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| Published in Washington, D.C. June 7, 1998 |
Grave hunter digs up evidence
Finds 10,000 sites holding victims of Khmer Rouge
By Richard S. Ehrlich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
After three years of field research, U.S. investigator Craig Etcheson has located mass graves containing the tangled skeletons of an estimated 500,000 Khmer Rouge victims for use as evidence at an international tribunal.
Mr. Etcheson and his team have also compiled vast documentation, including daily logs of people ordered for execution and the original Khmer Rouge order authorizing the pogrom that led to the execution of up to one million "enemies" of the government.
As many as two million Cambodians perished under Pol Pot by execution, starvation, enslavement, disease or other results of his back-to-the-jungle Maoist social experiments.
"The most stunning evidence [of executions] comes from our mass graves surveys," Mr. Etcheson said in an interview.
"We have, over three years of field research, carefully studied 40 percent of the Cambodian countryside, and over that territory we have located nearly 10,000 mass graves dating from the Khmer Rouge era, containing an estimated 500,000 victims of execution.
"Based on our understanding of the patterns of violence and population distribution, we estimate the total number of mass graves is approximately 20,000, containing about one million victims of executions.
"Virtually all of these mass graves are located at, or near, Khmer Rouge security centers. This seems to me to be very indicative of a centralized state policy implemented nationwide."
Mr. Etcheson is the founder and former director of the Phnom Penh-based Cambodian Genocide Program's Documentation Center, which is funded by Yale University, the State Department and other organizations.
The Documentation Center has been gathering evidence, including signed documents, testimonies and other data, for use at an international tribunal to bring to justice Pol Pot's top comrades who ruled this Southeast Asian nation from April 1975 to January 1979.
Pol Pot died last month in a northern mountain stronghold after some of his closest allies mutinied.
Many of his senior colleagues are still alive, either on the run as guerrillas fighting against the government's current military offensive or enjoying immunity because they recently defected from the Khmer Rouge.
Highest-level permission
As a result, they are not expected to be cited by an international tribunal.
"When I came here in January 1995 to establish the Documentation Center, the first thing I did was to go to the co-prime ministers, Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen, and I told them: 'We wish to carry out a scientific investigation of what happened during the Khmer Rouge time'," Mr. Etcheson said.
"They pledged their complete cooperation with this enterprise and ordered all of their subordinates to cooperate with us."
To gain access to secret government files, Mr. Etcheson then went to the powerful Interior Ministry which controls the police and prisons.
"Interior Minister Sar Kheng gave us written authorization to go anywhere in Cambodia and seize any documents that we thought would be relevant to our investigation," he said. "They have always honored that commitment, and we have gone many places that they could not have expected."
Mr. Etcheson and his investigators often walked into government offices and back rooms, discovered shelves of paperwork dated 1975 through 1979 and simply carted away the entire collection, much to the shocked amazement of local civil servants, he added.
Prosecutors involved in the tribunal will determine how many senior Khmer Rouge officials will be sought for trial, but some investigators and officials have indicated that only 20 to 30 ultimately may be brought to justice.
The Cambodian government has, however, awarded amnesty to some notorious senior Khmer Rouge.
These include Ieng Sary, 74, who in 1996 became the highest-ranking defector after serving as Pol Pot's deputy prime minister. Ieng Sary now dwells under sanctuary in the western town of Pailin.
Another infamous Khmer Rouge, Ke Pauk, was commander of Cambodia's central zone under Pol Pot, and is said to have led horrific "purges" in 1978.
Ke Pauk is reportedly negotiating with Hun Sen and joined the prime minister on April 29 at a public rally launching Hun Sen's bid for re-election in polls scheduled for July 26.
Mr. Etcheson said, "Ke Pauk and Ieng Sary were both members of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Khmer Rouge's Communist Party. That committee ordered the carrying out of the policies which led to the extraordinary number of killings, and would be targets of any prosecutor.
Expression of optimism
"Cambodia is a signatory to the Geneva Convention's Laws of War Crimes and other treaties. Ieng Sary's pardon mentions none of this. Hun Sen has been very consistent on this and has demanded that the authors of the Cambodian genocide be brought before an international tribunal."
Mr. Etcheson expressed optimism that a trial will take place, despite the "obstacles" of financing and opposition by China and some other nations.
China's former leader, Mao Tse-tung, was one of Pol Pot's early inspirations, especially from 1969 through the early 1970s, when Pol Pot was a rebel suffering massive U.S. bombardments during Washington's widened Vietnam War.
After Pol Pot seized power for three-and-a-half years, he lost it because of the Vietnamese invasion. The Khmer Rouge became guerrillas again during the 1980s.
Pol Pot then received financial backing and other assistance from the United States, China and other foreign powers that kept the Khmer Rouge alive to try to force an end to Vietnam's decade-long occupation, according to historians.
"I'm very optimistic that there will be accountability for the Khmer Rouge's crimes, because the United States government is firmly committed, and the United Nations has an organizational process to achieve this outcome," Mr. Etcheson said.
"There is a momentum, and the momentum derives from the world's remaining superpower, and the United Nations, both working towards this end," he said.
"All Cambodians I know feel cheated to have been deprived of having seen Pol Pot brought to account for the crimes of his regime. But the death of Hitler didn't stop the international community from bringing the Nazis to justice for their crimes.
"In the same way, the death of Pol Pot should not stop the Khmer Rouge being brought to justice for their crimes."