Unburying the Past – Researching, Analyzing, and Publishing Facts & Stories of the Khmer Rouge Beyond the ECCC Cases 003 and 004

This project would build upon our existing work on identifying and mapping the organizational structure and chain of command of the Khmer Rouge with a particular focus on facts and stories that are beyond the investigatory focus of Cases 003 and 004 of the Extra-ordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC). Due to the Khmer Rouge’s discreet, secretive and covert operational and administrative framework, former surviving Khmer Rouge officials possess crucial information on the regime’s structure, administration and operations. The information collected and analyzed by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) has played a key role in supporting the on-going Khmer Rouge Tribunal or ECCC in its mission to deliver the justice owed the victims and survivors. DC-Cam has supplied the Tribunal with hundreds of thousands of pages of interviews, original documents, videos, photographs, and books. This project will be an expansion and innovation from the Promoting Accountability (PA) Project because it will look at historical facts and stories related to, but beyond the scope of the ECCC’s investigation in Cases 003 and 004.

Background of the Promoting Accountability (PA) Project. We began the Accountability Project in 2000 and over nearly two decades have assembled an enormous quantity of information about the DK regime. In total, our staff teams have allocated and met with more than 12,000 former Khmer Rouge cadres, their family members, and victims across the country, and conducted more than 6300 interviews.

We have transcribed more than 100,000 pages of interview transcripts. We have also entered data about individual interviewees into our Accountability Database. We have taken appropriate precautions regarding the recording, use, and dissemination of that data to ensure the security of our interviewees. Together, these records constitute a unique and extremely valuable historical resource.

We have been steadily analyzing the vast quantity of information we collected through the Accountability Project. This grant’s funds would ensure our work would not only continue, but expand into a number of publications and products that would directly benefit the people of Cambodia, scholars, and most importantly victims and survivors.

Expected Outputs:
Interviews of KR cadre with a particular focus on the lower level and victims
Transcripts in Khmer with select portions translated into English
Analytical Products in the form of information papers, articles, presentations, and audio-visual materials
Monograph/Academic publication on the individual actions, circumstances, and patterns of behavior relevant to the lower level administration of the KR regime.