Technology brings fresh hope in the search for Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge-era mass graves
- The ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime is estimated to have caused the deaths of two million Cambodians during its quest to build an agrarian utopia from 1975-1979
A man walks gingerly over a small field in rural Cambodia, pushing a lawnmower-like contraption that deploys ground-penetrating radar to unearth clues of mass graves.
The pilot project is twinning technology and fieldwork to locate remains of victims of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Maoist regime whose quest to build an agrarian utopia from 1975-1979 left an estimated two million Cambodians dead.
Hacked to death, starved, overworked or ravaged by illness, their bodies were dumped in hastily dug pits all over the country. They were thrown in rice paddies, down caves and on the grounds of Buddhist monasteries.
Many of the “Killing Fields” have been logged, providing experts with an estimate of 20,000 mass graves – defined as a pit containing four or more bodies – throughout the country.
But researchers are now turning to radar to uncover more details on the existing sites – such as how many bodies they might contain – and find new ones.
“This is the first time ever that we have used high-end technology in Cambodia to locate mass graves created by the Khmer Rouge,” said Pheng Pong-Rasy from the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), which is overseeing the effort.
He added that DC-Cam decided to start the new search in the eastern province of Prey Veng, where the Khmer Rouge’s revolutionary movement had some of its early gains.