Since 1995, researchers at the Documentation Center of Cambodia have continued to quietly and systematically study this elusive question of “The Number.” This effort has employed a new methodological approach: mass grave survey research. The Documentation Center is in the process of attempting to locate and map each and every mass grave in Cambodia. The methodology employed in the mass grave mapping project is a combination of high technology -- global satellite position mapping -- and old fashioned human fieldwork -- investigators trudging across the Cambodian countryside, village to village, searching for the killing fields. With the help of local informants, Documentation Center mapping teams have located mass gravesites in virtually every district visited yet by the field researchers.
At most sites, the mapping teams have identified and interviewed local eyewitnesses who claimed to remember the types of victims in each mass grave. Once the researchers reach the location of a Khmer Rouge prison or mass gravesite, they employed Global Positioning System (GPS)[9] technology to identify the location of the site. The GPS equipment utilized by the Documentation Center, when differentially corrected for magnetic distortion, locates specific places to an accuracy of within a few meters. This information is then fed into a computerized Geographic Information System (GIS), allowing very precise maps of the killing fields to be generated.
Although this work is not yet complete, the results to date are quite startling. So far, 20,492 mass graves dating from the Khmer Rouge regime, spread all across Cambodia, have been precisely surveyed. According to the data, these mass graves contain the remains of 1,112,829 victims of execution. (See Table 1, below, for provincial breakdown.)Let's look a little more closely at these numbers. Between 1995 and the end of 1999, Documentation Center mass grave mapping teams had visited twenty out of Cambodia's twenty-one provinces. Of Cambodia's 170 districts, the teams had made at least one visit to 150 of the districts. In the process, they have managed to survey somewhat more than two-thirds of Cambodia's sub-districts. Many sub-districts in the northern and northwestern regions of the country have not yet been carefully surveyed, due to obvious security considerations. Preah Vihear province has not been surveyed at all, as yet. Some Khmer Rouge remained in armed opposition to the government in these regions until the beginning of 1999, and though the armed insurgency has since ceased, these same people still live there, and they remain heavily armed. (See Table 1: Summary Statistics)
Because anecdotal evidence leads to the suspicion that northwestern provinces such as Battambang and Banteay Meanchey had very high rates of execution during the Khmer Rouge regime, it is expected that the estimated number of victims in the mass graves will rise significantly when the mapping surveys are finally completed. Therefore, the total number of victims identified in mass graves could eventually reach substantially higher, perhaps as high as 1.5 million.
The more than twenty thousand mass graves mapped so far are virtually all located at, or near, Khmer Rouge security centers. Eyewitnesses at most of these mass grave sites have testified that the graves contain victims brought there by Khmer Rouge security forces, and that the victims were murdered either in the adjacent prisons or at the mass grave sites themselves. Thus one may conclude that virtually all of the mass graves contain victims whose cause of death was execution by the Khmer Rouge.
Table 1 shows that the mapping teams have examined a total of 432 different “genocide sites,” as the locations of prisons, mass graves and memorials are known to Documentation Center team members. There are many types and sizes of mass graves as these sites. These include the most common type of mass grave, the simple earthen pit, as well as more unusual types, such as wells, caves, kilns and open paddy land. Table 2 shows that there is an average of one hundred sixty-nine victims per mass grave, though if we remove the anomalous province of Kratie from the calculation, this figure would be reduced to an average of about fifty-seven. But even that statistic is still misleading, because it appears that there were several different “modes” of mass grave creation. There are very large numbers of small mass graves, each containing perhaps five victims or so, in many cases apparently members of the same nuclear family, husband, wife and a few children. Mapping teams have also found a large number of medium-sized mass graves, containing perhaps from one hundred to several hundred victims. Witness testimony suggests that this type of mass grave was most often created when the inmate population of a particular security center was flushed out to make room for a new batch of prisoners. Then, there are the big ones: mass graves containing thousands of victims. These seem to be more common in certain provinces such as Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham, though they do occur in various places across the country. It appears that this largest type of mass grave is associated with large-scale, indiscriminate population purges, such as when it was determined that the population of an entire district was to be liquidated. The largest mass grave located to date is believed to have contained the remains of some 7,000 victims. (See below: Table 2: Descriptive statistics)
At most sites, the mapping teams have identified and interviewed local eyewitnesses who claimed to remember the types of victims in each mass grave. Once the researchers reach the location of a Khmer Rouge prison or mass gravesite, they employed Global Positioning System (GPS)[9] technology to identify the location of the site. The GPS equipment utilized by the Documentation Center, when differentially corrected for magnetic distortion, locates specific places to an accuracy of within a few meters. This information is then fed into a computerized Geographic Information System (GIS), allowing very precise maps of the killing fields to be generated.
Although this work is not yet complete, the results to date are quite startling. So far, 20,492 mass graves dating from the Khmer Rouge regime, spread all across Cambodia, have been precisely surveyed. According to the data, these mass graves contain the remains of 1,112,829 victims of execution. (See Table 1, below, for provincial breakdown.)Let's look a little more closely at these numbers. Between 1995 and the end of 1999, Documentation Center mass grave mapping teams had visited twenty out of Cambodia's twenty-one provinces. Of Cambodia's 170 districts, the teams had made at least one visit to 150 of the districts. In the process, they have managed to survey somewhat more than two-thirds of Cambodia's sub-districts. Many sub-districts in the northern and northwestern regions of the country have not yet been carefully surveyed, due to obvious security considerations. Preah Vihear province has not been surveyed at all, as yet. Some Khmer Rouge remained in armed opposition to the government in these regions until the beginning of 1999, and though the armed insurgency has since ceased, these same people still live there, and they remain heavily armed. (See Table 1: Summary Statistics)
Because anecdotal evidence leads to the suspicion that northwestern provinces such as Battambang and Banteay Meanchey had very high rates of execution during the Khmer Rouge regime, it is expected that the estimated number of victims in the mass graves will rise significantly when the mapping surveys are finally completed. Therefore, the total number of victims identified in mass graves could eventually reach substantially higher, perhaps as high as 1.5 million.
The more than twenty thousand mass graves mapped so far are virtually all located at, or near, Khmer Rouge security centers. Eyewitnesses at most of these mass grave sites have testified that the graves contain victims brought there by Khmer Rouge security forces, and that the victims were murdered either in the adjacent prisons or at the mass grave sites themselves. Thus one may conclude that virtually all of the mass graves contain victims whose cause of death was execution by the Khmer Rouge.
Table 1 shows that the mapping teams have examined a total of 432 different “genocide sites,” as the locations of prisons, mass graves and memorials are known to Documentation Center team members. There are many types and sizes of mass graves as these sites. These include the most common type of mass grave, the simple earthen pit, as well as more unusual types, such as wells, caves, kilns and open paddy land. Table 2 shows that there is an average of one hundred sixty-nine victims per mass grave, though if we remove the anomalous province of Kratie from the calculation, this figure would be reduced to an average of about fifty-seven. But even that statistic is still misleading, because it appears that there were several different “modes” of mass grave creation. There are very large numbers of small mass graves, each containing perhaps five victims or so, in many cases apparently members of the same nuclear family, husband, wife and a few children. Mapping teams have also found a large number of medium-sized mass graves, containing perhaps from one hundred to several hundred victims. Witness testimony suggests that this type of mass grave was most often created when the inmate population of a particular security center was flushed out to make room for a new batch of prisoners. Then, there are the big ones: mass graves containing thousands of victims. These seem to be more common in certain provinces such as Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham, though they do occur in various places across the country. It appears that this largest type of mass grave is associated with large-scale, indiscriminate population purges, such as when it was determined that the population of an entire district was to be liquidated. The largest mass grave located to date is believed to have contained the remains of some 7,000 victims. (See below: Table 2: Descriptive statistics)
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