Talk:Rwandan Civil War/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Lemurbaby (talk · contribs) 17:30, 24 February 2017 (UTC) I'll look forward to reviewing this article in the next few days. - Lemurbaby (talk) 17:30, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

General:

A stellar article! Your thoroughness and commitment to objectivity for a sensitive and contested topic really shine through. I learned details I never knew about the run-up to the genocide. Thank you for all the good work you do here. - Lemurbaby (talk) 16:19, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I believe most instances where you've used "effect" as a verb, it would be correct to use "affect" instead. But maybe there are differences on this one between British and American English (?), and this article seems to be written in British English.
Question: From my understanding of how this works, in British English at least, I think the current usage is correct. These are the cases I've found:
1. The Hutu population revolted in 1959, with the support of Belgium, which had effected a sudden reversal of allegiance.
2. Rwigyema and Kagame decided to effect their invasion plans immediately
3. from which they hoped to effect a move away from the more conciliatory tone adopted by Habyarimana and the moderate opposition
Now, from [1] we are told When used as a verb effect means ‘to bring something about as a result’, which I think describes the situation in each of the sentences above. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/affect#Usage_notes also has a note on this difference. Let me know if there's still something I've missed here! Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 15:47, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You've also made very heavy use of commas, which breaks up the flow on sentences and makes it a bit harder for me to read. I'd recommend pruning some. There are also some semicolons where a period could potentially work better
Done - I've gone through and broken up many of the sentences which semed long . — Amakuru (talk) 14:34, 20 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please check for consistency in whether you treat collective groups (like "family" or "the RPF") as singular or plural for subject-verb agreement - there are inconsistencies

Lead

"representing the government of President Juvénal Habyarimana, and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of refugees" - suggest rewording to read: "Hutu dominated government of President... Rwandan Tutsi refugees"
Done
"assassination of Habyarimana" - suggest adding the date
Done
If there was a particular event that precipitated the 1990 invasion, I'd recommend mentioning it in the lead. Also maybe make explicit the motives/objectives of the RPF in the 1990 invasion. It's also unclear why the refugees didn't simply return to Rwanda without a military conflict
Done
"The assassination of Habyarimana was the catalyst" - recommend adding that it was on the return flight from signing the extension of the UN peacekeeping agreement (if I'm not mistaken)
Done My source says it was just a regional summit, at which pressure was put on Habyarimana by other leaders. I have briefly mentioned that in the lede, and also in the body. — Amakuru (talk) 14:22, 14 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Need to spell out/define UNAMIR on first use
Done
"Paul Kagame was elected Rwandan president in 2000." - suggest adding dates for when he was first made vice president and his re-election(s)
Done

Background

"further movement between the classes" - maybe change "classes" to "groups" to maintain neutrality
Done
"They formed armed groups, known as inyenzi (cockroaches)" - was this a Hutu term for them, or did they call themselves this?
Done - I've elaborated on this according to my source
"close to Kigali.[37] who from late 1960 " - please fix this fragment
Done
" army officer Juvénal Habyarimana " - recommend identifying him as Hutu
Done
"Pro-Hutu discrimination" - unusual wording - could you use Anti-Tutsi (and Twa, if appropriate)?
Done
"The most powerful family was that of the first lady Agathe Habyarimana, who were known as the akazu, and wielded increasing influence over the president.[42]" - please reword a bit to address conjugation inconsistency (family was/were). "and wielded increasing influence over the president" also doesn't feel like it fits and could benefit from rewording.
Done - I have reworded this part, and expanded slightly. — Amakuru (talk) 10:34, 15 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"n 1979, Ugandan dictator" this abrupt transition in topic and time could be smoother if there were a lead in with a focus on the RPF transitioning to its origins
Done - I've reworded this paragraph
"Milton Obote assumed the Ugandan presidency, and began persecution and discrimination " - could you briefly explain why?
Done
"gave Rwigyema and Kagame inspiration to consider an attack against Rwanda" - can you summarize their objective in such an attack?
Done
"committed to returning the refugees to Rwanda by any means possible" - this should be mentioned as RANU's objective when you first mention RANU

Question: how would you phrase that? AFAIK, the returning of refugees wasn't a goal in 1979/1980, when RANU formed, but became one in 1987, with the name change to RPF.

"Museveni knew of the RPF and its planned invasion" - was the RPF not an overt organization? If not, it would be good to make that clear earlier

Done - I've removed him knowing the RPF, and just limited the wording to him knowing of the invasion

Course of the War

"France and Belgium sent troops to Kigali" - how soon after the invasion were they able to send troops?

Done - I've reworded this so hopefully the timings are clearer

" Mobutu also assisted Habyarimana, sending" - similarly, how soon did he send them?
Done - similarly, updated on when they arrived, but also included details I'd missed on how the soldiers raped and pillaged, and were expelled. — Amakuru (talk) 10:32, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"The Rwandan government announced that they had won the war" - when?
Done
"Paul Kagame was in the United States at the time of the October invasion," - it seems strange that he was (1) studying military strategy in the US at all (who funded it? how did this come to be?) and (2) that he was away when the invasion started. Do you have any idea why this was?
Done - I have added more context to this in the previous section. — Amakuru (talk) 16:24, 14 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"After spending some days " - some weeks? He arrived in mid-October and the troops were pushed back to the border by the end of October; at which point did he determine they were too demoralized and took them to the Virungas?
"and the government eventually agreed to their power-sharing demands, including up to 40% of the troops in the proposed unified national armed forces, and 50% of the officer corps." - reword for clarity - I'm assuming 40%/50% were RPF troops/officers?
Done

Aftermath

" traditional village court system." - citation?
Done

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

There are two different ways dates are being laid out in the references - 1 July 2010 and 01-07-2010. It would be nice (but not necessary) if they all followed the same format [I'd say preferably 1 July 2010 since this is used throughout the body of the article]

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

Be consistent in punctuation for image captions - if an incomplete sentence, do not end with a period
Is the graph in "Rwanda-demography.png" accurate? It shows a steady decline in population each year that almost seems greater than the lives lost in the year of the genocide. Also - does the decline in population in 1994 also reflect the migration outflow to DRC? Or is this deaths only? It would be good if this could be specified in the caption
Fixed I've removed the graph, because I couldn't find any sources which actually explained what's going on. For what it's worth, the graph can be sourced to UN data - [2] - so it is "verifiable", in a Wikipedia sense, (even though quite probably it is not actually true ). But I have found no explanation for the steep decline in population before the genocide, and I suspect perhaps it's someone taking the 1991 figure and the mid-1994 figure, and drawing a line between the two. Prunier's death toll estimates in his book explicitly assume solid growth of population all the way up to 1994. — Amakuru (talk) 10:19, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Overall:
Pass or Fail:

Comments

Hi Amakuru, would you please ping me on my talk page or better yet by email when you've finished. I'm in Mada and we're in the middle of a cyclone at the moment - once it passes, I'll be pretty busy with the disaster response so won't be checking back here regularly. - Lemurbaby (talk) 07:37, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Lemurbaby and Amakuru: Sorry to read about the cyclone. Let me know if there is any way I can help advance this review. AIRcorn (talk) 07:53, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Aircorn: thanks for the message, and apologies for the delay in finishing off the fixes following the review. I hope I can finally get them all looked at in the next week or two, then Lemurbaby can have another look. If that's OK. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 16:08, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. Feel free to ping me if you need any help. AIRcorn (talk) 16:34, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Aircon: FYI I have completed the fix-ups (finally), and sent an email to Lemurbaby so hopefully she will be able to come back and re-evaluate the GAN soon. Thanks! — Amakuru (talk) 08:03, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Aircorn, if you would be willing to continue the review—Lemurbaby hasn't been on Wikipedia for a month and a half—that would probably be a great help. Otherwise, this would appear to be stopped in its tracks. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:25, 29 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I will look into it in the next couple of days. If Lemurbaby returns before then I am happy for her to take it back over. AIRcorn (talk) 07:45, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Amakuru - a thousand apologies for taking ages to come back to this. After the cyclone it was our annual review period (April) and then I was on leave in the US for a month. :P I feel the GA standards have been met, and I'm passing it. Aircorn, thank you for being willing to have a look at this as well. I think your concerns will be good to raise if Amakuru takes this through the FA process. - Lemurbaby (talk) 13:04, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, thanks Lemurbaby, and I fully understand about not getting to it sooner! Hope things are getting back to normal and not too many people affected by the cyclone. I'll certainly bear Aircorn's comments in mind when pushing through to FA. It sounds like the lead could do with a bit of work to make it more accessible to people not familiar with the subject. Also if you have any tips or advice on that, Lemurbaby - things to expand/improve, please let me know. Thanks again! — Amakuru (talk) 14:03, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Aircorns comments

I have just read the article. It is very well written and despite all the acronyms and complexities pretty easy to follow. It is a bit of a beast. Lots of details and I feel physically exhausted from digesting it at the moment. I am also a little uncomfortable and regretting taking this on. As a bit of background, I know very little about this topic. I was quite young when it went down and have not studied the history of it much at all. So I admit I am coming from a place of relative ignorance. My main recollection was that one side was winning the war and committed all these atrocities in the process and then the other side started winning and committed similar atrocities right back.

However, while reading this I felt it was noticeably pro-Tutsi. The attacks on Tutsis are discussed quite vividly and it paints a very poor picture of the Hutu leadership while talking up the Tutsi leaders. There are a few red flags for me. When the atrocities of the Tutsi are discussed there seems to be an attempt to counter or justify it. Something that is not afforded to the Hutus. For example sentences like The scale, scope, and source of ultimate responsibility of these killings is disputed are not used for the Hutu killings. Especially as it does not provide any dispute (i.e. only one figure is mentioned). The attack on the refugee camps is almost nonchalantly justified as attacks on militia formed there. Kagame is portrayed as a hero and Habyarimana is portrayed as a bit of a villain. I will profess my ignorance again. Maybe this is how it really was. Maybe it is a case of the sources used. Maybe it is something else. It just makes me very uncomfortable as a reviewer.

I need to think on this as it is not an easy topic and it is important we get it right. I am aware that neutrality as far as good articles are concerned is not an exact point, but a spectrum. I also will take into account that lemurbaby was more than happy with the neutrality of this article when she reviewed it. I may need to seek some outside advice, which is unfortunate as this review has been ongoing for quite a few months now. AIRcorn (talk) 09:26, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also some very minor points:

Is there any reason behind the change of preference from the Belgians from Tutsi to Hutu
MRND acronym is not explained
I gave up on the lead half way through on my first read. It was partly the acronyms and partly the level of detail. I reread the lead after reading the article and it makes a lot more sense, but I was wondering if there was a way to simplify the lead without losing too much context. AIRcorn (talk) 09:28, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Aircorn, and thanks for your initial comments. As a very quick response, I think the tone and balance of coverage of the respective actions of the Hutu Power leadership versus the RPF/Tutsi leadership is a consequence of the very differing level of certainty attached to those events in reliable sources. Whatever role the RPF may haave played in things, there is virtually no source that puts a "positive" spin on actions of the Hutu leadership during the genocide, or indeed the behaviour of the hardline Hutu during the civil war. Furthermore, much of that Hutu leadership has been convicted of crimes against humanity in international UN courts. The reputation of Kagame and the RPF is a much more tricky and controversial concept, however. Although it is well documented that they performed some atrocities, and Kagame receives a lot of negative criticism from human rights groups and in many parts of the world, the fact remains that unlike the Hutu Power leaders, he has been convicted of nothing, he remains the president of Rwanda, and is an ally of many present and past world leaders. Of course it's not our place to condemn or defend the actions of either side, but to maintain neutrality we should be trying to reflect the balance of how the topics are treated in the sources.

As for the lead, perhaps it suffers from the fact that I built it up from the material presented in the article itself (as indeed we should for any good WP:LEAD). This may have ended up giving it a stilted or over-deep feel though, so I can try making it a better overall summary, or if you have any specific suggestions that would be good.

Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 15:02, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]