monks has taken its toll on Khmer Krom activism in Cambodia. Prime Minister Hun Sen reinforced the message in a speech broadcast on national television in February 2008, in which he warned those who would attempt to reclaim Kampuchea Krom that he would provide free coffins and "help to bury your corpses."[193]

The result was that a number of Khmer Krom monks fled to Thailand in 2008, while those who stayed greatly curtailed their public advocacy in Cambodia. For the most part, Khmer Krom monks and activists have stopped conducting public protests in Phnom Penh, opting instead to summon journalists for an occasional press conference at Samaki Reangsay Pagoda to express their concerns.[194]

Even participating in a peaceful meeting within a pagoda can bring reprisals. On December 21, 2008, close to 100 Khmer Krom Buddhist monks, laypeople, human rights activists, and politicians gathered for a meeting with two members of the European Parliament to discuss concerns about rights abuses of Khmer Krom in both Vietnam and Cambodia. Afterwards, the two parliamentarians were barred entry to Vietnam, despite holding Vietnamese visas.[195]

Restrictions on travel, association, and expression

Prior to the 2007 protests Khmer Krom from Vietnam were for the most part able to freely cross into Cambodia to work and study. As the crackdown by the Vietnamese authorities spread, however, some Khmer Krom were denied entry at the border or, if able to cross, had to go underground in Cambodia and change their names to Khmer-sounding names to avoid deportation to Vietnam.[196] Those who attempted to assist Khmer Krom from Vietnam to cross to Cambodia faced threats, intimidation, and arrest.

For example, in February 2007 Vietnamese border police detained a group of 48 Khmer Krom (12 families, including 21 children) from An Giang Province in Vietnam attempting to cross into Cambodia to work on the annual rice harvest, holding them for eight hours before ordering them to return to Vietnam. Desperate for work and money, they tried again to cross, only to be detained overnight, this time by Cambodian border police.

Following the intervention of a local Khmer Krom association in Cambodia's Takeo Province, the group was eventually permitted to enter Cambodia, where the association arranged for temporary shelters and emergency food assistance for the migrants. While in Cambodia, members of the group told the media that part of the reason they left Vietnam was because "there was no rice to eat and no clear policy where land was concerned."[197] The following month, the Takeo provincial court charged the director of the Khmer Krom association with disinformation, which can result in a prison sentence, for describing the 48 as "refugees" in a radio appeal for help. Fearing arrest, he fled the area and has not been able to return.[198]

In February 2007 three Khmer Krom men were sentenced to prison for disinformation for allegedly distributing leaflets in Cambodia criticizing the Cambodian government for not standing up to Vietnam.[199]

As a result of these incidents, as well as the arrest and defrocking of Tim Sakhorn (see below), Khmer Krom human rights associations formerly active in Takeo took down their signboards and greatly scaled back their activities, with some reporting that plainclothes police officers were monitoring their activities.[200] As a Khmer Krom activist in Takeo told Human Rights Watch:

The situation is not like before. Before, people dared to express their opinions, read bulletins, hold a book from the KKF. Now people seem afraid. In their heart people want freedom and their ancestral land but they are afraid. They are still traumatized by what happened here.[201]

The defrocking and arrest of Tim Sakhorn

On June 30, 2007, Cambodian authorities arrested Tim Sakhorn, a leading Khmer Krom activist and Buddhist abbot of Northern Phnom Den Pagoda[202] in Takeo Province, Cambodia. He was driven to the main pagoda in Takeo provincial town, where he was defrocked by Buddhist officials from Phnom Penh and Takeo, in the presence of provincial police, some in civilian clothes. During the defrocking several dozen uniformed police officers surrounded and sealed off the pagoda. Afterwards, Tim Sakhorn was forced into a car and driven away. Provincial police then searched Tim Sakhorn's pagoda, confiscating documents, computers, and cameras. Tim Sakhorn's whereabouts were unknown for weeks until Vietnamese state media reported on August 3 that he was in prison in Vietnam.[203]

Born in An Giang Province, Vietnam, in 1968, Sakhorn and his family moved to Cambodia in 1978,[204] where they were recognized by the Cambodian government as Cambodian citizens.[205] In 1990 Sakhorn became a monk at Northern Phnom Den pagoda. In 2002 Cambodia's Supreme Buddhist Patriarch, Tep Vong, promoted him to abbot--a position only Cambodian citizens can hold.[206] As the local representative of the KKF, Sakhorn actively promoted the rights of Khmer Krom people and provided shelter in his pagoda in Cambodia to Khmer Krom migrants and asylum seekers from Vietnam.

Cambodian authorities defrocked Tim Sakhorn based on a written order by Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong and his deputy Nuon Nget on June 16, 2007, stating that Sakhorn had violated Buddhist rules by harming Cambodian-Vietnamese solidarity and using the pagoda to conduct propaganda.[207] The order was translated into Vietnamese and distributed to Khmer pagodas on both sides of the Cambodia-Vietnam border. Later Sakhorn was also accused of disseminating KKF bulletins and having women in his room.

On August 3, 2007, Vietnamese state media reported that Sakhorn was in prison in An Giang Province, Vietnam, awaiting trial on criminal charges after being arrested for "illegally" trying to enter Vietnam.[208] The Vietnamese government's position was that he was a Vietnamese national of Khmer ethnicity who had confessed to carrying out criminal activities in Cambodia, which warranted him being tried in Vietnam.[209]

Tim Sakhorn's trial

On November 8, 2007, Tim Sakhorn was tried by the Peoples' Tribunal in An Giang Province, Vietnam, on charges of violating Vietnam's national unity policy under article 87 of Vietnam's penal code.[210] He was sentenced to one year in prison, reduced from 15 years by the judge because Sakhorn read out a confession admitting his crimes during the trial.[211] Sakhorn reportedly had no legal representation during the trial.[212]

Defrocked Buddhist monk Tim Sakhorn at his trial in November 2007 at the An Giang Peoples' Court in Vietnam. ©2007 Private

Tim Sakhorn's indictment and accounts in the Vietnamese state media stated that Sakhorn had served as a representative in Cambodia of the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF) since 2005, distributed bulletins and videos about Khmer Krom history and politics, and "incited" Khmer Krom people in Vietnam to file complaints and demonstrate about confiscation of their land.[213]

An article in a Vietnamese state newspaper, Cong An Nhan Dan (Peoples' Police), reported that Tim Sakhorn "volunteered" to confess his crimes:

One of the investigators said that when Tim Sakhorn was first arrested, he was being disingenuous and sought to avoid all responsibility. However, after the investigating officers explained to him the country's policies, the relevant law, and what the conditions for clemency were, he became repentant and remorseful, admitted all of his crimes, and at the same time denounced the group of people and their leaders who had led him into committing his crimes.

On August 5, 2007, Tim Sakhorn stated his views frankly on paper that had been furnished to him by the investigating officers: 'It was because I believed in the false propaganda of ill-intentioned foreigners, that I have committed crimes against the Vietnamese state. After having learned from the Vietnamese government about its laws, and its policies regarding the Khmer people and religion, I am able to distinguish right from wrong, and I understand that I have committed crimes. At the same time I see clearly the humanitarianism and the clemency that the Vietnamese state has afforded to me personally.'

In black and white, Tim Sakhorn 'calls on all of my compatriots not to listen to the slanderous lies of outsiders with bad intentions who are trying to destroy the great unity between Khmers and Vietnamese, between the government and religion. Organizing people in large numbers to file complaints regarding rice fields and other agricultural land is a plot organized by bad people from outside the community…Once again, I call upon anyone still in possession of publications or DVDs of the KKF Federation to turn them in to the village authorities in order to benefit, as I did, from the government's program of clemency.'[214]

Legal violations

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia, several UN special rapporteurs,[215] international human rights groups, and diplomats in Phnom Penh and Hanoi raised strong concerns about the enforced disappearance and illegal deportation of Tim Sakhorn, as did Cambodia's retired king, Norodom Sihanouk, in a letter in July 2007 to Prime Minister Hun Sen[216] (For a copy of Hun Sen's response, see appendix D).

The Cambodian government's stripping of Tim Sakhorn's Cambodian citizenship and expulsion of Sakhorn to Vietnam was a blatant violation of the Cambodian Constitution and Cambodian and international law.[217] Tim Sakhorn's status as a Cambodian citizen is undisputed, given written documentation verifying his citizenship (see footnote 205, above), as well as the government's repeated statements that Khmer Krom are recognized as such.

The deportation of Sakhorn to Vietnam, where he was arbitrarily imprisoned, was also a flagrant breach of Cambodia's obligations to protect its citizens, whether in Cambodia or abroad. Both article 33 of Cambodia's Constitution and article 2 of its Nationality Law state that "Cambodian citizens shall not be deprived of their nationality, exiled or arrested and deported to any foreign country unless there is a mutual agreement."[218] There is currently no extradition treaty between Cambodia and Vietnam.[219]

The Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that Tim Sakhorn's deportation is "a prima facie violation of the constitutional prohibition of deportation of Cambodian citizens, if indeed Khmer Krom have the status of Cambodian citizens. If they do not, then Khmer Krom claiming persecution should be entitled to seek refugee status under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to which Cambodia is a party."[220]

Faced with criticism over the deportation, a Cambodian government spokesman claimed that Sakhorn had "requested" to be taken to Vietnam.[221] A handwritten letter by Tim Sakhorn requesting to return to his birthplace, as well as a "confession" were subsequently produced.[222] This unlikely scenario was in stark contrast to the report of a local human rights organization, which witnessed Sakhorn being bundled into a car by men in bodyguard uniforms[223] thought to be from Brigade 70, a unit commanded by Lt. Gen. Hing Bun Heang that includes Prime Minister Hun Sen's bodyguard unit. In September 2006 Heang had been appointed as a religious advisor to the newly-formed Senior Buddhist Monk Assembly--created by the government to act as a "supreme court" for disputes involving monks. Heang has been implicated in numerous serious human rights abuses, including the notorious March 30, 1997, grenade attack on an opposition party demonstration that left at least 16 dead and more than 150 injured.[224]

Aftershocks of Sakhorn's arrest

Tim Sakhorn's arrest served as a powerful warning to other Khmer Krom activists and monks in Cambodia.[225] The day after Sakhorn's defrocking, for example, a commune police officer threatened a Khmer Krom activist in Takeo, saying: "You will all fall. Your master has been arrested and sooner or later you will all be arrested and sent back to Vietnam like your master."[226] Monks at Phnom Den Pagoda were placed under surveillance and warned not to collect thumbprints on a petition calling for Tim Sakhorn's release.[227]

Despite the outcry over Tim Sakhorn's deportation, Cambodian authorities continued to harass supporters of the monk. In July 2007, 50 armed policemen blocked a group of 36 Khmer Krom, including relatives of Sakhorn, when they traveled to Phnom Penh to deliver a petition to the National Assembly. Later that month, police in Takeo detained activist Chhim Savuth of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights on the eve of a public forum to discuss Tim Sakhorn's disappearance.

Cambodians hold photos of imprisoned monk Tim Sakhorn during a prayer ceremony calling for the monk's release from prison in Vietnam in August 2007 at Samaki Reangsay Pagoda in Phnom Penh. © 2007 Tang Chhin Sothy

On July 1, 2007, Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong announced that he had "ordered authorities" to defrock and deport to Vietnam another 11 Khmer Krom monks.[228] Buddhist abbots in Phnom Penh and the provinces warned Khmer Krom monks in residence at their pagodas that they would be evicted from their temples if they participated in any future public protests, with two monks in Kompong Speu accused of serving as the "legs" (agents) of Tim Sakhorn.[229]

In November 2007 local authorities in Banteay Meanchey Province ordered four monks to leave their pagoda--or be arrested and "face the same charge as Tim Sakhorn." They were suspected of distributing Khmer Krom advocacy materials. As with Tim Sakhorn, they were subsequently accused of improper behavior including having affairs with women. All four were forced to leave the province, with some eventually fleeing Cambodia altogether.[230]

In Phnom Penh, monks at several pagodas came under increased threat, intimidation, and surveillance in 2008.[231] Police and local authorities periodically drive into the Samaki Reangsay Pagoda compound to ask about monks who have participated in demonstrations, and undercover police are often stationed at the entrance to the pagoda.[232]Khmer Krom monks active in the protests in Phnom Penh have received threatening phone calls. In one such call a monk was told: "If you defrock, you will live. If you want to die, stay a monk."[233] On at least one occasion a person in civilian clothes, armed with a handgun, entered Samaki Reangsay Pagoda in an effort to "persuade" one of the more activist monks to defect to the Cambodian Peoples' Party of Prime Minister Hun Sen.[234]

On the night of May 14, 2008, 10 drunken men, including uniformed police officers, threw rocks at the monks as they attempted to push their way into the pagoda.[235] A monk from Samaki Reangsay Pagoda told Human Rights Watch:

Their strategy is to try to divide us and make us angry. They insulted us like animals. They accused us of becoming monks in order to oppose the government.[236]

Restrictions on Tim Sakhorn after release

On June 28, 2008, Tim Sakhorn was released from prison. The certificate of his release from prison, obtained by Human Rights Watch, states that having completed his sentence, Sakhorn was free to return to Cambodia.[237]Instead, government officials escorted him to Ba Chuc village, his birthplace in An Giang Province, where the authorities had organized a welcome party for him.[238]

After only a few hours in his village, however, government officials escorted Sakhorn on a one-month tour of Vietnam, in which he was in the custody of two police officers 24 hours a day. During the tour he was taken to ethnic Khmer pagodas and a Khmer cultural center in the Mekong Delta, Mahayana Buddhist temples and Pali schools in northern Vietnam, a Cham temple near Hue, a hydro-electric dam near Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh's home in Hanoi, and the popular tourist site of Ha Long Bay.[239] In early August 2008 Tim Sakhorn was sent back to Ba Chuc village, where police officers were posted near his house to monitor his visitors and restrict his movements.[240]

Local officials have reportedly offered Sakhorn a plot of land and a house in An Giang as an apparent incentive to remain in Vietnam.[241] Even before his release from prison, the authorities had him apply for Vietnamese citizenship, swiftly producing a national identification card for him.[242]

Cross-border collaboration in suppression of Khmer Krom

The arrest and deportation of Tim Sakhorn is just one example of the nature of the collaboration between the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments in the suppression of Khmer Krom political activism. On December 6, 2007, Cambodian Minister of Cults and Religion Khun Haing met with Nguyen The Doanh, head of the Vietnamese government's Bureau for Religious Affairs, in Phnom Penh. According to official Vietnamese news sources, the two countries "agreed to continue to co-ordinate in the management of religious activities and make religions an important element of building peace and stability in each country."[243]

Internal Vietnamese government reports and memos have highlighted the extent to which such "coordination" has been aimed at suppressing dissident or controversial groups such as the Khmer Krom. For example, an article by Gen. Luu Phuoc Luong, deputy commander of Vietnam's southwest region, blames "enemy forces and Vietnamese exile groups, and reactionary groups of the Khmer KPC [Kampuchea] Krom" for trying to "destabilize us politically" and recommends "close cooperation with the Cambodian government in order to nip anti-government activities in the bud."[244]

The main thrust of their propaganda is the promotion of the idea of 'separation and self-government,' demanding the creation of an independent Khmer Kampuchea Krom nation, taking advantage of land disputes, problems with deep historical roots, and welfare and democracy problems to mobilize their forces, entice followers, plant flags, organize demonstrations, etc. Their main targets are intellectuals, monks, high school and university students, and officials, to use them to seduce others into their fold; trick people into crossing over into Cambodia to pressure the UNHCR into creating a refugee camp inside Cambodia for the monks and laypeople of our Khmer regions; accuse us of being undemocratic and of violating human rights. Both their immediate and their long-term goal is to destabilize us politically in order to 'internationalize' the 'Khmer Krom problem' and create an independent Khmer Krom state…[245]

Besides collaborating with the Cambodian government to stem Khmer Krom political activism, Gen. Luong proposed that propaganda focus on developing "the tradition of unity" among the different ethnic groups; refuting wrongful views of the "reactionary" Khmer Krom, and properly explaining the true history of Nam Bo (Vietnam's southwest region). As part of the propaganda campaign, in March 2007 the Vietnamese Communist Party began to disseminate a freshly-written history of southern Vietnam that asserted that the Khmer were not its indigenous inhabitants.[246]

A 2007 report by the National Borders Committee of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs found that the cooperation between the two governments had already been highly effective in disrupting the political activism of the Khmer Krom:

We have coordinated with our friends (CPP) in Cambodia to put a stop to their activities, including breaking up their schemes to demonstrate in front of our embassy during President Nguyen Minh Triet's official visit and preventing people from crossing the border into Takeo Province so that they will be able to set up 'refugee camps' there.[247]

Meanwhile, a confidential report from 2005 on a top-level meeting of Vietnam's Security Directorate for southern Vietnam makes it clear that government agents have been operating for years within Cambodia and Thailand to monitor, infiltrate, and undermine the Khmer Krom:

General Department V is to direct the force of interdiction in the regions of Kampuchea and Thailand; to coordinate with General Department I and local police forces to verify intelligence, assess the situation, and clearly identify 'subjects' among 'Khmer Krom' organizations seeking to infiltrate; to identify cells of reactionary infiltrators, their organizations, and means of transportation and routes of infiltration in order to design effective measures of interdiction and management.[248]

Citizens, migrants, or refugees?

In Vietnam they say I am a Cambodian but in Cambodia they say I am Vietnamese.

--A Khmer Krom man who works as a garbage collector in Takeo Province, Cambodia

The 1993 Cambodian Constitution does not define who is a Cambodian citizen. This is ostensibly left to the Nationality Law, which was adopted in 1996. But the nationality law focuses primarily on criteria for nationality (sancheat Khmer), providing few specifics about citizenship (pracheapholrot Khmer), other than in article 2, which states: "Any person who has Cambodian nationality is a Cambodian citizen. Cambodian citizens shall not be deprived of their nationality, exiled, or arrested and deported to any foreign country unless there is mutual agreement."[249] Article 4 states that a person has Cambodian nationality at birth if he or she is born in Cambodia or has one or both parents of Khmer nationality.[250] As legal analysts pointed out at the time the law was being debated in the National Assembly, by not clearly defining who is a citizen and who is not, the question of citizenship is left open to interpretation by government officials, some of whom are sympathetic to Khmer Krom, others who are not.

As a policy matter, the Cambodian government has repeatedly and publicly stated that it considers Khmer Krom from Vietnam who move to Cambodia to be Cambodian citizens, and hence constitutionally subject to full protection by the Cambodian state.[251] This position has been confirmed in numerous official documents, including government communiqués to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)[252] and Cambodia's own Ministry of Justice.[253] In a February 2007 meeting with Ellen Sauerbrey, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong stated once again that "Khmer Krom who are living in the Cambodian territory, are treated and can enjoy equal rights as the Cambodian citizen."[254]

This is important in determining what rights Khmer Krom have to request asylum in Cambodia. Prior to 2005, UNHCR's Cambodia office recognized some Khmer Krom from Vietnam as refugees. That practice ended in August 2005 after an unsuccessful attempt by Khmer Krom from Vietnam to formalize their right to seek asylum in Cambodia. On August 1, 2005, more than 60 Khmer Krom lay people and monks gathered at the offices of UNHCR in Phnom Penh, claiming to have fled crackdowns on religious and other freedoms in Vietnam.[255] In response, the Cambodian government informed UNHCR that the government recognized all Khmer Krom as Cambodian citizens and, therefore, they were not eligible for consideration as refugees.[256] On August 4, 2005, UNHCR informed the group--many of whom UNHCR had interviewed and issued preliminary "Persons of Concern" letters -- that they would not be recognized as refugees, and that it considered their cases closed.[257]

Because UNHCR accepts Cambodian government assurances that Khmer Krom living in Cambodia are citizens of Cambodia and that the Cambodian government is, therefore, responsible for protection of its own citizens, UNHCR's Phnom Penh office rules out all Khmer Krom asylum seekers from Vietnam as ineligible for consideration as refugees.[258]

In reality, however, the Cambodian government does not explicitly recognize most Khmer Krom from Vietnam as citizens. It does not provide them individually with the documents necessary to establish their Cambodian citizenship. And, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Cambodian government's treatment of many Khmer Krom is contrary to any presumption that they are citizens.[259]

Khmer Krom fleeing to Cambodia to escape political persecution in Vietnam thus face the prospect of a dangerous journey to a third country to seek asylum. As many as 50 Buddhist monks and 100 civilians have fled to Thailand to seek refugee protection. The other option--remaining indefinitely in Cambodia as stateless persons--is fraught with risk. The Cambodian government has proven itself more than willing to collaborate with Vietnam in suppressing Khmer Krom political activism, in several cases even arresting and deporting Vietnamese dissidents.[260]

"Bunroeun," a Khmer Krom man from Vietnam who was recognized as a refugee by UNHCR prior to the August 2005 policy statement to UNHCR by the Cambodian government, told Human Rights Watch that UNHCR subsequently revoked his status and took away his refugee certificate. He described the consequences as follows:

They [UNHCR] said Khmer Krom are Khmer citizens and that I could be registered with the Cambodian government… When I had [refugee] status here, if I had a problem with the police, UNHCR could intervene. Now I am afraid of being abducted, especially after what happened to Tim Sakhorn.[261]

Three years later, "Bunroeun" still lacks a Cambodian national identification card and household registry book despite repeated attempts to secure the documents from local authorities.

When a Khmer Krom from Vietnam seeks refugee recognition from UNHCR, the agency should first positively establish whether the asylum seeker is, in fact, recognized by the Cambodian government as a Cambodian citizen and has been issued an official national identification card before rejecting the application. Those who are not recognized as Cambodian citizens--including Khmer Krom who are Vietnamese citizens or stateless persons--should be fully eligible for UNHCR refugee status determinations. UNHCR should insist on the same approach by the Cambodian government as it carries out refugee status determinations.[262]

UNHCR should hold Cambodia--as a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention-- responsible for protecting those individuals who qualify as refugees. In the absence of protection by the Cambodian government, UNHCR should exercise its own mandate to recognize and protect such refugees.

In the exercise of its mandate on behalf of stateless persons, UNHCR should intervene with the Cambodian authorities on behalf of stateless Khmer Krom seeking assistance to obtain national identification cards establishing their citizenship.[263]

Finally, UNHCR should also be alert to the possibility--as in the case of Tim Sakhorn--of Cambodian authorities forcibly returning individuals with a well-founded fear of persecution to Vietnam. In such cases UNHCR should intervene to prevent their refoulement even if it had previously deemed such Cambodian citizens ineligible for refugee status prior to having been stripped of their nationality.