Talk:Sri Lanka and state terrorism/Archive 4

message: After doing the research to write the Sri Lankan riots of 1958 article, I have concluded that although the state did not to enough to stop the riots, neither did it instigate them, nor did it engage in retaliatory measures large enough to be considered state terrorism.  I am therefore removing that section.  The Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka page still has a summary of those events, as it should. Tyronen 17:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removing the 1958 riots

message: I added an entry for this incident, there are more details here http://www.peacebrigades.org/lanka/slp9603.html, now it seems the GoSL did eventually undertake investigation and punished some soldiers, but it seems the commander who possibly ordered the massacre was also not punished, so it is a grey area if this is state terrorism or not.
Also it seems we have a lot of such cases which are not outright state terrorism but certainly human rites violations, so perhaps we need to either redefine this article or come up with a different article similar to 'notable attacks by the LTTE' which is not restricted to just state terrorism.--Realstarslayer 16:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it from this list per your comment RaveenS 13:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kumarapuram Incident 

message: Please add any further sources or if any of the sources mentioned in the reference can be located would be helpful. Many of them are no longer available on line such as the British Refugee Council newsletters, they only go as far back as 1996 now, or the AP article.--Realstarslayer 20:42, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nagerkovil school bombing 

message: hi RaveenS,
I'm not so sure we want to use the term 'massacre' for each and every incident, for one it comes off as a POV and secondly it waters down the meaning of true massacres. I think it would be better to use a term that describes the actuall attack.. such as church/school bombing, Trincomalee students 'shot and killed' or executed, etc. Likewise for the articles being created for each of the main incidents.--Realstarslayer 04:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Sabra_and_Shatilla_Massacre, there are lot of articles on masscares in Wikipedia. Lebenese section is full of them. If we google these masscres as I have called them, you will get a wealth of information, so the terms are not original researcg but let us continue this discussion nayway. ThanksRaveenS 13:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok we can leave it for now then if there is a precedent with other incidents. Regards --Realstarslayer 15:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Didn't notice you changed them already, I think that's fine the way it is now, more accurate.--Realstarslayer 15:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The term 'Massacre' 

message: I notice that my additions about several events in the 1990s were removed without warning.  This does not seem to me appropriate behavior unless the edits were inaccurate, which they were not.  They had citations from a neutral source (Human Rights Watch) and were prominent enough to be discussed in HRW's annual reports (more than once, for some of them.)  Please in future do not delete material wholesale without discussing first unless it is clearly inaccurate and/or irrelevant. Tyronen 22:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see discussion in your talk page regarding this. This is about time that an admin will be deciding whether to keep this article or delete. Already people have raised questions as to even the current list has items that can be legally defined as state terrorism. If an Admin deletes this article then there is no point in further discussion. In the to do list let is come up with a strict criteria before any incident can be added. Let' us discuss items before adding because if we are to add all masscres by the Sri lankan government this list will have over 100+ entries. Just like the massacres by the LTTE article it will eventually get deleted anyway. Just my points.RaveenS 00:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If that's going to be your attitude, I have changed my position to support deletion of this page and said so on the afd. Tyronen 03:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hi Tyronen, not sure if you are misunderstanding his stand? Or maybe I am misunderstanding what you would like to with the page? I think all he wants is to make sure that what is added can actually be considered state terrorism, so that it doesn't become a farce like the current 'terrorist attacks of the ltte' page. So I am not sure why you would want this page deleted? Regards--Realstarslayer 04:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Additions removed

message: I just entered a basic description, but I think this one probably deserves a main article of its own. Also I am not sure what year to put it under, the victims in the grave are thought to be 'disappeared' from 1996, but the graves were discovered in 1998.
--Realstarslayer 02:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chemmani mass graves 

message: It can be a seperate article on its own as we have a pattern of attacks now, starting from the attack on Oxfam during CBK's time to current massacre of a french NGO's workers then that article canbe linked to thsi oneRaveenS
::The title of the article may be Attack on NGO workers in Sri LankaRaveenS
:::The article also should be linked to NGO article on a subsection dealing with attack on NGO workers in Sudan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka .RaveenS 14:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Attack on [[NGO]] workers in Sri Lanka

message: OK They burned to the ground certain chosen targets - including the Jaffna Public Library, with its 95,000 volumes and priceless manuscripts, a Hindu temple, the office and machinery of the independent Tamil daily newspaper Eelanadu. Four people were killed outright. No mention of this appeared in the national newspapers, not even the burning of the Library, the symbol of the Tamils' cultural identity. The government delayed bringing in emergency rule until 2 June, by which time key targets had been destroyed.’’   - Nancy Murray, the State against the Tamils in Sri Lanka - Racism and the Authoritarian State - Race & Class , Summer 1984 now Nancy Murray is no Monk hating Eelamist :)) she is Nancy Murray, Director Bill of Rights Education Project in Massachusetts, American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU). Thanks RaveenS 21:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: where does it say, those people were killed by the police ?? you are talking about the state-terrorism, for that you have to prove the direct involvement of the government. Just by quoting things which does not explain SL govenments involvement is not going to prove you at all..Blaming government for its inaction is a one thing,and accussing them for terror is a totally different thing.
--Iwazaki 00:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

text: So ??? WHERE IS THE USAGE OF TERRORISM ?? Are you saying racism and terrorism are synonymous ?? Any racist will automatically become a terrorist ??
for starters,here we are discussing "so-called state terrorism".So please 
get your path correct,before anything.
thanks Iwazaki 09:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Infact the whole quote from Nancy Murray is With several high ranking Sinhalese security officers and two cabinet ministers, Cyril Mathew and Gamini Dissanayake (both self confessed Sinhala supremacists), present in the town (Jaffna), uniformed security men and plainclothes thugs carried out some well organised acts of destruction. They burned to the ground certain chosen targets - including the Jaffna Public Library, with its 95,000 volumes and priceless manuscripts, a Hindu temple, the office and machinery of the independent Tamil daily newspaper Eelanadu. Four people were killed outright. No mention of this appeared in the national newspapers, not even the burning of the Library, the symbol of the Tamils' cultural identity. The government delayed bringing in emergency rule until 2 June, by which time key targets had been destroyed.’’   - Nancy Murray, the State against the Tamils in Sri Lanka - Racism and the Authoritarian State - Race & Class , Summer 1984 Hope this helps. RaveenS 04:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not quite. so the alleged involvement of poloce in the killing in not proved.The aricle only says 4 died outright, and dont even use the word police here.And gamini Dissanayake is certainly not a sinhala supremacist,another hypothesis !! could you please give me some proof, other than "she said so" or "he said so" ..And she degraded that article by using the baseless accusations,like supremacist,without giving any facts at all !!! So much for a neutral source !! Iwazaki 09:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

text: You have removed the "police" from it..Well i think thats the correct decision as these two articles contradict how those people died.So for time being lets have it like this..
--Iwazaki 11:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jaffna Library

message: Well just going through the article I can see issues that might want to be addressed going into the future, these issues are probably causes for disagreements with other editors about the usefulness of the article and the providence of the editors etc etc.
Well it could just be me or does the article relate to terrorism very mild? I think it requires alot of background knowledge on the conflict and is thus very shallow. Maybe we should delve into causes for State Terrorism and why certain incidents constitute terrorism?--Sharz 11:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Be my guest, go ahead. ThanksRaveenS 23:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Revamp?

message: I will be creating another article called Assassinations attributed to the Sri Lankan government forces to clean up this article. This is an attempt at assuring that this article ceases to be the point of POV editing regarding these controversial incidents.RaveenS 17:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: *REMOVED chemmani and other rape incidents as these done by individuals and state did not encourage them to do it...State did not provide comfort women to forces.
* state did not as a whole involve in the 1983 riots, they even helped the victims.
* state did not burn the Jaffna library ..Ministers were in Jaffna to support tamil UNPers who were contesting in the election..And these accusations were never proven, mostly come form tamil propaganda and some sinhalese who are funded by NGO
* World tamil Conference had nothing to do with state terrorism...In fact it has to do with tamil terrorism since it has been proved that tamil militants were there and even made speeches in the event, police had every right to be there..incident was unfortunate, but state has nothing to do with it.
this will do it for now
--Iwazaki  会話。討論 01:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am sorry say that Black July riots was fits the definition of State terrorism and the Burning of Jaffna library too fits State terrorism. About Chammani I agree. Thanks RaveenS 20:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  disputed 

message: There was lots of unused links cited as the refs here. So I did some cleaning jobs and replaced necessary links as inline references. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ walkie-talkie 10:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untidy refs 

message: How is Sangam a reliable source? Also how is NESOHR a reliable source? Pubuman 13:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues with sources, yet again! 

message: Shouldnt this article at best be titled ALLEGED State Terrorism, considering all the instances displayed are alegations and never been attributed to the Sri Lankan government?Pubuman 15:05, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wait a minute 

message: Hey everybody, hey Thusiyan!
About the picture :Image:09_06_06_435.jpg - this is a very interesting story, because the case is the exact parallel and opposite to the quarrel over this picture in the article Sri Lankan Civil War. Whereas over there, pro-Sinhala guys are in favor of keeping the pic whereas pro-Tamil ones want to get rid of it, here it's just the other way round.
Dear people, this is ridiculous. It proves that you are only trying to have these pix included to create a bad image for the respective opponents. Wikpedia shouldn't be a place for your conflicts.
I say: Let's get rid of all the gory pix so that children etc. can read WP articles without getting traumatized. Krankman 09:40, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done isint it ? good Taprobanus 22:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you completely! But to keep wikipedia neutral, if that photo is shown, why is there opposition to this one? I am actually against both photos being shown, as they are just too gory. If they want to include a link to the photos then fine, but I would like to see the photo removed from The Sri Lankan Civil War article as well. In the interest of neutrality, I believe both should be removed! Thusiyan 14:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We are amenable to discussion, we listen to reason and nuetral editors so we removed it but others have taken it to mediation. It just goes to make the case for us that what we are doing is correct Taprobanus 16:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Gory Picture

message: Just wanted to raise a point, as to whether torture and rape, committed by people who are controlled by the state, would come under, "state terror"? It's just a question really and wanted to discuss it with others. Any views? Thusiyan 14:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Again someone has to say it, we cannot make the case for the case. It has to be attested as state terrorism in an encylopedia article But if a resercher says that particular torture or rape is state terror then we include it here. What is more important than this major atticle is garss roots articles on each and every war crime and state terror inSri Lanka. We need hundreds of them before a large article like this will ever become stable. Thanks Taprobanus 16:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Torture? 

message: I can see controversy for this, so started a new topic. Actually this is different from all those flight incidents listed above. Let's look at the situation.
These people were pretty much stuck. The army had warned them not to use the lagoon, the LTTE said do not use Elephant Pass. They had a lack of choices. BUT, for about a year prior to the massacre, people crossed the lagoon, within sight of army sentries, occasionally shelled, but for the most part ignored. 
2 types of boats were used to cross, for simplicity they could be labelled as fast and slow. A convoy of boats were crossing the lagoon on the night of the incident, as usual. To cut a long story short, people thought to be tiger helpers, who were unarmed (according to witnesses), in a fast boat saw a navy gun boat and sped away. The navy gave chase but gave up and continuosly fired at the convoy for HALF AN HOUR, even though they received NO GUNFIRE in retur. The navy came up to the slower boats, boarded them, SAW THEY WERE ALL CIVILIANS, and proceded to attack them with knives and guns. They even stole jewellery off dead bodies.
Now this is significantly different from those incidents you listed. They did not board the planes, see that they were civilians and massacre them! This information has all been taken from the UTHR report, a NEUTRAL organisation, that has criticised both sides! See here http://www.uthr.org/Reports/Report10/chapter0.htm
Thusiyan 18:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But did some one call it State terrorism or war crimes ? Taprobanus 20:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hmmm, it seems a bit weird to me that once anyone says it's a war crime, it is one. Just because no-one says it is, does it make it any less of a crime? But I guess a standard is needed... Then how about starting an article entitled "Massacres attributed to the Sri Lankan Government/Army", or even "Attrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Army", that way incidents of rape and torture, as well as other atrocities can be recorded? I can immediately think of many incidents to be noted there which aren't all listed together in an article. Thusiyan 21:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Jaffna lagoon massacre]]