Talk:Mai Kadra massacre

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Wolkait - elementary English logic[edit]

I reverted the reverted the edit related to Wolkait. We go by the sources. This is what the EHRC reports says in relation to Welkait/Wolkait: Wolkait is the local name for people of Amhara descent who were born or have long resided in Wolkait Woreda. ... People of non-Tigrayan ethnic origin, and especially of Amhara and Wolkait origin ... ... to differentiate people of non-Tigray origin from the rest and raided all the houses/huts, stretching from the neighbourhood known as "Genb Sefer" up to the area called Wolkait Bole (Kebele 1 Ketena 1) which is largely resided by ethnic Amharas. They detained up to 60 people they profiled as Amhara and Wolkait ...

So EHRC clearly see "Welkait" or "Wolkait" as a "non-Tigrayan" ethnic group. That's what we have in the source. That's what we use. Boud (talk) 21:16, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The correct, elementary English logic[edit]

@Boud: Ethiopia has around 80 ethnic groups (these ethnic groups are recognized by the Ethiopia constitution), and non of them is Welkait (Wolkait). Welkait is a district name. Now the Ethiopian government is calling a group of people (or subgroup) Welkait for its political strategy of annexing west Tigray (Welkait land) to Amhara region (which was the main reason behind its war on Tigray, I can bring references for this). But there is no such ethnic group (or group of people) called Welkait before. The historical and (until the war) inhabitants of Welkait are over 90 % Tigrayan ethnic (as you can see on the Wikipedia page of Welkait population census).
@Boud:, Let me ask you a question:- If one black African women (decedent of black African immigrants for example), was born in America and lived there for her whole life, do you call her race white? Or do you call her race America? NO, you don't. As simple as that. You call here African race American citizen (a.k.a African-American). Or you call here black-American also. But you don't say her race is American (there is no such race called America, it is a citizenship, and a country's name). Her race is still black (African), even if she lived in America her whole life.
Elementary English logic:- then how come you (or EHRC) call this peoples' ethnicity Welkait (after a district name). They don't speak a different language, or are different ethnic group. The Ethiopian constitution recognizes around 80 ethnic groups (which all have their own distinct native language). EHRC making up an ethnic group for land annexation (political game), so to serve the hidden agenda of Ethiopian government’s war and its Mai Kadra massacre, is sad. It is very sad that the Ethiopian government is massacring Ethiopians (both Amhara & Tigrayans) to serve its hidden agenda of Amhara imperialism and land annexation. It is only fooling itself, as the bible says “For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light”.Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 10:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nonetheless, you can still put it as Welkait ethnic group, for the result of the "EHRC report".
However, the Amnesty International report did NOT say Welkait ethnic group. Amnesty said Amhara before, now it says both Amhara & Tigrayans (according the AP article). Therefore, you should say either only Amhara, (or Amhara & Tigrayans). However you can NOT says Amhara & Welkait in the Amnesty International preliminary report result, since it does not say so. Let us please not copy the Ethiopian government's EHRC propaganda into Amnesty International's report result, and make up an ethnic group (or subgroup) not said in the Amnesty International report. Even if the EHRC report says Welkait (group of people or ethnic group), the EHRC can not automatically make up an ethnic group (or subgroup), for all. I wrote this as bold since it is my main point, for how the page should be corrected. Sorry, if you don't like me wring in bold sometimes, but it is mostly to make my main point on how to move forward. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 04:11, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We seem to be getting towards consensus on the idea of how to use sources very specifically and avoid WP:SYNTH.
For the purposes of this talk page (not the article), the relevant definitions of "ethnic group" (or "race") in this context depend on how the direct and indirect perpetrators (those who did the killing or ordered or allowed the killing to take place) thought. Sooner or later (unfortunately, probably later rather than sooner), there will very likely be war crimes trials in relation to the current Tigray conflict. The Ethiopian constitutional definition of ethnic groups will very likely be mentioned, but witness statements such as "he said to kill those people because they are X-ian" or "I gave that order to kill the X-ians who were in location Y" or "My superior told me that the X-ians in location Y had to be killed because of [stereotype Z or rumour W]" will probably count more than consitutional definitions of X-ian. There are many pdfs of the International Criminal Court (ICC) cases linked from the ICC page for anyone interested. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.) Boud (talk) 16:48, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be correct to say that the people in question are a bilingual group that know both languages so well they are in the middle, and may want more self determination than the TPLF wanted to give them? In saner times there could be a plebiscite to see what region most of them wanted to be included in or how autonomous they wanted to be. KZebegna (talk) 17:06, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Boud: I understand your point of view, and I can relate to it (a Nobel laureate vs a some party called TPLF, who do you trust??). But that is exactly why these massacres are happening; some people think they will be trusted over others no matter what massacres & war crimes they pre-master-plan commit. God willing, I hope there will an independent international trail so that the real perpetrators can be exposed (they are now running the Ethiopian government). Here is another news article from yesterday related to this page, from Vice :-
13 https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjpzqw/hes-planning-to-exterminate-us-all-ethiopians-speak-of-ethnic-massacres
This says “First, I want to save my life. Food and clothes come later,” he said from the truck bed. Kahsay fled from his native Ethiopia, without notice and in the middle of his usual work day, leaving behind all of his belongings and any knowledge about his loved ones. He is part of the first wave of Ethiopian arrivals in Sudan, refugees fleeing war in the country’s northern Tigray region. He was working as a day labourer on a farm near the city of Mai Kadra when Ethiopian government-aligned ethnic militias known as Fano, from the neighbouring region of Amhara, descended. “Fano from the Amhara region came, then took us all out from our homes. We saw our neighbours killed and slaughtered, in the same way as you cut wood, with an axe and knife,” Kahsay told VICE World News. As chaos tore through the city, Kahsay said Ethiopian federal forces stood by as Fano fighters went door to door, demanding to see IDs in order to identify ethnic Tigrayans. “We managed to escape and hide in a field for four days. On the fifth day, we made our way to the Sudanese border,” he explained, adding that Fano militants continued to terrorise civilians attempting to flee to Sudan. On the way, he said, “youths were sent to kill us. [A group of] more than 70 were trying to kill us. We hid ourselves in the fields. They hunted us. On the way many were killed. We passed many dead bodies.” In his own group of eight, only six of them made it to the border. “They checked the IDs of people...if they find someone with Tigrayan origin…[they] slaughter with a knife.” As Kahsay spoke of his journey from the relative safety of the camp in eastern Sudan, women and men sitting nearby wept quietly, reliving their own recent horrors as he spoke. The violence he described was echoed by many firsthand accounts told to VICE World News at border crossings and at two new refugee camps that aid agencies are hurriedly setting up to accommodate the crush of over 50,000 new arrivals in under two months.
They are NOT "in the middle" as User:KZebegna says, (that is even an insult), they are Tigrayans. Read the articles above about interviews with the people of west Tigray, they say they are Tigrayans. They don't call themselves Welkait or something in the middle. Welkait (west Tigray) is there ancestral district & home, their native language and ethnicity is Tigrigna and Tigrayans respectively. One of the witness even said that he tricked the Fano militias to let him pass by speaking his second language Amharic fluently, but he doesn't identify himself as anything else but Tigrayan. His exact words were, he "tricked" them. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 08:39, 25 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Boud: FYI, if you don't know, west Tigray and and Metekel Zone (of Benishangul-Gumuz Region) are the two main lands Amhara imperialists are working to annex into the Amhara region; but which they couldn't find legitimate reason to do so. The Amhara imperialists (who are currently dominating in the Ethiopian federal government) have been searching so hard for around two years now, to find and excuse to fulfill their land annexation plan. And guess what? These two areas are where massacres are happening, out of the views of cameras. THINK. For example, there was a massacres of around 100 people yesterday. Guess what the master-planner who wants to be the last person to be suspected does just before the massacre? ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/23/at-least-102-killed-in-massacre-in-western-ethiopia-after-abiy-visit ) To find the answers, think like the police; who is going to profit from these massacres? It is clear that these massacres going to be used as a pretext to annex west Tigray and Metekel Zone into Amhara region. See the full wider picture to identity the real perpetrators, is just what I am saying. Think again what you will do, if you master-plan a massacre for around two years, and want to blame your enemy for it and use it for your land annexation plan:- you let a selected Amnesty International investigator to briefly enter to collaborate your claim (without seeing the full picture), then you deny any international investigators in again:-

Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 15:02, 25 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please go by the sources. Please keep in mind that although a little discussion of context is acceptable on the article talk pages, the talk page is for building an encyclopedia. It is not a WP:FORUM. Personally, I find your Manichaean hypothesis of explaining the Mai Kadra massacre unrealistic. My hypothesis is not Manichaean: Aung San Suu Kyi is an excellent example of a Nobel Peace Prize winner who played a major role in the promotion of democracy but then as a national leader failed to act against a genocide in her country (this doesn't mean that Abiy is a close analogy; it only means that Abiy's Nobel Peace Prize is only one clue to sociological understanding, among other clues). It is also well-known that the TPLF is not just "some party". In any case, this article is not the place to search for references or discuss editing of Abiy Ahmed or Tigray People's Liberation Front. So, back to the actual work for this article:
The Taipei Times version of the AFP article is better than the money.yahoo.com one, because Taipei Times overtly states that it uses material from AFP.
The Vice source that you added clarifies the point about "the army": The TPLF constitutes both the political party that runs the regional government there and the regional army which dwarfs the manpower of the federal army in the region. So we have "the regional army" and "the federal army". We cannot do original research by interpreting "the army" to mean "the federal army". Boud (talk) 20:01, 25 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Boud: My point when said "some party called TPLF" was not how you took it. TPLF have an over 45 years of admirable, heroic world class history, as the world knows. TPLF is not even being directly accused for the massacre by its enemies; they are instead accusing TPLF of aiding a group we never heard of before (called Samri). I suggest actually the creation of a Wikipedia page for Samri, for the readers to fully understand the true masterminds of these massacres.
I think the Yahoo version is better since it has the original news from Agence France-Presse (AFP), so I'm adding it back. I was the first person to bring this article, so if a mirror page occur (and/or a WP:OVERCITE), then it is from you, not from me. You can add the Taipei Times version if you think it has significant difference, but the original AFP news from Yahoo should stay regardless. Furthermore, please do not remove AFP in the text as one of the news agenesis reporting the testimonies of the refugees in Sudan.
Watch out not to do WP:SYNTH by implying the "the army" means Tigray's paramilitary-police (& militias that support TPLF). Synthesizing different articles in different context and concluding that the Tigrayan refugees mean Tigray's paramilitary-police (& militias that support TPLF), when they accuse "the army" of massacre war crimes on them, could be a WP:SYNTH. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 09:26, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There is TPLF's opinion of themselves, which seems to be pretty high and proud of themselves for whatever. And then there is everyone else's opinions of TPLF, which you claim is also exceedingly high, when you say "as the world knows", claiming yourself to speak on behalf of "the world" opinion, in other words claiming to speak for everyone else's opinion, which you say is pretty similar to TPLF opinion. If you cannot really tell the difference, I do not think you know how to keep wikipedia with even a neutral appearance, it's like you want wikipedia to be openly a team player with TPLF, not to mention "right great wrongs" done to the TPLF... Or am I misreading this? KZebegna (talk) 10:33, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Loves Woolf1882: You could make these discussions a lot simpler by dropping all the original research, considering the possibility that editors making good faith edits can make errors, and presenting your argument in a brief, clear way. The two things that I missed earlier, and that you could have said, are:
  • The money.yahoo mirror of the AFP article has an AFP icon. There is no text crediting the AFP, which is why I missed it. So you have no evidence supporting your claim that this is the "original AFP news"; instead, you have a credible claim to say that AFP is given credit by an icon (a small file containing an image).
  • Immediately before the Geidi sentence about "the army", there is a sentence But several refugees at the Sudanese camp said federal troops had committed atrocities. It is clear that this sentence is an introduction to the following sentence; so the intended meaning of the following sentence is that "the army" is the ENDF.
So you happen to have been right. But you didn't show that you're right. I've done the work to show that you're right (on this particular point).
Regarding admirable, heroic world class history, as the world knows, I fully agree with KZebegna that you need to separate your own opinions (which you're welcome to briefly mention, at least on your user page) from sourced opinions that are usable on en.Wikipedia. And you have to do your best in trying to edit in a way that is not biased in favour of your own opinions. Boud (talk) 12:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Boud:, we have discussed the mirror issue in the Awol Allo page. It is not a claim, e.t.c. it's just how Yahoo does things. At that time, it was when Yahoo (bought and) mirrored the The Telegraph's news below. The way one knows it's from The Telegraph is by the icon. You said it yourself, Yahoo articles originally came from news services.
About TPLF, I didn't say I oppose or support them. I believe you first said, I like degraded them by calling them "some party", so I was just trying to undo the degrading. If you want to read about TPLF's history, I suggest this neutral book:- https://books.google.se/books?id=S9LX8UpI97MC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 17:11, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Remove the POV tag[edit]

@Loves Woolf1882: Could you please remove the POV tag at the top of Mai Kadra massacre, since there is no POV editing dispute? Placement of the tag was not justified when you placed it there, and is still not justified. I have invested a lot of time trying to analyse your concerns; KZebegna has commented in the thread; and it is clear that there is no POV issue. Keep in mind that there are quite likely several other editors who have looked at the issue, but may have been discouraged by the big mass of text and difficulty in trying to find the specific concern.

Please also check the advice about what Wikipedia is not: Righting Great Wrongs; Crusading against a specific POV. Thanks. Boud (talk) 00:21, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There was no POV dispute and a lot of energy has been wasted on the non-dispute, so I have removed the POV tag.  Done Boud (talk) 00:17, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Response to "Remove the POV tag". (Justifications for the POV/NPOV tag)[edit]

Dear @Boud:, I'll list down the WP:NPOV tag justification points; (this is a response to your messages).
  • You said out of all my references (which are actually 14 when counting the newer one from Vice (magazine)), only 1 gives support to my WP:NPOV point.
This is not correct. They all talk about massacres/civilian-killings committed in Tigray during this Tigray conflict, and accuse the Fono Amhara militias and/or ENDF and/or Eritrean troops, on their article part coverage of the testimonies of the refugees in Sudan. Some say in general Tigray, and some cases talk about Humera (a town only few kilo-meters from Mai-Kadra), but 6 of the article explicitly talk about the Mai-Kadra massacre (these are:- #2 from Agence France-Presse, #5 from Reuters, #11 from Al Jazeera, #12 from Africanews, #13 Vice, and the one from Associated Press). These 6 is even without counting the videos. From these 6 articles, only one of them (from Reuters) is a repetition. However, the content of the rest of the 5 articles is not equally included in the Mai-kadra massacre Wikipedia page. Some are now only added to the LEAD, but not to the body of the page. The page gives more focus to sources that talk the opposite of the Tigrayan refugees' testimony. I think the stories from these 5 articles should also be given equal coverage in the body.
  • You said you did the "work to discover, and I did not show". However, I added the exact quotation from each article. But then you again turn and say, I'm making it too long. Some of the things you accuse me of contradict each-other. However, thank you for your work on the article, but it was not enough to fix the NPOV issue.
  • I don't think it should affect my NPOV report, if User:KZebegna or others have reported there was NPOV issue on the article on the opposite side. What should matter most is whether we can bring reliable source (Wikipedia:Verifiability) to support our NPOV report.
  • The Mai Kadra massacre##Preparations section only talks about the sources that talk the opposite of Tigrayans, Tigray's regional government (TPLF). If it continues like this without a balanced neutral side, then it should at least be under the "Claim: Samri perpetrators", since it only reference to references that claim that Samri or TPLF was responsible.
  • The article has a subsection called "Federal government point of view" (Mai Kadra massacre##Federal government point of view) and gives the position (or propaganda) of one side (the Ethiopian federal goverment). However, it does not have a subsection called "Tigray's regional government point of view" also giving the point of view of the other side, and making the article neutral. This should be done before removing the NPOV tag.
  • @Boud: I suggest you read Wikipedia:Videos as references (WP:CITEVIDEO), it says "It's okay to cite movies, TV programs and videos as references, as long as they meet the reliable source criteria for other sources.... Citing the point in a video source where the sourced content appears greatly improves verifiability.". So it is also allowed to use video references on Wikipedia. By the way, all my video references are from/on reliable media outlets' websites. To be specific, they are from and on NBC News, CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera. Only one of my videos is from YouTube, but it is from the official YouTube channel of The Daily Telegraph; and the above WP:CITEVIDEO policy states that "official YouTube channels created by agencies and organizations that themselves are generally considered reliable, such as that of the Associated Press".
However, I have double thought about cutting the list down, and from these videos, I want to include only two of them (the one from NBC News and Al Jazeera). I especially want to include the video reference on NBC News, since it shows the story of a Mai-kandra massacre attempt survivor with knife wounds. How can any other reference be more related to the page than this particular video reference? This same person (named Abrahaley Minasbo a 22-year-old a trained dancer and Tigrayan survivor from Mai-Kadra) is also featured on the front page cover of the latest 2nd Associated Press article about Mai-Kadra massacre and so on ( https://apnews.com/article/eritrea-sudan-middle-east-ethiopia-only-on-ap-a4cba907c516401df0a0b3c7eb095405 ). But his video story is yet not included in this Wikipedia page. This is one of my WP:NPOV complaint points.
BTW, this AP article would be the #15 reliable dependent article (and a 7th very related one). This says “Many ethnic Tigrayan refugees have accused ethnic Amhara fighters of targeting them, while survivors of one massacre last month in the town of Mai-Kadra say Tigrayan fighters targeted Amhara. Other attacks followed. Abrahaley Minasbo, a 22-year-old trained dancer, said Amhara militia members dragged him from his home in Mai-Kadra on Nov. 9 and beat him in the street with a hammer, an axe, sticks and a machete, then left him for dead. Scars now slope across the right side of his face and neck. He was only treated six days later, by Tewodros in Sudan.
  • You said videos are difficult to check and that they must first be transcripted and archived before they can be used as a reference. However, I don't see that requirement on WP:CITEVIDEO. Furthermore, at first I went along with you and asked your help on how to have them transcripted and archived by a reputable party, but you refused help. I'm sure I can figure out how to have them archived but I have no idea where to have them transcribed (as per your personal requirement/preference). Therefore, I say let's just please follow WP:CITEVIDEO, and add these 2 videos as reference as is. It is NOT a must to get their transcribed version, videos are okay as a reference on Wikipedia.
  • Another improvement I suggest is with the WP:SYNTH being made in the article. Amnesty International's report did not say a youth group called Samri was responsible (it rather said they have "spoken to witnesses who said forces loyal to the TPLF were responsible"). So let us again use sources very specifically and avoid WP:SYNTH. It was a similar issue with adding the Welkait ethnic group on Amnesty's report, from EHRC (which was corrected after I pointed it out). Let us not again copy EHRC's accusation of a group called Samri, into Amnesty's one (which rather only accuses "forces loyal to the TPLF" based on the witness it talked to, but not Samri). Synthesizing two different reports from two different sources and concluding Amnesty said Samri could be a WP:SYNTH.
  • If the text is getting long, it is because you are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting my points, so I have to explicitly explain them one by one. However User:Boud, thank you for spending time on these Wikipedia articles, but if there is an NPOV issue I pointed out, it is better to concentrate on the issues, so to remove the tag. Happy New Year! Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 15:15, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Errors:
  • You said #11 from Al Jazeera. But although the Al Jazeera article does mention Mai Kadra, it does not report any refugee testimony claiming that the ENDF was responsible for the killings in Mai Kadra.
  • Video archives: What I said above was Keep in mind that an archive of the video must exist: WP:PUBLISHED "Additionally, an archived copy of the media must exist." The quote remains correct. If you wish to change the policy, then first convince people over at that page, not here.
Boud (talk) 15:40, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Errors:-
  • I have explained this before; the #11 from Al Jazeera article have both text and video on it. The text mentions Mai Kadra, and the video have a refugee testimony that says “The government wants to get rid of Tigrayan people, so we fled. People have been slaughtered with knives, pregnant woman has had their bellies open, the government is bombing civilians and killing us all.”. The government means forces backing the federal government (like ENDF). I don't know how else it can be interpreted. It can't mean the other side (Tigray's regional government), since he said "the government wants to get rid of Tigrayan people"; (it is not also the context of the article).
  • I have understood what WP:PUBLISHED says, and agreed with it. It doesn't ban the 2 videos I suggested, like the one published on NBC News from being added, is what I meant. Though you prefer transcripted videos, it is not a requirement. It is okay to use videos like this as is, for Wikipedia reference, before they are transcripted, according to WP:CITEVIDEO and WP:PUBLISHED. Loves Woolf1882 (talk) 20:02, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Local police[edit]

@Noslata and Wowzers122: Regarding this edit, I see in the EHRC report the local administration police and militia forces shut all the exit points, around 3:00 P.M., the local police, members of Samri, with the help of the local police and militia, from around 11:00 AM onwards, the town police started checking identity cards to differentiate people, each accompanied by an estimated 3 to 4 armed police and militia. The EHRCO report says the Maikadra local police and the Tigray Special Forces, closed by Tigray Special Forces and militia members, police and Special Forces, as well as Tigrayan youths (mostly coming from the Samri neighborhood), shielded by armed members of the Tigray Special Forces and the militia.

So something like "local Tigrayan Special Forces (militia)" would seem to be justified by the EHRCO report. In any case, "Tigrayan" seems justified to me. Boud (talk) 03:04, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Court trials[edit]

We have a source "APA_349_warrants_Mai_Kadra" claiming that an "investigation" has been done, arrest warrants have been issued and arrests have been made, with numbers given, but there is an incredible lack of information for such a major investigation. Are the suspects being held in a prison with proper access to lawyers, family and doctors? are they protected against revenge attacks and presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt? What are some of the names of the defence lawyers? This would be a massive effort if done properly and the media coverage should be huge. Boud (talk) 00:15, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For an investigation to be credible, an investigation team would have to be agreed on and trusted by all involved parties, with special guarantees for the physical safety of Tigrayan participants, given that Amhara forces have had physical/administrative control of Western Tigray for nearly two years and carried out ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans there. Do we have any sources regarding plans for an independent investigation trusted by all involved parties? Boud (talk) 22:18, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Crime banner reinstated[edit]

I reinstated the WikiProject Crime banner because mass murder and ethnic cleansing in this context would appear to be war crimes, so that WikiProject is relevant. Also, members of WikiProject Serial Killer task force insist that massacre articles and those about mass murder are relevant to that task force, too. Since this was an apparently organized attack committed by a group WikiProject Organized Crime also seems relevant. The mention of a trial also indicates this event has been treated as a crime by the relevant authorities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cameron Dewe (talk • contribs) - 01:43, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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