Words from KKF President, Mr. Thach Ngoc Thach. I would like to pay my sincere greetings to our compatriots in Kampuchea Krom as well in Cambodia and abroad and to all our friends and supporters all over the world for opposing the human rights violation committed by the Vietnamese communist government towards our religion and Khmer Krom people as a whole The arrest of our monks in Khleang is real hard evidence that the behavior of the communist Vietnam has never changed from its old tradition. That is the tradition of oppressing, discriminating and insulting people and doing whatever they can in their power to eliminate people who believe in religion or opposing their communist oppression or Ho Chi Minh’s doctrine. The plight of Khmer-Krom people and our non-violent freedom struggle has touched the hearts and conscience of the all people who love the truth and justice. There is increasing international awareness on the issue of Khmer-Krom people, who continue to be violated daily by the Vietnamese government. We have and continue to receive support and solidarity from our Khmer people around the world; especially with recent protests by our monk in front the Vietnam Embassy in Phnom Penh. Unfortunately, their freedom of expression were stopped by the police and claim that it caused a great deal distraction for Cambodia’s highly distinguished guest, the Vietnamese Prime Minister. One should be ashamed of doing nothing but watch as history repeats itself and its former peoples, the Khmer Krom people are not longer recognized as Khmer. Religious freedom in a political sense means simply that we all ought to have this opportunity, unhindered, to hear what is handed down and, subsequently, to practice and to live by what we hear without fear of political coercion or cultural disdain. In theory, there is religious liberty in many parts of the world today; especially Vietnam is one of the worse countries. Most of it civil a constitution pays only lip-service to it; but the practice and reality are far different. In our lives, Buddhist religion is our very most seen as something primarily political, but it is because the politics of the Vietnam government has claimed more and more of our lives. For those who think Vietnamese government is good friend or good neighbor means that they do not know Vietnam well enough or continues to reject the truth of the devil. We would like to appeal to those who believe in religion; please do not be afraid of the truth, come out and tell the world that Vietnamese government will never change it behavior and it is the nature of the communist and their greediness to commit such acts. Today, they disrobed nine monks; tomorrow they will do more if we do not stop them. Today, they kill one monk; tomorrow they will kill many more because their behavior will never change. Together, we can tell the world of our suffering and to immediate stop them from their devil attitudes and ways. “We will never stop struggling while our freedom is at the hands of the devil” T.Thach
