Talk:Operation Medak Pocket/Archive 2

message: I don't think it's too bad.  At the very least we can find some common ground between the two sides.  I mean both sides can agree on the time, the names, some of the descriptions and background.  Things can be worse... much much worse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Armenian_Genocide
We can structure the article based a controversial topic style and show the facts seperate from the approach taken by both sides of the conflict.
(Croatian government and the UN/Canadian one).
#Background
#UN/Canada Side
#Croatian Side
#Aftermath
I think that's the least we can do right now.  
(I won't merge the articles, but I change the formatting on this one.)
What do you think Ceha & Jadger?
--P-Chan 06:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no indication anywhere that the Canadian government chose to suppress the information due to those reasons.  If you look at the statements on the Canadian side... very different reasons were given.  (Didn't want to show Canadians in danger, and didn't want to show Canadians were killing in case it was mixed up civilian brutality, which was what Somalia was all about).  The racist comment makes no sense here, since most of the troops were caucasian.  And an anti religous statement?  Generally, Canadians are not that religious to begin with, has had no history of sectarian violence on the topic and there are a significant # of catholics in the nation anyways.  As for unitarian?  You may have to elaborate on the meaning of that.
--P-Chan 22:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal

message: What evidence is there that 11 UN troops were killed?
I thought they were French before because no Canadians died, but I can't seem to find any mention of this anywhere.  The figure of 11 shouldn't be there unless there is some evidence of it.
--P-Chan 13:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (I just asked the author of the 11 killed entry to confirm.)--P-Chan 13:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently an unsigned user placed the 11 killed entry on the article, which makes me rather suspicious.  I'm fairly certain that if anyone on the UN side died in that battle, that it would have been easily verified through articles online.  Because such a critical error has managed to stay on the article for so long (3 months without detection), there is a good chance that there may be other critical errors here as well.  I'm not an expert on this topic, so I can't tell.  All the changes that I've made so far have been based on what I've read in the last few days.  I think we should put a "Needs attention" tag on this until we can thoroughly go through the facts in this article.  --P-Chan 20:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, but that soldiers died in the wars which were fought 100 years ago. What hapens in any army today when some of its members is killed? Do they send a letter of condolance to its family? If 30 soldiers went missing would not some news went out at least in newspapers?
--Ceha 21:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: UN deaths

message: the table at the start of article places the Canadian/UN forces under the same heading as the serbian forces, which creates a perhaps unintentional POV attack. As I am not that skilled at the particulars of the codes on wikipedia, can someone else create it so that the UN forces were a 3rd side.
--Jadger 03:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: table at start of article

message: I'm not sure if he did it itensionaly or not, but as the questions were aimed at me I'll try to answer it.
Qute;
"I tried to find stuff as well from the croatian side, and guess what, no luck. I wonder why? is it because it is not documented or proven, which is the opposite of the Canadian version.
please, because a nation is not recognized does not mean it does not have control of its land. for instance, Taiwan has not been recognized by a single nation, yet it is recognized that China does not have control of this land and its law and government has no role in Taiwan, yet it is officially a part of China. Serbian Krajina was exactly the same way.
OMG, I cannot believe you just siad: "only Serbs had the weapons" how did the Croatians start the Medak pocket offensive without guns? you yourself recognized that they did in fact have weapons, as a matter of fact, Croatia had been buying the former soviet bloc weapons through the former east germany.
Oh wow, you've run out of actual arguments so you are starting to libel and defame me? calling me a Serbian sympathizer.
where do you keep getting these numbers? 60% of population was Croatian? come on, cite a source. and because the Serbs ejected Croatians does not mean that the Croatians can move in and start burning Serb homes and start killing them if they refuse to move."
:Croatian version denies any involment with the battle with Canadians. If there was a battle, Canadian side should show evidences of it. I did not see it till now. Paralell with China/Taiwan is also partialy wrong, as goverment of People's Republic China did not ever had control over that island. Croatian forces (police) had control at that territory at the begining of the war. Also Taiwan was at some point international representative of whole China. RSK was never in that position.
:As for embargo, I'll clarify you a little bit:) Croatian forces fought against JNA which was 4th army in whole Europe. Croatia bought its weapons on black market, and by doing that it was breaking the UN-embargo. UN-embargo was puted at the time when only JNA was armed. I'm sorry to say that but when somebody has guns and other does not, what is the purpose of embargo? That that second guy gets kill? In Bosnia only Serbs had guns (also at the begining) British government threathen with veto when anybody tried to lift embargo (which would allowed Bosniaks to arm themselves). Bosnian Serbs killed 200 000 Boniaks. 
:Look I don't think that you are a bad person, but I think that you do not have all of informations. (you still did not answer Srebrenica question) And in the first statment I did not called you Serbian simpatizer, but stated that you have statments which are similar to theirs. Please recive my apology if I offended you, that was never my intention. If I had so low opinion of you I would not participate in this discussion nor would be talkin to you right now.
:As for percentage there is census of 1991. No one has the right to kill somebody, no matter what that somebody done to him. The point was that Serbs did not have rights to secide, not constitutional, not demograficall... As I asked you before, what would Canadian goverment do if one village stoped paying its tax, started blocking trafic and killing its citizens. How many of them would end up in jail?
--Ceha 21:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted Jadgers comments?

message: OK, I don't understand the argument that because the Canadians were occupying positions within a few metres of the Serbs that they were taking the Serbian side in this matter.  This was the first step in a Cease-Fire agreement that both sides CLEARLY agreed to! Yes, it's in official UN documentation (you can request copies of many of these documents from the UN and they are in several transcripts from the International War Crimes Tribunal).  And yes the CROATIANS AGREED to the Canadian soldiers occupying the Serbian lines as the first step in this cease-fire.  The agreement that was signed by ALL sides stated that the first step would be for the Canadians to occupy the Serbian lines, then the second step would be for the Canadians to open a corridor between the two front lines and finally, the third step was for them to move into the Croatian lines. The Canadian infantry move into the Serbian lines shouldn't have been viewed as hostile because the Croats knew it was going to happen and had signed a cease-fire. Apparently this didn't mean anything to them however, as they began firing on the Canadian soldiers. Now, I am willing to admit that perhaps the high-level Croatian authorities didn't communicate this fact to the Croatian troops on the front lines, so they may have misinterpreted the Canadian advancement and (at the front-line level) have been justified in firing at the Serbian/Canadian positions.  This doesn't negate the fact that there is UN documentation that proves the Croatian commanders knew of this Canadian movement in advance and should have told their troops not to fire... And Croatian mis-communication or not, once the Canadian soldiers were under fire, they had every right to return fire.
This brings me to my second point:  Even after this initial 15 hour engagement ended the Croatians agreed to yet another cease-fire and agreed to allow the Canadian soldiers to advance into their territory the next day at 12h00.  However, when the Canadians tried to move forward the next day, as agreed, they were once again stopped by a Croatian army roadblock. This was in total contradiction to their agreement.  Now, of course the Croatian government would lie to their people and tell them that these agreement were never in place and they never fired-upon or stopped any Canadian soldiers. It's in the Croatian government's best interest to do this because the reason the Canadians were being held up, according to the International War-Crimes Tribunal (an organization that Croatia supports by the way), is because the Croat soldiers were trying to delay the UN's discovery of a small massacre of Serbs behind their lines.  Now once again, I don't want to seem biased. I'm not saying there were no Serbian war crimes or massacres of Croatians. There were. In all wars both sides usually commit atrocities.  But the fact is, that in regards to the Medak Pocket and what occured behind the Croatian lines, we are not talking about Serb war crimes (of which there were many), we are talking about Croatian war crimes.  I don't know why it's so hard for some Croatians to admit that any of their military commanders could have commited these attrocities... And in order to help deny any such possibility, they have to deny any actions their soldiers may have taken against the Canadian UN troops to delay their advancement.
Also, to address some of the continual requests for the Canadian side to "prove their story".  I don't know how they can do that any more than they have.  The UN agrees that this event took place (proven by their documentation and awarding of the Force Commanders Medal to the Canadian forces), and it is also referenced in many papers filed with the International War-Crimes Tribunal. It's also been reported by an international pool of reporters that were near the front lines in Medak. I understand that those of you who are calling for this proof are skeptical of these sources but what else can the Canadians say.  You don't accept the words of the Canadian soldiers, the Canadian Government, the UN, the international media, or the War-Crimes Tribunal.  On the other hand, what proof does the Croatian side present, besides the words of their own government and media? At least the Canadian side has international backing!
- medic101
:My notion of Canadian soldiers being near the Serbian ones were not in context when they were supposed to establish demilitarized zone. If you read Professionalism under fire, you can see that the center of Canadian peacekeepers was few meters from Serbian positions. That was my alusion. Serbs granated town of Gospić from that position...
:As for Croatian goverment forces slowing down the demilitarisation, official version is that they done that to stop reentering Serbian entrence in the pocket. Some skrimishes which happened at that time were (this was an official version) consequence of Canadian hurrying of Croatian goverment forces. Do you have any page on the web which shows original agreement with original lines in wich Croatian forces should withdrow? I did not read the original, just comments of it (which were made by Croatian officials).
:As for war crimes, nobody denise them, and they should be punished (as Croatian court have done with Norac).  
--Ceha 11:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Accusation made on the ICTY, aren't still proven. Those cases aren't finished yet... I'm skeptical, because all of the informations comes from one source... Look, there is no doubt that there was a crime in Medak pocket, which should be punished. Canadian participation in the battle is what is questionable. That battle is something which went unnoticed by the Serbian forces (and they were Croatian enemies, which would jump gladly on such a thing), and was a secret till 1996. I'm just curious have could that have happened?
--Ceha 12:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok, everbody can make a mistake. I'm sorry if it seems that I'm blackening involments of Canadian forces through the world, it tooks a lot of guts to travel to some other part of the world and risk your life for somebody you don't know. I'm just saying which were problems in this case... And I'm always willing to compromise. Just give me something solid, something I can work on.
PS: I'm glad that you are somebody normal to which I can talk.
PPS: and I also have a university educational level, Bachelor of Computer Science, University of Zagreb. Although I don't think that counts for something, persons are what they are according to theirs deeds, not the level of education
--Ceha 12:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The truth is probably in the middle 

message: First, control of self-proclaimed RSK on the territory of Medak Pocket was only tempory as RSK was it self unrecognazed creation wich lasted only temporaly itself.
Second, Croatian forces entered the pocket. Pocket was on territory of RH and that is a good discreption. 
Third, my note is perfectly correct. Why is it changed?
Forth, if you are speaking of Croatian version than Croatian version should be heard. Croatian version includes inefficienty of Canadian troops and primary goal of Operation Medak Pocket (defense of Gospić). In Canada this skrimishes, are known as the biggest battle after ww2? Why should that be hidden? As for your comment of Croatian version, can you give me some document from UN to back up your claims? No? Then what is it doing in the article? Internationaly accepted version of events? Please give me source, that UN claims that.
As for UN Commision of Experts, for that crimes there is still a trial? Then how can it be 100% sure (by this I'm not saying that the crimes did not happend, but I am saying that there should be a trial over first, so we could name the guilty ones).
Last sentence was highly bias. It puts all the blame on RH goverment, whith the trials not yet over.
As for your comment of that 80 years old women she was filmed a few days before by Serbian television with the machine gun in hers arms quoting that no Croats will ever enter that village. In the UN report there is no mention how many of casulties were civilian ones. This article is better informed than that UN report?
--Ceha 3:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is ridiculous; who made you the authority on the Croatian War, may I ask?  What on earth do you know about Croatia and what happened there?  You speak so arrogantly about these things as if you have the complete unassailable truth, when no one in fact has that regardless of what they think they know.  And you can't simply assume that because you can't find information supporting the Croatian point of view online and in the English language that it doesn't exist--you're making the typical Anglophone mistake in assuming that everything of importance has been meticulously translated to English and made available on the web.  Besides, everything you've said here is pretty much verbatim what Canadian media has been reporting on the subject for the last 15 years, so it's no secret where you're getting your "facts" from.  Normally when one is far-removed from an event and has conflicting information, a very cautious and conservative approach to the topic at hand is most sensible.  It seems to me you're just looking for someone else besides the Poles to antagonize. --AHrvojic 16:14, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your adolescent nonsense has been coming up on my watchlist for weeks now, even when you called Toronto a "shithole" (as a native, I beg to differ).  Those UN "facts" you keep referring to are from the ICTY *prosecution* (there are *two* sides, remember?) doing its job--the mere existence of indictments does not imply guilt on all counts, which you seem to have great difficulty understanding.  Everything else you've said here comes from unsophisticated Canadian sources that you believe to be sacrosanct.  Professionalism under Fire?  What populist trash.  Same goes for Macleans and The Star.  A lot of ink for a military operation that Canada had no real significant role in, though typical of the Canadian tendency to desperately scrape together every last crumb that could be construed as some sort of past glory.  Canada, like every other country on earth, has its own political interests and to believe that Canadian sources are inherently more credible than Croatian sources is pure naivete.  Ceha has spent a very long time patiently trying to explain "the other side" of things to you, but you refuse to take him seriously and tease him about his English instead.  Stop bullying and show some respect. --AHrvojic 02:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't know that 2 gentelments, so insted of reverting that line you could just pointed that out to me. As for reintegration and return of refugies, have you read that link that you gave me? Quote; "UNPROFOR's mandate was to ensure that the three "United Nations Protected Areas" (UNPAs) in Croatia were demilitarized and that all persons residing in them were protected from fear of armed attack." [] ? Nobody ask UNPROFOR to wage war for Croatia. Goal of the mision was return of the refugies. If all refugies returned, Serbs would again became a minority in that territory. UNPROFOR mission also included respect for Croatian souverenity. Please read the link one more time...
As for temporary, it means that that creation was temporary. It was never given international recognision nor was recognised as state by any other country. Word temporary in this context means that internationaly recognised Republic of Croatia did not had control over one part of its country some time. Please do not try to give credit to something what was unrecognized by the whole world.
As for taking something out of the contex, I think you are wrong. If Canadian goverment boost itself that was a greatest battle after the Korean war, I can use that frase and prove it that it is not. If I use one sentence, what is the rule you should not qoute me? Please explain what do you think by taking something out of the contex? That Canadian statments should be seen only in positive light?
I'm not trying to force any of my changes. If I would be doing that, I would not have this discussion with you, nor leave some of your changes.
You are talking about one article in Canadian newspapers in wich one of the interviewed Persons (Calvin) was fired shortly after that mission. And I don't see that Gen. Jean Cot had any statments in the text?
You say, you know? Is that a POV? There is a trial on ICTY. Before that is over that are only suspicions. I don't see what is wrong with my formulation?
Ok, now you are calling me a war criminal? And you were insoulted when I called you a Serbian sympatiser?? I did not take any part in that battle. I have only 24 years and at that time I was to young to do anything. But I'm curious now. What is your background? What have you done there (if you were there?) As for that granma death, Serbian television reported hers "heroic" death.
I'm starting to lower my opinion of you. I've given you a thousand questions and most of it is still unanswered. If you are wrong (which is obvious as in Srebrenica and Žepa case) why you don't admit it. Also it would be great if you stoped only to think how to promote Canadian Army (I'm affraid that you are highly bias in this thing) and try to open yourself to other sources. How can you achive NPOV, when you are not even replying to questions of the person whom you discouss?
--Ceha 19:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

text: And who do you think the UN is?  How can an organization directed by a handful of powerful member countries, each agitating for its own political interests and occasionally winning them, be a completely neutral force?  And that's assuming the UN is some sort of monolithic one-minded entity instead of the extremely complex and often self-contradictory human organization it is.  Once again, indictments are not facts and the one other linked report submitted *under the direction* of the UN was evidently overseen by Canadians (a quick Google confirms that William J. Fenrick is also Canadian)--hardly impartial.  This article definitely wouldn't be complete without those sources, but one must always be critical and present them cautiously, rather than at face value.  --AHrvojic 04:32, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes in Croatian version

message: Hi,
Someone posted an RfC on this article. They said this article has a POV/edit war dispute. As far as I can tell, that's an accurate description.
I have seen this happen too many times to count, especially with war-related articles. Two factions with vastly different interpretations on an event start bickering. Now you can choose to (1) spend the rest of your life worrying about this one article on Wikipedia, or (2) get over it. You will never be able to prove that your side is correct. Once you accept that and are ready to move on, you can start with the following:
* Create one (1) section per point of view. 
* Do not edit the section belonging to the opposite side. Counter their criticisms if you like, but do it in your own section.
* Do not include a single word from an invalid source. See this for details.
Hopefully you are all mature enough to navigate around this problem. If you have any further questions, you may leave a note on my talk page.
Good luck,
 Cdcon  21:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RfC reply