Khmer Loeu

The Khmer Loeu (Khmer: ជនជាតិខ្មែរលើ [cunciət kʰmae ləː]; "upper Khmers") is the collective name given to the various indigenous ethnic groups residing in the highlands of Cambodia. The Khmer Loeu are found mainly in the northeastern provinces of Ratanakiri, Stung Treng, and Mondulkiri. Most of the highland groups are Mon-Khmer peoples and are distantly related, to one degree or another, to the Khmer. Two of the Khmer Loeu groups are Chamic peoples, a branch of the Austronesian peoples, and have a very different linguistic and cultural background. The Mon–Khmer-speaking tribes are the aboriginal inhabitants of mainland Southeast Asia, their ancestors having trickled into the area from the northwest during the prehistoric metal ages. The Austronesian-speaking groups, Rade and Jarai, are descendants of the Malayo-Polynesian peoples who came to what is now coastal Vietnam; they established the Champa kingdoms, and after their decline migrated west over the Annamite Range, dispersing between the Mon–Khmer groups.

The disparate groups that make up the Khmer Loeu are estimated to comprise 17-21 different ethnic groups speaking at least 17 different languages. Unlike the Cham, Vietnamese and Chinese minorities of the lowlands, the Khmer Loeu groups haven't integrated into Khmer society or culture and remain politically unorganized and underrepresented in the Cambodian government. There have never been any treaties between a Khmer Loeu group and the government nor is Cambodia a signatory to the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention. Cambodia's landmark 2001 land law guarantees indigenous peoples communal rights to their traditional lands, but the government is accused of routinely violating those provisions, confiscating land for purposes ranging from commercial logging to foreign development.