Mapping the killing fields of Cambodia, 1997, Sisophon, Mongkol Borey, Preah Net Preah, district in Banteay Meanchey Province.

D119503

Mapping the killing fields of Cambodia, 1997, Sisophon, Mongkol Borey, Preah Net Preah, district in Banteay Meanchey Province.

English

Cambodia

29 April 1997

Banteay Meanchey

20 March 2025

DC-Cam

10 page Typing (Tx)

Mapping the killing fields of Cambodia,1997
Geographical location of Khet Banteay Meanchey

an interview with people in Banteay Meanchey Province.

The district is comprised of 8khum and 101 phum. There are 12,324 families with 69,883 people, of whom the female population is 35,456. They grow rice and various other crops to make their livings.
- Rice-field area
: 43,437 hectares
- Farming arca
3,790 hectares
- New-explored arca
: 30,400 hectares
Total area
: 98,340 hectares
There are many criminal centers throughout the 8 khum, but we could only manage to visit some of them. A number of them were
far away, the roads were bad, and security often posed a problem. Several were completely isolated in the jungle and were simply
inaccessible to any kind of traffic.
As for srok Preah Net Preah, it is casy for us to go there because the district office of culture gave us documents, surveyed in 1974,
regarding phum and khum.
According to the documents obtained, the total death toll throughout the 8 khum was 78,496 in 33 sites of killing. However, in
srok Preah Net Preah, we went to examine 3 criminal centers:
1. Wat Preah Net Preah criminal center with the site of killing at Chamkar Ta Ling, 100 meters from Wat Preah Net Preah. Near
the entrance to the wat, there was a commune committee and a prison. In the wat there was a Pol Pot hospital. The death toll was
253.
2. Prey Taruth criminal center which is located 100 meters behind the district hospital. There was no security office or prison; it is
a killing site with a death toll of 3890.
3. Phum Chakrey criminal center which is located on the west side of the district office of srok Preah Net Preah. At this site of
killing, with a death toll of 3580, victims were killed by being stabbed with a bayonet, or by being bound and hit against a coconut
tree.
At the 3 criminal centers we visited, we met with witnesses, recorded the interview with them on cassette for keeping as
documentation. We also took pictures of the witnesses, the site of killing and the location of the pits. But all the pits have now
been completely filled with soil, while the remains have been taken to be deposited on the top of Phnom Chi Krang.
Now, the remains have been all destroyed and stolen.

Witnesses:

At the Wat Preah Net Preah criminal center (Chamkar Taling) in phum Poay Samrong, khum Preah Net Preah, we met with a
witness named Tom Soeum, male, age 45, 1.60 m tall, black hair, white skin. In Pol Pot's time, he lived in phum Poay Samrong,
khum Preah Net Preah, where he continues to live.

He witnessed people being killed at other places, but at the site of killing in the wat Preah Net Preah criminal center, he joined in
the excavation of the pits, which were 4 meters square and 2 meters deep. Each pit held around 110 to 120 bodies. According to
this witness, the total death toll is about 660 to 720. However, the documents indicated that there were only 467 bodies and that
the killing site at Chamkar Ta Ling was just 50 meters behind wat Preah Net Preah. At Chamkar Ta Ling, a tile-roofed house
owned by Pol Pot's commune committee was used for holding prisoners. When the old prisoners were killed, new ones were taken
to detain in the house. Based upon seeing the skulls of the victims, we assume that most of them were adults under age 45. They were civil servants
evacuated from the city and all of them were men. There are no remains left because older villagers ordered to have all the remains
burned. At 10:00 a.m., we went to Prey Ta Ruth killing site in phum Choup, khum Chup Vary, near the district office. We met with a witness named Thlang Thong, age 49, 1.66 m tall. He lives in phum Bosdey, khum Preah Net Preah, srok Preah Net Preah and now works in the office of culture of srok Preah Net Preah. At that time, he did not know where the victims had been taken from; he just knew about the site of killing. He took the remains to
deposit in the memorial Phnom Anh Chang, but the remains were stolen due to lack of preventative measures. According to some
information he heard from others, there was no security office or prison in this location. Victims were taken to be killed at once. He was also unfamiliar with phum Chakkey because he arrived later on. We are sorry that we did not have the chance to meet in
Phnom Penh officer Kong Bun Thouch and the district member who conducted the survey on statistics of victims in 1984. We
found it very difficult to find

witnesses.

Since time did not permit, the road was bad, and the security was poor, we could not wait to find witnesses, or continue our
research in a major criminal center like Phnom Tra Yoang, which is composed of a security office, a prison and a big killing site
with around 40000 victims. We had to go 20 kilometers on a very bad road to get there, so we decided to go back khet Battambang
on the evening of the 30 April 1997 at 2:00 p.m.
In Khet Bantay Meanchey, we have done quite a good job in terms of administrative procedure with the officer in the district and province. The fact that we previously met with these officers beforehand in Phnom Penh facilitated our research in the district.

© DC-Cam