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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Mailer Diablo 15:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

State terrorism in Sri Lanka

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  • DeleteYou can't challenege a democratically elected government's actions on a credible web page. If these are criminal acts, somebody must take the government to International courts but nobody has challenged so. Please remove, iut is a disgrace to wikipedia. Sri lanka government is not a terrorist group.
Hitler was democratically elected in Nazi Germany too. His regime was tried in international court only after he was defeated. This argument is weak. Milton Obote was democratically elected in Uganda but his regime commited war crimes against its own people.Democratically elected does not prevent governments from misbehacing, commiting war crimes or even attempting genocideRaveenS 03:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteThis is a disgraceful article, has not factually correct. Most are not related to any terrorism but the government's reaction to terrorists atrocities, in protecting the country's people.

JJ

Again a weak argument, 1983 pogoram Black July was not protecting the country against teerorist. It was about slaughter of civiliansRaveenS 03:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Who is this voter, is this someone who has voted here already ? I raise the question as this person has not revelaed his/her identity, it should be discountedRaveenS 14:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It was added by Jillball, who strangely enough had the opposite to sat at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LTTE massacres WilyD 17:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteThis article consists of a mixture of factual inaccuracies and historical material not related to its title, "State Terrorism in Sri Lanka". Most incidents described here are historically inaccurate and/or cannot be defined as state terrorism defined by Wikipedia as follows

State terrorism is a controversial term (see:State terrorism. Confines and definition), which means violence against civilians perpetrated by a national government or proxy state.
Care should be taken to differentiate state terrorism from acts of violence carried out by government agents which are not specified by government policy. A murder carried out by a policeman, for example, is not considered state terrorism unless the government sanctioned the action.
Similarly your edits on LTTE should be looked at in the same light. Were certain controversial incidents comitted by the LTTE or not ? Was it LTTE policy or was it members of the LTTE doing it on their own. You seem to have one set of arguments for sham democracies and another for non-state actors. Trincomanb 22:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All this material is covered by State Terrorism page and relevant hyperlinks in Sri Lanka section. This is a POV fork containing material covered in other articles but done to maintain a particular POV. Ref: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#POV_forks. Ruchiraw 00:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The sole incident of proven state terrorism (involving violence against civilians with sanction of the government at the time) is the entry relating to July 1983 riots.This is covered in entry on Sri Lanka in State terrorism page which hyperlinks to Black July page. Sole purpose of this page appears to be to portray Sri Lanka as a terrorist state by creating a huge list of falsities, irrelevancies and distortions(which I have highlighted on the talk page). The POV of the whole page is against Sri Lanka. Ruchiraw 23:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are other proven incidents of state terrorism and ethnic cleansing - namely the chasing of Tamil civillians from Manal Aru (now called Weli Oya by the govt. assisted Sinhala settlers). It was stated govt. policy to empty the corridor between North and Eastern province of Tamils. Trincomanb 22:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It doesnt meet the agreed wikipedia definition of statet terrorismRuchiraw 02:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It is true that most of the incidents before 1981 cannot really be called "terrorism". This, however, merely points to renaming the article rather than deleting it. A listing of grievances by Tamils against Sri Lanka is a legitimate subject - we have an entire article, Notable attacks by the LTTE containing the reverse.
Hi Tyronen. What do you propose renaming this article. The hyperlink from state terrorism would need to be reviewed if it is not dealing with state terrorismRuchiraw 06:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

:::Thinking about it, I propose the article be split into two. The first could be called "Beginnings of ethnic tension in Sri Lanka" and should be linked to from Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka as the main article of its 'Background' section. The second should deal entirely with 1983 and after incidents, and that should stay as is, in the state terrorism section. Tyronen 16:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

:::: By now, the article has been sufficiently cleaned up that most of the earlier concerns have been addressed. The material on events that weren't violent, or weren't the direct doing of the state, has been removed. Tyronen 17:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete - I am changing my position. Some of the users editing the page do not appear to be receptive to anyone's edits but their own. A page that a user seems to regard as their property can never be a legitimate page on Wikipedia. Tyronen 03:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is about the AFD of the above said article not about any editors conduct. In WIKI there is a dispute resolution process to solve those problems. Although a reasonable discussion secession has been opened to discuss the merits of edits to this controversial article. If we are to delete articles for alleged conduct of editors then this will not be wikipedia at all. Book burning is not the solution for personal flare ups. Anyway this article still might be deleted and all what I am doing is to make it more NPOV to keep it. If you have a problem with that you can discuss that with me RaveenS 13:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No proper argument given for Delete of the article hence discount abouve voteRaveenS 13:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - if reliable soucres are not cited. Apart from the post 1983 incidents, not a single source has been cited. This violates WP:V. Of the sources that have been cited, I'm not sure they adhere to WP:RS. Even if article is renamed as suggested above, it will still violate WP:V and WP:RS . In any case it's certainly not WP:NPOV. --snowolfd4 08:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reliable sources are cited - such as Amnesty International ... the article does most assuredly not violate WP:V - sections may, but that's an issue for editing, not for AfD WilyD 12:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think any reasonable person will consider websites such as tamilnation.org, wsws.org relaible sources? (I'm looking at the curecnt headline on wsws.org "Appeasement 2006: Europe capitulates to American-Israeli aggression" ???) Besides do stuff like "Descriminatory Unversity enrolment laws passed" constitute terrorism? Most instances cited are similarly either not terrorism to any strech of the word, or there are no reliable sources cited that say the government was involed in order to make it state terrorism. --snowolfd4 09:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think the BBC is a reliable source. I think UNESCO is a reliable source. I think WSWS is a reliable source for their own allegations. If you'll read the article and look at how references are used, you'll see that although a few questionable references are used, they're used in appropriate contexts, and other more reliable sources are used in other contexts. Since the facts in the cases are generally disputed, of course you can trapse about saying The allegations of group X are not proven and this is made clear in the article - if you have a problem with the wording, that can be addressed. If you say Every article that contains any disputed or unproven allegation should be deleted, Hume would tell us we need to delete the whole encyclopaedia. WP:NPOV covers pretty well how to deal with these situations, and the article is doing a reasonable job thus far, and is still working towards perfection, which is acceptable for a new article. If you have a problem with a specifc citation bring it up on the talk page, but to suggest that the BBC is not a reputable source is disingenious. WilyD 11:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just to add to that out of the pro-Tamil sites tamilnation.org does a very good job of citing neutral or third party sources to backup their arguments, with all the articles that I have read there anyway. the only problem I have is that many of the incidents are so old that the reference material cannot be easily obtained, other than by ordering through news archives etc.--Realstarslayer 17:44, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - This article is in keeping with the consensus in the State terrorism page to peel of individual sections so as to keep edit wars in the main page to a minimum. Also keeping with the definition of State terrorism this article is not NPOV. If this is NPOV then Armenian Genocide and Holocaoust all are NPOV. It is contraversial subject but needs to be improved with proper discussion and reference. Huracane 12:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Millions dies in Rwanda, Holocaust, Armenian genocide. Yet it has a smaller section on state terrorism than Sri Lanka where at maximum a few thousands may have died. hmmmmmmmmmm, POV or NPOV is driving the section on Sri lanka.Ruchiraw 05:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article on the Battle of Tours is shorter than the article on Seinfeld. The article State terrorism doesn't have an undue emphasis on Sri Lanka. The article State terrorism in Sri Lanka has a due emphisis on Sri Lanka. The depth of Wikipedia's coverage is pretty uneven, but that's not a reason to delete content, but rather to add the missing content. WilyD 11:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This article is apparently just spun off from the State terrorism due to size, but let's reiterate:
    • The articles does cite some reliable sources. Thus the article passes WP:V, the penultimate criterion. Sections may not, but that means the article needs to be improved not deleted
    • Sections may violate WP:NPOV - this again is a cause for editing. Articles that are irredeemably unNPOV might be argued for deletion, but that isn't the case here - a few choice edits can easily reduce the violations of NPOV to less than the average article, and way less than the average article on a contraversial subject.
    • If the title is poorly choosen, that's not an appropriate rationnal for deleting the article - it's an appropriate rational for moving the article.
    • If specific sources are deemed unreliable, most likely new ones can be found. Not all of the sources are unreliable.
In general, the bringing of this article to WP:AFD is a mistake. The article has issues, but no issues that should be addressed here. Articles should only be deleted if they contain no information worth preserving, unless an appropriate merge target can be found. Since the State terrorism article is quite large, there really isn't an appropriate merge target, so the proper course of action is to keep the article, and clean it up. WilyD 12:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There maybe some controversial statements here and there but I believe with some effort the proper references could be in place. This is whole procedure is an attempt to muzzle vast amounts of human rights abuses comitted by the SL government and I do hope people can see through this. Trincomanb 22:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I also dont mind chamging the title of this article to Notable human rights violations attributed to Sri Lankan governmentsRaveenS 14:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The page itself should exist, it makes more sense to have a separate page than to have all this crammed in with the general State terrorism page. However we can discuss indivdual items.--Realstarslayer 04:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As others have commented I see no problem in renaming the article, either that or creating a stub that covers more general human rights violations and only leave those acts that have been positively deemed 'state terrorism' on this page.--Realstarslayer 17:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This violates WP:NOR (the application of a term (state terrorism) which is controversial (POV) in itself and not well defined; and most important: a "Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position"), WP:V (lack of sufficient reputable citations) and WP:NPOV (this article will always be POV as its topic name is POV, if it would have been called "Sri Lanka Conflict" or something it could have been NPOV (on the condition it would have been completely rewritten). Sijo Ripa 12:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOV - Disagree, BBC, Red Cross, Human Right watch and unesco are not credible sources ? Armenian Genocide is an articlable subject even if the title is smacks of not NPOV, hence I disagree with your WP:V also. WP:NORAlso disagree that State terrorism is not a well defined term. There is consensus on the article as to what it is currently. RaveenS 16:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep at best it should be renamed such as Notable human rights violations in Sri Lanka just like the notable LTTE attacks article. State terrorism does makes it inflamatory.Kongan 14:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep because the content is factually accurate (as far as possible considering the information and media situation in SL) and important. I am under the impression that Raveen has put a lot of work into this article; he tries hard to be impartial; he is always open for criticism and suggestions. It is a good idea to rename the article and to watch the language used very closely in order to avoid POV and yellow press-like phrasing. Krankman 17:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note to users not familiar with the Sri Lankan situation: You have to understand that with all articles touching the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, you can expect radicals and nationalists from both sides to edit and take part in discussions, talking about WP policies, sources and NPOV, etc., often disguising their actual motivations very cleverly. Don't let yourselves be fooled. Krankman 17:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest merging with Terrorist attacks carried out by LTTE under the title "Notable human rights violations in Sri Lanka" (see Kongan's suggestion above), in the process cleaning up (and out) a lot. Krankman 13:27, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Notable human rights violation in Sri Lanka versus Notable human rights violations by Sri Lanka are 2 different articles. Let's first keep this article as is then decide on a proper name if need be and based on that name, the resultant article can be left alone or merged with another one. Thanks RaveenS
Well, I think that by putting those articles together, it would be less likely to be seen as pov because you would have the cruelties commited by both sides on one page; thus no reader would be tempted to think that one side is much worse than the other if he or she only stumbles upon one of the articles. All the facts would be there in one place, and everyone would be able to read and make up their own minds.
Of course, we all have to admit that--as Ruchiraw said--the length and detail of this article (as well as Terrorist attacks carried out by LTTE) are due to a certain amount of pov (or personal involvement in the conflict) in most of the contributors; but I think that is not a problem because the facts are indisputable and no one is to decide what number of victims makes a single killing "encyclopedia-worthy". Krankman 17:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point too, but unless we come to an understanding of what is a notable human rights violations, what is a war crime, what are state terrorism, what are attempted genocides, what is ethnic cleaning with respect to both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, the combined article is going to huge. In my view if we restrict this list to State terrorism by Sri Lanka to mean the government then it requires 2 more entries and we are done, that is the Eastern university massacres in which the military arrested 158 refugees from the University and killed them and the Chemmani mass graves where supposedly 600 disappeared people from Jaffna were buried. Off all listed items here, most can be argued that the perpetrators assumed impunity and inmost cases did enjoy impunity. Per the definition of State terrorism a government can sanction State terrorism through policy or conduct. Granting impunity to perpetrators after perpetrators is pushing the limits of State terrorism. RaveenS
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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