Tomb raiders are decimating Cambodia's archaeological sites, looting ancient and remote cemeteries to sell antiques to tourists, an independent watchdog warned on Friday as it prepared a campaign to educate potential buyers.

The problem is in part an unintended side effect of Cambodia's success in protecting its world-famous Angkor Wat temple complex, said Terressa Davis of Heritage Watch, an independent group which works to protect Cambodia's archaeological heritage.

"Angkor is very well protected now, but there is still a large demand on the international art market for Cambodian arts," Davis said.

"So thieves are going to temples outside of Angkor and stealing statues there," Terressa said.

"Most people do not realize that this is going on," she added.

The hardest-hit provinces are the regions along the Thai border, such as Banteay Meanchey Province, where villagers have unearthed ancient graves on a large scale to find ancient tools to sell to smugglers who sneak them into Thailand, she said.

Some of the cemeteries in Banteay Meanchey date from 500 BC, while other cemeteries and temples are from the Angkor era, roughly the ninth to the 14th centuries.

In a bid to curb the illegal trade in artefacts, Heritage Watch is opening a two-month exhibition at Angkor Wat starting in October, to educate tourists about how the looting destroys Cambodia's heritage, Davis said.

The aim of the exhibition is to "try to get tourists to realize that this is going on and also to educate them, so they don't purchase antiquities."

"Many, many tourists here buy Khmer antiquities that are stolen, and they don't realize that they are stolen when they buy them," she added.

Nearly 20 per cent of foreign tourists admit to buying an antiquity in Cambodia, according to a Heritage Watch study.

With about 1 million foreigners visiting every year, that means hundreds of thousands of antiques are leaving the country, Davis said.

In addition, Heritage Watch has produced a comic book in Khmer called "Wrath of the Phantom Army," to explain to villagers why they shouldn't loot the archaeological sites.

"It tells the story of looting in a small village ... in Banteay Meanchey where the villagers are digging up sites and don't realize the harm they are doing," Terressa said.

English and French versions of the comic book will also be printed for sale to tourists, according to the group.

Sok Sareth, deputy governor of Banteay Meanchey Province, admitted looting was a problem in his region, but said poverty was the real problem.

"The poor people dig up the cemeteries hoping to get ancient pots and beads to sell to business people," he said.

The national government has issued repeated orders against desecrating ancient sites, but enforcement has proved difficult, said Chuch Phoeurng, secretary of state for the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.

Because many of the sites are in remote areas, authorities often discover the looting too late, he said.

"We cannot allow them to continue their activities anymore. But sometimes it is difficult because the looting and digging happen at night and we do not have enough police to regularly watch ... over those remote areas," Chuch Phoeurng said.

The ministry has documented some 3,350 ancient cultural sites, including cemeteries and temple compounds, but teams are still surveying the country for more.

Source: China Daily