Khmer Krom commemorate 4th June according their political party

June 4 2009
By Thach Theary Khmer Krom Network

Political leaders as well as non-governmental organizations in Cambodia have begun to commemorate June 4th, the day France illegally transfer Cochin-China (Kampuchea-Krom) according to their political groups.

The 60th anniversary of the transfer of Kampuchea-Krom to Vietnam organized by the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) member Mr. Kim Vang Chheng who is also the president of the Khmer Krom Reconciliation Committee took place on June 1 to pay respect to Khmer Krom ancestors. Mr Thach Setha, a member of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) also plans the commemoration on the 4th June at Chaktokmouk Conference Centre.

In the morning of 1 June, 500 Buddhist monks and about 500 Khmer Kroms have gathered in Wat Ong Ta Minh Temple in Phnom Penh to and pray for the spirit of Khmer Krom ancestors. Other members of Phnom Penh municipality who are members of CPP also attended.

In a speech to the participants at the event, Mr Kim Vang Chheng, a former member of the SRP who have criticised Vietnam in the past prior to defecting to the CPP said in support of Vietnam "the reason his group are commemorating this day is not just to remember the history of Kampuchea Krom which has been lost for 60 years but more than 100 years ago"

"Kampuchea Krom before France transferred it to Vietnam is a society of the rich oppresses the poor that was why Khmer Krom and Vietnamese join together to fight the feudal system" he continues.

On the other hand, Mr Yon Tharo, a member of parliament from the SRP party who were also invited to attend the event said one cannot change history, he also went on to say that the blood and bones of Khmer Krom victims have turned into rivers and stacked up as mountains because of their struggle to defend the religion and culture of the Khmer Krom people in Kampuchea Krom.

Mr Yon Tharo continues to say that he is able speak Khmer in this [Khmer Krom] accent and his ability to write in Khmer and also went on to become the representative of the people is owed to the struggle of Khmer Krom ancestors in Kampuchea-Krom not in Cambodia. He stresses that he Khmer Krom culture, religion, language and literature that Khmer Krom remain to this day is not been given by anyone but through the production from blood and skins of Khmer Krom ancestors of all generations.

[Cambodian-American US] Marine meets extended family while deployed in Cambodia

Petty Officer 3rd Class Bunthoeun Ham, the Khmer translator for 3rd Medical Battalion. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz).
Vouch Nap grips the arm of her great nephew, Petty Officer 3rd Class Bunthoeun Ham, the Khmer translator for 3rd Medical Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 35, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, during his deployment to Cambodia for a medical and dental civil action project. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz).

Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz
http://www.okinawa.usmc.mil

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (June 5, 2009) -- An hour and a half outside of Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, a man in a cowboy hat wearing a blue surgical mask waits anxiously as a van pulls up.

One of the passengers is his nephew, Bunthoeun Ham, whose parents fled Cambodia in the 1970's to escape the bloody and violent hand of the Khmer Rouge and the civil wars that followed its fall from power.

The van arrives and the man in the cowboy hat, Moun Ey, approaches his nephew and sweeps him into an embrace that leaves no doubt they are family, even though this is their first time meeting.

Ham is a petty officer 3rd class in the U.S. Navy who served as the Khmer translator for the 3rd Medical Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 35, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, during the Cambodia Interoperability Program 2009.

It was the combination of good timing and eavesdropping that got Ham, a personnel specialist with the personnel support detachment, CLR 37, 3rd MLG, his place on the 3rd Medical Battalion deployment to Cambodia as their translator and ultimately his opportunity to meet the family that his parents had forlornly left behind.

In November, Ham arrived on Okinawa for his second tour and while checking in he overheard Petty Officer 1st Class Mark Craig, who was one of the coordinators for the Cambodia Interoperability Program 2009, speaking about 3rd Medical Battalion's deployment to Cambodia. Ham inserted himself into the conversation and vouched for his credentials as a native speaker.

Ham did not hear anything for a few months but followed the recommendations of Craig to get his passport and medical records in order then he was contacted by Craig, followed by a phone call in Khmer. On the other end was Maj. John Cherry, the Cambodian foreign affairs officer for the III Marine Expeditionary Force. Cherry asked Ham a few questions and the stuttering petty officer replied in Khmer, receiving a stamp of approval from Cherry.

Within weeks he was touching down in Phnom Penh with a plane full of Marines and sailors who had no ability to speak the language. A language that he had spoken his entire life, but when he stepped off the plane he was anxious about how good his Khmer was.

He didn't have the opportunity to avoid his role as translator. The officials from the airport who were processing the passports of the service members recognized his name as Khmer and sought him out.

Ham felt shy and stuttered a bit during his first Khmer exchange, he said.

But, he got used to it quickly. Over the next two weeks, he was immersed in the culture and language that he had always known was his but had never truly experienced, Ham said.

The Cambodia that Ham found was not the Cambodia that his parents left behind. Their Cambodia was victim to constant gun battles, the sounds of which echoed almost constantly across the rice paddies.

The refugees would move about in large groups and Ham's parents told him, "You just stayed in the middle and tried not to get shot."

Ham's visit to the Killing Fields, where thousands of Cambodians were killed during the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge made Ham realize the sheer scale of the horrors his parents endured, he said. But, the people of Cambodia have recovered from those horrors.

Phnom Penh is a budding metropolis filled with new construction and motorbikes that seem to drive with little caution. The provinces, where the medical and dental civil action project occurred and his family live are developing.

"You see growth everywhere, and I know there is plenty of room for more," Ham said.

The medical and dental civil action project was deeply rewarding for him, Ham said.

In Khmer, people are referred to as older brother or older sister instead of sir or ma'am, so, for Ham, that meant he was helping the members of his very large extended family, he said.

It was his meeting with his actual family though that moved him to tears because of all of the sacrifices that his parents made to ensure that he and his siblings had a better life. He took special liberty to be able to visit them and see all the sights. The visit allowed him to see the life that he would have had if his parents hadn't left, Ham said.

The visit to his parents' villages took careful navigation on narrow roads and then further navigation on foot through the rice paddies to meet everyone.

An afternoon at the sea with his father's family wrapped up the day for Ham and his family. They parted ways thinking it was his last opportunity to see them.

But the next day, after a morning of sightseeing in Phnom Penh, Ham returned to the hotel only to have a Cambodian woman approach him with a strangely familiar face.

Alin, Ham's cousin, waited almost five hours in the lobby of the hotel for him to come back. She had never met or seen him before but her family had said that he looked identical to her father, she said.

She was incredibly anxious and a little scared waiting for Ham to come back from his sight seeing, she said. The hotel staff informed her when he walked in and he was all the way across the lobby and almost into the elevator before she mustered up the courage to speak to her American cousin.

The two spent the next two days getting to know more about each other and exploring Phnom Penh.

It felt good to let Alin experience the city as a tourist with the leisure to eat from food vendors and experience her culture, Ham said. She normally works seven days a week with no days off so that she and her husband can afford to eat and live in their modest apartment.

Ham says that he misses his family now that he has returned to Okinawa, and hopes to be able to return to Cambodia in his role as translator again. His ability to help the Cambodian people and reconnect with his family made his job with 3rd Medical Battalion rewarding.

Cambodians receive much needed medical, dental, vision assistance [from US Marines]

Children from the school next to the temple and the children of the patients waiting in line play with each other on the temple grounds. They were very curious and keen to interact with the Marines and sailors of 3rd Medical Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 35, 3rd Marine Logistics Group. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz).
Petty Officer 3rd Class Pinch Santos, a hospital corpsman with 3rd Medical Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 35, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, takes blood pressure reading of a Buddhist monk during the Cambodia Interoperability Program 2009. Thousands of people came from all over the province to receive medical care from the combined U.S. and Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz).

A young patient is held by his mother while a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman with 3rd Medical Battalion, checks his pulse. Thousands of children were seen during the 10-day Cambodia Interoperability Program 2009 medical and dental civil action program. Many of them were suffering from infections and typical childhood ailments. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz).
United States Agency for International Development sponsored local nongovernmental organizations to set up informational displays on temple grounds providing health information to waiting patients. An avian flu display station passed out hats to raise awareness on the issue. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz).
Dentists and dental technicians with 3rd Medical Battalion, removed hundreds of teeth during the program. Dental saw an average of 100-150 patients everyday for dental surgery. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz).

Glimpse of Hope

Lance Cpl. Stefanie C. Pupkiewicz
http://www.okinawa.usmc.mil

WAT BAKAN, PURSAT PROVINCE, Cambodia (June 5, 2009) -- The provincial roads in Pursat, Cambodia, are unlit and relatively deserted at 1 a.m. On the morning of May 19, a woman on a motorbike clutching her sick infant in one arm rumbled down a two-lane highway.

She still has another hour's distance to cover before she reaches Wat Bakan, the district Buddhist temple, to receive treatment from the U.S. and Royal Cambodian Armed Forces at a combined medical and dental civil action project.

Her name is Chera and she arrives early knowing she will have to wait six more hours before the vans transporting the U.S. service members arrive and patient care begins for the day.

Despite her long journey and hardship, she could do nothing but smile and thank the service members for eventually helping her and her child.

Chera's story is just one of the 12,333 patient stories told to sailors from 3rd Medical Battalion, Combat Logistics Regiment 35, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, along with Royal Cambodian Armed Forces doctors and medics providing medical, dental and vision care during Cambodia Interoperability Program 2009.

The operation began May 11 with a goal to see 1,000 patients a day during the 10-day mission. By the eighth day, the medical and dental civil action project reached the 10,000 patient mark.

Prior to the start of CIP '09, medical and dental civil action program planners coordinated with local nongovernmental organizations associated with the United States Agency for International Development to provide health education on everything from safe sex to preventing the spread of avian flu.

When the project wrapped up May 20, Brig. Gen. William Faulkner, the commanding general of 3rd MLG, arrived on site for the closing ceremony and to express his pride in his Marines and sailors for their hard work.

"The operation has been a complete success and has strengthened the relationship between the United States and the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces," Faulkner said.

Throughout the program, the interoperability between both countries' service members was apparent in all areas of the operation, from the U.S. Navy hospital corpsmen working alongside RCAF medics, to the U.S. Navy doctors working general triage side by side with the RCAF doctors.

"The U.S. Navy optometrists worked especially close to the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces ophthalmologist," said U.S. Navy Lt. Robert Senko, an optometrist with 3rd Med. Bn. "The U.S. optometrists triaged the patients and provided them with eye exams and glasses while the Royal Cambodian ophthalmologist removed cataracts and pterygiums obstructing the patients' vision."

The mission was fulfilling for all involved because the fruits of their labor were immediately apparent, according to Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Barrett, a hospital corpsman with 3rd Med. Bn.

"I know we are taking out teeth, but I can see their happiness because they are out of pain. Pain that they have been in for a long time," said U.S. Navy Lt. Thomas Stinchfield, a dentist with 3rd Med. Bn.

In addition to pulling out infected teeth, the dental section of the project provided oral hygiene instruction to the Cambodians so they could take proper care of their remaining teeth.

Many of the people who received care had never seen a doctor, according to U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Bunthoeun Ham, the translator for 3rd Med. Bn.

"Most of the Cambodians treat their conditions and symptoms with medicinal plants that they grow," Ham said.

The medical and dental care offered by the service members was limited, but patients were referred to local free medical services.

"One of the things we have been doing is introducing a lot of the patients to some of the services available to them. These include malaria care, pregnancy care, and tuberculosis care that is available to them free of charge," said U.S. Navy Lt. Ryan Brown, a medical officer with 3rd Med. Bn. "Many of the Cambodians were unaware of the existence of these programs."

"We treat what we can here, and really, it's just a lot of smiling faces," said Brown.

Meanwhile, personnel from 3rd Med. Bn. are scheduled to deploy to Bangladesh this summer for another medical and dental civil action project.

Additionally, the government of Cambodia is expecting the return of U.S. Marines and sailors when combat engineers from Marine Wing Support Squadron 172 arrive for an engineering civil action project with the RCAF.