Absorption of the Mekong Delta by Vietnam In the 17th century a weakened Khmer state left the Mekong Delta poorly administered after repeated wars with
Siam. Concurrently Vietnamese refugees fleeing the
Trịnh–Nguyễn War in Vietnam migrated into the area. In 1623 Cambodian king
Chey Chettha II (1618–1628) officially sanctioned the Vietnamese immigrants to operate a custom house at Prey Nokor, then a small fishing village. The settlement steadily grew, soon becoming a major regional port, attracting even more settlers. In 1698 the
Nguyễn Lords of
Huế commissioned
Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble, to organize the territory along Vietnamese administrative lines, thus
de facto detaching it from the Kingdom of Cambodia and incorporating it into Vietnam. With the loss of the port of Prey Nokor, then renamed
Saigon, Cambodia's control of the area grew increasingly tenuous while increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers to the Delta isolated the Khmer of the Mekong Delta from the Cambodian kingdom. By 1757 the Vietnamese had absorbed the provinces of Psar Dèk (renamed
Sa Đéc in Vietnamese) on the
Mekong itself, and Moat Chrouk (Vietnamized to
Châu Đốc) on the
Bassac River. Khmer nationalist
Son Ngoc Thanh (1908–77) was a Khmer krom, born in
Trà Vinh, Vietnam. Thanh was active in the independence movement for Cambodia. With Japanese support he became the prime minister of Cambodia in March 1945 but was then quickly ousted with the return of the French later that year. Widely supported by the Khmer Krom during the
First Indochina War, Thanh's role faded in Vietnam after 1954 as he became more embroiled with politics in Cambodia proper, forming an opposition movement against Prince
Sihanouk. During the
Vietnam War and direct American involvement between 1964 and 1974, the Khmer Krom were recruited by the
United States Armed Forces to serve in
MIKE Force. The force fought on the side of
South Vietnam against the
Viet Cong but in time the militia regrouped as the "Front for the Struggle of Kampuchea Krom" (). Headed by a Khmer Krom
Buddhist monk, Samouk Sen, the group was nicknamed the "White Scarves" (; ) and allied itself with
FULRO against South Vietnam. FULRO was an alliance of Khmer Krom, Montagnard, and Cham groups. The anti-Communist prime minister of the
Khmer Republic (1970 - 1975)
Lon Nol planned to recapture the
Mekong Delta from South Vietnam. After the
Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the Communist take-over of all of Vietnam, the Kampuchea Krom militia found itself embattled with the
People's Army of Vietnam. Many of the fighters fled to
Khmer Rouge-controlled
Democratic Kampuchea hoping to find a safe haven to launch their operations inside Vietnam. The "White Scarves" arrived in
Kiri Vong District in 1976, making overture to the Khmer Rouge and appealing to the leader
Khieu Samphan directly for assistance. The force was disarmed and welcomed initially. Subsequent orders from the Khmer Rouge leadership, however, had Samouk Sen arrested, taken to Phnom Penh, tortured, and killed. His force of 67 Khmer Krom fighters were all massacred. During the following months, some 2,000 "White Scarves" fighters crossing into Kampuchea were systematically killed by the Khmer Rouge. In the late 1970s, the
Kampuchean Revolutionary Army attacked Vietnam in an attempt to reconquer the areas which were formerly part of the Khmer Empire, but this military adventure was a total disaster and precipitated
the invasion of Democratic Kampuchea by the People's Army of Vietnam and subsequent downfall of the
Khmer Rouge, with Vietnam occupying Kampuchea and setting up the
People's Republic of Kampuchea. ==Notable people==