Introduction In Cambodia

Nineteen ninety-nine was the fifth year of the Documentation Center of Cambodia's (DC-Cam) Mass Grave Mapping Project, and this report describes the fieldwork in those efforts. This year's report details missions by DC-Cam Mapping Teams to twelve of Cambodia's twenty-one provinces, including Banteay Meanchey, Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Speu, Kampong Thom, Kandal, Kratie, Phnom Penh, Prey Veng, Siem Reap, Takeo, Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri provinces. Thus the report covers all corners of Cambodia, from the densely populated south to the jungle-clad north, from the remote reaches of the east to the far western rice bowl, and provinces in Cambodia's heartland around the Great Lake.
As in previous years' work, there is a depressing uniformity of findings: witnesses testify to torture and murder on an astounding scale, and remains of mass graves and former Khmer Rouge prisons provide their own mute testimony, littering the countryside as physical evidence of these crimes. It happened everywhere, and it happened in much the same way across the country. This confirms that the Khmer Rouge terror was both massive and systematic, which meets one of the key criteria in the definition of crimes against humanity. A brief review of some of this year's findings drives home this stark reality.