Talk:Greek genocide/Archive 2

message: Hello, everyone. Please do not remove the tags until the disputes are resolved, or this will be viewed as vandalism. Many thanks in advance. El_C 07:37, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Really, guys, there is nothing more to dispute! The article is well sourced with lots of third party sources that support the genocidal nature of the incidents. The minority opinion of "no genocide" is clearly illustrated in the article. "Alleged incidents" in the intro? Where have you seen that weasel wording before? The minority opinion is supported so much in the text, that it is I who should be disputing the npov-ness of the article (wp:npov#undue weight). This article cannot be held hostage by use of tags eternally, and I am not going to allow pov placement of pov tags, while in fact I should be disputing the undue weight of the minority opinion!! •NikoSilver• 10:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please follow the steps outline in dispute resolution. Again, at this stage, any further removal of the tags will be treated as vandalism. El_C 13:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends on who and what is disputed... so far, everything about which questions have arosen, has been cited and verified. first was the title, there are links for Greece, half a dozen US states, and an Australian one. then was the number, it was cited also. then was the 'White Death' also cited. If something else is clearly disputed (or if sources disputed the already info are presented here) the tags will remain. if not, i will remove them. Everyone must follow the rules, El_C... no matter the power he/she has in here. Hectorian 14:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please spare me the innuendo. Obviously, if no concrete and specific issues are raised, the tags can be removed, but I'm willing to give it more time, and until then, you are prohibted from removing them. El_C 08:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

text: If you continue to remove the tags, you will continue to be blocked from editing. El_C 23:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Avoid tag removal

message: :Write here what you dispute about the article.
====Use of the word Genocide====
I contest the word 'Genocide' and the inclusion of the latter in the title for the following reasons:
From the article genocide: "Genocide is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) Article 2 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
1- Title of an article speaks a lot for itself, inclusion of the word genocide in the title, implicitly states that the article will be able to provide enough proof of this claim.. And if it fails to do so, the word Genocide should only be included in the body of the article,
2- Claim of Genocide is an extremely serious allegation to make, one that needs to be backed up by serious and constant academic research and solid proofs.
3- And that there is a clear line seperating 'Genocide from 'Massacre', in that for a Genocide to have taken place, there has to be the proof that there was a clear commanding structure and a chain of command that expressly strived to commit the acts that would be described as 'Genocide' (see above)...
4- For more information regarding the line that seperates between Genocide from Massacre, pls see the Nuremberg trial transcripts. Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide have been defined as such not on the massacres themselves, but also by proving that there existed such a command structure that effectively and continously strived to commit the acts that constitute a Genocide... Extensive data is available on both of these events, and the legal framework for Genocide acceptance has been clearly established, as the minutes of ICJ trials show.
5- As such, I claim that the article fails to provide such credible proof. In other words, the article fails to deliver the sort of scientific, academic, universal and solid proof that would be neccessary to verify the claim of a Genocide.
6- Moreover, I hold that these claims are being used to only fuel ethnic-hatred:
6.1- The only sovereign country to have recognized this as Genocide is Greece itself, and that only 9 years ago, the choice of day to commemerate these events is also suspect: May 19th, a national holiday in Turkey since the 1920s.
6.2- Even Cyprus, a country that is extremely close to Greece politically as much it is far from Turkey has not recognized this as genocide.
7- In the article itself, there is not enough proof to substantiate any of these claims:
7.1- The article makes many serious allegations for which reliable citations have been missing for months.
7.2- An overwhelming majority (app. 95 percent) of articles on this subject found on the net have been written either by Greeks or published in Greek web-sites,
7.3- References cited in the article are either completely biased, have no-connection to the subject whatsoever, or have questionable backgrounds. Ex. International Association of Genocide Scholars, that is cited in the article has no link in its website whatsoever concerning this issue. The page devoted to this issue by the Australian Institute Of Holocaust and Genocide studies is highly-biased, it claims to have hundreds of photos in its possesion, but none are published, the tone of the writings are clearly racist and not-scientific, and most importantly, has no proof delivered that has been derived using the Scientific Method, none of the allegations are substantiated, no interviews with impartial researchers and the claims are only signed by a Greek author, Panayiotis Diamadis, and not by any other impartial researchers..
7.4- The other 'proofs' are accounts by a handful of foreign diplomats stationed in the Ottoman Empire. Half of them are considered as HEARSAY, accounts of the stories told by other people, and the accounts of the remaining two or three are not enough to substantiate the claim that 350,000 people were systematically killed.
7.5- Most importantly, there is no link, source, proof or whatsoever to substantiate the claim that the Ottoman and Turkish adminstrations had the will, the command structure and the continuity and generalization of acts to commit a Genocide against the Pontus Greeks.
8- Finally, after 90 years of alleged events taking place and the claim of such a high death-toll, there are absolutely NO photos, no mass-graves, not enough corroborated eye-witness stories that would have resulted from the massacre of such a great number of people, even though there are many for the Armenian Genocide that took place at approximately the same time in geographically close lands.
9- And thus, the 'Genocide' title cannot be substantiated because of a lack of sources, and as such it makes this article on Wikipedia 'original research', which is contrary to the policy of Wikipedia.
10- As such, I propose that the title of the article should be changed to 'Pontic Greek Massacres' to conform with the spirit and philosophy of Wikipedia, since, in my opinion, this article was given this name only with the purpose of igniting ethnic-hatred. 
This was in the archive, mitsos.. I just pasted it.. And the discussion is not a formal attempt, so you cannot delete the tags by refering to it...Baristarim 20:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why the tags should stay

message: I contest the word 'Genocide' and the inclusion of the latter in the title for the following reasons:
From the article genocide: "Genocide is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) Article 2 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
1- Title of an article speaks a lot for itself, inclusion of the word genocide in the title, implicitly states that the article will be able to provide enough proof of this claim.. And if it fails to do so, the word Genocide should only be included in the body of the article,
2- Claim of Genocide is an extremely serious allegation to make, one that needs to be backed up by serious and constant academic research and solid proofs.
3- And that there is a clear line seperating 'Genocide from 'Massacre', in that for a Genocide to have taken place, there has to be the proof that there was a clear commanding structure and a chain of command that expressly strived to commit the acts that would be described as 'Genocide' (see above)...
4- For more information regarding the line that seperates between Genocide from Massacre, pls see the Nuremberg trial transcripts. Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide have been defined as such not on the massacres themselves, but also by proving that there existed such a command structure that effectively and continously strived to commit the acts that constitute a Genocide... Extensive data is available on both of these events, and the legal framework for Genocide acceptance has been clearly established, as the minutes of ICJ trials show.
5- As such, I claim that the article fails to provide such credible proof. In other words, the article fails to deliver the sort of scientific, academic, universal and solid proof that would be neccessary to verify the claim of a Genocide.
6- Moreover, I hold that these claims are being used to only fuel ethnic-hatred:
6.1- The only sovereign country to have recognized this as Genocide is Greece itself, and that only 9 years ago, the choice of day to commemerate these events is also suspect: May 19th, a national holiday in Turkey since the 1920s.
6.2- Even Cyprus, a country that is extremely close to Greece politically as much it is far from Turkey has not recognized this as genocide.
7- In the article itself, there is not enough proof to substantiate any of these claims:
7.1- The article makes many serious allegations for which reliable citations have been missing for months.
7.2- An overwhelming majority (app. 95 percent) of articles on this subject found on the net have been written either by Greeks or published in Greek web-sites,
7.3- References cited in the article are either completely biased, have no-connection to the subject whatsoever, or have questionable backgrounds. Ex. International Association of Genocide Scholars, that is cited in the article has no link in its website whatsoever concerning this issue. The page devoted to this issue by the Australian Institute Of Holocaust and Genocide studies is highly-biased, it claims to have hundreds of photos in its possesion, but none are published, the tone of the writings are clearly racist and not-scientific, and most importantly, has no proof delivered that has been derived using the Scientific Method, none of the allegations are substantiated, no interviews with impartial researchers and the claims are only signed by a Greek author, Panayiotis Diamadis, and not by any other impartial researchers..
7.4- The other 'proofs' are accounts by a handful of foreign diplomats stationed in the Ottoman Empire. Half of them are considered as HEARSAY, accounts of the stories told by other people, and the accounts of the remaining two or three are not enough to substantiate the claim that 350,000 people were systematically killed.
7.5- Most importantly, there is no link, source, proof or whatsoever to substantiate the claim that the Ottoman and Turkish adminstrations had the will, the command structure and the continuity and generalization of acts to commit a Genocide against the Pontus Greeks.
8- Finally, after 90 years of alleged events taking place and the claim of such a high death-toll, there are absolutely NO photos, no mass-graves, not enough corroborated eye-witness stories that would have resulted from the massacre of such a great number of people, even though there are many for the Armenian Genocide that took place at approximately the same time in geographically close lands.
9- And thus, the 'Genocide' title cannot be substantiated because of a lack of sources, and as such it makes this article on Wikipedia 'original research', which is contrary to the policy of Wikipedia.
10- As such, I propose that the title of the article should be changed to 'Pontic Greek Massacres' to conform with the spirit and philosophy of Wikipedia, since, in my opinion, this article was given this name only with the purpose of igniting ethnic-hatred. 
This was in the archive, mitsos.. I just pasted it.. And the discussion is not a formal attempt, so you cannot delete the tags by refering to it...Baristarim 20:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of the word ''Genocide''

message: :My first attempt to answer to all those statements of dispute:
::Mine too, indented...
:1. The term "Pontian Genocide" or "Pontian Greek Geonocide" gives thousands of results in a simple Google search. so, it is a term used. It is recognised by a sovereign state (Greece), 6 US states, and the issue has been raised in another 2 states of the USA and the Australian state of Victoria. so, it has much more recognition than other genocide articles (namely Bosnian genocide, Rwandan genocide, etc) and of the TRNC itself. not to mention that there is a redirect Turkish Cypriot Genocide for events that meet no criteria of genocide (this redirect is now considered for deletion, but "surprisingly" users who want to rename this article, want to keep that redirect...).
::Also, see below
:::Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Be_precise_when_necessary: If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.
:::Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision)#If both titles usually have a different meaning: general principle: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they realistically be expecting to view as a result?
::Google: Pontian genocide: 25,500 vs Pontian massacre: 11,700
:2. There are academic sources in the article, and not only by Greeks. i could just mention Jean De Murat, James L. Barton, etc. There are also eyewitnesses' accounts, quotes, diplomatic papers, etc.
::Also see: "alleged" genocide in intro. WP:Weasel wording...
:3. Labour Battalions and White Death can only have taken place under command. The New York Times' aricles from that time show that it was planned. Lastly, (and the Turkish users must know this) Kemal Ataturk himself said after the events had finished 'We have finally uprooted them!'. Having in mind that he was the chief of the Turkish forces during the last phraese of the genocide, the conclussions are clear.
::I am sorry. I don't follow how exactly from reading "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy", you came to the conclusion that "there has to be the proof that there was a clear commanding structure"? In any case, however, I'll play along; read below...
:4. The fact that for this case there was no 'Nuremberg-like' trial, does not mean that there was not a genocide. there was no trial for the Armenian Genocide, that Turkey also does not recognise.
::Chain of command: Your side's (A.Garnet's) lovely source: Killing trap:
:::...report by Chancellor Hollweg of Austria:
:::The indications are that the Turks plan to eliminate the Greek element as enemies of the state, as they did earlier with the Armenians. The strategy implemented by the Turks is of displacing people to the interior without...
::A.Garnet himself said above "there's a difference between intention and action", addmiting that there was intention.
:5. The article has: 9 eyewitnesses' accounts and quotes (which also show that there was a command-i do not expect to find a command from Kemal himself-apropos, neither in the Nuremberg trial was proof for a command by Hitler himself), 25 notes, 18 books are mentioned in bibliography and further reading, 10 links are provided. I think that the article is more than 'just sourced'... If someone will be willing to look at all of these, he/she may not believe it, but will understand that there is no reason to rename the article.
::Covered.
:6. Acknowledging history is not an attempt to fuel ethnic-hatred:
:6.1. At the moment (as of 2006), Greece is the only sovereign country that recognises this genocide. Recognised it 9 years ago: a quick revision of the events that occured can say the reason of the delay (Treaty of Lausanne, WWII, Greek Civil War, Cold War...). Armenian Genocide was also not recognised from the early beginning... May 19th (1919) is the Turkish national holiday because that date Ataturk landed in Samsun. That date is also the beginning of the end for the Pontian Greeks (whether someone considers the events genocide or 'just massacres', it was the landing of Ataturk in Samsun the starting point for these). PS: noone can monopolise a date!
:6.2. Cyprus, with the ongoing dispute in the divided island, cannot force things with Turkey by recognising the genocide. i think that the case of the Cypriot not-yet-recognition is obvious.
::Hectorian, sorry, but although I too was tempted to provide the above argumentation, I'll just suffice to say: Speculation, lawyering, WP:OR. Please cite your source claiming your quote above: "...these claims are being used to only fuel ethnic-hatred"
:7. As said above, the article is more than 'just sourced':
:7.1. The only missing citation now is this: Turkey maintains that this event was not of a genocidal nature, and the selection of the date of May 19, which is a national holiday in Turkey, is considered by some Turkish politicians to be a provocation .. Better someone provide it, or the sentence will be removed. 
:7.2. 95% is way too much... Even though the Greek authors and articles in greek websites make the majority, there are also 3rd party sources: Austrian, German, American, Jewish, Armenian, etc
:7.3. I am not interested in anyone's POV to consider the Australian Institute Of Holocaust and Genocide studies as biased... It is an Institute in a country other than Greece, and even though the signing author is Greek, the Institute holds the same position in publishing it. The scientific methods and proofs of the institute may be a matter for that institutes article. here the institute is quoted since it consists a recognised and acceptable source.
::Third party sources, I may add:
::#New York Times (thanks to Cretanforever)
::#Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies: the genocide and its aftermath
::#South Carolina Recognition
::#New Jersey Recognition
::#Florida Recognition
::#Massachusetts Recognition
::#Pennsylvania Recognition
::#Illinois recognition
::#"Tagmata Ergasias" 1: Henry Morgentau, Sr., "I was sent to Athens", Garden City N. Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co, 1929
::#"Tagmata Ergasias" 2: Foreign Office Memorandum by Mr. G.W. Rendel on Turkish Massacres and Pesrsecutions of Minorities since the Armistice, March 20, 1922, Paragraph 35
::#"White Death": Foreign Office Memorandum by Mr. G.W. Rendel on Turkish Massacres and Pesrsecutions of Minorities since the Armistice, March 20, 1922, Paragraph 24
::#German organization 1: "Verein der Völkermordgegner e.V"  (i.e. "Union against Genocide")
::#German organization 2: "Mit einer Stimme sprechen" (i.e. "Speaking with One Voice")
::95% are Greek? So you mean to say that there are some 300 more sources which are Greek in the article. Can you please point us to them?
:7.4. Noone is in the position to claim that the foreign diplomats of that time were lying... What is important is that those diplomats (no matter their country of origin) say the same things. In law there is the motto 'one witness, no witness'. here we have more than one... About the number, 2 citations have been provided.
:7.5. See all the above.
::Also, Ambassador's Morgenthau story Garden City, N.Y.: Page & Company, 1918 Page 152:
::The martyrdom of the Greeks, therefore, comprised two periods: that antedating the war, and that which began in the early part of 1915. The first affected chiefly the Greeks on the seacoast of Asia Minor. The second affected those living in Thrace and in the territories surrounding the Sea of Marmora, the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus, and the coast of the Black Sea. These latter, to the extent of several hundred thousand, were sent to the interior of Asia Minor. The Turks adopted almost identically the same procedure against the Greeks as that which they had adopted against the Armenians. They began by incorporating the Greeks into the Ottoman army and then transforming them into labour battalions, using them to build roads in the Caucasus and other scenes of action. These Greek soldiers, just like the Armenians, died by thousands from cold, hunger, and other privations. The same house-to-house searches for hidden weapons took place in the Greek villages, and Greek men and women were beaten and tortured just as were their fellow Armenians. The Greeks had to submit to the same forced requisitions, which amounted in their case, as in the case of the Armenians, merely to plundering on a wholesale scale. The Turks attempted to force the Greek subjects to become Mohammedans; Greek girls, just like Armenian girls, were stolen and taken to Turkish harems and Greek boys were kidnapped and placed in Moslem households.
::Sounds quite 'systematic'...
:8. Photos have been provided. Mass graves cannot be discovered at the moment (and we all know why), not enough corroborated eye-witness stories: how many would be enough?
::Hey, eye-witness stories are 'hearsay'. Remember?
:9. It is not original research, as it can be seen by the 62 sources, links, notes, etc
:10. There is no reason for the article to be renamed. A historic event can be seen as an 'ethnic-hatred' attempt only by those who want to see it as such.
:In conclusion, a possible title 'Pontic Greek Massacres' does not justify the cited numbers, accounts, links, books, etc. The tags should not remain, cause everything (apart from one sentence, which will possibly be deleted) is cited. There was request to cite the number 350,000-it is cited twice. the was a request to cite "White Death"-it is also cited. there had been request to cite the recognition by the US states-all of them cited. The 'disputed tags' do not justify the article's content. this way, someone could dispute even featured articles for no other reason than POV. if something else is disputed in the article, i would be willing to work in order to cite it. Hectorian 22:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Intermingled some indented additions. (edit conflict). •NikoSilver• 23:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why the tags should not stay

message: I think that it is kinda funny that the title of the Srebrenica genocide article is still Srebrenica massacre, after a UN Tribunal passed a sentence calling it a genocide.. I am not saying there is any relation, but I find it a bit bizarre to say the least... In any case... Food for thought... Baristarim 14:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is part of the Bosnian Genocide. an event which is included in that genocide, that's why;) Hectorian 14:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ok.. I see :) Baristarim 15:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Another Genocide

message: This has no relation to this subject, but pls think about it, Greeks, Turks everyone.. I put a post on the Talk:Greco-Turkish_relations... Pls have a look... THAT'S WHERE WE SHOULD START... Baristarim 23:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes we should. However, ostrichism for the past, usually fails to secure peace for the future... •NikoSilver• 00:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Let's cut the crap folks

message: I just noticed that the article Pontic Greeks pipelinks to this article through the term "ethnic cleansing". The article Ethnic cleansing also lists this article (by its current name) as an example. Would it be acceptable to all sides to move this article to a title with the word "genocide" replaced by "ethnic cleansing"? To preoccupy Baristarim's (imho) legalistic approach, I don't know if the term applies here in a legal sense (I'm just an engineering student). I'm just pointing out that the term "ethnic cleansing" has been used in other articles of wikipedia to refer to the events. Could this be a compromise? --Michalis Famelis (talk) 15:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Michali, i think that the term 'ethnic cleansing' would refer to the expulsion and immigration of the Pontians as well. so, this article is a part of ethnic cleansing (the other part being Exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey). Hectorian 15:51, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Ethnic cleansing" as a solution? 

message: 69.134.220.50 ist not a sockpuppet from 62.178.231.146. There are'nt only greek nationalits at the wikipedia. What a fact ist: This genocide is only recognized by the Greeks. Why should this article be neutral? If I would write something, which was only recognized by the turks, it will became a scandal. The most of the notes and the weblinks are from Greece. Also there are'nt any serios links, or is a personal homepage from angelfire.com a serios link?
And another thing: You make propaganda to the club "Mit einer Stimme". Guys, thats the reason why many people does'nt like the Wikipedia.
PS: Sorry for my bad English, I'm not from here... -- 62.178.231.146 15:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: U said: If I would write something, which was only recognized by the turks, it will became a scandal. Guess what, TRNC is only recognised by Turkey and the whole rest of the world talks about it as 'Turkish Occupied Northern Cyprus' or as 'Turkish Puppet State', etc. Has this become a scandal? Apropos, there are many more sources in the article that are not Greek. Check the US states recognition and the link for the UK Parliament and the US Congress. Also the statements of German, Austrian and American diplomats of that time. In addition, there is also a page for the New York Times articles during that period. Perhaps, someone else is making propaganda, not me... PS:the article will be immediately reverted. 12:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes and the TRNC has also a POV-title. You say, the few people from Austria, Germany and America are diplomates? What a lough... and what is with the whole world who does'nt recognize the genocide? The chauvinism from some people are realy insufferable and the only people who reverts the article are from greece and I will not accept that, you can't blog me how much you want! -- 62.178.231.146 13:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  @Tzekai and Hectorian: