Talk:Genocides in history/Archive 7

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nudist advocacy site

The link to the student's group against the Darfur conflict is mistakenly a link to a nudist advocacy site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.15.160 (talk) 05:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The China section

Hi everyone, Just a few comments on the "China" section of this page. The current text says this:

“ During the mid-nineteenth century, the Hui and Miao, and Taiping people of China staged revolts against the authority of the Qing Government that led to decades of civil warfare, unrest, and famine. Some writers claim that the Manchu government committed genocide in their suppression of these revolts,[37][38][39] with casualties of over 20 million people in the Taiping Rebellion, one million people in the Panthay rebellion,[40] several million in the Dungan revolt[40], and five million in the suppression of Miao people in Guizhou.[40] Jonathan Lipman claims that the Manchu government advocated the "washing off the Muslims"(洗回 (xi Hui)).[41] Such claims, however, are dismissed by most genocide scholars, because the casualties were the result of civil wars and included both civilian and solider deaths, and thus do not meet the definition of genocide.[citation needed] ”

I have problems with all the works cited, or rather with the way all these works are cited, because they do not support the claims made in the wiki text. Here's what I mean:

• Note 37 is to Mark Levene's Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State (2005), p. 288. Page 288 turns out to be part of the index; the book does not mention the Miao or Hui and says this about the Taiping (on p. 154, the only mention of the Taiping in the entire book):

“ Demographic catastrophes emanating from programmes of state-organised violence have regularly punctuated the human record. State extirpation of the Taiping and other rebellions in China are estimated to have reduced its population from 410 million in 1850, to 350 million in 1873. ”

There is no explicit mention of genocide here, and no mention of "the Manchu government."

• Note 38 is to Charles Patterson Giersch, Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Frontier (2006), page 219. The relevant passage from that page says the following:

“ The Panthay uprising was a watershed event for Yunnan. The years of warfare and epidemics that followed devastated and polarized society, especially in frontier areas. The polarization was primarily a result of Chinese atrocities aimed at Muslim-Chinese, though the Qing state was implicated as well. In 1845, Chinese massacred 8000 Muslims in Yongchang (Baoshan); in 1856, another Chinese rampage left up to 4000 Muslims dead in Kunming. Qing officials were complicit in these acts of genocide. In an effort to explain such barbarity, David Atwill has proposed that increasing demographic and economic pressures were exacerbated by a growing perception among Chinese and Qing officials that the Muslim-Chinese were different and deviant. ”

The term "genocide" is mentioned, but the genocide is attributed not to "the Manchu government," but mostly to Chinese people, with the complicity of Qing officials whose ethnicity is not mentioned.

• Note 39: Michael Dillon's China’s Muslim Hui Community (1999), p. xix. The passage (p. xix) says:

“ The continuing existence of the Hui in China today is a testimony to the persistence and strength of ethnic sensibilities. Although Hui communities, for much of their history, have lived peacefully side by side with their Han or other neighbours, they have also been involved in violent confrontation with the Chinese authorities that have led to whole communities being transported or wiped out. During the great rebellions of the nineteenth century they could, with justification, fear genocide. ”

The book does not claim that "genocide" actually took place. This is the only mention of "genocide" related to the Qing period in the entire book, and there is no mention of "the Manchu government." The sentence I put in bold could be cited in the wiki, but this book cannot be used to support the current claim that "the Manchu government committed genocide."

• Note 40 to Jacques Gernet's History of Chinese Civilization does not give page numbers, so the claims are difficult to verify. Pages 558 and 559 discuss all these rebellions, but give no casualty figures. The book does not mention "genocide" a single time.

• Note 41 refers to Jonathan Lipman's Familiar Strangers, but gives no page numbers. There are two mentions of "xi Hui" in Lipman's book:

• p. 123:

“ Faced with epidemic violence and murdered upper gentry, a series of inept Qing commanders, including Yingqi and Shengbao, wavered as to general policy: should they take a hard line and treat all Muslims as rebels, or should they try to separate "good" from "weed" Muslims as their theory demanded? Military contingency argued for the latter solution; given the heavy demands on their military resources for fighting the Taiping and other insurgents, the Qing could put only a few thousand poorly armed troops into the field against an enemy potentially numbering hundreds of thousands. But the local non-Muslims, terrified of the hideous violence of which they believed the Muslims to be capable, demanded the former, an option known as "washing away the Muslims" (Ch. xi Hui). [Lipman's note 41: "We should certainly take note of this sinister name's resemblance to the "ethnic cleansing" practiced in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union after 1989, especially in former Yugoslavia. The sickening violence perpetrated in the name of local purity there certainly found its match in northwest China during the 1860s, 1890s, and 1920s."] One source reports that unofficial "proclamations appeared declaring that all Muslims were 'to be killed without further inquiry.'" [Note 42: Ma Xiaoshi, Xibei Huizu geming jianshi, cited in Liu and Smith, "The Military Challenge," 217.] In these Shaanxi non-Muslims' eyes, their government could protect them only by ending the Muslim threat permanently — by killing all the Muslims or allowing the tuanlian to do so. ”

• p. 224:

“ When Meng Qiaofang, Xinzhu, Zhang Fei, Yang Changjun, Tang Yanhe, Dong Fuxiang, or even Ma Fuxiang or Ma Anliang started killing (or threatening to kill) Muslims, the rumors flew: They are going to xi Hui, kill Muslims just for being themselves, and for being at home. ”

Neither of these two claims says that the policy of "washing away the Muslims" was ever implemented: the first passage says that "non-Muslims" requested that this policy be adopted; the second passage refers to fear by Muslims themselves.

• The last sentence about the "genocide scholars" who refute "these claims" is unnecessary, because "these claims" have never been made in the first place, at least not in the scholarly literature that is cited in the text.

Conclusion: not a single source cited says that "the Manchu government committed genocide in their suppression of these revolts." The entire section therefore looks like original research or something even more unacceptable: a misleading synthesis of secondary documents designed to present one or more editors' personal POV that "the Manchu government" committed "genocide." Since both POV and original research are against Wikipedia policy, I propose erasing this paragraph altogether. Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 15:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello again. I just realized that this whole passage on genocides in China had already been discussed elsewhere. So here, for reference:

• Talk:Genocides_in_history/Archive_4#China_in_1800s
• Talk:Genocides in history/Archive 5#China
• Talk:Genocides_in_history/Archive_6#China

Madalibi (talk) 15:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Unless someone comes up with reliable sources in the next 24 hours from the posing of the first message I would support the removal. It is better to have no information than inaccurate information, and if someone comes up with more reliable sources in the future the section can always be reinserted. --PBS (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I object to the removal proposal. Madalibi's cites are all western scholars' cite, which is inaccurate sometimes. Lets not forget Qianlong did burn a lot of books( including history books). See literary inquisition. I am not saying all all the western scholars are wrong, I am saying Manchu was well known for changing historical records and burning of book that contain unfavorable information towards them. The scholars may have read the wrong books, and made the wrong judgements.

Genocides, massacres, ethnic cleansings, these all happened hundreds of years ago. Lucky in China, some historians were able to have access to those local counties' journals(lucky in the sense that somehow these were kept hidden away for all these years).

http://www.fudan.edu.cn/englishnew/ is one of the top Chinese Unversity, and it has a history web site http://yugong.fudan.edu.cn/Article/Info_View.asp?ArticleID=73 on this web page, research papers on the subjects of Manchu-Muslim-Hui-Chinese historical facts were published. Well, editors need to be able to read Chinese(often classical Chinese, which is a little bit harder than common Chinese). The author conclusion is:有以下几个特点：(AD 1862-1879)(陕西 Shanxi province)

其一、人口损失数量惊人。短短的17年内，全省人口从1394万口锐减至772余万口，人口损失总数高达622万，大约占战前人口总数的44.6%。

其二、战争期间损失的人口数量远高于灾荒期间损失的人口数量。天灾令人恐怖，人祸更为可怕，17年中，因战争原因造成的人口损失约有520.8万，在全部损失人口中所占的比例高达83.7%，而灾荒期间损失的人口不过101.2余万，占全部损失人口的比例仅有16.3%。 Let me translate the above text:(Between AD 1862-1879)(Shanxi province) Conclusion(1) The amount of population loss is staggering. In the short time of 17 years, the population of the whole province went from 13,940,000 to 7,720,000, the total loss was as high as 6,220,000, about 44.6% of the original population before the war. Conclusion (2) The loss of population during the war was far higher than those losses during famine and disasters. Natural disasters were terrible, man-made disasters(meaning wars) were even worst, in 17 years, the war-caused population loss went up to 5,208,000, was 83.7% of the total loss of population, and the loss of population during natural disasters were only 1,012,000, a mere 16.3% of the total loss of population. End of translation.

So, the researcher comes up with a number, 5,208,000. 5.2 million killed in the war. Killed by Manchus? by Chinese? by Muslim? We may never know. Genocide? Ethnic cleansing? Mass murder? Take your pick. Arilang ^talk 12:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

"Genocide? Ethnic cleansing? Mass murder? Take your pick." The point is that we can not take our pick as that would be WP:OR. We need verifiable reliable sources to state that a genocide has taken place (see WP:SOURCES). Genocide is too controversial a claim and too technical/legal an issue for Wikipedia to make a claim of genocide. Instead what we do is report that so and so considers such and such to be an act of genocide (WP:ASF). For an example of just how complicated accusations of genocide is please read the Bosnian Genocide .--PBS (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Rape of Nanking 1937

See also

• Talk:Genocides in history/Archive_5#The Rape of Nanking
• Talk:Nanking_Massacre#"Genocide" or "massacre"?
• Talk:Nanking_Massacre#Page protected
• Talk:Nanking_Massacre#Request for Comment

Japanese soldiers kill 300,000 Chinese men, women, and children and mutilate thousands of others. This is famous. Why would this not be on the list? Jan Kirb (talk) 20:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Just because something is nasty does not make it genocide. What is needed are two or more reliable sources that call this event a genocide. --PBS (talk) 09:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I have now read the background discussion. It was like watching how sausage is made, ugh. GL 68.231.124.225 (talk) 21:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

More translation

In Chinese:The fluctuation of the Hui population in Qing dynasty.

纵观清代270多年的历史，陕西回族的发展经历了一个大起大落的过程。清初全省回民总数大约有 84.5万，经过康、雍、乾、嘉、道五朝两百多年的休养生息，才发展到170万口左右的规模。但在同治年间回民战争沉重打击下，短短六七年内，全省回民人 口损失高达155万，战后陕西回民锐减至15万口左右，人口损失比例超过91%。

战争中汉人的损失数量远远高于回民，但就其相对数字来讲，回民人口的损失比例又远远高于汉人，高达91%，几乎到了 亡族灭种的程度。不少战前回民聚居的州县，战后回民踪迹全无......改变了全省人口的民族结构...1990年全国第4次人口普查时，陕西回民人口总共只有13.2万，仅占 全省人口总数的0.4%，全国排名第15位 translation can be seen on article. Arilang ^talk 21:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

"Evidence forthcoming"?

Hello everyone. If the evidence for some claims of genocide is still "forthcoming," then the still-unsupported claims belong in a sandbox, not in this wiki. The Nanjing massacre (1937) was clearly an atrocity, and the drop in the population of Shaanxi in the 19th century was dramatic, but before these two events can be included here as examples of genocide, we need to find scholarly sources claiming explicitly that these two events consituted "genocides." The use of scholarly data (on the population of Shaanxi in the 19th century, for example), however reliable, to make points that do not exist in the scholarly literature constitutes either original research or synthesis, which are both forbidden by Wikipedia. Madalibi (talk) 01:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

What is the hurry?

On the lead section of the article:Qoute:"An accusation of genocide is certainly not taken lightly and will almost always be controversial. The following list of genocides and alleged genocides should be understood in this context and cannot be regarded as the final word on these subjects." This sentence has very clearly stated that 'genocide' is a very controversial subject, and it is very difficult both to prove or disprove, and all very time consuming. Would user Madalibi explain the urgency of resolving the current dispute, and the reason why he seems to be picking on this singular article among 2,660,958 wiki articles, and many of which, I am sure, would have problems of references, NPOV, original research, etc etc. Arilang ^talk 03:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, what is the hurry about posting unreferenced material on this wiki while evidence is "forthcoming"? The lead section's caveat that "An accusation of genocide is certainly not taken lightly and will almost always be controversial" is not a call for everybody to make unreferenced claims based on their own feelings, with the excuse that these claims will be "controversial." You're welcome to post Peter Perdue's claim that the Qing dynasty committed genocide against the Dzungars (without forgetting to explain what happened, of course), but you cannot post your own allegations of genocide here. "Alleged genocides" refer to massacres that are alleged to be genocides in serious scholarly literature, not in the mind of individual editors.

In my first post in this talk page, I proposed deleting a paragraph because I found no reference to genocide in the sources that were cited (well, there was one, but it was about Han Chinese committing genocide against Muslims). I took the time to go through these sources one by one and to analyze their content in detail on the talk page so that everyone would understand my reasoning. I thought this would be a good way to avoid unnecessary controversy. Even with all this analysis, I did not delete the paragraph. Instead, I went deep into the page's history to find out who had written the paragraph in question and I posted a message on his talk page to ask him what he thought about my comments. As I did so, I noticed that PBS had also discussed this paragraph before, and so I also invited him to join the talk page. PBS read my analysis and gave other editors 24 hours to come up with better sources. I don't know if you noticed, but even with this kind of support, I didn't rush to delete the paragraph as soon as the 24 hours had elapsed, because deleting material quickly is just not my style as an editor.

Now what did you do? In disregard for our long discussion in Talk:Massacres and Atrocities committed by barbaric Manchu rulers and for the tag on top of the present talk page (which says "Please discuss substantial changes here before making them, making sure to supply full citations when adding information"), you simply went ahead posting your Synthesis of published material which advances a position without asking for opinions in the talk page! Why not build up support for your claims in your sandbox instead of inserting speculative original research in this wiki with "evidence pending"? What, indeed, is the hurry?

Now tell me if you agree that the following three sentences (taken verbatim from the page called Tendentious editing describe you as well as I think they do:

1. You often find yourself accusing or suspecting other editors of “suppressing information”, “censorship” or “denying facts.”
2. Your citations back some of the facts you are adding, but do not explicitly support your interpretation or the inferences you draw.
3. You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people.

If you sometimes wonder why so many other editors disagree with your edits (or with claims you make in your sandbox, your talk page, or the talk page of the Qing dynasty wiki), maybe you should read the following guideline and ponder it seriously: Wikipedia:Tendentious editing#How to pull back from the brink.

I don't know what else to say about this page. As I said, it's not my style to delete material unilaterally, but right now I would feel entirely justified in removing the disputed section called China (alleged genocides, evidence forthcoming) until someone finds proper support for these claims, which you haven't done so far. Madalibi (talk) 07:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the China section, if in the future someone comes up with several reliable sources that state that certain events that happened in China -- from whatever period -- was a genocide then it should be included on this page, but currently in my opinion there has not been enough scholarly sources presented to justify its inclusion. It is better to have no information about a subject in an encyclopaedia wrong information. "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." –Jimmy Wales (See WP:PROVEIT) -- PBS (talk) 09:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, user PBS has stepped forward and deleted the China section, fair enough, rule is rule. I shall come back with more reliable sources and then I will support my claim.

To answer user Madalibi's comments:

1. You often find yourself accusing or suspecting other editors of “suppressing information”, “censorship” or “denying facts.”(My answer:No, that is not true. Of the nearly three months of me being an editor of wiki, I had 'serious discussion' with only two editors.(1)Madalibi (2)Bathrobe. The 'serious discussion' with user Bathrobe was really a learning process, because back then Qing was my second 'serious edition', by that I mean I was into a complete rewrite of Qing. My first ever edition was Boxer Rebellion, which ended up quite OK, I think, because quite a few of my editions got to stay. My best performance is 2008 Chinese milk scandal, where 95% of my editions stay, and I am still very proud of it. And you can find my 'creations' on my user page, and feel free to point out any short comings.
2. Your citations back some of the facts you are adding, but do not explicitly support your interpretation or the inferences you draw.(My answer:I don't know, never thought of it.
3. You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people.(My answer: NO, NO, NO. When I was on other internet forums, 98% of the times I end up winning, whatever topics I pick(of course I pick the subjects I know best)
4. If you sometimes wonder why so many other editors disagree with your edits (My aswer: Again, NO NO NO. That is not true.)

The bottom line is, I am not what you might call a POV warrior, and I am more into Poltical analysis of wiki articles, that is all. Arilang ^talk 11:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Re-open a China section?

Hi everyone. I have just reverted Johnbod's good-faith re-insertion of a China section. After a controversial discussion above, we apparently decided that we would need at least two scholarly sources calling one particular massacre a "genocide" before we (and therefore Wikipedia) could make an allegation of genocide. Because of this decision and the controversy attached to genocides in general, I think it's better to reach a consensus here before we decide to re-open a China section. Going through the talk page first is also fairer to those whose text has been deleted for lack of reliable sources. So here's my personal opinion on the new additions:

• I don't think the paragraph on the Dungan rebellion fits the bill just yet. There was indeed a large population drop in the region after the rebellion was crushed by the Qing, but if we don't want to infringe on Wikipedia's "no original research" policy, we should find reliable sources that explicitly ascribe this population drop to a "genocide." In other words, we can't make this claim on our own on the basis of sources that make no such claim. (For more details on this policy, see WP: SYN.)

• On the other hand, I think we have a good case that the extermination of the Dzungars constituted a genocide. Three reasons: a) the Dzungars were effectively exterminated (they didn't just lose a lot of people in a war, and they didn't just migrate to other regions); b) their extermination was the result of an explicit extermination policy (made by the Qianlong emperor in 1757); and c) (most important) reliable scholars have called this whole event a genocide. Here are two scholarly references:

1. In his book China Marches West: The Qing conquest of Central Eurasia (2005), Perdue specifically called the extermination of the Dzungars an "ethnic genocide," and even a "final solution" (both words are on p. 285). We could also include Perdue's claim that "This deliberate use of massacre has been almost completely ignored by modern scholars" (see bottom of p. 284). Discussion of the genocide span from p. 283 to p. 287.
2. In an article published earlier in 2008, Mark Levene has called the extermination of the Dzungars "arguably the eighteenth century genocide par excellence": p. 188 of Levene (2008), "Empires, Native Peoples, and Genocides," in Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History, edited by A. Dirk Moses (Berghahn Books), pp. 183-204 (p. 188 for the citation).

After posting all this, I'm unfortunately out of Wikipedia time for today: could someone else (perhaps Johnbod?) compose a paragraph on the Dzungars citing these two sources in addition to Michael Edmund Clarke's dissertation? We could post it here first to see what other editors think, and then re-open the China section. Thanks a lot in advance to anyone who is willing to help! --Madalibi (talk) 02:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I certainly think a China section is needed. When genocide claims as tentative as the French, Irish and Russian ones are included, the Chinese ones should be as well. I will try a quick version here, but I'm no specialist:

China

The Dzungar or Zunghar were the last nomadic empire in East Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang, to threaten China, which they did from the early 17th century to the middle of the 18th century. The Dzungars were annihilated by the Qianlong Emperor in several campaigns starting in 1755. About 70-80% of the Dzungar population, or around 500,000 to 800,000 people, were killed, driven into exile or died of smallpox during or after the Manchu conquest in 1755-1757. Adult males were sometimes killed, and females and children taken as servants by their conquerors, so that the Dzungar people effectively ceased to exist. [Perdue would need to be added to the refs i presume.]

Main article: Dungan revolt

The Dungan revolt of the largely Muslim Hui and other Muslim ethnic groups in China's north-western provinces between 1862 and 1877, was the last in a series of Muslim rebellions that saw huge loss of life - some estimates are as high as twelve million lives between 1648 and 1878. This final episode cost between one and a highest estimate of eight million lives on both sides, but mainly those revolting. It was feared by the Muslim population that some of this loss of life was genocidal in nature, although whether this was actually so is controversial.- [the material quoted above as notes 39 & 41 in the earlier removed section is enough to justify this, & should be cited here.] Johnbod (talk) 03:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I've not looked for other sources on this, so they may well exist. Johnbod (talk) 03:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I 100% agree with Johnbod, lets face it, Chineses, or Manchus, have all done fairly nasty things in the past. Tn the age of internet, any attempt of Historical revisionism (negationism) just will not work. Arilang ^talk 07:54, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

New draft

Hi John and Arilang, and thank you, John, for your draft. I made a few modifications to the Dzungar part to make it clear that the allegation of genocide comes from secondary scholarship and not from individual editors, who are forbidden to make such claims as per WP: NOR. Here's what I have:

“ The Dzungar (or Zunghar) Mongols of East Turkestan (now known as Xinjiang) were the last nomadic empire to threaten China, which they did from the early 17th century to the middle of the 18th century. After a series of inconclusive military conflicts that started in the 1680s, the Dzungars were annihilated by the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in the late 1750s. About 80% of the Dzungar population, or between 480,000 and 800,000 people, were killed between 1755 and 1758 in what "amounted to the complete destruction of not only the Zunghar state but of the Zunghars as a people." Although, according to a nineteenth-century Chinese estimate, as much as 40% of the Dzungar population may have been killed by smallpox, historian Peter Perdue has shown that the decimation of the Dzungars was the result of an explicit policy of extermination launched by the Qianlong emperor. Although this "deliberate use of massacre" has been largely ignored by modern scholars, Perdue has called it an "ethnic genocide" and argued that it brought a "final solution" to China's problems on its northwest frontier for one century. Genocide specialist Mark Levene has stated that the extermination of the Dzungars was "arguably the eighteenth century genocide par excellence." ”

==Bibliography==

• Clarke, Michael Edmund (2004). {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) "In the Eye of Power: China and Xinjiang from the Qing Conquest to the 'New Great Game' for Central Asia, 1759-2004." Doctoral thesis, Dept. of International Business & Asian Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane.
• Levene, Mark (2008). {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) "Empires, Native Peoples, and Genocides." In A Dirk Moses (ed.), Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History, pp. 183-204. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books.
• Perdue, Peter C. (2005). {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge, Mass.; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Any thoughts? By the way, I know of no scholarship disputing this claim to genocide, so I think we could post the above paragraph as it is without any controversy (though I will do so only after a few more editors agree).
On a different note, there is one key point to make about genocide allegations in the sections on France, Ireland, and Russia: regardless of whether these claims sound flimsy, and regardless of whether they are true or false, what matters is that these claims appear explicitly in reliable scholarship. For France, the wiki presents the controversy over the "Vendée genocide," balancing the claims of the scholar who said "genocide" with those of his critiques. For Ireland, note 66 of the current version cites four different scholars who attribute the Irish drop of population to a "genocide." For Russia, the claims are flimsier, since all we have is one uncontextualized scholarly citation, but the explicit claim exists nonetheless. To make myself very clear: it doesn't matter if these claims (France, Ireland, Russia) are right: the point is that these claims exist in the scholarly literature. Wikipedia's prohibition of "original research" decrees that this should be our standard. No matter how strongly we think that the repression of the Dungan revolt was a genocide, I still don't think we have a strong enough claim in the secondary literature to insert a paragraph on the Dungan rebellion here. Again, to prevent any misunderstanding: I'm not saying the repression of the Dungan rebellion was not a genocide: I'm saying we still lack a scholarly source that makes such a claim. I wonder what other editors think about this... Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 08:29, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with the revised Dzungar text. I rewrote the Dungan passage in terms of fears of genocide, which I think is adequately sourced from Dillon (who says the fears were justified) and Lipman (who says the violence 'matched' the ethnic cleansing of former Yugoslavia) above. Whether it was officially sponsored is more opaque. On the other point, concensus of historians should also be taken into account, and for the Vendee and Ireland in the Famine, both very widely discussed, I think there is a clear concensus (especially for Ireland, among historians if not American law professors and New York City politicians) that the events did not constitute genocide. If the intentions of the government are hard to pin down in the Dungan Revolt, genocidal intentions have never been demonstrated in the very copiously documented records of the Famine period, which was also amazingly free of violence, considering what was happening. That we don't seem to have unearthed objective historians against claimns of genocide in the Dungan revolt should also be taken into account. Johnbod (talk) 14:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi John, and thank you for your thoughtful response. Despite your cogent arguments, I'm still hesitant about the Dungan rebellion. My main point remains the same: we still lack a strong enough case in the secondary sources to call the repression of this rebellion a "genocide." No matter how far-fetched it is, the claim that the Irish Famine was some kind of genocide has been explicitly defended by many historians. We still lack that in the case of the Dungan rebellion, no doubt in part because its history has been written from the victors' point of views, and perhaps also because no historian interested in genocides has done research on this major event. The fact remains that we still lack an explicit claim. (In the absence of such a claim, it's not surprising that we haven't found any historian denying allegations of genocide in the Dungan case.) Lipman compared the term "xi Hui" 洗回 ("washing away the Muslims") with the equally sinister term "ethnic cleansing." The footnote in which he noted this resemblance said nothing about actual violence. So all we have for now is heavy casualties (many sources), popular demands for ethnic cleansing (Lipman about Shaanxi non-Muslims at the beginning of the Dungan rebellion), "justified fear of genocide" (Dillon about 19th-century Chinese Muslims in general) and "acts of genocide" committed by Chinese against Muslims,with the complicity of Qing officias (Giersch about Yunnan). I argued above that this was insufficient, especially since we lack anything specific about the Dungan rebellion itself. Perhaps we should hear what other editors think about this. Cheers to all, Madalibi (talk) 02:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

More massacre(or genocide) evidence from Chinese text

http://www.meet-greatwall.org/gwmz/wen/mzs/mzs137.htm Quite:1856年（咸丰六年）四月，云南屠杀回民的案件越来越严重，云南巡抚舒兴阿等通令全省“各府厅州县聚团杀回，须横直剿灭八百里”，对回民“格杀无论”、“不论良莠男女老幼，悉殄灭之”Unquoted.

The above quotation is copied from Great Wall culture .net, which has many Chinese historical research papers and books. The article's name is中国民族史 translation:The History of Chinese ethnic people. The author is 王钟翰 (Wang Jonghan)

Translation begins: On April 1856, there were more and more cases of massacres of Hui people, the high official(巡抚 舒兴阿等) issued an order for the whole of Yunnan: "All the various governments from top to bottom (Chinese:府,厅,州,县,) to group local militias tuanlian together to kill Hui people, in the area of 800 Li(Chinese miles) diameter. The specific orders were:(1) to kill the Hui people regardless (2) Do not care they were males or females, old or young, exterminate them completely. End of translation.

Well, this is heavy stuff. If this is not "genocide", I do not know what is. Arilang ^talk 16:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Arilang, and thanks for posting this information. Wang Zhonghan is indeed a reputed historian of the Qing dynasty whose views I greatly respect. The key point is whether he makes a claim of genocide. Could you look deeper into the article to see if Wang uses terms like 種族滅絕 (or 滅絕種族), 滅種, or 種族屠殺 to describe these massacres? Thanks! Madalibi (talk) 03:14, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Messing around with words serve no purpose

@Madalibi, Nazi Germany can say Holocaust denial, Imperial Japan can say Comfort women and Nanking Massacre did not happen. Wikipedia editors can twist the wiki basic principles to suit their private motives. Looks like Big Brother is omnipresent. Arilang ^talk 05:14, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Arilang: may I ask you what you are insinuating? Which "Wikipedia editors" are you referring to, and what are the "private motives" that supposedly animate their posts? Madalibi (talk) 05:19, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Arilang: you are making very serious accusations, here. They are in very bad taste and you are seriously out of line. Madalibi (talk) 05:34, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Baoshan massacre (Yunnan, 1845) as an "act of genocide"?

Hi again. I just found a second scholarly source saying that a massacre of Hui Muslims in the city of Baoshan (Yunnan) in 1845 (before the Panthay rebellion) constituted an act of "genocide." It was a massacre of Muslims by local Han brotherhoods in collusion with Qing local officials. Here are the two references:

• David G. Atwill (2005), The Chinese Sultanate: Islam, Ethnicity, and the Panthay Rebellion in Southwest China, 1856-1873 (Stanford University Press). The massacre is explained from p. 70 to p. 76. Atwill calls it an "organized genocide" in footnote 99 on p. 215.
• Charles Patterson Giersch (2006). Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Frontier (Harvard University Press). Giersch calls this massacre (and another one that took place later in Kunming) an "act of genocide" on p. 219.

I unfortunately don't have time to write a paragraph based on these sources. Maybe someone can help. Madalibi (talk) 03:30, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Name of the new section

I was wondering how we should call our new section on "China" if more editors approve of the paragraph on the Dzungars that appears above. "China" sounds simple enough, but Dzungar terrtory at the time was far outside what was then called China (see China proper), and was just being integrated into the Qing empire. On the other hand, "Dzungaria" sounds too obscure, "Xinjiang" anachronistic, and "Central Asia" too broad. These names would also prevent us from expanding the section with events like the Baoshan massacre, which took place in far-away Yunnan. I was thinking "Qing China" may be a good name. Any thoughts? Madalibi (talk) 07:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

That would work - "East Turkistan" is probably too obscure. On the other hand it was Chinese under the Tang & later dynasties, under the same control under the Yuan & so on. Johnbod (talk) 12:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I have just added a section called Qing China to the main article. It contains the paragraph on the Dzungars that we drafted above. Madalibi (talk) 03:16, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Croatia

I was (not) surprised to see that instead of the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia, the genocide accusation of Croatia over Serbia is rather mentioned. The monument in Jasenovac, which has been converted from "victims of genocide" into "all victims of war" still has the name of some 60,000 victims of genocide and perhaps revising history in Croatia should not be so rushy.

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Jasenovac_concentration_camp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.189.255.105 (talk) 08:16, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Critical historian vs. Wikipedia editor

Hi everyone. To avoid more misunderstandings in this holiday season, I just wanted to clarify my position on all the massacres and genocides we've been discussing, including those I have objected to including in this wiki. First, I'm a historian by training. As a historian, I read as many primary sources as I can as carefully as possible, and I draw my own conclusions from them. When I want to learn about events I've done no primary research on, I assess secondary scholarship critically, trying to keep in mind what primary sources authors have used to support their conclusions. As a Wikipedia editor, however, I am bound by entirely different rules, the most frustrating and important of which is "no original research." When I object to including claims of genocide for the Dungan and Panthay rebellions, I speak neither as a historian nor as a critical reader of secondary scholarship: I speak as a Wikipedia editor who has to respect Wikipedia's explicit ban on "original research." This policy is very broad and it applies to both primary and secondary research. For example:

• "Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to come to the conclusion C. This would be a synthesis of published material which advances a new position, which constitutes original research."

When I read books like Atwill's (citation above), I personally feel that what took place in Yunnan from the 1850s to the 1870s was dozens of times more serious than what took place in Ireland during the Famine or in Vendee during the French Revolution. Massacres and atrocities were committed on a larger scale over a longer time; they were explicitly directed at the civilian population of specific ethnic groups; and they were directly organized by representatives of the state. If the same events had taken place in Europe, they would undoubtedly have been called "genocides," and they would be the object of at least 20 different specialized monographs we could pick from to write this wiki. In other words, objectively speaking, I think the massacres that took place during the Panthay and Dungan rebellions deserve to be called "genocidal" far more than some (perhaps even most) of the massacres that are included in this wiki. My problem is that I find no way around the ban on original research, which forbids us from proposing our own conclusions (and using our own labels) even in cases as obvious as this one. I venture that if we disregarded the WP: NOR policy in such cases, we would open an enormous Pandora's box that would allow any editor to make their own claims on a vast range of topics simply by claiming that their conclusions are reasonably supported by primary sources or secondary scholarship. My abiding by WP: NOR is the context in which my current objections to some editors' proposals should be read. On a human level, I agree that the repression of the Panthay rebellion was an enormous tragedy we still know too little about; as a historian, I also believe that the way the Qing handled the rebellion corresponds to the strictest definitions of "genocide" that I know of. But as a Wikipedia editor, I still haven't found enough secondary sources to include these personal conclusions in the wiki. I am looking actively, as I did for the case of the Dzungars, but I still haven't found enough. If we eventually find these explicit allegations of genocide (I hope we do), I will be happy to draft a paragraph on it so that we can tell Wikipedia readers what happened. Happy holidays to all editors! Madalibi (talk) 10:37, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Tasmanian Genocide

The historical accounts of the events on Tasmania in the 1840s have consistently referred to it as a genocide starting in the 1940s, when the modern genocide convention was adopted by the UN. This conclusion, uncontested for many decades, was based on the exterminationist policies of the settlers, the observation that 95% of the population was wiped out (no epidemic can do that), and that by 1890s, the survivors were sufficiently dissuaded from reproducing that they left no full blooded descendents, so that thier language and the culture were forever lost.

What is your source for "The historical accounts of the events on Tasmania in the 1840s have consistently referred to it as a genocide starting in the 1940s"? --PBS (talk) 23:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Raphael Lemkin, who defined the term "genocide", used the Australian events as a defining instance.Likebox (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The racist classification system adopted by the colonial british referred to the natives of Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania as the lowest grade of human, inferior to all old-world peoples and American natives. Policies based on a widely accepted classification of people as subhuman, which lead to a systematic decimation of their population, destroying their culture and language along the way, are the hallmarks of genocide. When defining genocide, historians chose the example of the Black war along with the Jewish holocaust and the slaughter of the Armenians as a prototypical example.

Interesting. I have never heard of "the racist classification system" when was it developed, and when was a genocidal policy implemented using it? Can you provide a source for it? --PBS (talk) 23:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I personally ran across it by accident while reading Darwin's, "The Descent of Man", where it is stated, without comment and without argument, but as a statement of common knowledge, that native Australians are the lowest form of human.Likebox (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Nowadays, this is only contested by a small group of revisionist historians active within Australia. This contemptible type of history is parallel to the historical narratives in Turkey, which deny the Armenian massacres and to the historical narratives in fringe pro-Nazi circles which deny the slaughter of the Jews. In the articles which deal with the 20th century events, undue weight gives revisionist views only marginal space. I don't see why Tasmanian history should be the exception.

The references which I removed were both to literature which is unrepresentative of the world-wide consensus about the nature of the events of the Black War. If these are restored, please give thought to referencing the existing rebuttals and the mainstream narrative.Likebox (talk) 04:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a source that says that the sources you removed are "unrepresentative of the world-wide consensus" (or failing that a source that states what the world wide consensus is)? --PBS (talk) 23:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why this is so controversial. Even the revisionists acknowledge that they are battling established wisdom.Likebox (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's some references I copied and pasted from the talk page at Black War:

How about these for starters:

• Here we have a discussion of historian Keith Windschuttle dismissal of "the conventional thinking on what's been is widely-accepted as one of the darkest moments in Australian history, the genocide of Tasmanian Aborigines".
• Turnbull, Clive (1948) Black War: The Extermination of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Melbourne and London: F.W. Cheshire.
• This may or may not be a reliable source, but it discusses the Black War in the context of other genocides.
• This is almost certainly not a reliable source, but gives some evidence to it being commonplace to consider it as genocide.
• This seems reputable. Minogue is apparently reluctant to use the label genocide, although the site editors seem to want to push that angle. Part of a multi-part series sparked by Windschuttle's publications.
• Yet another discussion of Windschuttle supposed debunking of among other things, Tasmanian genocide.
• http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/Madley.pdf "Patterns of frontier genocide 1803–1910: the Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia" by Benjamin Madley in the Journal of Genocide Research (2004), 6(2), June, 167–192
• "Modern by analogy: modernity, Shoah and the Tasmanian genocide" by Jesse Shipway in the Journal of Genocide Research (2005), 7(2), June, 205-219

"Patterns of Frontier Genocide" is particularly illuminating, since it draws parallels to other events.Likebox (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Article title

I started a thread on this long ago, but unfortunately never got around to following up on it. For a long time, I've thought there is a disconnect between the title of this page "Genocides in history", and its actual content, which deals with (quoting from the intro) "genocides and alleged genocides".

Isn't it about time this article's title accurately reflected its content, and it was simply renamed "Genocides and alleged genocides"? Gatoclass (talk) 16:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, because as a general rule alleged in titles is a bad idea, and with the exception of those which have been proven in a court of law all the others are alleged. While updating genocidal massacre recently I came across this Genocide and Gross Human Rights Violations in Comparative Perspective: In Comparative Perspective By Karin Solveig Björnson, Transaction Publishers, 1998 ISBN 0765804174, 9780765804174. p 133 It says that the Genocide Convention definition not a scientific definition and goes on to criticize the methodology of many definitions used by genocide scholars. I intend to add some of the points to the genocide article but as I only saw it a couple of days ago I have not got around to it yet. --PBS (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Australian genocide debate

Likebox after our discussion on the main article's talk page (Talk:History wars#Google Books on the Tasmanian Genocide) I have partially reversed you edit to the Australian section and have replaced one paragraph with what I hope you will consider a neutral one. If you disagree with any of my changes please discuss it here on the talk page before making an edit. --PBS (talk) 10:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Plese discuss your additions first. Your additions give undue weight to denialism and fringe theories only floating around in Australia.Likebox (talk) 13:59, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

They are not fringe theories, I thought you have agreed to that on Talk:History wars, the two articles I have cited are by Henry Reynolds and Anne Curthoys. You have yet to produce one article to support your views that historians like Reynolds and Curthoys represent a fringe view. When you do we can discuss how to balance the article. But you can not dismiss Curthoys, who is Professor of History at the Australian National University and an ARC Professorial Fellow, as a proponent of fringe views without some form of source to back it up. --PBS (talk)

I wasn't complaining about these people, and it reads fine now.Likebox (talk) 21:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Soviet Section

Shouldn't there be more added to the Soviet Section such as the genocide of Jews after World War 2 and the genocide of Germans, both in the USSR and occupied Europe after the end of WW2, also what about the genocide of other ethnic groups that found themselves on the wrong side after WW2, like the massacre of the cossaks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.241.73.130 (talk) 11:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source that states that these acts were acts of genocide? --PBS (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

crimes against humanity

From the history of the article:

13:04, 1 April 2009 Joebobby1985 (→1915 to 1950: Nowhere in the mentioned sources does it say that this was when the concept of crimes against humanity were introduced. It's worthwhile reading upon 19th century history.)

What the source says:H.RES.316-->Text of Legislation is:

(2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, England, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing `a crime against humanity'.

Although the concept of "principles of humanity and universal morality" had been around for some time, eg at the Congress of Vienna 100 years before when Britain pushed for a declaration on the Slave Trade, as (see Crime against humanity#Abolition of the slave trade. Do you have any source to show the use of "crimes against humanity" in international relations before 1915, and it clearly existed as a concept after that date, so "In 1915, during World War I, the concept of Crimes against humanity was introduced into international relations for the first time" is not an unreasonable statement given the cited H.RES.316 source. --PBS (talk) 18:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello, first off I apologise for a rather late response. I have added in the new sources with regards to King Leopold's rule along with detailed information. However, due to the composition of section titles (where the section after 1915 starts off with giving brief information on when the concept of Crimes against humanity were introduced) I would like to propose a change to the section titles accordingly. The "1915 to 1950" title can be editted to "Late 19th century to 1950" in which it starts off from the first use of the term, to 1950 for convenience.

Kind regards and again, I'm awfully sorry for the late response.

Joebobby1985 (talk) 20:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

There has already been some conversations about The Congo Free State in the Archives, and most historians as the archives show do not consider it to be a genocide so the events do not need to be detailed in this article. The sources you have supplied do not support your assertion "The first inter-state accusations made against King Leopold II dated back to 1907, when he was accused of crimes against humanity by the UK." Indeed this source, one of the ones you provided says "The second time the phrase is known to have been used was in May 1915, when the governments of France, Great Britain and Russia made a declaration regarding Turkey’s massacres of its Armenian population at the beginning of the First World War". The breakdown into the sections as they are have been like this for some time and I am not convinced that your edits have improved the article so I am reverting them. What is the advantage that you see to a section starting "Late 19th century"? --PBS (talk) 22:11, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello, well the article states in its first few paragraphs that it includes genocides and alleged genocides. Therefore The Congo Free State certainly seems feasible under this heading in all fairness.

As for the UK accusing King Leopold I forgot to put the other source in. It was from a book so I'll try to find that and add that in later with the page numbers.

You also mentioned "Indeed this source, one of the ones you provided says "The second time the phrase is known to have been used was in May 1915, when the governments of France, Great Britain and Russia made a declaration regarding Turkey’s massacres of its Armenian population at the beginning of the First World War"." However, this was the second time the phrase was used whereas the original text noted it as the first. The subsequent section deals with the same issue so it's just mere repitition to be honest. On the other hand what I intended to point out was the first time it was used and I used it within that context.

As for what advantages I see in changing the section title: The "1915 to 1950" section starts off with giving an introduction of when the term was first used, however since the term was first used to describe the events in the Congo Free State the title would indeed need to be adjusted accordingly to that. I preferred to use a "Late 19th century" title to be rather vague due to the fact that it is difficult to associate the whole vent to just one specific year.

Kind regards and thank you for the quick response.

Joebobby1985 (talk) 22:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It is not genocides alleged by editors of Wikipedia but alleged by reliable sources. See the archives about the Congo listed there is a reliable source that states most historians do not describe the working to death of millions of people as a genocide. As to he section heading the current wording states "In 1915, during World War I, the concept of Crimes against humanity was introduced into international relations for the first time when the Allied Powers sent a correspondence to the government of the Ottoman Empire,..."(my emphasis) which is what the source you provided confirms. That the phrase it had been used by another entity in a letter is not directly pertinent to this article. That it was used by the British government is relevant as this is still their position. Further those found guilty at Nuremberg were found guilty of all sorts of crimes including crimes against humanity because the concept already existed thanks to the WWI declaration and the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (but the Charter would have been in danger of being retrospective if the previous declarations about CAH had not been made), they were not found guilty of the crime of genocide because it had yet to be defined as a criminal act (which is not the same as saying that a genocide did not take place).

One thing which Google Books is good for is finding earlier dates for a phrase than one cited in more recent books. For example by putting in search dates from 1790 to 1890 it is easy to see that there are lots of earlier publications that use the term "Crime against humanity". Here is one from 1854. Here is another one from 1855: The Sunday of the people in France by I. Mullois, S. Bunbury, on page 21. Here one which is much earlier; Public characters [Formerly British public characters] of 1798-9 - 1809-10, Published 1804. pp. 526,527 "offensive war is a high crime against humanity and Christianity." by Dr Knox from a sermon he gave in Brighton in 1793, almost 100 years before George Washington Williams sent his letter.--PBS (talk) 00:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah the bolded part clears things up a bit. Then I'll try and get a hold of the book I mentioned where it's stated that the UK officially condemned the actions in the Congo in 1907. (Don't worry it's from a neutral source, something you find on a rare occassion these days when it comes to controversial topics such as these).

However, I have still yet to be convinced with regards to the actions in the Congo not being an act of genocide, especially as there have is clear evidence of an order given by a higher authority to collect the right hands of the Congolese people. Although that might not fit exactly into the definition of genocide due to there not being an explicit aim of wiping out a race/people, I (just personal opinion after having researched the subject) do think it would fit under the label of an genocide when compared to that of other allegations. The "most historians" part also doesn't seem very convincing (and has never been convincing) as that sounds more like an estimate/guess due to the fact that it sets a barrier with regards to research. So if I just brainstorm a bit here I'm thinking of "most historians" according to what? Who are these people? And what about the ones that aren't included among "most historians"? Are their research methods/conclusions (if there are any) not worthy of a mention?

Anyhow sorry about the little brainstorm session, I understand that Wikipedia is not suited for opinions (rightfully so) and that majority > minority (especially with regards to the amusing maps put up on the topic of Portuguese colonialism on another page simply because the 'majority' see them fit) when it comes to editing articles, and I respectfully disagree with that approach for the sake of research (again, another personal opinion) but I must admit that it does prevent further complications. I'm guessing that's just the North American method :p and if I have a problem with it I should just take it up with the Wikipedia staff I suppose. To avoid any misunderstandings, I don't intend to take part in any editing war either as that's against my nature nor do I have the time, will nor energy to take it up with the Wikipedia staff. I'll continue with my own method of personal research and I just wanted to drop a kind suggestion to approaches when it comes to research, that's all.

Kind regards.Joebobby1985 (talk) 01:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S: Thank you for introducing me to Google Books, it seems like a useful tool. I wasn't aware of such a tool due to the fact that I'm horrible with computers.

I'm please that you will find the tool useful. As to the convincing you please follow the link to the archive which has the details of the following: "Adam Hochschild includes in his article a paragraph that starts: 'The exhibit deals with this question in a wall panel misleadingly headed “Genocide in the Congo?” This is a red herring, for no reputable historian of the Congo has made charges of genocide; a forced labor system, although it may be equally deadly, is different.'" --PBS (talk) 01:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Just to clear up any possible confusion, I wasn't challenging the "See the archives about the Congo listed there is a reliable source that states most historians do not describe the working to death of millions of people as a genocide." quote you made, as that really is the case or else we would have had almost every war being labelled a genocide. I had only intended to comment on the 'most historians' term with regards to its use in general as its used very frequently.

I had already read the archive. However, as mentioned apart from the forced labor system there has been an order to kill. In addition to this, Article 2 of the CPPCG does not state in any explicit way that there needs to be charges made by the victims (in this case Congolese historians) against those who may have committed the act. So in other words, it doesn't sound logical to me to rule out a possible genocide just because the victim party has not engaged in any form of accusations. Although they won't fit under "alleged genocides", I feel it's enough if there are accusations made by any party and that it may/should be worthy of a mention to broaden the perspective, especially when there is sufficient literature written on the subject. One may argue that if an act should be considered as genocide then it needs to have met the prerequisites of a hearing in the ICJ in that manner, but on the other hand most of the cases mentioned here have not even gone through the process of the ICJ let alone having gone through a hearing.

Kind regards.Joebobby1985 (talk) 02:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

See the article genocide definitions and also genocide#Criticisms of the CPPCG and other definitions of genocide. To be included here there is no requirement that the charges are laid by the surviving victims of a genocide, but there is a requirement that he events are described as such by reliable sources. In the case of the Congo Free State Adam Hochschild has stated "no reputable historian of the Congo has made charges of genocide;"(source in the archive) --PBS (talk) 11:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The various challenges to the definition of genocides in the link you gave only makes the term more vague and strengthens my view on the flexibility of the term that's being used today for many cases of a "genocide", as you acknowledge I suppose. What I meant by sources was not just Adam Hochschild alone, in fact the main portion of the sources I indicated were the sources that contained the quotes from Hochschild. These sources seem pretty reliable to me as they're not linking to any biased government sources or diaspora views and there's even much more waiting to be found out there and it's not very hard to so... but I realise the term 'reliable' is always relative. Despite all this, if you're still persistent with regards to the events in the Congo Free State then I humbly respect your opinion. I'm not one to force results through research down someone's throat as that's against my nature as I stated and this is as far as I'll go. I'm only guessing this is a flaw of Wikipedia where one is forced to convince someone who already has a point of view on the issue, through discussions; I've had a similar experience when presenting a correct map of Portuguese colonialisation in the Americas but was faced with the same views that defend the status quo, contrary to the approach that should be of a researcher especially when dealing with issues like these. Nevertheless, I bid you a good day sir.

Kind regards.Joebobby1985 (talk) 19:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Further reading

The further reading section is a leftover from the time we move the list from the Genocide article and then started to cite all the facts in this article. It was left in place because some of the articles could have been useful as sources for the sections in the article. However it is some years since this arrangement came into place and I intend to delete the further reading section as it is very large and any sources that are likely to be extracted from the section have long since been used. --PBS (talk) 10:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Genocide of palestinians

What about the genocide of palestinians that Israel is commiting?? Nobody talks about that?? I think all we know how many palestinians are dying just for being family or neighbours of some suicide terrorist. Israeli forces sistematically destroy their houses as a punition, it's not a secret. Can you imagine (wherever you are, in the US, Europe, or somewhere in your confortable country) your house being destroyed just because your brother/son has killed someone?? What about the so many olive trees cut off as a punition?? Is this the democracy of a "western" country like Israel??

We could be here writing hundreds of examples of what the israelis are doing to the palestinian peolpe, but even in the 21th century is not polite to say they're commiting genocide, just because they have suffered so much in the WW2 that now everybody feels guilty and no one is brave enough to tell them "STOP".

I strongly believe it must be a section in this article about the genocide of palestinians. 89.131.5.91 (talk) 09:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Other historic genocides to add, further note

I came to notice the lack of mention, nor examination and inclusion of five infamous acts I can think of are legitimately viewed as genocides or acts of "ethnic cleansing" in world history is not in the article.

1. The decline of the Californio population of Mexican-era California during the Mexican-American war, which ended by the U.S. annexation and Anglo-American settlement of the 1850's. One story about the U.S army command under General John Fremont captured the colonial capital of San Jose, California in 1847 and his troops expelled every single Spanish-speaking individual out of the community. To observe U.S. census records of persons of Spanish/Mexican descent in 19th century California declined from being an ethnic majority (over 50% of an estimated 150,000) in 1848 to 5% (under 100,000) of the state population by 1900 may be viewed by scholars whom studied ethnic group declines as a "genocide". Some parts of the Western United States were settled by Hispanic/Mexican people for over 400 years, such as the central coast of California, the valleys of northern New Mexico and along the Rio Grande, the present-day US-Mexico border in southern Texas is sometimes called "the lost land" by Mexican-Americans; and how Chicano/La Raza activist groups since the 1960's spoke of past actions by the U.S. government that nearly eradicated a culture in formerly Mexican land (the Aztlan movement) of the Western United States during the late 19th century.

2. The total of eight centuries of genocides, linguicide programs and crushed uprisings of the Langue d'oc regions also known as Occitans of Southern France by the northern French. It may be the first recorded genocide in world history when in 1209 the Holy Roman Empire (the Frankish kings) sent thousands of troops returning from the Crusades to quench a peasant rebellion to had killed tens of thousands, the beginning of endless pursuits and policies by the northern French (as the Kingdom of France and the French Republic since 1789) against the Occitans. After the French Revolution and the fall of Napoleon I in the 1810's, the French Republic abolished all the historic provinces of the former kingdom and replaced the southern half with 39 departements (or 7 to 8 regions). Meanwhile the republic endorsed a frantic cultural elimination of the Langue D'Oc by ethnicity, cultural identity and the most by language death. In the 1880's, an aggressive and humiliating campaign by the French Ministry of Education with strong planning and endorsement by Prime Minister Jules Ferry, was committed to a program to literally replace historic language (i.e. Occitan, Provencal, Arpitan, Auvergnat, Limousin and Gascon) to student pupils in French public schools, the policy called for shunning any pupil caught speaking "patois" or regional "dialects". A century or so later, nearly every language spoken by the peoples of southern France is moribund, endangered or its' decline was successful. Sounds like a cultural genocide, the periods of violent repressions and strict anti-regional language policies, and finally the 1992 French constitution made French the "official and sole language" passed before the European Union Charter of Human Rights in 1993 passed a resolution: European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages for protection of minority and regional languages, but exempted France from compliance with the treaty out of all member states.

3. The Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1890 to 1945 when Japan surrendered to the Allies to ended World War II and had withdrew colonial rule over Korea. The occupation and annexation period by an expansionist Japan was notably brutal, oppressive and disregarded Koreans not as "equal human beings" by ancient racial homogenity dogmas of the Imperial Japanese Army. The Japanese attempted to culturally replace the Koreans' five-millennia old cultural identity as a nation, but since 1910 the Japanese government introduced over one million Japanese settlers into Korea and confiscated thousands of square kms. of farmlands from Korean peasants, also to call for demographical renovation of the Korean Peninsula into a "second Japan" ethnologically. Later the Japanese military police were sent there to repress any dissent by Korean Nationalist groups such as the 1919 Korean National Uprising against Japanese rule, which was brutally repressed by the Japanese. By the end of WWII, it's widely thought over 1 to 5 million Korean civilians were killed, many more may have starved or imprisoned, and a huge influx of Korean slave labor sent to the Japanese machinery factories. The Korean people continue to address a small global awareness to their nation's suffering under a resilient post-war Japanese government to the international community. The Japanese government continually downplays the Korean colonial occupation, although in 2005 the Japanese government and the speech given by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made a formal apology for their predecessors' many crimes against humanity in pre-WWII Korea.

4. In Chile, the right-wing military regime's bloody handling of political dissidents under President-General Augusto Pinochet in the overthrowal of the left-wing Salvador Allende government in 1973, when Allende was found dead after the Chilean air force's bombing of the presidential palace. When Pinochet and the Chilean army took over, they instituted a crackdown on all political dissidents (the majority are leftists such as communists and socialists loyal to the Allende presidency) and an estimated 50,000 were arrested (or "disappeared") often without a fair trial, taken to public squares or stadiums, later to military concentration camps and about 5,000 to 10,000 of them were executed, buried in the country's vast Atacama Desert or bodies dumped into the Pacific ocean along the coastline. The Pinochet regime ended in a peaceful democratic election to restore civilian rule in 1990, but starting from Pinochet's arrest by Spanish agents in 1998 and given a trail for the World Court of International Law. Pinochet was cleared due to physical illness and old age, he dies in 2006 without any charges made against him. The involved former Pinochet regime officials suspected of human rights abuses and homicide, are given trials held by civilian Courts in Chile ever since. The victims of the Pinochet regime is ruled a politicide (a form of genocide) by most scholars.

and 5. The "Blackbird" slave trade of the South Pacific when tens of thousands of Polynesians as well the Kanaks of New Caledonia were forcibly taken to slave ships by European slave traders and bound for Australia where the majority were forced to indentured servitude in the plantations of Queensland, and South America with the worst cases of captured people from Easter Island sent to the Guano mines of Peru. The illicit slave trade peaked in the 1880's and 1890's, but was outlawed by the year 1900 by the newly established dominion parliaments of Australia and New Zealand, and South American nations when the general public viewed "blackbirding" a barbaric action of forced slave labor. It can be ruled out a genocide due to the near termination of whole tribal groups on some islands in the south Pacific and the high fatality rate associated with slave labor conditions. The practice formally ends in 1906 when thousands of Kanaks and Polynesian farm workers are expelled and returned to their home islands, but from mass disapproval by white Australians on having "non-whites" in their continent. + 71.102.2.206 (talk) 06:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

You wrote above "inclusion of five infamous acts I can think of are legitimately viewed as genocides or acts of "ethnic cleansing" in world history is not in the article." This is not a list of what Wikipedia editors think are genocides, but is a list of events that are stated to be genocides by reliable sources. The articles on "genocide" and "genocide definitions" explain the difference between a mass killing and a genocide, the paramaters are usually size, type of group killed and significantly the intentions of the perpetrators. Two articles that might help you understand how we get to the point where what seem obvious cases of genocide are not included here:

The Bosnian Genocide article goes into what is and is not a genocide in considerable detail explaining why Momcilo Krajisnik was guilty of multiple crimes against humanity but not genocide, and while to date only Radislav Krstic has been found guilty of complicity in genocide in an international court for his part in the genocide that took palace during the Srebrenica massacre(others have in national courts). The article quotes the European Court of Human Rights "Amongst scholars, the majority have taken the view that ethnic cleansing, in the way in which it was carried out by the Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to expel Muslims and Croats from their homes, did not constitute genocide. However, there are also a considerable number of scholars who have suggested that these acts did amount to genocide" (Jorgic v. Germany July 2007).

The second example is a section from this article Genocides in history #Dirty War in Argentina. It is like your example "4. In Chile, the right-wing military regime..." but the source is a judge making the claim that it was a genocide, it is not an analysis by a Wikipedia editor claiming that because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck. --PBS (talk) 07:41, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I see, on what constitutes a genocide goes by what's defined under the process of prosecution or declaration of genocide from how it is considered in international law. The Bosnia civil war and the atrocities in Rwanda were evidently coordinated mass murders between whole ethnic groups (no doubt about it), while the crime of Apartheid and Maafa may contain several levels of racial oppression to signify a genocide and the decline of American Indians and Australian Aborigines according to demographic statisticans attribute serious population declines from government policy to carry racial overtones to reduce the population numbers. + 71.102.2.206 (talk) 14:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Protected

Per the report at WP:ANI#Genocides in history, this page is protected for two weeks or until consensus is reached on the issue above. I am now examining whether additional sanctions are required per WP:ARBAA2.  Sandstein  09:25, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I have provided all contributors to the recent edit war with the following precautionary notification: This is to notify you that, per Wikipedia:ARBAA2#Amended Remedies and Enforcement, editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process while editing content related to Armenia and Azerbaijan may be given sanctions which may include blocks of up to one year in length, bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict, bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics, restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors, or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.  Sandstein  09:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The trouble is, your project (i.e. your agenda) seem very different from the project. Meowy 23:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Australia

I found this edit: Revision as of 18:38, 23 October 2007 by user:Arcot which introduced the sentence with this "Historian dismisses Tasmanian aboriginal genocide "myth"" as the source. But the source only says "He argues only 118 Tasmanian Aborigines were killed directly by the British. The rest died from a lethal cocktail of introduced diseases." it does not mention what the diseases were, so I'll remove the specific diseases from this article. If anyone objects then I'll have to re-instate it, until the protection comes off. --PBS (talk) 15:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Except that this source is pretty much the only source that argues this, and nobody else agrees. The natives were murdered by settlers, as everybody knows.Likebox (talk) 17:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Likebox you have made this edit citing With intent to destroy By Colin Martin Tatz pp. 78-79 Given the wording in the first paragraph on page 78 ("diseases introduced by convicts and settlers ... seriously depleted Aboriginal numbers") which paragraph do you think over the two pages supports the sentence you added to this article namely "The majority were killed at the hands of settlers" (my emphasis)? --PBS (talk) 23:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Azerbaijani Khojaly

I have noticed this section is being removed many times in which I felt the need to undo the changes. It's important to keep in mind that the article at hand is written with regards to genocides or alleged genocides. Without having to dig through much sources it's possible to pull out two sources that would qualify the case in this regard: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/51/c3/ac351-9.htm and http://assembly.coe.int/documents/workingdocs/doc01/edoc9066.htm

With this in mind, I kindly ask of anyone who's removing this section to stop. If you have any opinions on the credibility of the sources linked please feel free to put them forward.

Kind regards. Joebobby1985 (talk) 14:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Articles do not exist to serve as carriers of pure propaganda. Meowy 16:20, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Pardon me but what on earth is that supposed to mean? I presented you with available sources from official documents and your best answer is "this is pure propaganda"? That sounds like the usual over-nationalist view that denies anything against their own interests. Deleting it like this is just plain abrupt, please stop. I ask you kindly to present a valid arguement. I mean no offense.Joebobby1985 (talk) 11:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

There is no mention of any "Khojaly genocide" in those "available sources from official documents"! Meowy 20:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The source http://assembly.coe.int/documents/workingdocs/doc01/edoc9066.htm notes "Recognition of the genocide perpetrated against the Azeri population by the Armenians" in its title along with "On 26 February 1992, Armenians massacred the whole population of Khodjaly and fully destroyed the city." which sort of creates the base for an informal title of "Azerbaijani Khojaly".

Granted though that there is no explicit mention of a Khojaly genocide. Nevertheless, there is still a case of (alleged) genocide here and it would certainly be better to reach a compromise on finding a suitable title and just adding that in. However, deleting the whole section is plain abrupt and a loss of content as mentioned before, and I'm sure you would agree that the documents do indeed point to the presence of an (alleged) genocide at the very least. Joebobby1985 (talk) 01:25, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The documents you cite are examples of lie-filled political propaganda manufactured by Azerbaijan and they are dubious sources at best. Regardless of that, there is no mention AT ALL of a "Khojaly genocide" in those sources. Please stop POV warring. It sounds like it is just your opinion that what has happened could be called genocide. Your opinion is not enough. Meowy 13:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd consider "lie-filled political propaganda" as a biased remark to be honest. The thing these sources point out is that there is at the very least an allegation of a genocide and this article also notes in its first few paragraphs that it contains "genocides" and "alleged genocides". As for the title, I've already mentioned about reaching a compromise on finding a suitable title for the section but unfortunately you have made no suggestions in this regard.

On a final note please refrain from empty accusations like "POV warring" or the sort. I'm simply pointing to documents of at least an (alleged) genocide and that fits in with the article's purpose.

PS: It seems you've deleted the section again and noted the reason as "unsourced claim". It does (or at least did) have a source, but if you're just dismissing it because you believe "it's a lie" then that does not really fit with the article's purpose. If people were able to delete whatever they believed was a "lie" here I'm pretty sure there would almost be no content here.Joebobby1985 (talk) 18:39, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

You don't seem to get it! The article does indeed contain a list of "genocides" and "alleged genocides" but they are genocides that have been written about, or genocides that have been alleged in credible sources (preferably multiple credible sources). You seem to want to add this for no other reason than you believe it should be classed as an "alleged genocide". You have cited no source, credible or otherwise, that specifically calls events at Khojaly a "genocide". What you are doing is called POV warring. Meowy 17:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Like previously stated in an edit summary, which should have sufficed for any editor with good intentions, this draft is not considered as a reliable source. This draft was prepared by Mehmet Ali İrtemçelik representing Turkey, see the bolded name on the list of individuals who signed it. Mehmet Ali İrtemçelik is the same who campaigned against the recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Europe, mostly Germany, where he made pressures to remove the mention of the Armenian genocide in the syllabus of the city of Brandenburg among many other things as well as the most active in preventing the recognition by the German Bundestag in 2005 and the following official recognition. The draft prepared by Mehmet Ali İrtemçelik was the bunny out of his magician hat on 26 April 2001 to answer to the originally tabled 24 April 2001 draft concerning the Armenian genocide put forward by Tatána Jirousová which angered the Azeri and Turkish members (known ardent deniers of the Armenian genocide) of the Concil of Europe. The only thing the draft which was signed does, is exposing the individual who prepared it as well as those who have signed it. Every single line there is bogus and not supported by a single notable non-partisan material. Even the line regarding Khojali is bogus, it reads: On 26 February 1992, Armenians massacred the whole population of Khodjaly and fully destroyed the city. As seen from the Khojaly Massacre article, the official figures from Azeri authorities (which is disputed) is of 613 individuals out of the claimed six thousand of people. Even taking the official Azeri authorities' figures (who have a history of exaggeration to demonise Armenians), as official figures, they changed it from barely over a hundred, to four hundred something to then stabilize for the six hundred range), that's about 10% of the village population, very far from the 'whole population' not even claimed by Azeri authorities who claim the village population are refugees and are waiting to return in Khojali. Furthermore, to not forget that 20 out of the 30 members who have signed were either from Turkey or Azerbaijan and who played a game in their deluded world by retaliating to the draft prepared two days prior. This does not include that several of the remaining were part of claimed Turkish friendship cocuses and pushers of Turkey into the European Union, who thought hard that by antagonizing Armenians and accusing them to have perpetrated repeated genocides extending to a century (afteral the draft accuses them to have committed several genocides, which would make laugh even Justin McCarthy himself, known ardent Armenian Genocide denier) they'll have Turkey excused for having gotten rid of such monsters who would have the third Reich shy away.

In conclusion, removing the material amount to removing vandalism. There is really something pathetic about reinserting and fighting over a passage which claims an Armenian genocide history against Azeri extending to a century (which would make of it the worst reported genocide). It seems that some have nothing better to do than antagonizing other groups. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 22:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

How is an EU Council or UN source not credible? Don't they authenticise the fact that there are allegations at the very least? I'm baffled by your way of thinking on what a credible source should be and the accusations/name calling you're throwing left, right and center. The last bit is even more irrelevant to the whole case (I apologise if that's not from you, it says unsigned). The question we should be dealing with is this a genocide/alleged genocide? Whatever viewpoint you might believe (on whether it's a genocide or not) you can see there is the case of at least an allegation, and that is ultimately the purpose of the article: to form a collection of genocides and alleged genocides in history.Joebobby1985 (talk) 23:26, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh sorry seems that latest addition wasn't made by Meowy and was by Onlyoneanswer, my bad. First of all you claimed the section as "vandalism" and proceeded in deleting the whole thing, even if it had been rearranged by Meowy and Kansas Bear. As for an answer to your post please see the previous paragraph on it being irrelevant to the case at hand.Joebobby1985 (talk) 23:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No, it does not even qualify as alleged, you're gamming it, the term alleged in the article was meant to cool down parties, so that if some do not want to claim genocide (for example the Armenian genocide for Turkish users or Turkish readers) it still can be included. The term alleged permits also cases not submitted to international trials (since the term genocide is a legal word in terms of international laws) and which are obviously documented and could reasonably be included. The term alleged is for sure not there to include every claims made by parties. To be an allegation, the allegation should be believed by those making them, and reported as an existing allegation in notable publications. The draft submitted to the Concil of Europe, it's content isen't even claimed by the most fanatic Azeri nationalists, and their most ridiculous estimations fall short of claiming whole population of Khojali have been massacred (as it is the case in the daft). The draft is only so ridiculous which would justify its removal anywhere else, when used to support any claim like you're doing here. There have been many cases during the NK war, one of which for example Maragha, which unlike Khojali was not in the middle of a war, where the Armenian population just vanished in a period of less than a day. Some Armenians claim it genocide, does not mean it is one, neither that it even qualify as alleged and this regardless of if Armenia submit it and several parties with conflict of interest sign. Also you claim EU Concil or UN, that's not accurate, only those who have signed the draft claim so, the EU concil distance itself from such drafts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 23:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

In all fairness most people who believe something is a "genocide" don't like to have the word "alleged" written in front of it so I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to just "cool down" parties and form a compromise,(and also feel free to have a look at the dictionary definition of the word: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alleged). Anyhow, you said "To be an allegation, the allegation should be believed by those making them", so do you really believe the people who are submitting these documents to the relevant institutions don't really believe it? That's daft and biased. Claiming an official source to contain "ridiculous" information does not change the fact that there is the presence of allegations either. You have your opinions on a matter and that should be respected, as well as others who have different opinions on the matter. In addition to this, if there is an allegation and official documents of a Maragha genocide or any of the sort then feel free to add it here to be honest, any addition with official sources should be welcomed. But as for the case at hand I'm sure you would (in accordance with the true definition of the word alleged) see this would fit in with the article's purpose. Joebobby1985 (talk) 00:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

In addition to that you mention that the whole of the EU Council or UN have not approved it I think. However, you would find that only a few of the genocides/alleged genocides are recognised by them. The fact I'm trying to point out here is that there have been official submissions made to these institutions in that regard. I'll also quote you here: "only those who have signed the draft claim so", is that not enough to at the very least (for those who believe it's not a genocide) to qualify it as an alleged genocide? There is a submission, there are official documents (evidence), and there are claims. Whether you support it or not does not change the fact that there are these claims. Joebobby1985 (talk) 00:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, cool down..., check the history of this article..., one of the two reasons was indeed to cool down. The reason why the term alleged was added has nothing to do with what you imply by it. Check the articles title for a clue. and no I will not be adding a Maragha genocide, second wrong does not make it right. And yes, I am claiming that the individual who prepared the draft does not believe in the content of the draft. To be an allegation, the allegation has to exist. The draft claim that the whole population of Khojali was massacred. This allegation does not exist anywhere worth being cited, not even Azeri official allegations. One man (Mehmet Ali İrtemçelik) allegation, does not make a notable genocide allegation. Fringe allegations have no place, as you'll end up having several genocide allegations per ethnic group. That was not what was intended when the article Genocide in history was created. And what are we debating about, just checking the title of the article disqualify your addition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 00:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Please read the third paragraph of the article with regards to your comment about the title. You also claim "one of the two reasons was indeed to cool down", what was the other? Perhaps it was the true definition of the word "alleged", as stated in every dictionary out there? You also claim it's one man but there are signitures on there and say "This allegation does not exist anywhere worth being cited, not even Azeri official allegations.", feel free to check the document submitted to the UN (http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/51/c3/ac351-9.htm) and I'm sure you would find that was not submitted by one man but was by the country of Azerbaijan itself via the Permanent Representative to the UN. Joebobby1985 (talk) 00:20, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Just more additions to official sources: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/52/plenary/a52-85.htm (the Armenian response to implications of a genocide) and http://www.human.gov.az/?sehife=etrafli&dil=en&sid=MTMyMjMzMTA4MTMyNjE1Mw== (Decree of the Azerbaijani President claiming a genocide). Joebobby1985 (talk) 00:28, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I was clear enough, second reason being, that genocide has legal conotations, and that the may be law-binding. Those who signed the draft did it in retaliation to a prior draft, in any case, that makes a fringe allegation. And fringe allegations cooked for the occasion do not qualify as notable enough to be included. See this: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability Read it and reread it as long as you don't get it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 00:30, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I mean no offense, but did you even read my last post? I urge you to at least have a look at the last source I cited referring to a decree by the Azerbaijani President. Joebobby1985 (talk) 00:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

In addition to that I just found a most recent source. (http://www.un.int/azerbaijan/62%20Session/Press%20Release%202008/Khodjali.pdf) by the Mission of Azerbaijan to the UN which explicitly claims a "Khojaly Genocide" and even cites to other sources via footnotes. Fact is, there are claims and hence there are allegations. The fact that there are allegations are clearly seen in the sources mentioned before.Joebobby1985 (talk) 00:39, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I did, Armenia and Azerbaijan (while Azerbaijan being the initiator) have accused eachothers of genocide. And? That does not make it an allegation of genocide in an article on Genocide in history. What you are doing amount on pushing a fringe which those authoring it know it being baseless. Find any notable publication making such an allegation. Again for the upteenth time, for it to be included there should be a notable allegation. A notable allegation does not mean a letter prepared by a political official, it means a legitimate work, in a peer reviewed publication supporting the position of genocide. Can you do that? If you can't, what you are doing is a waste of time. Because believe me you are misunderstanding the term 'alleged' in the context of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 00:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at this then http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav030602a.shtml. It mentions the accusations and is not a source tied to the Azerbaijani government. Saying something like "What you are doing amount on pushing a fringe which those authoring it know it being baseless" is uncalled for and biased. People making claims don't actually believe it themselves? Like I said before, that's daft. It's also not very helpful to twist the word "alleged" from its obvious meaning according to what you like for it to mean. Joebobby1985 (talk) 00:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, from a man stating: the bloodiest page in the policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide regularly perpetrated by Armenian chauvinists. So do you have any peer reviewed publication making the case for a Khojali genocide, so that neither of us waste his time? Talking of twisting, it is apparent that you are gaming this article, by using the word 'alleged', when you have it all wrong in its use. Unless you find a peer reviewed publication, there is no point in wasting my time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 00:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear. I'm beginning to question your motives on if you really want to reach a compromise. No, the man stating that is the President and he's actually quoted to say it, not the actual author of the publication. The author of the publication is pointing to the accusations of a genocide and how it may jeapordise the Karabakh peace process. I suggest you reread the article. Fact is there are allegations and you're denying it even though it's staring at you in the face when you're reading the article. Joebobby1985 (talk) 01:03, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

This is obviously going nowhere, Clare is a she, not a he, I was refering to the president not the author of the article who was based in Baku when she wrote that. My point was that the Azerbaijan claims that Armenians regularly perpetrated genocides..., not only Khojali is claimed to be that. That was to show you the differences between blunt claims and notable positions, published in peer reviewed publications. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 01:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

And where I claimed I wanted to reach compromise, there is no compromise in removing nonesense which would denigrate legitimate cases of genocides by simply being compared to that nonesense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 01:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Read the first paragraph of that source if you want to find a reference to only claims of a "Khojaly Genocide". Please refrain from diverting the attention from the source to irrelevant details. You also claim I have the wrong use of the word "alleged" when all dictionaries out there would prove you wrong in that manner. I'd also like to remind you that labelling claims as "nonsense" is biased and does not fit with the articles purpose of it being a collection of genocides and alleged genocides. Joebobby1985 (talk) 01:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I take it that you have no notable work making claim of genocide at your disposal, only political claims from a government who claims genocide regularly perpetrated by Armenian chauvinists. Come back when you find what I asked you. I will not repeat myself for the word alleged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 01:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but you don't seem to accept any source that explicitly states there are claims. It doesn't matter which sources are shown to you, you will refuse to accept it as "notable work" and just disregard the primary sources of official claims (as pointed out by the various official documents) along with any other articles that talk about the claims of such a genocide which jeapordise the Karabakh peace process. The sources I have pointed out to already explicitly state the presence of claims. As for your comment of "Come back when you find what I asked you" please see http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:CIV Joebobby1985 (talk) 01:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I only accept notable works making the case of genocide, all the other cases present in the article have them. Will you come with one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onlyoneanswer (talk • contribs) 02:01, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Comments by an indefinitely blocked sock puppet account struck out. --PBS (talk) 18:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I have removed your strikethroughs. There is no rule I know of that says that edits by blocked users have to be removed or struck out (if there is, please cite it). Moreover, I think the contributions have value to this ongoing discussion, a discussion that I am participating in. Meowy 16:39, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The strikeouts severed their purpose primary purpose in allowing Joebobby1985 to request a third opinion. user:Meowy you should not have removed the strikeouts without asking me first, and I would remind every one who reads this that Joebobby1985 Onlyoneanswer is an indefinitely blocked sock-puppet account. --PBS (talk) 17:39, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a typo - Onlyoneanswer is an indefinitely blocked sock-puppet account. --Anderssl (talk) 21:44, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out my mistake (I'm please that at least one person read my comment :-) --PBS (talk) 09:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Responding to a request for a third opinion on this dispute. It seems to me that it is well established in the sources provided that the government of Azerbadjan alleges that Armenian forces conducted a genocide in the town of Khajoli. On the other hand, this claim seems to be a little dubious, given the definition of genocide at the start of the article as an assault on an entire group - ethnic, racial etc. An attack on eno one single town, as horrible as it may have been, isn't the same as an assault on an entire people.

The source from the Council of Europe points to a genocide perpetrated over time during most of the 20th century - that's a slightly different perspective. I think if there is a notable claim to such a large-scale genocide, it should be possible to find more (notable and reliable) sources describing it - such as works by historians etc. In that case the paragraph should be renamed and rewritten to reflect this larger claim. Otherwise, if this is a dispute only about a claim that the massacre of civilians in the town of Khajoli constitutes genocide, it would seem necessary to explain how one isolated incident in a larger conflict can be described as genocide.

Finally, referring to the opinions of others as "lies and propaganda" seems pretty unhelpful in advancing the discussion. Please remember to be civil. --Anderssl (talk) 20:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Apologies for bad spelling. I meant Khojaly of course. --Anderssl (talk) 20:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello, first of all thank you very much for the effort in picking up the case in the third opinion section. An attack on one single town would indeed not really fit into a case of genocide alone, but the Azerbaijani officials seem to note the "massacres" as just a part of the process, while Human Rights Watch also noted their observation "During the winter of 1992, Armenian forces went on the offensive, forcing almost the entire Azerbaijani population of the enclave to flee, and committing unconscionable acts of violence against civilians as they fled. The most notorious of these attacks occurred on February 25 in the village of Khojaly." (http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1993/WR93/Hsw-07.htm). Nevertheless, Azerbaijani sources seem to refer to the most recent claim as the "Kho(d)jaly Genocide". The President of Azerbaijan's decree (http://www.human.gov.az/?sehife=etrafli&dil=en&sid=MTMyMjMzMTA4MTMyNjE1Mw==) even dates his claims back to the 19th century. Sadly the Presidential decrees don't put footnotes/referencing and such. I had heard about sources with such claims with regards to the 19th century previously in books by historians (but only vaguely; I didn't get the chance to read them yet) so I refrained from mentioning them previously as I am unable to pull out the exact quotes from those books. (I could try to contribute in that regard and help expand the section some time later I suppose, as soon as I'm done with my nerve wreaking thesis).

Anyhow, I'll revert the latest deletion back to its old state for now and add more details as I find them later on (and have the time). To be very honest, this discussion created an impetus for me to find even more information and sources (sources that aren't even referenced in the Khojaly Massacre article) through research via the internet alone.

Kind regards. Joebobby1985 (talk) 01:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The Azerbaijani government's claims of genocide are absolutely frivolous. Not a single scholar specializing on the genocide has even given an ounce of credence to their claims and I challenge anyone to find a single reliable source which calls the attack and an alleged massacre of a town during a territorial conflict a "genocide." The fact that Azerbaijan's narrative begins from 1828 and claims that Armenians have been "genociding" them for 200 years is enough to show what lengths the government goes to fudge the truth and how lauble their claims are. The resolution sponsored by PACE is not a source and as the user above me noted, was a politically-motivated piece of legislation that was conjured up by Turkish and Azeri parliamentarians. Joebobby1985's POV-pushing is absurd and I find it even more disturbing that users are so willy-nilly able to accept claims which have no historical foundations. --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 03:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Of course they are politically motivated, as the introduction of this list makes clear "In nearly every case where accusations of genocide have circulated, partisans of various sides have fiercely disputed the interpretation and details of the event, often to the point of promoting wildly different versions of the facts." If we do not include this one because it is POV pushing should we delete all pronouncements of genocide by all political organisations? For example should we remove the section Genocides in history#Sabra-Shatila, Lebanon because it was a UN resolution, or should we document such incidents not because the incidents are or are not genocides, but because the are allegations of genocides made by one or more notable organisations or people? --PBS (talk) 08:44, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

What Meowy, Onlyoneanswer, and MarshallBagramyan are all saying, and which I wholeheartedly agree with, is: the Azerbaijani government aside, who else supports this drivel? There is a tendency among many people to cheapen the use of the word genocide by hastily and unacademically throwing it around at the very first instance of violence. Senator John McCain of Arizona said if the Anglo-American force left Iraq too early, 'genocide' would occur. It's preposterious, of course and this case is no different. The word 'genocide' came to be associated with Xojaly in order to counteract Armenia's supposed monopoly of its tragedy. And what better way to do this than to fabricate and piece together non-related events going back to the mid-1800s that document a 200 year long genocide?! There have been serious works, many of which I personally do not agree with, on the studies of massacres which have been equalled to genocide, such as the Holodomor and Srebrenica, in area study journals but just because a government is trying to foist their views upon the whole world doesn't mean that we should provide them the platform to mislead and deceive on as popular an informational website as Wikipedia. If the government of Turkmenistan was saying that the sky was green would we then add it on the corresponding Wikipedia articles? Just because Azerbaijan says that the churches and monasteries of Nagorny Karabakh are Caucasian Albanian, we should then place that view even though a single serious scholar doesn't support that view? We're here to presenting the results done by serious scholars and I second MarshallBagramyan's challenge. --The Diamond Apex (talk) 15:10, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

If the claims of genocide are so ludicrous as you guys claim, it should be easy enough to come up with reliable and notable sources which refute them. Those can then be incorporated into the article, and the Wikipedia readers can be allowed to judge for themselves.

That being said, I would love to see an article titled "Claims about the color of the sky", with an entry for countries claiming it is green, others claiming it is made of blue cheese, etc. ;) --Anderssl (talk) 16:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The fact that no one has supported the Azerbaijani government's claims of genocide is ample proof of a refutation of a genocide (the word massacre has been utilised but certainly not 'genocide'). If no one seriously claims the sky is green, alas, there is no need to present 'refutation'. Even the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which in no way can be construed as a genocide, is referred to in scholarly works on genocides (see, e.g., Genocide: Conceptual and historical dimensions (1997) by George J. Andreopoulos). The disputed passage is complete tosh as well: of Xojali's total population, less than 10% of its populants were actually killed in this attack according to the Azerbaijani government figures.

I'm still waiting for someone to demonstrate a single, unbiased and reliable source arguing for its conclusion.--The Diamond Apex (talk) 21:02, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so here is a source that refutes the claim that the sky is green. It took me 0.5 seconds to find. Now whenever you find sources to support your claims, I am sure the community will agree to have them included in the article. --Anderssl (talk) 23:01, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

You didn't understand my point, you provided a source on the fact that the sky is blue, not that the sky is not green. I'm claiming there was no genocide, and to be a source dismissing genocide, there should be something to be dismissed. Academics review and critic positions published by the academia, if there is no academic material sustaining a position you can not expect me to find an answer to the non-existing position. Politicians and lobbyists can make any claims they want, but as long as there is no peer reviewed publication supporting a thesis, that thesis is non existent from the academicians point of view. --The Diamond Apex (talk) 03:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Look TDA, you seem to be misunderstanding something: Wikipedia is not an academic publication, and sources are not limited to peer-reviewed academic articles. Please review the editing policies and do your best to make a constructive contribution to the debate. We all agree that the claim about genocide in this case is debatable, and in my mind the paragraph about Khojaly would benefit from being rewritten with those criticisms in mind. But that will only be possible if we agree to include divergent viewpoints and let the Wikipedia readers judge for themselves - as long as this discussion remains deadlocked, we won't be able to establish consensus and improve the paragraph. Feel free to propose an improved version of the paragraph here on the talk page. --Anderssl (talk) 03:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Mate, are you listening to yourself? All the editors who have engaged in the reverting have been more than fully active in the discussion. It's wrong for you to speak for a consensus to be reached when in fact the status quo excluded any mention of it. There are numerous editors here expressing their opposition to this cockamaney nonsense. It's up to you to achieve concensus by making proposals and asking the input from editors. Donald Bloxham, a genocide scholar, raises a good point when he writes: Like the above users claims, He writes: "Yet it is as inaccurate for Armenians to conflate the Karabakh situation or either of the Sumgait and Baku episodes with the events of 1915 as it is for Azerbaijan to claim that the Armenian massacre of at least 200 Azeris at Khojaly in 1992 was an act of genocide. Periodic pogroms on either side, and more systematic evictions, do not constitute genocide, yet both sides have succumbed to the temptation of the misleading deployment of the term in pursuit of nationalist goals. (The Great Game of Genocide, Oxford University Press, 2005 pp. 232-233) That's as damning a resolution and as credible of a source that we can find to refute these silly claims.--The Diamond Apex (talk) 15:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

TDA: I fully understand your position that if an outlandish political claim is made it can be difficult to find a refutation, not because the political claim is right, but because those who disagree will not dignify the statement with a response.

But Wikipedia is not being claiming that the events in Khojaly were a genocide it is being claimed that the Azerbaijani government have stated it was. A United Nations member is far more notable than many of the other claimants of various alleged genocides on this page. See my point above about Genocides in history#Sabra-Shatila, Lebanon. If we were to delete this section for the reasons you give should we trawl through the article removing all such resolutions? For example do you want to remove the first paragraph of the Genocides in history#Armenian that starts "On 15 September 2005 a United States Congressional resolution,..."? If not why not? --PBS (talk) 08:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

No RS'on on this self-proclaimed 'genocide'. The Azerbaijany myth on genocide is criticized by scholars, including Sergei Markedonov as a propagandist tool. And there are reliable sources on such claims. According to Donald Bloxham, during the Karabakh conflict, the Azeri and Armenian governments regularly accused each other of genocidal intent, although these claims have been treated skeptically by outside observers.. Gazifikator (talk) 13:35, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you alter your last contribution to this talk page and replace the <ref> </ref> with parenthesises () so that the source is visible on this talk page? Instead of just repeatedly removing the section in the article why not add Donald Bloxham's observations to help explain that the Azerbaijan claims should be treated with skepticism? --PBS (talk) 09:34, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

An "allegation" is not just someone claiming something - for it to be properly called an allegation it has to be backed up by some reasoning or evidence, and (for inclusion in a Wikipedia article) that reasoning/evidence has to be within a valid source. Otherwise this article might as well contain everything! I hear mass genocide being committed as I type, a lawn mower killing millions of innocent shoots of grass. Will we include that too, if I make a website about it or send a press release about it to the COE? And that is not an entirely silly claim, where does it say that the victims of "genocide" have to be human? Meowy 16:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

So do you deny Khojaly Genocide?It is unbeleviable when all of you complain about denial of Armenian genocide by Turkey.Denial is the last phase of genocide, as you know.Many historians also deny Armenian genocide such as Bernard Lewis so should we remove Armenian genocide?Armenian genocide is a political concet too.Since Armenian government refused opening its archives for investigations by historians but supports recognition of Armenian genocide by other countries.Abbatai (talk) 07:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

There was no such thing. To claim otherwise is a flight of fancy. --The Diamond Apex (talk) 15:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The "genocide" label has been pushed by the Azeri government and an international parliamentary organization. These claims are in itself worthy of mention in the article. To illustrate the varying views on this matter, we can quite easily discuss the opinions of a few experts, such as Donald Bloxham. As PBS stated, this should be an effective compromise between both sides. As always, keep nationalist pride outside of this discussion. This has quite clearly turned into a dispute between Azeri and Armenian editors, with arguments from both sides being made on frivolous policy-irrelevant grounds. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 17:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

And it's mentioned as so in its respective article. Why bother giving it a voice of legitimacy here?--The Diamond Apex (talk) 20:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.I cant see any words that claims a genocide should be a fact if it is written by genocide scholars.In Nagorno-Karabakh war a group of Azeris were killed by Armenians because of their ethnicity. Also for the UNHCHR:In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;(What happend in Khojaly is)

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;(You can see it on 1 million Azeri refugees.)

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;(Deportation of Azeris from Karabakh and other regions of Azerbaijan that occupied by Armenia)

So it really overlaps with genocide.Abbatai (talk) 17:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

You have just defined the Dersim Genocide, yet you voted to delete that article. Citing no reliable source(Genocide By George J. Andreopoulos, p144). Apparently, your idea of reliable sources is a Council consisting two-thirds of Turks and Azeris!

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.Not suppressing a political group. -- Abbatai

You should re-read the definition; Killing members of the group. Contradiction after contradiction....... --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:17, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not our task to interpret historical events in the context of the UN's definition of genocide. We rely solely on reporting what reliable sources (or even partisan sources for this specific article) have said on the matter. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 17:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Then the decision of Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is enough it is not our duty to discuss whether it was a propaganda or fact.Abbatai (talk) 17:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 18:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe you set a dangerous precedent here, Nishkid. IF reliable sources can be, in this case, a majority of Turkish and Azeri diplomats voting to label Khojaly a genocide, then one simply need find any source(Kurdish or otherwise) calling Dersim a genocide(Genocide By George J. Andreopoulos, p144). What is absent here is the realization that certain editors are here to promote their hatred of another race or anyone that stands in the way of that,[1].--Kansas Bear (talk) 18:17, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

We have an obligation to appeal to common sense. For the record, I don't consider the statement made by a largely Turkish-Azerbaijani MPs in retaliation for the voting of an Armenian Genocide bill a reliable source nor should it be construed as so. If no academic work treats Xojaly in that respect, how is that we are giving it a platform to air its views? Yes, we all know it's propaganda but for the average ordinary person who has never heard of Azerbaijan or Xojaly, this is simply going to mislead them. For the third time, please cite a non-biased, reliable source, per Wikipedia's guidelines, to support the content of that paragraph.

I don't think the Azerbaijani government knows the meaning of genocide and it's clear that its shock effect on world opinion has had an impact ever since 1992. Were we to believe that a massacre took place, how can we, if we are all capable of utilising logic, understand this in the context of the UN definition. I've read all about original research and interpretations on Wikipedia but this is pushing it. There's a reason why the Baku and Sumgait massacres are not in this article (even though the Azerbaijanis there had intent on specifically killing Armenians), despite the fact that it has been viewed through the prism of genocide studies.--The Diamond Apex (talk) 20:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

TDA you did not answer my question higher up the page, if we remove this one why leave mention of any political comments on genocides and alledged genocides on this page. How do we judge the difference? --PBS (talk) 09:20, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I think Nishkid64 is getting the purpose of this article wrong. It is a listing of genocides and alleged genocides. An "alleged genocide" is very different from a "genocide allegation". Basically an alleged genocide would be an event which has had some academic recognition as being a genocide or having some genocidal component to it, but, for whatever reasons, does not have a majority recognition. This Khojali issue is a genocide allegation, not an alleged genocide, and it is an allegation that is contained solely in what is quite clearly Azeri-sponsored propaganda. Meowy 23:33, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Transmit your complains to PACE not Wikipedia.Abbatai (talk) 06:51, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

One possibility would be to agree that any motions agreed to by politicians, that are not agreed by a majority of the members of that body will not be included in this article, and only the parliaments of the member states of the United Nations or bodies to which the states are affiliated (such as the UN and the EU, Council of Europe, AU, etc) will be noted. What we can not do is have one country's views singled out as unimportant and biased but include others, as it is a clear breach on the NPOV policy.

What this proposal would do is remove all those cases where Mr. Smith of the parish council of Pratt's Bottom has entered a motion that there was a genocide in Ruritania last year. It would also remove early day motions and similar where a small minority of an international body or national parliament put up a motion they know will not pass but are non the less submitted because to do so scores political points (but when included in this article my present a bias, as readers will often not know that there is a significant difference between a resolution passed by a national parliament (or international body) and proposed resolution which does not have enough support to be be debated by a national parliament (or international body) let alone pass). --PBS (talk) 09:20, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Lots of examples of this type of point scoring can be found in the Council of Europe. The first is recorded at the website of www.armenian-genocide.org Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Resolution it is "Written Declaration No. 275" signed by 50 members. The Council of Europe is http://www.coe.int/ under how to search is this page which also describes some of the different types of "Adopted Texts", "Documents, Working Papers" ... using this search engine it is possible to look at all Working Papers and search for Document=8829, that returns Commemoration of the Armenian genocide of 1915. (Notice it is themed under ["crime against humanity"] which is a [search criteria] as is ["Armenian"] and ["Azerbaijan"], (unfortunately for our purposes there is no themedd search criteria for "genocide"). Using ["crime against humanity"] or ["Azerbaijan"] it is easy enough to find Doc. 9066 "Recognition of the genocide perpetrated against the Azeri population by the Armenians" (30 signatures), but looking though the list of "Written Declarations" which include ["Azerbaijan"] as a theme, it is clear that there is a punch and judy show going on, with claims and counter claims, see for example Doc. 6678 "Situation in Nagorno-Karabakh". I have not checked but I would be supprised if any one who signed document 6678 also signed document 9066. In my opinion this indicates that "Written Declarations" (which covers a host of different specific titles) should not be used on this Wikipdia article or any other Wikipeida article on genocides or alleged genocides, as they can be confused with "Adopted Texts" which are much more significant. --PBS (talk) 10:37, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

There are alleged genocides with less reliable sources in this topic.However you (pro-armenian users) only focus on Khojaly genocide Why?Because you are trying to hide the past guilt of your country.The same thing is also used on Armenian genocide article as a reference but your claims only for Khojaly.This is a reliable source, just because you say it shouldnot be used on Wikipedia as reference doesnt make it unreliable.Your claims arenot wikipedia policy.Abbatai (talk) 07:27, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Enough of this 'hiding the guilt of your country' nonsense! I count 179 references - books, articles, academic websites - for the Armenian genocide and not even one academic source to even support the inclusion of the word 'genocide' with Xojaly. The PACE source is as partisan is as it gets. If you cannot furnish anything besides this simple motion then this question is closed.--The Diamond Apex (talk) 15:14, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

PBS: thanks for your well-considered proposal. This sounds fairly reasonable to me, although I would prefer to modify it a little: "Written Declarations" adopted by only a small minority in the PACE (or similar declarations in similar bodies) should not be used as a primary source. Cathegorically excluding these sources all together sounds a bit too drastic in my opinion. But these sources should clearly be used with caution, and never as a primary (or the only) source.

As for the specific Khojaly question, I think the discussion of 'reliable sources' is a little confused. Since this is about a genocide allegation/alleged genocide (sorry Meowy, don't really understand the difference between those two), a reliable source doesn't mean a source who can be trusted to tell the truth about what happened in Khojaly, but one which can be trusted to tell the truth about the allegation. That is, the PACE website is a reliable source to document the fact that an allegation of genocide was put forward in Doc. 9066, the Azerbaijani president's website is a reliable source to document the president's claims about genocide, etc. The real question is not about whether these sources are reliable, but whether they are notable enough for inclusion here. I'm still up on the fence on this, and I definitely think the paragraph should at the very least be rewritten to include criticism of the claims put forward. But with the current level of debate, this will take some time... --Anderssl (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I expect to get blasted from all directions now, but since we all seem to agree that at least a rewrite is in place, here's a proposal:

The government of Azerbaijan claims that Armenian forces performed acts of genocide against Azerbaijani civilians on several occasions throughout the 20th century. The claims center on the Khojaly Massacre, in which around 200 Azerbaijani civilians in the town of Khojaly were killed by Armenian armed forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Human Rights Watch described the events as "the largest massacre to date in the conflict", and Azerbaijani politicians have unsuccessfully tried to get this recognized as an act of genocide in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. (cite web|last=|first=|url=http://assembly.coe.int/documents/workingdocs/doc01/edoc9066.htm%7Ctitle=No. 324 - Recognition of the genocide perpetrated against the Azeri population by the Armenians|publisher=Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe|date=2006-06-29|accessdate=2009-05-21) The description of the events as 'genocide' appears to have little support from academic and independent sources, and has been refuted by genocide scholar Donald Bloxham (The Great Game of Genocide, Oxford University Press, 2005 pp. 232-233).

I put references in parenthesis so they'll be visible here. This is meant as a sketch, just to get something concrete to discuss. Feel free to bring out any objections, on one condition: That you also provide your own version of the paragraph, that you think is more accurate (and preferrably not longer than the current version, that is probably already a bit too long). --Anderssl (talk) 18:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me offer the first correction myself: on closer inspection, it should probably not cite the number of civilians killed since it appears to be controversial, and getting it right would require more space. Perhaps it should just say something like "The claims center on the Khojaly Massacre during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. --Anderssl (talk) 23:34, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

What about adding March Days.

Please propose a specific wording to be included in the paragraph (and please sign your comments). --Anderssl (talk) 16:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The Diamond Apex has been silenced by a fake sockpuppet allegation maliciously concocted by Nishkid, I was similarly attacked by another administrator, but managed to get the lie refuted. Since this article has been handed to the propagandists, use the worst wording you can imagine to please PBS, Nishkid, Sandstein, and co. Meowy 18:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Contrary to what you might believe, I am not happy to "win" the discussion by you guys leaving the debate. I'd much prefer if we could establish consensus by having all relevant viewpoints reflected in the final result. That should be possible if you guys would engage the points made by others and try to move the discussion forward, rather than just repeating the same absolutist claims over and over... You don't seem to recognize that the article now says almost exactly what you guys have been saying all along - that the genocide claim in this case is highly doubtful. If you can't recognize that... I honestly wonder what you are hoping to achieve in a consensus-based encyclopedia? --Anderssl (talk) 19:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

"Leaving the debate" - that's a fun one! I guess that dictators worldwide say to themselves that they are unopposed because the opposition has chosen to "leave the debate" when actually the opposition are all in prison, in exile, or lying dead in unmarked graves. That is the reality of your consensus-based encyclopedia. Meowy 18:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I am shocked and appalled. I'll notify Amnesty International of your case immediately. --Anderssl (talk) 19:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Please disregard that sarcastic comment, I didn't mean to be obnoxious. But Meowy, I don't really see how your situation is analogous to that of a political prisoner - you are still allowed to take part in the discussion, right? Since you are still able to add comments to this page, it's kinda hard to understand what is preventing you from making constructive contributions to the discussion. --Anderssl (talk) 21:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia

I suggest to add a section about Massacres of Poles in Volhynia committed by Ukrainian Insurgent Army. It took from 20 000 to 60 000 of civilians ethnic Poles deaths (but some indicates even much more: 100 000 [Edward Prus, 2006], 500 000 [Norman Davies, 1996]). If you try to mention all bigger genocides in this article I think that case applies here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThoughtProcess (talk • contribs) 14:52, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Abortion is considered a genocide by many

People who believe that unborn children still in the womb are human beings believe that abortion is a genocide against unborn humans of all race, religion, and economic background, and much larger than any genocide in history and continuing to this day. Where would this fit into this article, would it get its own section? -Words in sanskrit (talk) 21:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Nowhere, as it is not genocide.  pablo_hablo. 05:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the subject should be addressed in the article. There is much literature on the subject and no shortage of reliable sources. Of course there are disputes, which should be addressed. One point is that abortion advocacy arose out of the eugenics movement which sought specifically to "control" populations of minorities and of the disabled. For this reason abortion has been discussed as genocide with regard to African Americans who were a target of the eugenics movement from the begining. Eugenic abortion was a key part of the Nazi program on race and the "unfit" and in China it remains a tool used against disfavored minorities, Uzbeks and Uyghurs for example. Mamalujo (talk) 19:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Jeffrey S. Morton's The International Law Commission of the United Nations at p. 25 states:

Genocide is defined as an act committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial or religious group. While most people associate genocide with killing, other acts such as the practice of abortion, sterilization, artificial infection, the working of people to death in special labor camps, and the separation of families or of sexes in order to depopulate specific areas are included.

Mamalujo (talk) 19:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Well bully for Jeffrey S Morton, and I am sure that many other people have their own definitions of genocide. I was going on the UN definition in the article Genocide, which refers to "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Forced abortion can form a part of a genocide, abortion per se does not.  pablo_hablo. 21:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Belgian Congo

why nothing bout belgian kongo ??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.216.89.205 (talk) 10:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

See above #crimes against humanity and Talk:Genocides in history/Archive 6#Belgium and the Congo --PBS (talk) 11:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Afghanistan=Vietnam

If soviet war in Afghanistan is genocide then US war in Vietnam too most.95.52.113.129 (talk) 05:02, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source that say so or this that your own opinion? -- PBS (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

He has a point. The section uses an "expanded definition" of genocide that weasels any war into the definition. It could apply to anyone trying to wipe out the Taliban or Ba'athists as well. 75.53.194.238 (talk) 19:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

other genocides

Since factions dispute the meaning of genocide, wouldn't it be wise to simply describe all of these controversies as possible genocides? For example, the Ukrainians say that Holodomor (the famine) was a genocide, and the Russians disagree. What of the Ingush, Tatars, and Chechens by the Soviets? And what about the race-based targeting and expulsion of 15,000,000 ethnic German civilians after WWII and the starvation of over 2 million of them? Why are these not comparable to any of these other ones in Africa that get so much attention? If you disagree that it is a genocide, it would still be appropriate to write about them. I find it odd that the only entry about Germany is the Holocaust. There is much more to 1940s Germany than the suffering of Jews if I may say (without detracting from that tragedy). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.229.235.11 (talk) 15:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Or the slaughter of over 300,000 Japanese citizens at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in May 1945? Or do genocides where the 'end justfies the means' not count?--Stevouk (talk) 15:04, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Come on, how dare you talk about H and N? We all know all the genocide discussions are political and in favour of post WW1 and 2 power agreement. You lost the war, you committed genocide, you won it, your propaganda becomes history; Armenians? Greeks? Arabs? Is there a nation that Ottomans didn't intend to kill? One puts a website about Greek genocide, and that becomes a source for the entire passage here. Then you claim Indians died of diseases, just bitterly funny.

Axis Japan

If the atrocities committed by United States and the others are included then so should Japan's. Japan is not metioned at all. It's collaborations and similar actions as Nazi Germany is well known. Japanese military regime murdered 3,000,000 to 10,000,000 people, most probably 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos. Of these, 500,000 are not war deaths but intentional genocide. Like the Nazis, the genocide was described as experiments so with the Nazis Axis Japan should be in the article. From time to time, Government represenitives in Korea and China have both officially called Japan's actions genocide. There is just too much information about this to ignore in this Wiki article. The best I can think of is the book "A PLAGUE UPON HUMANITY: THE SECRET GENOCIDE OF AXIS JAPAN’S GERM WARFARE OPERATION" by Daniel Barenblatt, which has been mentioned in Wikipedia many times. The book sites other sources for definig this as genocide. For anyone interested, the author was interviewed by David Inge at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on January 21, 2004. ( audio archive at will.illinois.edu/focus580/ ) Also see the above comments about Japan. 172.129.252.149 (talk) 22:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Ref to Klein in intro

I just undid the following edit: [2], which removed the words "or economic" from the sentence "Because of the insistence of Joseph Stalin, this definition of genocide under international law does not include political or economic groups" (emphasis mine). However, the user who did the edit is right that the given reference is not good. Could someone who know the book at least give page numbers? The google books link given doesn't immediately turn up anything clear, at least not in my browser. (Ideally one should consider finding a more authoritative source than Klein, I'm sure there are lots of more scholarly books on this matter.) --Anderssl (talk) 20:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. -- PBS (talk) 15:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Merging Communist genocide here

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The main arguments offered up for merge are that Communist genocide is inherently POV and that there is nothing unique about "communist genocide". The main arguments for don't merge are the article sizes and that there appear to be sufficient sources to support two (or more) articles. The size of this article alone already exceeds the maximum recommended size so I view the second argument as stronger. Thus, there are only two possible outcomes to this discussion: Don't merge or no consenus. They both have the same end result - the status quo is preserved, so call it whichever you prefer.

I also note that the POV title problem can easily be solved via a rename. I suggest Genocides committed by communist regimes, Genocides that occured under communist governments, or something similar. However, that should be a separate discussion to take place on that article's talk page. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:57, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

---

I propose to merge a POV titled and POV filled Communist genocide into this article. Some of the statements are already present here, most of the POV however is not. The recent AfD of that article was predictably closed with no consensus, but the debate on the title and a proper place for the content is still open. (Igny (talk) 18:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC))

Not the same thing - the other article concerns a much more specific topic. This basically seems like trying to circumvent the failure to get the article deleted at AfD.radek (talk) 01:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Read the AfD again. That was not a failure but a predictable no consensus possibly in part due to the team tagging. There is still debate over the title and place of this POV turd. I claim that this place is much better for more neutral coverage, less POV, and better context. (Igny (talk) 02:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC))

I would second that, but this article is already much too large. --PBS (talk) 08:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• SUPPORT MERGE Yeah, this is blatant PoV pushing. Either merge this or start a Capitalist Genocides article.Simonm223 (talk) 16:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you with a couple of "warnings" which I think we should think over in advance. 1) If we start to have categories such as "capitalist", etc. we will get into a VERY ugly argument w the people working on the NAZI articl. Between Hollywood and the MSM, most people think of the NAZIs as far right, when in reality they were far left and indistinguishable from the communists. WWII and the holocaust now come up under the communist category. 2) It is also commonly forgotten that communism and capitalism are NOT political opposites. The opposite of communism is "free market". No matter how the word capitalism is distorted, it is really a description of a natural law and is practiced by every society and every living creature as it prepares to reproduce or survive winter.Aaaronsmith (talk) 17:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

No need. 1) This article is too long already 2) There are lot of books and studies of the Communist Genocide, so it deserves own article. Peltimikko (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Funny, the people over at the talk page of that article can't seem to find a single published study of "communist genocide", despite being repeatedly pressed to do so. Perhaps you could enlighten folks there? csloat (talk) 07:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

409 books on books.google.com specifically discuss "communist genocide" as I have documented there. Let's not pretend the topic of "communist genocide" is not studied extensively. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  00:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Funny how you and everyone else refuse to show how even a single one of those 409 books is actually a study of this as a concept. Sure, you can find google hits for a specific term, but that doesn't make it an actual concept. The article itself has gone back and forth for ages now and still nobody can even find a single source that actually defines the concept, much less studies it. So let's not pretend that the concept has ever been studied at all, much less "extensively," until we can find something other than WP:SYN actually stating that. csloat (talk) 00:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Come now, people were just arguing that "communist + genocide" together was a wild synthesis of a term that never existed before. One step at a time. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  02:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose, as this article is too long. Besides, the interest in the topic might seem to warrant various articles on the topic. But yes, there should then also be an article on the capitalist side, and they should be more neutrally titled, for instance Genocides under communist regimes and Genocides under capitalist regimes. (A person can be a communist, and a regime, but what is a 'communist genocide'? One in which everyone is killed equally much?) I don't think that causes any great conflict with the nazi variant, which covers one specific historic event. The problem would be if one wanted to separate fascism or other right-wing ideologies from capitalism, long debate there. --Anderssl (talk) 22:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose there are enough sources and material available already in the article itself that entitle a separate main article on the subject.--Termer (talk) 04:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support due to everything brought up at the no consensus AFD [3]. There is nothing uniquely "communist genocide" about genocides perpetrated in the former communist states, as discussed at length in the AFD. PasswordUsername (talk) 05:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose the article survived AFD and that should have been a right forum to discuss the merge as a second option. And secondly, Communist genocide‎ as an independent concept has its scientific background. Peltimikko (talk) 06:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support. The article is a massive SYNTH violation. It only survived AfD barely because several people don't seem to understand what is required under WP:SYN. There is no reliable sources indicating that "communist genocide" is a concept separate from other sorts of genocide; there are only some conclusions created by stringing quotes together from various sources. Most of the information there is already covered here but merging whatever else might be useful there and turning the page to a redirect would be the best way to go. csloat (talk) 07:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Don't assume to speak for why editors opposed the AfD, in particular, because the best the opponents of this topic have come up with is that it is WP:SYNTH because sources don't exist, all the while ignoring the existence of voluminous sources which specifically discuss communist genocide. If you wish to make a better case, please do so. Don't make your case by denigrating other editors, insulting editors is usually a sign that someone doesn't have anything more concrete to offer. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  00:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not assuming anything; I'm going by the explicit comments written out on the pages by you and others. You claim there are "voluminous sources" yet can't find a single one that even defines the concept? Ludicrous. I have made a case and you continue to ignore it, and then you berate me for things I haven't done at all. Time to back up your claims or back off. csloat (talk) 00:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

This is not a vote. This is a discussion over a merger suggestion. If you have nothing to contribute to the conversation other than repeating what others have said, then do not waste the band width stating oppose or support. It has been suggested that this article should be split into era See this posting to my talk page by PasswordUsername. I am leery about doing that because at the moment we have divided up the page into manageable section, but these are Wikipeia editor sections (most of them put in by me) and I for one would want to think very carefully about creating descriptive article names based on my selection of arbitrary section names. I tried to base them on sensible criteria (a)ancient, (b) (early) modern, (c) international usage of crimes against humanity, (d) after the Genocide Convention, and (c) international prosecution of genocide -- but others would have to agree that these are reasonable subdivisions for turning this into a summary style article. --PBS (talk) 21:32, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support Trim it down, then merge! NickDupree (talk) 23:32, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

As I said this is not a vote! NickDupree what did your comment contribute to the discussion? --PBS (talk) 23:43, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

My point was to respond to the concerns that a merge would lead to a much too lengthy article. As a long-time merger, I know that content can be trimmed down and almost any merge can be made possible. I did not know that this page is your proprietary turf and that text will struck if a contribution isn't "just so" to your standards. You've chased me, an uninvolved editor, away. Kudos. How exactly do you plan to resolve a controversial merge without uninvolved editors? Good luck. NickDupree (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Please don't leave. I've unstruck the stuff that the user struck out. Philip Baird Shearer, please read WP:OWN and please do not modify other users' comments again; it is inappropriate to do so, no matter what your opinion. Thanks. csloat (talk) 20:15, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

This is nothing to do with ownership and everything to do with building a consensus. To start another poll strait after a divisive AfD will just entrench views, it will not allow a consensus to emerge. -- PBS (talk) 10:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose, there is no need to merge this article as the recent AfD indicated there was no concensus that it is either a "POV fork" nor a "SYNTH violation". In any case there appears to be consensus forming to rename Communist genocide to Communist mass killings, since while there may be some debate over whether a particular mass killing was genocide or not, there is no dispute that it was mass killing. This would change the scope of the article somewhat so this merge discussion is rather redundant. --Martintg (talk) 04:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Contrary to what you've just said, no consensus to delete does not mean there are no problems with this article. However the AfD nomination itself and numerous delete votes on the AfD mean that in fact there are problems with the article, namely SYNTH and POV violations. I again repeat that the proper place for that article is here, moreover most of the information is already here, most of the new stuff is POV synth anyways and must go, and whatever is salvageable should be merged here for more neutral discussion and better context. (Igny (talk) 21:00, 14 August 2009 (UTC))

Just a friendly remark on tactics, wouldn't it be better to work on the problems of the article first, and then see if the end result really doesn't offer much new like you say? If so, it would probably be much easier to get consensus for a merger... --Anderssl (talk) 21:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, that is not as much tactics as the next logical step. As the AfD was moving to its no-consensus closure, I was thinking about a proper place for this stuff. Naturally, the current title is so off-scale POV that it is almost funny. But before suggesting new names/titles I searched WP for already existing articles where "Communist genocide" would fit best, and I found this article. So before suggesting the new name I suggested the merger. The next logical step if the merger will fail would be looking for the new NPOV title. (Igny (talk) 01:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC))

While the points are valid there is not need to turn this discussion into a poll. So I have struck out oppose in the previous posting. --PBS (talk) 10:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no point discussing a merger unless agreement can be reached on how to turn this article into a summary as it is way to large to accommodate such an article as that under discussion. If no one is going to discuss that first we may as well close this discussion. --PBS (talk) 10:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, I have not been contributing to this article or discussion about it, and I had no intention to. But it may change depending on the fate of Communist genocide. If it does not get merged here, I suggest to split some of the information from this article (keeping the summary only) and move it to the Communist genocide which would probably have to change the name eventually to something more neutral. (Igny (talk) 20:30, 15 August 2009 (UTC))

• Absolutely oppose Sorry, the subject of communist genocide, a significant subject of discussion and study in reputable scholarly sources, deserves it own article. How many more ways will the same people attempt to kill Communist genocide or dilute its content by "merging" as proposed here? VЄСRUМВА  ♪  00:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Vecrumba This is not a vote, it is a discussion to reach a consensus on whether or not to merge two articles. So why have you put the first two words in bold? Did you bother to read what has already been written in this section before you made your posting? --PBS (talk) 00:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll be glad to unbold mine when everyone else unbolds theirs. Unfortunately, one side appears (my perception) to be engaged in shouting down Communist genocide while others maintain it is a subject of scholarly importance. While the shouting and denigration of editors goes on, I'm frankly not left with much choice. Whether you consider this a "vote" or not, it's what this boils down to. Communist genocide is far more than large enough a topic to have its article, this merge proposal is just another attempt (my perception based on the primary protagonists and their editorial position earlier on this topic and elsehwere) to quash an article dedicated to the topic. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  00:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

No merger would be possible unless there was agreement first on how to turn this article into a summary article. As no one seems to be willing to discuss this, there is no possibility of merging the two articles whether or not it is desirable. --PBS (talk) 23:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose to merger per arguments by Philip Baird Shearer and others.Biophys (talk) 00:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

This is not a vote. What are you objections to turning this article into a summary article? --PBS (talk) 01:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• Merge There is nothing particularly communist about those genocides and this article this the logical place to host the information there. LK (talk) 03:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you are missing the whole honing by communist regimes of state terror as an instrument of control and elimination of opposing classes. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  02:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• Merge The Communist genocide article is merely a list of genocides or alleged genocides in Communist countries and provides no definition in the lead. The term genocide is defined but it is unclear whether the the article is supposed to be about big "C" Communist or small "c" Communist genocide. The Four Deuces (talk) 21:58, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Big c, small C, either/both are relevant. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  02:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - It's obvious that mass-killings have occurred in Communist countries, and that some scholars have called these mass-killings communist genocide. That's all that's needed for a separate article on Communist genocide. The deniers should feel free to put in cited evidence where their favorite scholars say that it was not communist genocide, just ordinary genocide without anything communist about it, or just plain old mass-killings (but do these scholars actually exist?). The hoop that some folks want this article to jump through - that there were convicted genociders who attribute their genocide to Communist ideology - is just too much to require. Smallbones (talk) 19:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - Requires a separate article for reasons stated above. Mamalujo (talk) 20:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

No consensus?

After having this discussion open for a couple of weeks, it is apparent there is no clear consensus for a merge. --Martintg (talk) 03:45, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no consensus not to merge, so the proposal is still up. PasswordUsername (talk) 18:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Please do not strike out another editor's comment, as was done above. That's very bad form. It's time the merge tag be taken off, simply because it's clear that there will never be consensus on this. Some folks want to deny that Communist genocide ever occurred, and others think that it is obvious that Communist genocides have occurred. Smallbones (talk) 19:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Unless those who wish the articles to be merged are first willing to discuss constructively how to make this summary style article there is no reason to continue this discussion or leave the merge template on the article as this article is too large to have a significant amount of information merged into it. --PBS (talk) 01:40, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

This proposal has now been up for a month. I have put a note on the admin board requesting that an admin close it, since attempts at doing so before were reverted: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Close gridlocked merger discussion. --Anderssl (talk) 18:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• No administrator action is required. Calling for administrator action suggests a special power to arbitrate conflicts over content which administrators do not possess. Post a request at WP:Third opinion, WP:MEDCAB, or WP:MEDCOM. Recommend you start with the first of those and work up the line if no progress is made. I have marked the AN post as resolved.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 20:19, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Note what is says at Help:Merging#Closing/archive a proposed merger:

To provide clarity that the merger discussion is over and that a consensus has been reached, it may be important to close and then archive the proposal discussion. To close a merger proposal discussion, indicate the outcome at the top. If the merger is particularly controversial, one may take the optional step of requesting closure by an uninvolved administrator at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard.

The Four Deuces (talk) 20:27, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks TFD. Are you saying you agree to have an admin decide whether to close the discussion? Since you were the one reverting the previous attempts at closing it, that makes a difference. It sure would be nice if we at least could agree to have an admin look at it and make a decision to close or keep it open. --Anderssl (talk) 21:39, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have started a discussion about possibly renaming the Communist genocide article here. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Geno mean "people" and "cide" meaning the "act of kiling" or "killing" Native Americans among Stalin and the Cambodia incident were all cast aside as mere killings not genocide. Hitler was the only person who was going to get prosocuted for killing and holding million of people of ethnic groups becasue they didn't fit his "perfect Arian race".(Arian is blue eyed blonde hair type of people in other words a perfect German) Then why are they being exscuased for a crime of mass killing. Killing is against the law so what makes them so speacial that they get awaay with MASS KILLING. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.109.190.2 (talk) 15:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Roman Genocide

Is there no mention of Roman genocides of the Spartans or Dacians? The later is even celebrated on Trajans column in Rome..216.107.194.166 (talk) 18:40, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Needs citations

This article lacks many citations. For instance, there is an unsupported claim that Teddy Roosevelt supported mass genocide of native americans. This is a bold claim and also potentially misplaced in the context of this article anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.104.65 (talk) 18:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

This article should also discuss the Genocide being conducted by the Indian Government since 1984 against Sikhs. Over 500,000 Sikhs have been exterminated by Law Enforcement Agencies at the Local, State and National Levels. Here are some Links:

http://www.khalistan.net/genocide.htm http://sikhsangat.org/tag/sikh-genocide/ http://www.sikhsundesh.net/genocide.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.172.145.109 (talk) 00:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree. This article does lack citations and much of it is nonsense. For example the Ottoman Empire's alleged genocide of Armenians is hotly disputed and may not have been genocide. It certainly warrents further investigation. The so called Darfur genocide is unsupported by evidence and in fact there is evidence to the contrary. Examples of very bad sources include politicians, the mainstream media and the military. Good sources are peer reviewed academic papers but always check out who has funded the studies. The word 'genocide' is often used as a weapon by governments to batter and demonise rival governments in order to gain economic concessions or control of resources. Sudan has oil (hence Darfur and the genocide accusations). There is real genocide in the Congo but few people know because there is no oil there. Shieldsgeordie (talk) 13:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Ibos genocide in Nigeria during the Biafran War

Is there any reason why the genocide of the Ibos in Nigeria 1967-70 is not included here? Epa101 (talk) 13:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

No response for a month. I've added it in with a reference from the Encyclopeia of Genocide. Epa101 (talk) 16:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I have removed it there was no specific claim that it was a genocide. That many died is not an issue, that there was a policy of starving the Ibos's into submission is not an issue, what is an issue is that the Nigerian government intended to destroy the Ibos if that was the intention then then when the secessionists threw in the towel the killing would have continued (same argument as the area bombing in World War II was not part of a genocide against the German people). To include it here you need a reliable source that specifically claims it was a genocide. The most likely genocide scholar to have made this claim it indeed if was a genocide is Leo Kuper who investigated and wrote about genocides in Africa. -- PBS (talk) 21:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Irish Famine

Another view of the Irish Potato Famine is that its reputation as genocide was due to a political movement internal to the US. Franklin Foer argued in Slate in 1997 that New York Governor George Pataki wanted high school students to study the famine only in response to a 1994 act that mandated students study the Holocaust. He got the mandate broadened to cover "the mass starvation of the Irish between 1845 and 1850." Anecdotal evidence would suggest his attempt had some support initially but has since largely fallen from favour. 86.159.70.117 (talk) 20:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it should be on here. I don't see how it's different from the famines in India that the British Empire ignored. Famine is a different issue from genocide, and there are articles for famines in history already. Epa101 (talk) 16:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It is nothing to do with our own opinions. If some reliable source (but preferably sources) alleged a genocide then we include it. If not we do not. Personally as the term is used as a polemic in political discourse, we should consider only including genocides noted as such by official international bodies or committees under their auspices, domestic courts, or genocides recognised as such by a number of the better known genocide scholars. -- PBS (talk) 21:21, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that showing intent is the key problem here. In both India and Ireland the crops were taken and sold for profit and greed leaving the indiginous populations to starve. Was the intent just greed and starvation a side effect or was the intent to kill too. I don't know the answer as I haven't studied these topics. I think probably greed was the motivation but that's just an opinion. That would still make it a crime but it would just mean that the powerfully emotive and much abused word 'genocide' that governments and the mainstream media use for propaganda purposes couldn't be used. Shieldsgeordie (talk) 13:42, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

In nearly every case where accusations of genocide have circulated, partisans of various sides have fiercely disputed the interpretation and details of the event

I believe this statement is quite far from neutrality because it a priori characterize proponents of genocide theories as mainstream scholars and their opponents as revisionists.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:23, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree but I'm not surprised as this is wikipedia but that's not to say there aren't good wikipedia pages. I would advise people to research genocides from proper fully referenced independent academic sources and treat controversial pages on wikipedia as just the opinions of the those who edit the page. I would go on to say that some of this genocide page is political propaganda (not by the editors necessarily who may have been misled by it) and often based on the flimsiest of evidence much of which has been debunked by scholars. It's sometimes more an article of opinions than evidence and there are glaring omissions and one sided citations. The Irish potato famine is discussed but the British East India company had a similar policy in India which caused millions to die of starvation. Tibet: The entries are good ones but Tibet is a political football. The Dalai Lama dropped the accusations of physical genocide a long time ago and now only refers to cultural genocide. See Professor Sautman's fully referenced research which uses the Tibetan government's own figures to debunk the genocide claims both cultural and physical. Sautman, Barry (2006) 'Colonialism, genocide, and Tibet', Asian Ethnicity, 7:3, 243 — 265. No mention of the US killings in Vietnam either I see. I could go on and on but I said it all in my first two sentences really. Shieldsgeordie (talk) 10:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Dispute at article War in the Vendee - comments, participation needed

There is a dispute at the article War in the Vendee over the statement in the lede regarding the academic status of the claim that the war concluded in a genocide. One editor there has been insisting upon language in the lede that "only one reputable scholar of the period" considers it genocide. I believe this is both false and misleading as scores, if not hundreds, of notable scholars, many specialists in the study of genocide, have deemed it genocide. The latest contribution has removed the term "only one", but I believe it is still false and misleading: "One notable scholar considers the killing of hundreds of thousands of Vendeans by the French state an example of "ideological genocide", or "populcide" - a charge rejected by every other reputable scholar on the period." The sentence which I had proposed for the lead is: "Some scholars considers the killing of hundreds of thousands of Vendeans by the French state an example of genocide, a charge which many contest." I noted to the disputing editor that Jonassohn, Chaunu, Secher, Mark Levene, Tulard, Adam Jones and Joes (all cited in the article), just to name a few, consider it genocide, but I can get no compromise from this editor. Any comments or participation to help resolve this dispute, from whatever perspective, would be appreciated. Mamalujo (talk) 19:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I don't know anything about the war in the Vendee but if its any help its not the number of academics holding particular opinions that count it's the evidence. It's best to get a hold of the the most up to date research (literature reviews are particularly useful) and cite those articles. There are many cases in which a majority hold one opinion and new research sheds new light on a situation which changes the prevailing viewpoints over time (sometimes a very long time). People are stubborn and don't like to admit they were wrong. I'm never wrong ha ha. Seriously though you are right that it's a weak argument to state: "only one reputable scholar of the period considers it genocide". It is better to state why scholars have opposing points of view and tackle the issues with evidence if it exists. But be just as prepared to accept evidence against your point of view as in favour. I hate evidence that shows I'm wrong :( (joking). Shieldsgeordie (talk) 14:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

hmong genocide in laos

hmong people are exterminated by the communist laos and vietnam today since the end of vietnam war. the hmong fought ho chi minh with the french then the us thats why they are all killed. is there an article about that ? Cliché Online (talk) 23:45, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

You need to provide reliable sources if you want material added to the article. Describing the situation of the Hmong in Laos and Viet Nam as a genocide is rather a fringe view. They aren't all being killed, far from it. Here's a source that may be of interest to you if you would like to add some material to a wiki article. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Nanking massacres

Where are the Nanking massacres? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.133.11 (talk) 01:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Japanese imperial rule of Korean was Genocide?

I just stumbled upon this article and found it strange that Japan's colonial rule of Korea is listed as a genocide. Everything else on this list involves mass killings, use of violence, etc to destroy ethnic groups. Under Japanese colonial rule, there were policies aimed at integrating Korea into a colonial empire by having people learn Japanese and register their names in the Japanese style, but the claims that Japan was committing "cultural genocide" are pretty far out. Has this article been hijacked by a Korean nationalist?

Scholarly studies like "Colonial Modernity in Korea" (ISBN-10: 0674005945) have pretty much revealed the claims of "cultural genocide" to be bunk. The Japanese authorities actually promoted many forms of Korean cultural expression and funded a Korean-language radio network. Most non-nationalistic scholars tend to agree that Tokyo's aim was to create a Japanese "Asian" empire in which many cultures existed under Japanese leadership. Japan did not try to "erase" Korean culture. It tried to use it for its advantage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.148.70.142 (talk • contribs) 09:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire

This seriously needs a reference from a published source. --Kansas Bear (talk) 04:49, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I removed it (WP:PROVEIT) It needs reliable sources stating that it was a genocide, not just a series of nasty events. -- PBS (talk) 09:14, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Russian Empire

"Although there is no legal continuity between the Russian Empire and the modern Russian Federation". I marked that as dubious, because I don't think this is correct. The USSR was the successor state to the Russian Empire, and the Russian Federation is the successor state to the USSR so it follows that there is a continuity between the Russian Empire and the modern Russian Federation. -- PBS (talk) 09:14, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I deleted the line for that very reason. It has not been put back in (yet). --Yalens (talk) 18:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Seriously?!

Wov! Is there any country, nation, religious group etc. left that is not on the list of genocide commiters on this article? It looks like either every country in the world commited genocide against each other, or accusing any nation or country you don't like with "genocide" is a very popular practice these days. I really think this concept is really overused. I'm looking at the article and any killing in history which involves more than three people is labeled as genocide. Come on guys! There are other words in language like massacre, mass murder, war etc. Genocide should only be used in rare situations with historically proven practices with a premeditated and planned intent and act of ethnical cleaning of an entire nation. I'm talking about concentration camps, gas chambers, officials discussing most effective ways of killing most people in minimum time etc., and (at least) couple of millions of dead bodies... But any revolt which was repressed with blood; any overly-violent battle with civilian causilties, any kind of massacre is counted as genocide here. It really cheapens the meaning.85.96.26.221 (talk) 06:27, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Does the Christian wiping out of Pagans in the Later Roman Empire classify as a genocide? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.43.227.18 (talk) 06:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Someone else is also starting to see just how stupid/impossible/biased/difficult this article is. I propose RFD, but won't do it myself because there are just too many people who seem to think a list (WIKI has lots of them) with no definition is somehow informative.Aaaronsmith (talk) 17:51, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

RfD isn't worth it. A better name might be "List of Genocide Claims". See the problem is that in order to have a neutral point of view, you need to include all of them, because it should be up to the reader to decide which ones are and which ones aren't, not to us editors. Now, if they have no sources, then they are vulnerable. Otherwise, not. What actually is genocide is a matter of contention, that's the issue. --Yalens (talk) 17:59, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I may add: additionally, there are ones that I could see as genocide, like what the Teutonic Knights did to the Prussians, wiping out on the basis of pagan religion and culture, that could be on there. They aren't on because people like myself don't take the time to find sources and put them on. Genocide is not genocide only if Jews are the victims. It is a pattern in history. --Yalens (talk) 18:00, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting you should pick that example. Also a perfect example of the problems this turkey of an article creates. Since the Jews are still around in force, how can you claim genocide without a stricter definition than the one implied by the single word?Aaaronsmith (talk) 04:57, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Irish genocides

Why is their no mention of the elizabethan genocide in ireland when the english slaughtered over 1.5 million irish civilians —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.163.150.176 (talk) 23:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources that it was a genocide? -- PBS (talk) 21:23, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I was checking references #76 and #77. I cannot find anything like what they're supposed to say in the Google book search version of the books, and no text is provided in the article. I suspect the references are bogus. In the Richard English book, Google book search does not find any reference to Cromwell on the pages listed in the reference. The reference in the article claims that Cromwell's actions in Ireland not being described as a genocide should be in pages 17-38. The Google Book Search of the text finds nothing before page 57. Similarly, the reference in the article claims that the Paul Bew book mentions Cromwell on pages 5-61, yet the Google Book search of the page shows no mention before page 303, and certainly nothing visible about genocide. If I'm not missing something, then these references are incorrect. Howsoonhathtime (talk) 19:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? Otherwise I'll start to delete the references and the text. From what I can see at the moment these references are incorrect, or mis-described, or something. Howsoonhathtime (talk) 07:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. This is the diff in case anyone wants to provide some support to the references. As I say, they seem to me to be incorrect. Howsoonhathtime (talk) 16:00, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. There are dozens of potential genocides that should be cited from Britain, most strikingly the Irish Genocide. This very notable event in history is a gaping hole in the record of events. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnalram (talk • contribs) 05:33, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

China under Mao

I removed this section (among other changes, but I think this is what was controversial), but Jayjg reverted this as "POV blanking". In fact, Mao's persecution of "rightists" does not fulfill the mainstream definition of 'genocide', as the lead for this article says, because it is persecution of a political group; not a racial, religious, or ethnic group. The only source listed that uses the word 'genocide' with Mao's campaigns, laments the fact that it is not considered genocide, and the author says in his personal capacity that he prefers a more expansive view of genocide to cover China. Splittist (talk) 23:06, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I don't view it as being genocide either (it is politicide). However, our personal views here are not particularly important, as it is a genocide claim that merits inclusion, even if that claim bends the definition. On that note, we also have the Vendees here. --Yalens (talk) 20:06, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not arguing Mao's removal based on personal views. It's simply a strange and original Wikipedian interpretation to group together such things as famine during the Great Leap Forward, persecution of rightists in the Cultural Revolution, and prison labor, as "genocide". The section doesn't even do that; the sources don't do that; it calls them mass killings, and that's why it's one sentence.

I interpret the note in the lead about genocides always being deniable as meaning, that genocides such as the Armenian Genocide which are widely regarded as such will stay, despite having some Turkish denial. Not that any single person's claim of a genocide will warrant its inclusion. I commonly hear the "genocide" label slapped onto Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories, yet this case is not present here, I assume because of standards and not for a lack of people who would like to claim this.

But again, nobody makes a claim of genocide for 'China under Mao'. Not the (un)removed section, not the sources for that text, just some Wikipedian implicitly doing so by creating this section in this article. It passes the lower standard for removal. Splittist (talk) 01:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Did you remove all instances of genocide on the page that did "not fulfill the mainstream definition of 'genocide', as the lead for this article says."? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

No. My two edits have clear (albeit compressed, for the character limit) edit summaries in the history. The only section I removed was the Mao section, for the reasons stated above and in my subsequent reply (Mao fails a lower standard than being a fringe claim of genocide; there's not even a claim of genocide except by some Wikipedian).

I made an unrelated edit to the Tibet section to remove a blockquote from a press release from the ICJ saying they would take the case, and if they found evidence of genocide they would act. There was already a blockquote from the final analysis of the ICJ, which I thought was more important and less presumptuous (and less confusing) than the threatening press release enumerating the potential consequences for an anticlimactic conclusion. It read like it was written before the decision came out, and when it did, it wasn't updated. Splittist (talk) 01:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe this section is talking about Mao. But nonetheless, the same logic can apply for Tibet if you insist. Whether it is clear is not the matter of debate. We know why you edited. However, that is not how it is done with regard to the page. As it says at the top of the page itself, it is a list of CLAIMED genocides. Not a single one of these claims (not even the Holocaust) is universally accepted. In the case of Tibet and China under Mao, both are not really genocides in my opinion- one is cultural genocide, the other is politicide. However, being a genocide claim is significant as well, for the effect on identity politics it has as well as the effect of the claim itself. Now, I don't exactly find the quote about Tibet all that confusing either. The ICJ called it genocide, period. Whether it was right is for the reader to decide. We may also put up, eventually, that it wasn't only the ICJ, but many other observers also called it such. Yes, perhaps it was incorrect (though, perhaps, brutal oppression would be?). However, your (or anyone's) personal views on this do not need to manifest themselves by deleting large amounts of sourced material on the page. Let the reader decide for themself. --Yalens (talk) 02:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

This section is talking about Mao. I did not and am not addressing the question of whether or not Tibet is a genocide, and did not at all express my personal views on the matter (so don't assume). There are two quotes on the page. One quote was the ICJ saying they would take the case and take the appropriate action if genocide was found. Another quote was from the results of the case, in which the ICJ claimed cultural genocide. I removed the first, not the second—in my opinion, the first quote was only appropriate when we were waiting for the decision. It's unnecessary now since we have the results.

Back to Mao. You haven't addressed the fact that no source, not even the Wikipedia text accuses Mao of genocide. Not a single claim. Splittist (talk) 02:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

There's no lack of sources describing the millions killed at the behest of Mao as "genocide":

• Encyclopedia of Genocide
• Dictionary of Genocide
• The Geography of Genocide
• The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies

R. J. Rummel wrote a whole book on the subject, China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. No, the issue here isn't a lack of sources on the subject. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:18, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia of Genocide and the "whole book on the subject" (which is not of genocide specifically), prefer the term democide because it is expansive enough to cover cases not traditionally termed genocide (it seems the word 'genocide' was only used in the subtitle and chapter name, and the former is often at the discretion of the publisher). R. J. Rummel has an webpage discussing the difference between the various terms for mass killings, and the very specific definition of genocide.

The Dictionary of Genocide only uses the word "genocide" in "ruthless genocidal destruction of those who opposed his regime", which this article's own lead points out does not conform to the Genocide Convention's definition. The Geography of Genocide page you linked to was, "China against Tibet". Actually, that book takes for granted every case it lists, because it tries to explain how genocides are a result of 'emasculation', and doesn't detail the killings themselves. Finally, the Oxford handbook contrasts the Great Leap Forward with "Ukraine's famine genocide" to point out that the deaths were not a result of a policy to destroy a specific group, but a blind faith in certain farming techniques.

All of the sources you linked to are not what you say: direct referral to a specific event of Mao's as "genocide". The section on Wikipedia conflated too many things; the completely separate Great Leap Forward and the Anti-Rightist Campaign, for example, as part of one big original overreaching genocide interpretation. So there is a trouble of a lack of sources. If you think that there is "an issue here" besides that as you insinuated, you should be candid. Splittist (talk) 03:59, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

A Soviet Union section

This section is very obscure and contains a lot of marginally relevant information. It mentions many questionable cases, majority of which have never been recognised as genocide. In addition, it simply misinterpret some sources by taking the quotes out of context. For instance, it states:

"Dr. Michael Ellman claims that the 'national operations' of the NKVD, particularly the 'Polish operation', may constitute genocide as defined by the UN convention. The terror against the church may also qualify."

whereas the expanded quote demonstrates that the author's idea has been distorted:

"It should be noted that there are other actions of Team-Stalin in the 1930s that might well qualify as genocide as defined in the UN Convention. In particular this concerns the ‘national operations’ of 1937 – 38 (but not the victims of the operation against the ‘Harbintsy’ since these were former railway workers rather than an ethnic group). Of these, the ‘Polish operation’, which led to 111,000 death sentences, seems to have been the biggest (Petrov & Roginskii 2003). There are three objections to treating the ‘Polish operation’ as genocide. The first is that NKVD order no. 00485 of 11 August 1937 (the order for the ‘Polish operation’) does not explicitly target Poles as such, but only members of a (former and in 1937 already for many years non-existent) Polish organisation, POV [POV is an abbreviation for Pol’skaya Organizatsiya Voiskovaya or in Polish Polska Organizacja Wojskowa] and certain specific groups of Poles.38 However, in implementing order 00485, NKVD officers interpreted it as an order to arrest Poles (since they could not arrest members of POV because nonexistent members of non-existent organisations cannot be arrested). In its implementation it was predominantly an example of killing people (and sending them to the Gulag) based on their ethnicity.39 The second objection to treating the ‘Polish operation’ as genocide is that only a minority of Soviet Poles were victims of it. According to the 1937 census there were 636,000 Poles in the USSR in January 1937, but the number of persons sentenced in the ‘Polish operation’ was ‘only’ about 140,000 or 22%. Whether this is enough to meet the UN Convention criterion of ‘in whole or in part’ depends on the interpretation of ‘in part’ (see above).40 The third objection that many of those sentenced (about a third) in the ‘Polish operation’ were not in fact ‘Poles’ (Petrov & Roginsky 2003, pp. 166 – 171). Since no legal tribunal to try the crimes of Stalinism has been established, there is as yet no authoritative ruling on the legal characterisation of the ‘Polish operation’ and the other ‘national operations’ of 1937 – 38"

In addition, in actuality the Ellman's article (as well as his conclusions) are much more general. According to him, at least two different definitions of genocide exist, strict (UNO convention) and loose, and one can come to different conclusions depending of which one is used. He concluded that whereas Stalin's action fit a loose definition of genocide,

".... such a broad definition would mean that genocide was no longer a rare and uniquely horrible offence. A large number of historical events would become genocides (Jones 2006), ranging from the expansion of the Zulu kingdom in early nineteenth century South Africa, to the Atlantic slave trade, the European colonisation of the Caribbean islands and American continent, the atom bomb on Nagasaki (and possibly also the one on Hiroshima), and the economic sanctions of the 1990s against Iraq. This also means that countries such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, UK and USA, which participated in or were responsible for one or more of the events in the above list, would become guilty of genocide."

IMO, the section should be rewritten and all irrelevant or tangentially relevant materials and links should be removed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Tibet

I made two edits on the Tibet section of this article, but they got caught in the rollback intended to restore the "China under Mao" section (see above) along with an also unrelated addition to Mexico. Since they were brought up as a sidenote in that section of the talkpage, and there was the misunderstanding that my edits to China and my edits to Tibet were for the same reasons (they are not), I will bring these edits to discussion here, before they are re-added.

The first edit was to remove a blockquote of the press release of the ICJ to signify that the ICJ received a report by Shri Purshottam Trikamdas which alleged genocide in Tibet. I copy the quote here:

“ From the facts stated above the following conclusions may be drawn: ... (e) To examine all such evidence obtained by this Committee and from other sources and to take appropriate action thereon and in particular to determine whether the crime of Genocide—for which already there is strong presumption—is established and, in that case, to initiate such action as envisaged by the Genocide Convention of 1948 and by the Charter of the United Nations for suppression of these acts and appropriate redress; ”

Basically, this quote just says that the ICJ is going to examine the evidence and initiate appropriate action according to the Genocide Convention if the crime of genocide is established.

But the next paragraph quoting the actual ICJ report states that the ICJ only found "acts of genocide... independent of any conventional obligation" and there was not "sufficient proof... that can be regarded as genocide in international law". Therefore, I thought that listing (as in the first quote) the procedure for what would happen if a breach of the Genocide Convention were found is confusing to readers (because it was ultimately not found, although that was not established at the time of the quoted press conference) and the long quote is clutter which is not that useful. Splittist (talk) 04:43, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

If the ICJ said that the evidence was not sufficient, we should add that too. --Yalens (talk) 16:20, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

That's already in the article. When I said "the next paragraph quoting the report", I meant the next Wikipedia paragraph. I maintain that the ominous quote about what could happen if a breach of the Convention was found is made obsolescent by the results of the report, and can be removed without damage to the main content. Splittist (talk) 17:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, to be honest I don't see natural disasters occuring if you removed it. However, it is sourced material, and it doesn't really do large amounts of harm to the article. For you, perhaps there would be no harm in removing it, but not everyone would necessarily agree with that. I think it is interesting that the ICJ actually took notice of the affair (it hasn't so much as commented on a number much more believable genocides, for one), and should stay in the article. --Yalens (talk) 19:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The fact that the ICJ took the case is already implied because the Wikipedia section later talks about the ICJ ruling. But I can rewrite the fact that it did, when it did, in summary form instead of a quote. I think the most "harm" is done by the latter part of the quote, which threatens what could happen if a breach of the Genocide Convention was found. I know that the first time I read it, I thought the ICJ had ruled that way and was going to take these drastic actions. That's why I think it's confusing to readers. Quigley (talk) 19:41, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I would rather rewrite it than remove it completely. I just don't like removing cited material, I guess, but we can rewrite it nonetheless.

And also... I'm not sure everyone takes the ICJ seriously. It's inconsistent whether its resolutions are actually binding or not. We should make it pretty clear that this one resolution didn't really have any effect whatsoever, except for landing itself on a wikipedia article and that it was said. --Yalens (talk) 22:08, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The second edit which I made removed an original parenthesized note from a Wikipedian, which was appended onto a paragraph in which academics rebut claims of genocide in Tibet by, among other things, citing Tibet's positive population growth. The note in question was "(if the Chinese census and its claims about Tibet in the past are to be taken as true)". I removed this because it was a part-redundant, part-incorrect insinuation.

First of all, "If the Chinese census... is to be taken as true" implies that there are challenges to the Chinese census in this regard: but both Tibetan government-in-exile and the Chinese government camps agree on the numbers of Tibetans and on the modern census. The only disagreement is on how many Tibetans there were when the Dalai Lama ruled: but this is already covered in the paragraph by the note, "(according to these scholars, however, there was no real scientific data taken on demographics during the Lamaist era)". The editor is probably making reference to the occasional claims by the TGIE that the population of Tibet/Tibetans has decreased, and not increased. But this is a complex issue out of the scope of the article, because the TGIE has a more expansive definition of "Tibet" and "Tibetans" than does the Chinese government or ethnographers. But the note I think can be removed because the first claim, that the modern Chinese census is an incorrect count, is not in dispute. The second claim of the note, which is that the Lama's census data for "Tibet's past" is questionable, is already covered in a previous note.

Are there any comments about this? Splittist (talk) 04:43, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

While there is scepticism about the modern Chinese census, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand (I believe you misunderstood the text, I will make it clearer). The scepticism is about the old census (the Lama's one). Tibet, as we know, especially during the early 1900s, was a very remote place, and the remotest parts of the country are difficult to reach. There is plenty of scepticism on the verifiability of the old census, by Tibetans, by Westerners and yes, by Chinese themselves.

Now, how is this in the scope of the article? To defend itself ideologically against claims of its mistreatment of Tibet, the Chinese government, as we all know, has used a trope that is quite familiar- that they are helping improve Tibetans' lives (even though the latter have a rather different idea on this matter) by bringing modern technology to Tibet, which China paints as a backwards region in need of modernization (the less sugarcoated version of this, among the Chinese themselves, is that they are bringing civilization to the Tibetans, a claim I have heard countless times). This is one piece of a large part of modern Chinese communist ideology, that there are different levels of development among China's ethnic groups, and that those lower down are supposed to be helped (whether they want help or not) to develop. Of course, helping them develop actually translates to sending mass amounts of Han migrants to their lands and having those practically run the place )much more angering the minority in question- be they Yi, Tibetan, Uighur or whatever- than making them grateful), and still having the minorities doing the less desirable jobs. But that is not the topic of discussion. On this wikipedia page, two of China's claims about how it has improved Tibet have shown up- one that the population has doubled, and the other that the life expectancy has improved.

For the second, I believe earlier there was a claim that the Tibetans' life expectancy had increased substantially as well- which should be looked at very cautiously, since we really have no clue what the life expectancy was previously (not to mention that it would be wrong to lump a whole land- Tibet- together and generalize it, as there are differences between relatively urban centers like Lhasa and the remote countryside, as well as regional differences). Any claim that the life expectancy has increased or decreased is completely unverifiable.

For the first, this is more heavily debated. There are two main issues with it- the first is whether it is actually the case. Both the Chinese government and the Tibetan activists' claim are usually dismissed and the truth is said to be somewhere in between. But the article also neglected to mention numerous factors. An increase in population is not a phenomenon brought by China's civilizing influence, it is brought by modernization (which China claims credit for). But Bhutan, which is very similar to Tibet in many ways except that it is not now ruled by China, has also had a massive population increase (almost 0.9 million in 1961 up to somewhat below 2.3 million in 2005), and if we compare it by percent, it is much greater than Tibet's, even if we count China's claims (using the questionable older Tibetan census). Alas, this is not mentioned in the article, because, as you said yourself, it is venturing quite far off topic.

Bhutan's demographics 1961-2005

Personally, I would be content if we just deleted both the discussion of the lifespan (I really don't know how we know the life expectancy was 34 in the Lamaist days... I don't see a citation for that either) and the population. For the population, if it needs to stay, we could also put in my note about Bhutan, and cite the Bhutanese censuses, I guess. But the lifespan... that's a stain on the page. --Yalens (talk) 16:20, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of putting in Bhutan for comparison, because that is reinforcing the oversimplified premise that population increase = good, and population stagnation/decrease = genocide. Some demographers have suggested that Tibetan population growth has slowed compared to Bhutan because women are more empowered, and are exercising more autonomy and family planning. I am content with deleting the discussion of the lifespan and the population. Splittist (talk) 17:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I will now delete it. As for why Bhutan, because China is the one saying good=population increase (which is funny coming from China, a country with huge overpopulation problems).--Yalens (talk) 19:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Americas

From the sentence "While no mainstream historian denies that death .. " to the end of that paragraph, the next the paragraph that starts "In an 1803 letter to the then Governor of Indian Territory ..." and the very long quote from the primary source do not belong on this page. First because the text is OR as it is not a summary of any cited sources and secondly the quote is much too large for general reviews article like this (and without any secondary sources to link it to genocide its inclusion it is OR).

I am deleting the text for the second time and under WP:PROVEIT, any part that is put back must be supported by citing reliable secondary sources. -- PBS (talk) 07:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Here are two more paragraphs that I have moved from the same section which have multiple problems next to which I have placed templates:

One of the main questions here also relates to the reporting and discussion of the evidence itself. Some academics who have fervently rejected the idea of a genocide have been accused of failing to put the smaller pieces of evidence together. Arguments used to refute the concept of genocide in the Americas have been called trivial or even convenient. One of the issues that is not discussed by some is that the ethnic and social groups of those who deny are themselves descendants of the groups who committed these crimes.

Also has considered the Triple Alliance War, where Argentina, with Brazil and Uruguay, fought against Paraguay by the Parana River control. In this war, over 150,000 Paraguayans died, in a total population of 300,000 inhabitants, compared to only 200,000 of the other joined countries. Some authors argue that most of the deaths in Paraguay were civilians assassinated by the Argentine Forces, and therefore must qualify as genocide. The prevalence of racist ideas in that country's ruling class is frequently mentioned as a cause of this event. However, other authors indicate that indeed there was no genocide, and that the true reason for the high mortality was the obvious disadvantage of a single force faced against three, two of them much larger in number and resources, and a Cholera epidemic during the conflict.

The first paragraph makes lots of claims but is full of weasel words and does not cite one sources. The second paragraph has one foreign language sources. But what does it say (quote here please) and is it a reliable source. An important point here is that most genocide studies work are published in English. So if this is not giving undue weight to an issue there should be at least some mention of this alleged genocide or alleged genocide in a reliable English language source. If no English language sources are available and we are relying on a single foreign language source that that source then English language editors need to know what is say and that it is from a peer reviewed journal (see WP:REDFLAG and WP:UNDUE). --PBS (talk) 08:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Politicide

I have moved the following from the article for further discussion:

Perhaps inevitably, the task of classifying recent outbreaks of mass killing has proven controversial. Barbara Harff of the United States Naval Academy provides the following list. Notice the absense from the list of the US sponsored Iraq UN sanctions regime, which its administrator described as genocide.

LIST COMMENTED OUT AS A SUSPECTED COPYRIGHT VIOLATION

Barbara Harff has used politicide to describe the killing of groups of people who are targeted not because of shared ethnic or communal traits (the types of groups covered by the CPPCG), but because of "their hierarchical position or political opposition to the regime and dominant groups". By definition politicide is not genocide (unless their destruction is a significant part of a protected group in which case it would be genocide (see the section genocide#In part) and politicide does not belong in this article, to include it is making a correlation that BF is careful not to make. It is acceptable to include her views of events that she classifies as genocide if they are not fringe or minority ones but they should be added to the appropriate sections, but I do not think that a copy of her table or part of her table is necessary or desirable as it is giving undue weight to one persons point of view. -- PBS (talk) 09:34, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I have been giving this list some thought and based on the advise that Moonriddengirl gave on a similar issue about a list in the English Council of State article I have commented out the list because I think it is a violation of copyright. -- PBS (talk) 21:09, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Under the circumstances as a non profit educational, wouldn't the list as posted on WIKI come under "fair use"?Aaaronsmith (talk) 01:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the list comes under fair use because the list is one which Barbara Harff has created, and did not just compile (it took creativity as she came up with the initial definition and selected cases she thinks fits the definition -- as the editor who added the OR criticism of it implies by criticising her choices). But if you are not sure after reading Wikipedia:Copyright problems and associated page then please post the question on Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems for a third opinion. -- PBS (talk) 06:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Politicide: We REALLY need a definition of genocide.Aaaronsmith (talk) 01:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

There are lots to choose from see genocide definitions. But for this page although it is better when the reliable source using the term genocide states which definition they are using (as many do), it is not always possible to find that out from the sources available to the editors of this page. What we editors can not do is look at an incident and decide whether it is a genocide or not because that is OR. -- PBS (talk) 06:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we need ONE definition for the purposes of this page. Otherwise, it is seen by many (legitimately I fear) as one louse, screwed up, piece of work. Less informative in the aggregate than a blank page.Aaaronsmith (talk) 17:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The lead refers to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, going into its definition at length. It implies that the incidents below fulfilled its carefully-defined criteria. Why don't we go with that? Bonus: the sheer number of countries that ratified it show that its definition has much broader acceptance than that of the latest academic who wants to shoe in contemporary ambiguous conflicts. Quigley (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Much as we would like a formal definition that we can use to cover all cases it is just not practical as it would mean removing entries here are clearly not using the CPPCG definition (which tend to be the best explained entries). These are sections where it is clearly marked for the definition being used for example see the entry for the Genocides in history#Dirty War in Argentina where a judge judged it to be a genocide but explicitly said he was not using the CPPCG definition. However for the majority of entries we have reliable secondary sources claiming such and such an event was a genocide, but they have not provided us with the definition that they are using, so we are faced with three options, only two of which is acceptable.

1. list any events where 2 or more reliable sources claim it is a genocide.
2. list only those which use the CPPCG definition
3. Decide ourselves which events meet the CPPCG definition.

We can not use three because such a filter would be OR, if we use two then we would have to remove entries like the UN decision on Genocides in history#Sabra-Shatila, Lebanon, so that leaves us with what we currently have (although, as this stone tends to gather moss, it would be a good idea to go through the entries removing those which do not have a couple of good quality secondary sources supporting them).-- PBS (talk) 21:21, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Timur's campaigns in India

And of Timur's campaigns in India which were marked by systematic slaughter, rape and other atrocities on a truly massive scale on the subcontinent's civilian Hindu population, with Timurs campaigns in northern Iraq which remained predominantly Assyrian Christian until attacked, looted, plundered and destroyed by Timur leaving its population decimated by systematic mass slaughter. All churches were destroyed and any survivors forcefully converted to Islam by the sword.

There is no expert source given stating that these events were a genocide. Without an expert source, this is WP:OR. To be included in this article and not be OR one or preferably a couple or more expert sources are needed stating the events was a genocide.-- PBS (talk) 06:55, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

WE NEED A DEFINITION

In the book of judges, where the Gileads kill the Ephraims by whether or not they can pronounce "Shiboleth", is that genocide?Aaaronsmith (talk) 18:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, and I just remembered there was an incident in middle Europe (sorry I'd have to research the exact location/date) where children were asked to "cross themselves" in the Christian fashion. They were all the same nationality, but those that crossed left to right were killed outright. Genocide or something else?Aaaronsmith (talk) 18:16, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

If two reliable sources say it is a genocide then put it in here (Why two? Well it is not strictly two, but two helps to eliminate (WP:UNDUE). If not then don't.

This is a list of genocides and alleged genocides, as reported in reliable sources. For example whether the Dirty War in Argentina involved genocide is debatable matter of opinion. That the Dirty War in the opinion of an Argentinian judge, sitting in judgement on one of the perpetrators of the Dirty War, was genocide as defined under UN resolution 96 is a fact. As WP:ASF says "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves". If we do that then we do not need a definition of genocide. -- PBS (talk) 21:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

source #1 for Timur attacking Iraq as Genocide. http://mertsahinoglu.com/research/14th-century-annihilation-of-iraq/ ܐܵܬܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ 06:45, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The author of the piece is Mert Sahinoglu. He is neither a genocide scholar or an historian. The article is a self published web page. This is not a reliable source. Please read WP:SOURCES -- PBS (talk) 20:19, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Genocide contains two parts: "geno" (a race) and "cide" (killing), i. e., killing of a race. Killing lots of people for any other reason does not qualify. The fact that people did not have the concept of races until modern times excludes ancient killings. TFD (talk) 23:56, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Well the Jews aren't a race, they are an Ethnic group, but the Holocaust is still a genocide......... ܐܵܬܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ 08:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Belgian Congo

or the Belgian Congo: it is said, that small Belgiums monarchy in companionship of beneficiary Dunlop slaved and murdered beastly about 10 mio. Congolese people in 20 years (1890-1908). That would be the biggest systematic organized genocide exceeding even the holocaust. it should be implemented into the main article by someone who is able to provide serious sources. And Belgium should be forced to at least apologize to the Congolese!--93.233.100.219 (talk) 12:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think these atrocities fit the definition of genocide ("Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group" (Genocides in history); "[...] a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves" (Lemkin); "[...] any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:(a) Killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II)). Genocide supposes a deliberate policy of destruction, which is absent according to Adam Hochschild (author of King Leopold's Ghost).

By the way: the territory of Congo was called Congo Free State between 1890 and 1908, and was Leopold II's private property. Belgian Congo existed from 1908 onwards (until 1960) as a Belgian colony.--91.181.192.228 (talk) 18:49, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Turns out that Lemkin considered it a genocide. See page 535 here That might change the debate on Wikipedia about this subject. Epa101 (talk) 19:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure we can trust the paper you presented as Schaller is making a point and cherry picking his sources. For example he writes "Although Adam Hochschild, whose publication King Leopold’s Ghost has heavily influenced the public discussion, admits that the “killing in the Congo was of genocidal proportion,” he does not consider it to be a “real” genocide since King Leopold’s aim was not the extermination of all the Congolese or of any particular tribes in the Congo." Yet what Adam Hochschild actually wrote was "The exhibit deals with this question in a wall panel misleadingly headed “Genocide in the Congo?” This is a red herring, for no reputable historian of the Congo has made charges of genocide; a forced labor system, although it may be equally deadly, is different." (See Talk:Genocides_in_history/Archive 6#Belgium and the Congo).

The problem with the way that Schaller is presenting his information is as I said biased. Lemkin was working from secondary sources which are more than 60 years old, and in many cases they were not accurate or as detailed as the histories we have today.

Further the understanding of what is genocide is has evolved over the last 20 years since the International courts have started to try people for genocide. For example many people stated that a genocide took place in Cambodia yet Kaing Guek Eav was found guilty of crimes against humanity not genocide or conspiracy to commit genocide or complicity in genocide, which is a good indicator that the courts will not find that a genocide was committed in Cambodia. This is in line with the findings in Bosnia where the ICTY has drawn a very tight definition over what it thought was genocide in that unhappy region.

I think we have to go with Adam Hochschild conclusions on this unless there is another historian of the Belgian Congo who disagrees with him. -- PBS (talk) 00:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Genocide infobox

Does anyone think that a genocide infobox would be a good idea and useful? I was thinking about making one, just curious what the opinion is--Львівське (talk) 20:29, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Short answer: No. Longer answer. Genocide is usually a matter of opinion. As such one can not say here is a list of genocides. As with few exceptions what is meant is "here is a list of genocides in the opinion of these people". Hence any list of genocides is a POV list, and to give a balanced view one has to say in who's opinion an event was a genocide. So if one excludes a list of genocides what is it that you would include in the info-box? -- PBS (talk) 01:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I guess pertinent info, like parties involved, dates it occured on, generally agreed upon number of deaths (or span), infobox photo, colloquial name, maybe citations of who has declared it genocide?....I'm sure there's other relevant info that needs summary.--Львівське (talk) 04:40, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

There are a handful of genocides that are recognised as such by international courts, and a couple of others in Brazil. But there are dozens where it is an opinion of some parties that it the events were a genocide while others dissagree for example see Genocides in history#Sabra-Shatila, Lebanon, or look at the broader Bosnian Genocide (ethnic cleansing) which was recognised as a genocide by the UN before the ICJ ruled it was not. Making up a simple list is bound to have POV problems that I do not think can be solved without an article like this one. On only has to look at List of wars and disasters by death toll#Genocides and alleged genocides to see the sorts of problems such a list has-- PBS (talk) 07:30, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems you are more against a list (this article) than the idea of an infobox for the related articles. I'm a bit confused. If an article is notable enough to exist, and have genocide in the title, what's the problem with an infobox summarizing the content?--Львівське (talk) 22:22, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

For the record, "Infobox civilian attack" and "Infobox holocaust event" are along the lines of what I'm proposing--Львівське (talk) 22:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The thing will generate... untold amount of controversy. We could, but it would be in all of our interests not to, unless editing wars are good now or something...--Yalens (talk) 23:54, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes)#Purpose_of_an_infobox and in particular "to summarize key facts about the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose" (my bolding) Where would you be putting these genocide infoboxes by the way ? Sean.hoyland - talk 03:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Israel

I think that the pro-Israel bias in this article is pretty astounding. Besides so off-handed, very defence, sources dealing with Sabra and Shatila there is nothing even remotely discussing what is happening in Palestine, especially the recent invasions. When there are UN reports discussing the possibility, and a number of accusations of genocide in 2009, this topic needs to mentioned in this article. Anything less is clearly biased, especially considering the amount of space devoted to Nazi death camps.--128.175.47.233 (talk) 06:29, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

What accusations of genocide are you referring to specifically ? Please provide the reliable sources that contain the accusations. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:44, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Quote Requested (Armenian Genocide)

This reference, "King, Charles. The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus. Page 157", needs to be quoted to show it supports this sentence, However, according to some interpretations, such as that of the Prior of the Franciscan monks living in the region of where the events happened, claims this was not an act of genocide and that it was a two sided battle: "when they advanced victoriously under the protection of the Russian Army, the same spectacle occurred as in 1915, but this time it was Turks who were attacked by Armenians, aided and possibly commanded and directed by Russia.. --Kansas Bear (talk) 22:51, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I've added the quote now... it doesn't say anything about Franciscan Monks, or the stuff that was there before I added the citation, because wasn't the original one who added that and I don't have the source. I put it there to cite mainly the link between the fedayin and the Russian Empire.--Yalens (talk) 03:28, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The following "references", which are "supposed" to source this sentence ("However, according to some interpretations, such as that of the Prior of the Franciscan monks living in the region of where the events happened, claims this was not an act of genocide and that it was a two sided battle: "when they advanced victoriously under the protection of the Russian Army, the same spectacle occurred as in 1915, but this time it was Turks who were attacked by Armenians, aided and possibly commanded and directed by Russia.") have been deleted;

• King, Charles. The Ghost of Freedom. Page 158. "Muslims were attacked, moved about, and killed by Christian states and empires [Russia] in both the Balkans and the north and south Caucasus. In round figures, these regions were emptied of more than a million Muslims during the First World War alone, not to mention the previous century of removals and atrocities by Balkan states and the Russian Empire."

---- States nothing about Armenians killing anyone and nothing about being directed by Russia to kill anyone. Nothing about "Prior of the Franciscan monks living in the region". The statement that Russia and Balkan states committed atrocities against Muslims does not support the sentence, "..Turks.. were attacked by Armenians..".

As I believe I stated quite explicitly, Franciscan monks was not the thing being cited. Secondly, the Armenian fedayin being involved and complicit in the mass killing of Turks is rather obvious considering the relationship between the fedayin and the Russian army. To the point that even Armenians sometimes admit it (of course, they claim, not unreasonably, that it was justified for them to want to separate Armenia from the Ottomon Empire, and ally with outside forces to do so). Does it justify the genocide? Of course not! But is it a very notable historical fact for the study of genocide. Why, yes, it is! --Yalens (talk) 01:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Nothing like ignoring the rest of what I wrote;

• States nothing about Armenians killing anyone and nothing about being directed by Russia to kill anyone.
• The statement that Russia and Balkan states committed atrocities against Muslims does not support the sentence, "..Turks.. were attacked by Armenians..". --Kansas Bear (talk) 23:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The point of me putting that there was NOT to support that Turks were killed by Armenians. The point was to explain the atmosphere in which the genocide took place. It is rather frustrating, because all I am trying to do is improve the depth of the page by explaining the causes for paranoid mindset the Turks had acquired by that point which caused the genocide, yet you think I am trying to mitigate or deny the Genocide, despite my repeated protest that I do recognize it! The stuff about Turks being killed by Serbs, Russians, and so on doesn't have anything to do with this, it is just "setting the scene" per se, to show how the CUP acquired the mindset that of thinking it was a legitimate move that they thought they could get away with. --Yalens (talk) 01:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

• King, Charles. The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus. Page 157. "During the First World War army columns moved back and forth through the region, requisitioning livestock, commandeering accommodations, and further disrupting the social order. Moreover, Russia's support for Armenian village militias and guerrillas (fedayin) deepened the sultan's mistrust of the Armenian population... They came to see Armenian villagers as supporters of the fedayin, and therefore dangerous interests in the hands of their Russian enemy."

--- States nothing about Armenians killing anyone. Nothing about Prior of the Franciscan monks. Russia's support of Armenian militias does not support the sentence, "..Turks.. were attacked by Armenians".

You do you know, do you not, that Russia supporting Armenian militias was of course reciprocated with the obvious fact of Armenian militias supporting Russia. Otherwise, same as above... In any case, this quote and others, have other elements which should be brought into the article, such as the actual military threat posed by the fedayin. In that sense, rather than a completely random set of massacres, the Armenian Genocide resembles much more the Circassian Genocide, except that the underlying motive was primarily military rather than primarily economic-territorial (i.e. Russia's desire for control of the Pontic coast). Or, for that matter, not that much unlike what happened to the actual natives (not so-called "native" Euro-Americans) of your Kansas. But I digress, the point is that the information is good for the page, as otherwise a rather non-historically correct perspective is given- that the massacres of Armenians came out of the blue, which fails to note the specific set of ingredients that were necessary for genocide to take place. As for Franciscan monks, I would suggest you simply go and find the editor who added that- it isn't that hard if you know how to use the page history. --Yalens (talk) 21:31, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I have clearly explained why this was removed and you have posted nothing that changes that. As for "suggesting I go find the editor...", I would suggest you stop edit-warring over information that is unreferenced. I have asked for references and quotes to support these sentences and have clearly outlined the listed references do not support the sentence in question. If you continue to revert, an Admin will be notified of your continued inability to comply with wikipedia:reliable sources.--Kansas Bear (talk) 23:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Oho, so rather than actually discussing material, just like before, you are going to threaten to unleash some mod on me. Honestly, I have tried to work with you, and as for warring, I have not been the one incorrectly accusing the other of genocide denial, threatening to bring in a mod from very early on, and in general having a battlefield mentality on top of just forcing one's own way without any intelligent discussion whatsoever. And no, I am completely fine with not mentioning Franciscan monks, as they have little if anything to do with this dispute at all. With that being said, thankfully, Bagramyan is here to dispute my points in a much more civil manner, without threatening to report me to mods or calling me a denialist (albeit still probably having an agenda, though a quite justified one in a sense). If you would not mind letting him simply say all you'd like to say about the issue so I can negotiate with someone... much easier to negotiate with... that would be much better for the page as a whole.--Yalens (talk) 23:40, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Oho, so rather than actually read what I have posted, you'd rather make this a personal matter as you have done every time I've asked for page numbers, clarification, quotes, etc. If you consider the mentioning of Admin a threat, then apparently you need to read WP:RS, WP:OR, WP:SYN. The deleted sentences were tagged since Nov 11th(take your own advice and check the history) and nothing to justify reverting their deletion had been produced.

As for meaningful discussion, explain exactly what you posted here justifies your reverting my edit? Telling someone to go find the editor that added something? LOL! You categorically ignored the points I gave here on the talk page, sounds like you have "a battlefield mentality". --Kansas Bear (talk) 23:53, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

s for other points, I have now replied to them (I didn't think it was necessary before as I stated it earlier). As I have said many times, first of all, there is the rather glaring implication that if the Russian Army committed crimes against the Turkish, Kurdish and Muslim Georgian population, and the Armenians were aligned to the Russian Army, they are at least partially involved. A Now, that can be debated; whether it is true, OR, legitimate, or whatever. But its pretty hard, whether its me or you, or both, for us to work together, and since Bagramyan can represent the opposing viewpoint and you don't have to, would you please let him do your arguing. Please don't take this the wrong way. I was maybe too harsh earlier. But I just don't think the two of us can get any thing done with each toher for some reason, and it would be good for both of us and for the page if you just let Bagramyan do the arguing. Then you can get back to your life, and for all you know, you may like the solution anyways. I'm sorry if I've angered you, but the two of us continuing is pointless and there is an obvious way out. --Yalens (talk) 01:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

And in the end, you prove nothing, again, make more judgement calls about me(battlefield mentality, angered you), again, and revert everything back(ie. edit-warring), again. The only thing you have proven is that using the talk page(in your case) is a waste of time and that you can and will continue to write whatever you want into this article sourced or not. --Kansas Bear (talk) 04:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

• McCarthy, Justin. Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottomon Muslims, 1821-1922 --- No quote or page number. Spurious reference.

I have left the only sourced sentence,

"The same spectacle, from a Turkish perspective, occurred as in 1915, but this time it was Turks who were attacked by Armenians, aided and possibly commanded and directed by Russia."

--King, Charles. The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus.. Page 155. "From the Ottomon perspective this failure [the Sarikamish expedition] was attributable to the small but lethal bands of local guerrillas, especially Armenians, whom the Russians had employed against the regular Ottoman army." --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to find better sources for the matter. Charles King seems like a reliable source but, based on his readings, he doesn't come off as an expert on the study of the Armenian Genocide. Kansas Bear's highlighted sentence above reflects this. King writes "Moreover, Russia's support for Armenian village militias and guerrillas (fedayin) deepened the sultan's mistrust of the Armenian population... They came to see Armenian villagers as supporters of the fedayin, and therefore dangerous interests in the hands of their Russian enemy."

But in 1915, the Sultan was nothing but a figurehead. True power lay in the hands of the Young Turks, headed by personalities like Enver, Talaat and Jemal Pashas. The fedayin movement began in the early 1880s and that movement was directed against Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who was deposed by the Young Turks in 1908. The Russians, meanwhile, didn't really support the fedayins and in one instance, Cossack border guards were responsible for stopping them from carrying out reprisals across the Ottoman-Russian borders. It was only during World War I when the Russians mobilized four special regiments made up of Armenians living in Russia to participate in warfare, and even then against the Ottoman armies. Richard G. Hovannisian succinctly summarizes this period in his Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), so you can turn to him as someone who is well within his field to comment on such matters. --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 21:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I could look at it, and would like to incorporate it, if I can read it... is it available online?

I have not brought up the Sultan. Charles King says "the Sultan" in his works (as does Glenny), but the implication too, is that hte CUP was also of that opinion (and it is not as if King does not know that the Sultan is a figurehead, as he mentions that several times).

As for the Russo-Armenian relationship: The point is more that the Armenians allied themselves to Russia than that Russia allied itself to the Armenians. Russia naturally acted in its own interest- and that was more interested in Armenia being conquered by Russia than saving Armenians from Turkish domination. Later on, the Armenians and Russians would clash again as the Dashnak-run Armenian Republic was toppled by the latter (and in the modern day, Armenia and Russia have a mutual defense pact- the CSTO- but that doesn't change the fact that the a large piece of the Russian people have a strong racial-based hatred of Armenians, as one of many "black" Caucasian peoples). However, none of this denies the fact that the during World War I, the Armenians unsurprisingly turned to Russia as a savior from Turkey, no matter how farcically one-sided the relationship actually is. Western Armenians (the part of Armenia that is now called "Turkey" by the so-called "International Community") rebelled against the Porte; whereas Eastern Armenians who technically lived in the Russian Empire (the modern Republic of Armenia, Nakhichevan, Javakhk and Artsakh) volunteered for the Russian army. Hence from the now hysterical perspective of the Turks and their government, the CUP, the Armenians were in treasonous rebellion, and such became scapegoats for the failures in the Russo-Turkish front of the war. --Yalens (talk) 23:40, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe it is available online. I, however, can do this: I can scan several of the pages and upload them onto Wikipedia. As I do not have any permission to maintain these pages, they will be deleted, if I recall correctly, within seven days. In the interim, you can save and upload these files and turn to them for future reference. I'll jump on to that task in a couple of days.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 01:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you're going to do that, couldn't you just use your userpages/sandbox for it and then drop me the userpage name? But... are you sure that wouldn't violate copyright? If it doesn't, then go for it.--Yalens (talk) 02:37, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The following opinions are not referenced;

• 1."It is notable that the Turkish government may have gotten the view that the move was legitimate from the events of the previous century.."
• 2."This may have convinced the CUP in Istanbul that such methods were legitimate tools for "national defense", and later Turkey that such actions were not crimes against humanity."
• 3."However, Turkey does not accuse Armenia or Russia of genocide currently (nor does it accuse Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro), arguing that the whole thing was simply a brutal war."
• 4."There are many Turkish people who nonetheless argue that if what they did to Armenians was genocide, then certainly what the Armenians and Russians did also was."
  

These opinions need WP:RS or they will be removed.

File:Hovannisian page16.jpg

Armenia on the Road to Independence, p. 16

File:Hovannisian p.44.jpg

Armenia on the Road to Independence, p. 44.

Also, the following "references"

• Glenny, Misha. The Balkans. Page 238-9
• Glenny, Misha. The Balkans. Pages 233 and 234
  

only reference this part of the sentence, "....and the Balkan Wars, in which the Turks saw countless massacres, forced exoduses, and ethnic cleansing of Muslim.." The rest of the sentence, "...and the guilty parties got away with it." is simply opinion.
This "reference"

• http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS104971+22-May-2009+PRN20090522

has nothing to do with the Ottoman Empire and states nothing of the Ottoman Empire's views. Therefore it is WP:SYN. And will be deleted.--Kansas Bear (talk) 04:09, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

OK KansasBear, tone it down. No, I am not aware of all the arguments back and forth, and no, I am not a 1918 genocide scholar. But your 'will be removed,' in my opinion, shows some lack of of WP:AGF. Please do not be so uncompromising. Others, including User:MarshallBagramyan, whose opinion I trust, do have some voice in the matter. Please consider User:Yalens' suggestion to watch, closely, this page and let User:MarshallBagramyan take the lead. You are of course welcome to appeal to me at any time. Kind regards to all; please let's concentrate on building the encyclopedia. - from Aotearoa New Zealand, Buckshot06 (talk) 05:06, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

These are the recent changes I have made: [[4]].

Basically, I took info from the Armenian Genocide page, and moved stuff around so that it would fit well with the rest of the section. I removed some of the previously uncited stuff because it more or less the same was stated- with citations- in the new text (for example, the Turkish argument that relocation does not constitute genocide; that the Armenians represented a threat due to tehir pro-Russian stances; emphasis placed on "Armenian gangs"; and pointing out Turkish casualties to further the view of "brutal war"). What do you think of it now? Bagramyan, Should we still include the book you suggested (you have not given me any links, I assume you decided not to).--Yalens (talk) 15:33, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

That edit you linked was a good one Yalens. I had been concerned about the un-encyclopedic language and somewhat sensationalist statements in that section. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

KansasBear's statement of intent was perfectly reasonable - no credible sources after repeated requests equals original research equals removable material. Something stinks about a situation where the Armenian Genocide, an event near universally acknowledged by historians to be genocide, receives minimal content in an article about genocides, in which that minimal content is devoted entirely to recording incidences of its public recognition with 0% devoted to actually mentioning what happened, and where another section exists in the same article devoted entirely to a marginal viewpoint that aims to deny that recognised genocide and which is four times longer than the content about the Armenian Genocide! A case of undue weight at the VERY LEAST. This article is not titled "Denial of genocides in history".

I think this dispute has truly been blown out of proportion. We really shouldn't be haggling over an issue for which ample sources exist. The literature available on the Armenian Genocide is volumnious and if anyone is wishing to find some more detailed works, they can turn to those listed in the bibliography section of the Armenian Genocide page, many of which can be viewed for free through Amazon.com or GoogleBooks. Nevertheless, I have provided scans of two pages from Richard G. Hovannisian's Armenia on the Road to Independence (Berkeley, 1967), which I hope will hope will help clarify certain problems (which Yalens and I spoke of earlier, above). Hovannisian does an excellent job in spelling out aspirations of the Armenian political organizations during the 1890s (p. 16) and the importance in distinguishing the Armenian regiments in the Russian army and the Ottoman Armenian fedayees. I, however, am doubtful that the non-free use rationale will be adequate and in all probability both will be deleted within seven days, so I advise that you save them on to your desktop and open it from there for future reference. --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 05:44, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the page, it is rather odd, that regarding the Armenian Genocide, there is only talk of modern recognitions and no talk of what actually happened in 1918 (i.e. 0.6-1.5 million Armenians "dissapearing") . We do have a whole article on the Armenian Genocide; could we not copy info from there? In any case, I think the page should be much more about the issues concerning whether or not it is a genocide, rather than the history of recognition, non-recognition, etc. And there is plenty of talk about history of recognition in the section that could be removed (for example the paragraph talking about 1982 establishment of Turkish studies and most of the rest of the stuff in that paragrah; or the talk about the open letter sent to the US in 2005). The only thing I'd suggest keeping in our recognition history blurbs here is the stuff about "insulting Turkishness", simply because that has gained worldwide notoriety. But even that could be removed, and the page might even be better off. It should be about the discussion of whether or not it was a genocide, not about the history of that discussion... --Yalens (talk) 01:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that I tried to copy the first paragraph from the AG article onto the appropriate section and make the relevant edits, but was promptly (blind) reverted by you, re-adding in the mix blocks of irrelevant and incoherent text. Even your most recent edit does absolutely nothing to provide the reader with what exactly was the Armenian Genocide. The entire section lends undue weight for the denialist argument, and even that it is poorly written. The IP's comments hit the nail on the head. I would much rather see the first paragraph from the AG article, accompanied by a short blurb on the denial of the genocide by Turkey, inserted than the disconnected mass of material that currently sits there.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 07:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi all. Yalens, would you like to give me a couple of good reasons why I should not reinclude MarshallBagramyan's proposed text?Otherwise I am inclined to move ahead and restore it. KansasBear, please do comment also should you wish. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I really see no reason why the first paragraph of Bagramyan's edit should not be there. That was probably a blind revert to revert the whole thing, as I only saw that he had removed a number of paragraphs he did not reference in his edit summary and reverted, assuming without reading it really that there were no changes to the top paragraph. I apologize for that, sometimes I can look at the changes rather cursorily. I see nothing wrong with readding the first paragraph, and I am doing so right now (I seriously can't imagine how any of the three of you will object to coverage of what actually happened, but if you do, pray tell). --Yalens (talk) 15:51, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I've now ([[5]]) added the paragraph originally added by Bagramyan, albeit with the discussion of the names of the genocide removed ([[6]]), and the notes on the other victims which have sections on the page already deleted but with the references used moved so that they are not lost ([[7]]). --Yalens (talk) 16:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks everybody for your cooperative attitudes. Can we please, all, stop blind reverting? Reverting may be justified, following consideration, but please guys, let's be careful about when and what we revert. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:21, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Section America NPOV

This section has serious violations of undue weight WP:WEIGHT with the use of Rush Limbaugh "This population debate has often had ideological underpinnings. Robert Royal writes that "estimates of pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with scholars who are particularly critical of Europe and/or Western civilization often favoring wildly higher figures." Taken from ft No. 21 [[8]] This soucre should not be used: WP:IRS.

In reality the opposite is true, ideology has been linked to deflated population numbers: "The manipulation of data undertaken by succeeding generations of Euroamerican historians and anthropologists in arriving at the official 20th century falsehood that there were 'not more than one million Indians living north of the Rio Grande in 1492, including Greenland' is laid out very clearly by Jennings, Francis, The Invasion of America:" [[9]] Limbaugh goes on to accuse indigenous peoples of "a greater degree of savagery". This is outreagous. Definately undue weight, and non-neutral POV, and possible racism. Limbaugh is no expert.

The numbers:

"From the 1490s when Christopher Columbus set foot on the Americas to the 1890 massacre of Sioux at Wounded Knee by the United States militia, the indigenous population of the Western Hemisphere may have declined, mostly from disease, by 1.8 to as many as 10 million."

[[10]] The person cited David Stannard, American Holocaust [[11]].

This is not what Stannard's book says: He says "8 million" people to as many as "18 million" north of the Rio Grande (US & Canada). Look closely, the edit says "the indigenous population of the Western Hemisphere" ie North & South America. However, Stannard says "75 million" people to as high as "145 million" for the entire western hemisphere. This violates WP:IRS "Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made." They say the opposite. David Stannard, American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World, pgs 120-1 and appendix I.

Actual numbers do have a dispute, but "T]here is now a rough academic consensus, quite sharply at odds with figures conventionally accepted earlier in this century" on the population in 1492 at "between 60 and 120 million people" for all the America's. With "from 7 to 18 million people north of Mexico" Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy, 1990. pg 315-6.

Even those with lower estimates, say Ubelaker, Thornton say there were millions in the area that became the US. For both continents together something like 60 million (low) to of over 100 million (higher estimates). For the area that became the US, it's Dobyns at roughly 8-18 million (high). Thornton at 7 million. Ubelaker at 2.1 (low). There is no way 1,8 million is for both North & South America or even North America. I corrected some of this error on [[12]], then Jagdfeld changed it - no reason given [[13]] Jagdfeld, what is your justification for this edit? Please respond or it will be deleted.Ebanony (talk) 06:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I didn't change it. There are a number of odd changes made to the article that were not made by me. I suspect there is some crooked admin person who is taking over other people's identities. That or the software is not showing properly who did make edits. I did make some edits in a number of parts, adding dates, figures, extra refs, but nothing at all on Native Americans. Jagdfeld (talk) 10:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't know how it happened because the log has you in it. But there have been problems w/ Wikipedia, so I'll take your work for it. That's actually a relief. I'm going to make the adjustment then, ok? Thanks for your clarifying. Hope you're not offended by my comments.Ebanony (talk) 10:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. Edit away. I am sure others will check them. I do know for certain (100%) that I did not make all the changes logged to me. Jagdfeld (talk) 13:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)