Net testimony to Killing Fields

Almost 20 years after the 'Killing Fields' came to an end in Cambodia, a team of researchers has created a grim Web site showing pictures of Khmer Rouge victims and identifying mass graves sites across the country (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/).

Its creation comes amidst growing cries for an international tribunal to try surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary, for crimes against humanity. The leaders are currently living comfortably in a Khmer Rouge enclave in the west of the country. The site was created by the Cambodian Genocide Programme, based at Yale University and funded by the US State Department. It includes 5,000 photographs of Cambodians who were tortured and murdered at the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng extermination centre in the capital, Phnom Penh.

The researchers have also created an interactive map of the country highlighting the locations of over 10,000 mass graves. The Cambodian Genocide Programme estimates that the total number of mass graves may be as high as 20,000.

Beyond serving as a reminder of the violence in Cambodia, the Web site may also help Cambodians identify missing relatives who may have been killed during the Khmer Rouge era. Up to 1.7 million Cambodians are thought to have died between 1975 and 1979, when hard-line Khmer Rouge communists tried to drag the nation back to the 'year zero'.

Pol Pot, or Brother Number One as he was ominously known, escaped justice when he died of a heart attack last April. Pol Pot has been likened to Hitler for his sanctioning of the systematic destruction of Cambodia's middle class.