The Cambodian Genocide Mapping Project --
Pinpointing the Atrocities

One of the more bizarre and macabre applications of GPS technology has been the mapping of mass graves and other atrocity sites in Cambodia. Using GPS equipment borrowed from UNSW this work was carried out for the Cambodian Genocide Program (CGP) to collect data on the atrocities by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, in the expectation that the data might eventually be useful in any trial of the perpetrators. The survey was carried out over several years commencing in 1995. The geographic data has been incorporated within a GIS.

 

Pinpointing Atrocities in the Jungle

Using GPS equipment borrowed from UNSW's School of Geomatic Engineering (as it was known before it was changed to the School of Surveying & Spatial Information Systems) this work was carried out by Mr Charles Bowers for the Cambodian Genocide Program (CGP), in the expectation that the perpetrators might eventually be brought to trial.

As many of these sites were in jungle clearings which can quickly grow over, it was essential that they were pinpointed with great accuracy so they could be located again later if needed for evidence. The mapping component of the CGP's work was funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in a grant to Dr Helen Jarvis, then the Head of UNSW's School of Information, Library and Archive Studies (now the School of Information Science, Technology and Management), who was the CGP's Consultant on Documentation. Mr Bowers was the project's mapping consultant. He had previously worked in Cambodia for the United Nations and had navigation skills. Professor Chris Rizos helped coordinate the project, and promoted the use of state-of-the-art GPS equipment for mapping the sites and a GIS system for the data storage and analysis.

The initial survey work was carried out in late 1995 and early 1996. After gathering preliminary information on the burial sites and prisons and memorials, which were also mapped, Mr Bowers and an interpreter would visit the Provincial Governor to collect more detailed local knowledge. "We then headed out into the districts, accompanied by provincial officials and an armed police escort. Much of our work was in very remote areas and close to Khmer Rouge held territory. Because of the work we were doing, we knew we would not be kindly treated if we had fallen into Khmer Rouge hands," Mr Bowers said. "Once, after we had mapped a prison and burial site close to Phnom Penh, Khmer Rouge forces re-entered the area and laid mines the evening after we were there. In the nine provinces we surveyed, 47 burial sites were mapped, with 4,937 mass graves containing at least 250,000 but perhaps closer to 300,000 victims. We also mapped another 50 prisons and memorials. Many of the mass graves had been ransacked by grave robbers looking for gold fillings, so many of the sites were surrounded by fragments of jawbones and teeth. But the GPS equipment performed admirably in the rain, mud and dust after having been bounced for hours each day over some of the worst roads imaginable. The data we brought back have now been translated through the ArcView program to produce valuable maps of genocide sites in the eastern and southern provinces of Cambodia. The survey team, beset by exhausting physical conditions and having been required to record the tragic accounts of the witnesses to these events, is still recovering," he said. Dr Jarvis said the social fabric of Cambodia was still scarred by the events of the Khmer Rouge years. "We think it will be generations before the people of Cambodia recover psychologically from the effects of these tragedies, which is why we believe it is so important that the physical and social impact of those years is clearly placed in its true social and political context," she said.

All the data collected has been downloaded into the ARCVIEW software with the support of SNAP members and several undergraduate students. Further survey work was carried out in 1997, 1998 and 1999. The geographic data was used during the first trial hearings in Phnom Penh in mid-1999.

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