Talk:Rwandan genocide/Archive 1

message: In all of the research and documentaries I have seen on the history of Rwanda and the region, the Belgians - not the Germans - have been credited (or blamed) with elevating the Tutsi over the Hutu using outdated race theories, after they took over the territory in 1916 during the Great War.
So, it's strange to see the Germans effectively blamed here, when all the other sources I've seen indicate they essentially ignored the area as being just the far northwestern section of German East Africa.  Moreover, given the Belgian record in the neighbouring Congo, it seems far more likely that, to the extent any Europeans can be tagged with some distant blame for the genocide, they rather than the Germans are the ones who should be named.  Whatever the Germans may have done during the 31 years between 1885 and 1916, the Belgians were there for 45 years after them.
:That is what I was though also. People might think the Germans played a bigger part due to its history, but in this case, the belgians are the main criminals. --The monkeyhate 16:14, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: German cf. Belgian Role in Rwandan History

message: Why does this article fail to mention the role of christianity in inciting Hutus to committ the murders?
:You want to indict all of Christianity for this episode or specific persons? Try to avoid Christophobia when making comments. Jtpaladin 21:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Omittance of christian pretexts?

message: The following text, which I believe was copied directly from the Wikipedia article without due citation, was found at http://www.ogrish.com/archives/rwandan_genocide_Dec_12_2005.html
The Rwandan Genocide was the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by a group of Hutu extremists known as Interahamwe during a period of 100 days in 1994. For many, the Rwandan Genocide stands out as historically significant not only because of the sheer number of people that were murdered in such a short period of time, but also because of the way many Western countries responded to the atrocities. Despite intelligence provided before the killing began, and international news media coverage reflecting the true scale of violence as the genocide unfolded, virtually all first-world countries declined to intervene.
I decided this should be brought to attention as soon as possible, in case anything might be able to be done.
69.54.194.185 10:14, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NOTICE-POSSIBLE PLAGIARISM

message: "It was the worst massacre since the Holocaust."  Depends on your definition of "massacre", but what about:
# The Vietnam War ~4 million civilians killed
# The Khmer Rouge ~1 million killed
# The Cultural Revolution ~3-6 million killed
# Continued Stalinist Purges (?)
I don't mean to turn this into a "worst massacre" contest, but let's not overlook some incredible human rights violations.  --Chinasaur 22:37, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks; your change of "massacre" to "genocide" was about what I had decided would be accurate.  --Chinasaur 04:20, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: definition of massacre

message: I dont think laying blame on the "Clinton administration" is accurate. From what I understand, the republican congress was just as responsible for not helping enough. Mir 00:54, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sadly, neither of you understands how the U.S. Constitution functions. Foreign policy is initiated by the Executive branch, not the Congress. Aside from that, if you would have checked the dates of this genocide, you will find that this episode happened during the Democrat controlled Congress. The Republicans did not take control of Congress until 1995, long after the genocide happened. So, yes, this was a Clinton failure. Jtpaladin 21:18, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blame on Clinton administration 

message: [http://www.geocities.com/iwacu.geo/explosive.htm National Post: 'Explosive' leak on Rwanda genocide
Informants told UN investigators they were on squad that killed Rwanda's president -- and a foreign government helped]
The above talks about how the rebels who ultimately took over Rwanda after the genocide, were likely responsible for the assassination of the Rwandan/Burundian Presidents, which was the sparking point of the genocide. The rebels were also assisted by a "foreign government" in this action. -- LaputanMachine
:I revised the section to remove plagiarism from this source, adding a block quotation and citations. NYScholar 20:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: national post

message: "rightly ousted" appears to be Wikipedia:Point of view. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Samaritan 10:14, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self-government section POV 

message: Directly, word for word, from a BBC publication. The BBC article was published in 2004 (see BBC), the edits were made by an anonymous editor in February of this year. So I'm changing it to keep the content but not the form of the article. Andicat 12:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portions of this Article are Ripped Off 

message: I have removed this POV text.
Parts of it may be distilled into useful information, particularly the bit about the Hutu politician who was killed (if verifiable as cited) but its general tone is extremely pro-Hutu, effectively blaming the genocide on the RPF invasion. 
I have also reverted this user's edits on Hutu; see Talk:Hutu. --Saforrest July 7, 2005 02:50 (UTC)
The user is paraphrasing text from the book "the lion, the fox and the eagle"---p.108, line 36 to line 6 of p.109. The book is certainly not "pro-Hutu" in regards to the rwandan genocide, yet sites instances of inefficiency of certain factions within UNAMIR forces. 132134 07:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed POV text 

message: The intro seems to have some problems to me:
#Use of the term ethnic cleansing - to describe the genocide as an "attempted ethnic cleansing," where that term can mean nothing more than a population transfer, seems a bit of an understatement to me.
#The article also seems to state that the Hutu extremists were "ethnically cleansing" moderate Hutus.  This doesn't make any sense at all.  There were mass murders of Hutu moderates, but these can neither be considered "genocide" nor "ethnic cleansing." john k 15:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair points.  Feel free to have a go at it. - BanyanTree 16:10, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro 

message: There's a profound and inescapable NPOV problem for any highly-charged political topic such as this, in which equivocation is felt by each of the various sides to concede too much to their rivals. But it must be POV to assert, as the intro does, that "in actual fact" some political viewpoints on the nature of the atrocity are objectively false. Political analysis is not susceptible to standards of objectivity in this way. To make this claim is to adopt a political stance, with which a small but significant minority vehemently disagree: it's POV.
So. While it is certainly desirable to record that the majority of credible analysis characterises the atrocities as the outcome of an orchestrated and racially-motivated political masterplan, ie, a genocide, the 'pedia cannot credibly assert that this majority set of analyses is the one, true set. That determination has to be made by the critical reader according to the balance of evidence presented. What this article badly needs is well-linked catalogues of that evidence, not more political interpretation. 
Adhib 11:09, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV and genocide 

message: The new Rwandan government, led by interim President Théodore Sindikubwabo, worked hard to minimize international criticism. Rwanda at that time had a seat on the Security Council and its ambassador argued that the claims of genocide were exaggerated and that the government was doing all that it could to stop it. Representatives of the Rwandan Catholic Church, long associated with the radical Hutus in Rwanda, also used their links in Europe to reduce criticism. France, which felt the United States and United Kingdom would use the massacres to try to expand their influence in that francophone part of Africa, also worked to prevent a foreign intervention.
The bold sentece seems POV, I'm not certian though. I don't know a lot about the topic. But, if the author of this sentence/article could please provide some sources substataing it- mainly the France claim- even if they're articles to substantiate this assertion... This just needs some backup info.
:: Nowhere does anyone try and state what sort of intervention might have been possible or appropriate.  Suppose the US decided to intervene.  Given the speed at which the massacre occurred and the distance and logistics involved, it is doubtful that American troops could have arrived in significant numbers before most of the people were killed.  Or assume that they knew sufficiently in advance to deploy a substantial force (and bear in mind that the build-up to Iraq took eight months, despite the excellent lines of transportation between the US and the Middle East, or the time it took to move troops and other supplies to Florida during Hurricane Katrina).  What would a strong US presence have done?  As for actually getting into villages and towns and stopping neighbours from killing each other, I doubt whether that would have been possible.  Just think of the problems of finding and fighting the Vietcong with 500,000 US troops.  Can you imagine helicopter gunships roaring across Rwandan skies bringing down hordes of machete wielding Hutus?  JRJW December 2005
:::Note the pro-American brainwashing in the previous post. As if the West was going to perform a full out war on some guerillas? Not likely. That's why there's other ways, most notably safe zones. Set up a camp, Tutsi's in, genocide out. Bingo bango. But of course everyone has to always point out the most difficult situations, not the most obvious. --Hurricane Angel 03:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The assertion that France prevented foreign intervention because of anglo-saxon influence is unsubstantiated, and if anyone read the French parliementary comission report on the Rwandan Genocide, it is stated that US or UK had no interests in extending their influence in the region. The only reason France would have obstructed any intervention was the fear of accusations of colonial interventionism, although Rwanda never was a French colony despite the involvement of French armed forces in training the Rwandan military within the framework of cooperation treaties between the two countries (as with many other African countries) anterior to the Genocide. In addition, because of it's links to the Rwandan armed forces, it would have been very difficult and was indeed very difficult to operate as a neutral force hence the semi-fiasco of operation "Turquoise". Any other words France in the end tried to do the right thing, but another country would have been more suitable for the operation. Blastwizard 10:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concerning NPOV and references about France's "preventing foreign intervention" 

message: I am doing a copy-edit of Paul Kagame, which includes this large (rather POV) part on the Rwandan Genocide. I offer it for inclusion to anybody who knows a good deal on the topic, to make sure no information is lost. Any comments on whether any part of this should be included here? 
The snippet in question:
---------
The next day, the Hutu extremists began massacring thousands of Tutsi politicians and moderate Hutu citizens. Some United Nations camps sheltered innocent citizens; however, the United Nations Mission in Rwanda stood by idly during the genocide. They had been told only to "monitor", not to interfere with Rwandan politics. On the same day, 10 Belgian soldiers were tricked and killed by the extremists. U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a statement offering his condolences to the victims' families and denouncing the rebels.
For the next couple of weeks, many questionable decisions were made. Belgium and the UN withdrew almost all of their forces, leaving all of the Rwandans behind. The United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to withdraw its troops, with France and Belgium at the forefront. Finally, on May 17, 1994, the UN concedes that "acts of genocide may have been committed." At that time, the Red Cross estimated at least 100,000 deaths at the hands of the Hutu extremists, the majority of those being minority Tutsis.
By Mid-May, the U.S. attempted to take action by ordering 50 APCs to aid Rwanda; however, an argument ensued over their cost. At this time, the Red Cross estimated over 500,000 deaths. At the end of May, the RPF (on its own) took over most of Rwanda. France, Belgium, and the rest of the U.N. did nothing to prevent the acts of genocide, of which they had knowledge; this caused Kagame to denounce France and the U.N., specifically, continually for many years. France, ironically, absolved its government of any responsibility, blaming mostly the U.N. and the United States.
------------
Thanks and greets, The Minister of War (Peace) 15:50, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Snippet from [[Paul Kagame]] 

message: "Another school of thought argues that the violence in the region is a result of the same European theories of race that led to the Holocaust. These ideas were propagated by John Hanning Speke".
This isn't clear to me; did Speke propagate theories on the cause of violence, or the theories of race that ultimately led to the violence?
REPLY: John Hanning Speke proposed the "hamitic hypothesis"- that is, race theory that the tutsi were 'more white', closer to being 'european', and therefore 'better'. Macgruer 09:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speke's role 

message: Hi! I read the article about the Rwandan Genocide, and I found some of the pictures (showing victims etc) very offending. Not only towards me (more than to a certain extent), but mustn't there be more sensitive users?
I think it is quite irresponsible of you when this is supposed to be a site open for everyone. I wouldn't for example allow my children to even visit this page when I know it contains such explicit material. 
Thanks! 
/Johannes
: There is nothing nice about genocide. To write about it without 'the bad stuff' is even less responsible. Wizzy…☎ 20:16, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Johannes, I appreciate your feelings on this, but Wikipedia is quite clear that it is not censored for the benefit of minors.  See Wikipedia:Content disclaimer for more.  While editors don't go out of our way to offend, we also don't hesitate to put material that some may find objectionable as long as it is appropriate to the article.  Pictures of victims of a genocide in an article about that genocide are definitely appropriately. Regards, BanyanTree 00:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with the two comments made above. I think it's ridiculous for someone to be looking up a page about genocide and then be offended that there are gruesome pictures/descriptions. Genocide by its very nature IS gruesome. Furthermore, there are no gratuitous pictures of violence, etc. on this page; quite the contrary, the photos included in this article are essential for communicating the facts of this subject matter. --Todeswalzer | Talk 23:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  offending pictures 

message: "Either you took part in the massacres or you were massacred yourself," said one Hutu who was forced to take part. definitely needs to be referenced, or more likely, removed. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 17:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've discovered possibly inadvertent plagiarism in this passage (see earlier comments on recurring plagiarism throughout this article).  Instead of removing the information, I added appropriate quotation marks and citations in revising it as a "blockquote." More help from other editors is needed with removing plagiarism and authentically documenting material in this entry by adding quotation marks and giving more citations of sources for paraphrases and quotations. NYScholar 22:37, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sher

message: the genocide ended "mid-July 1994" why? how?  this is completely omitted. Darker Dreams 21:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article cites the political process leading to the end of the Genocide. Previous editors attribute the historical end to the Genocide in paragraph 4 and later in the article. NYScholar 18:15, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  end of the Genocide 

message: I've been adding links to other wikipedia articles where it seems necessary.  I am concentrating on long sections of text without such links with the goal of making it possible for readers unfamiliar with some of the terms and references to quickly link over to articles on those subjects.  I'm not going to be doing much else besides the links and minor grammar fixes.  
The long historical sections duplicate a lot of info in the Rwanda article and should perhaps be trimmed but I'll leave that for a later date. Lisapollison 13:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some Basic Cleanup

message: There are a few sentences regarding actions by the world community before the genocide, but nothing about the world reactions of the genocide after it had happened. I think that's very relevant. --The monkeyhate 16:15, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  International reactions? 

message: The 3rd paragraph in the intro discusses "those horrific 100 days". While I imagine (not having been there) that the genocide was horrific, this statement seems a little excessive for an encyclopedia article. I'm going to change it to "the genocide." Natalie 01:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "those horrific 100 days" 

message: I've noticed several incidences of vandalism on this article in the past few days (although it is far beyond me why anyone would choose a page such as this to vandalize). I think we should consider protecting it for the near future. --Todeswalzer|Talk 04:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also have no idea why an unknown person put "8-bit theater" after my comments. It doesn't seem to accomplish anything -- discussion or vandalism alike. --Todeswalzer|Talk 17:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I have unprotected this article after two days.  The level of vandalism on this article recently has been about what one would expect of a fairly high profile subject.  Please just watch this article for the occasional vandalism and do not request protection except in cases of sustained vandalism, per Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy.  Thanks, BanyanTree 00:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protect this article? 

message: I have removed this military conflict infobox from the article.  While I appreciate that these can be useful when there are two clearly identifiable sides, they tend to be confusing in low-intensity conflicts.  Its use in this genocide is just weird, if not misleading.  There are issues of Tutsi v Hutu, as many Hutus were killed as well.  Uganda is listed as a combatant along with UNAMIR, fighting the French, which did not happen.  It's possible a table that doesn't pigeonhole everyone into neat classifications as if this was a Napoleonic era battle would be useful, but this boilerplate just doesn't fit. - BanyanTree 16:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree -- it seems to reaffirm the impression that the genocide was simply a civil war, as the Hutu Power government proclaimed. --Todeswalzer|Talk 19:44, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I also agree with BanyanTree. Wizzy…☎ 10:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is wrong to get a infobox man? It was not only a genocide but also a civil war in Rwanda. Killerman2 14:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is about the 1994 Genocide, not the civil war that started in 1990. And above you will see the other substantive issues, such as putting UNAMIR and the RPA together as if they were fighting together in a military alliance.  - BanyanTree 15:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm afraid I don't fully understand this sentence.  Could you fix the spelling/grammar to clarify? - BanyanTree 15:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  infobox 

message: There are many references to the film 'Hotel Rwanda'in this article. I don't think that this should be included because the article should be soley baed on the genocide and not on a film based on it. The film was created after the event and there were a few notable differences in the film from the actual events. I think that all references to the film should be removed Ryanpostlethwaite 22:19, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hotel Rwanda

message: The following section was removed from the article on 31 October 2006. Should it be cleaned up and restored to the article? --Muchness 18:26, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Blanked section

message: The article mentions three media sources. 1. Hotel Rwanda. 2. Shake Hands With the Devil. 3. The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. 2 and 3 are the same book (Failure of the humanity in rwanda is the subtitle. However it would be wroth adding the film "Shooting Dogs" produced by the BBC, as an alternative third film.
Tom
:I've removed the redundant link and added a link to Shooting Dogs as recommended. I also added a link to the film Sometimes In April. --Muchness 22:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rwanda in Media

message: In the text there is "transport alone they were charged 6,5 million USD by the American army"
Should there be a period instead of a comma in the number figure? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.40.60.168 (talk) 03:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammer error or typo. 

message: I have been reading the book Collapse: How scoieties choose to fail or suceed by Jared Diamond,and it notes that massacres still took place even in regions that were predominately Hutu. It notes that soil erosion was high (due to a lack of soil conservation practices), Rwanada had inefficient agricultural practices and a high population desnity, plus a scarcity of available land, with large farms tending to become larger and vice versa. According to him, this led to bitter intra-familial fueds over inheritance, and was also a contributing factor (Basicly, poverty and disputes played a role in determining who got killed, at least in what order). The book mentions studies by two Belgian economists, Catherine Andre and Jean-Phillippe Platteau. I don't know where to find their research on the Rwandan genocide, but perhaps someone could? Their research was on the Kanama commune, in Northwest Rwanda, according to Jared Diamond.
--Light Dragon 16:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Including Belgian claiming that the genoside was due to soil erosion seems like a bad joke --Mtjs0 05:39, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Diamond seems to have based the entire chapter around one journal article, with some backing from Gérard Prunier's work.  Nobody would dispute that land issues had a major role, but Diamond seems to have taken his general thesis, found a matching case that even he states is out of the ordinary, and then extrapolated out to the genocide as a whole.  There would have to be a lot more supporting literature for land degradation to be placed in the center.  The paper by Andre and Platteau is "Land relations under stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap" Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 34:1-47 (1998), if anyone wants to take a look and see what merits addition to the article or a sub-article. - BanyanTree 18:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Include Possible Environmental & Population factors?

message: The introduction to this article is way too long, it needs cutting down by at least half, the rest should move into the main article space. When you first look at the article, it looks like your reading an essay, not an encyclopedia article, thats why I've added a clean up tag RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 02:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and actually I was thinking about clean up for some time. I also think template  would be more appropriate since the intro isn't lacking only by its length but rather its contents. It doesn't summarize the article but goes into detail on UN failure and IMO even takes sides and presents POV. The most of the intro isn't on genocide but on international community. May be parts of it should be moved to the talk page immediately and rewritten. What do you think?--Pethr 03:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your idea sounds good to me, and theres  no point in having 2 tags at the top which basically say the same thing. The section is by far the worst for POV and goes into way too much detail. As I'm not an expert on the subject, just generally interested, I feel it would be better for someone with more detailed knowledge to sort out, but as I've previously said, it needs to be cut down a hell of a lot. The introduction should just give a brief overview, i.e. the main parties involved, the the general outcome of what happened RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 10:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: Just a suggestion: a UN website Abeg92contribs 23:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This link may help