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Talk:In Praise of Blood/Archive 1

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Latest comment: 3 years ago by SL93 in topic Did you know nomination
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Did you know nomination

Latest comment: 3 years ago50 comments7 people in discussion
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 16:28, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

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Created by Buidhe (talk). Self-nominated at 04:17, 10 November 2020 (UTC).

  •   Article is long enough, well-cited, and was new enough when nominated. Copyvio check OK. Hook length OK. Good effort in article to create balance on a controversial topic. QPQ done. Ready to go. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:31, 26 November 2020 (UTC) -->
@Yoninah: the quote was there when I reviewed it but the article has come under attack and seems to be unstable at the moment. I think we need to wait until there is a stable version before we point to it from the main page. HouseOfChange (talk) 15:01, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
  OK. Please keep us updated. Yoninah (talk) 15:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
@Buidhe, Yoninah, and Narutolovehinata5:, Not yet, sorry. The article was disputed, then frozen, and is now to be rebuilt. I hope to be more helpful soon, after family Christmas subsides. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:30, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. Just finish the review once the changes have been done. I noticed that you've made multiple changes to the article so it seems a new reviewer will be needed in any case. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 09:11, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Narutolovehinata5, Thanks -- and of course you are right that the re-worked article will need a new review from someone who is not me. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:15, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

@Buidhe and HouseOfChange: I've removed the tags. Could you please provide a new hook that reflects the current content of the article? Edge3 (talk) 16:16, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Would ALT1... that the book In Praise of Blood was described as "an immediate, destabilizing influence on the world of orthodox Rwandan scholarship"? work as a hook? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 03:15, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

  Approving ALT1, with the offline source accepted in good faith. There is a neutrality tag that remains on the article, due to a dispute both on article's talk page and the OR noticeboard, which has recently led to an editing restriction on ANI imposed against a party to the dispute.

The DYK may proceed, Rule D6 notwithstanding. (See WP:DYKSG.) Rule D6 refers to "unresolved edit-warring", but in this case, the editors have engaged in WP:DR. Our DYK process, which focuses on article content rather than editor behavior, need not be delayed further by the ANI discussion. Edge3 (talk) 15:54, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I personally won't promote this article with a neutrality tag still on it. Someone else might though, but I doubt it. SL93 (talk) 00:08, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
  Given that neutrality and stability are two of the DYK criteria, this nomination cannot be approved until those are resolved. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 00:29, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
@SL93 and Narutolovehinata5: Frankly, the whole reason there's a neutrality tag is that there was one editor who was disputing the article's neutrality. I haven't read the relevant discussions in their entirety (they're quite lengthy), but it appears there were attacks and other behavioral concerns that led to a topic ban. I really don't think it makes much sense for DYK to be delayed by a concern raised by a single editor, especially one who is no longer permitted to edit Wikipedia in this topic area. That's why I was willing to issue an WP:IAR waiver when I approved the hook. Edge3 (talk) 01:53, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
I removed the tag as the dispute is no longer ongoing because of the topic ban. (t · c) buidhe 02:01, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Dear Buidhe. Your reasons for reverting my edit are not valid. Check the Vidal article again. She mentions the Bureau of Special Investigations but she doesn't write they sent the reports to Rever. Even Rever herself doesn't claim that. Your dismissal of Helen Hintjens as "not notable" is an unwarranted insult directed at a well respected scholar of the field who has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on Rwanda and the genocide for over two decades. Most of your article is based on non-expert sources such as Laurie Garrett, who has never published anything about the genocide besides that book review. If you want to write a balanced Wiki page please sing a different tune and put back my edits Saflieni (talk) 11:10, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

From the article by Hintjens and van Oijen:

109 A Belgian journalist visited Gabiro in September 1994 and March 1995, but he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Dirk Draulans, Een Grap van God (Groot Bijgaarden: Globe, 1997), 55, 84. 111 We were advised by Reza Gerretsen M.D. of The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) in The Hague, and by Dr. Sophie Churchill of the Corpse Project in London. We doublechecked their assessments with professor Tim Thompson of Teesside University and professor Rebecca Gowland of Durham University. 112 A major flaw in Rever’s argument is the assumption that mass incineration in open-air crematoriums leaves “ashes” that can be disposed of easily. In reality, large volumes of bone fragments remain that need to be crushed first, which is very labour-intensive work. The Nazis trained special crews for this job. According to Thompson, “. . .when burning that number of bodies, you would expect the process to be incomplete since the body packing works to protect the remains. Therefore you would expect to see a large amount of incompletely burned human remains—likely still with soft tissues present.” The alternative, dissolving a body in acid, takes a long time, even with an already burned body, and is hazardous for the killers themselves. Two cases of acid-murders investigated by the NFI showed that the killers needed several weeks to dissolve a couple of bodies. See Erwin Vermeij et al., “Microscopic Residues of Bone from Dissolving Human Remains in Acid,” Journal of Forensic Science 60,3 (2015): 770–6. Saflieni (talk) 11:25, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

"Not notable" isn't an insult, all it indicates is that I haven't found enough coverage of her work to meet WP:GNG. Your edits introduce excessive weight on one source's opinion, when in fact we aim to summarize what it says in each source without giving too much space for any one. You added the text, They trace the suggestion that "the RPF was pulling the strings of every organization, including the Interahamwe militia" to a public statement of the ministry of Defence, published in 1991 by the extremist magazine Kangura, and they refute Rever's claim But there is no evidence that Rever got the first claim from this 1991 publication; at best you could say, "A similar claim was made in 1991 by the Ministry of Defence and published in the extremist magazine Kangura". Likewise, "refuted" in this case is a breach of WP:IMPARTIAL. State the conclusion that was made and let the reader make up their own mind whether it was "refuted" or not. (t · c) buidhe 11:27, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

The point you miss is that you give too much space to the opinions of non-experts who take the contents of Rever's book for granted. This way it looks like an advertisement of the publisher. The experts you cite provide subjective opinions. In that light it's not unreasonable to spend a few extra sentences on the only research that did check Rever's information. About the 1991 statement in Kangura: Rever doesn't cite credible sources for most of her claims about infiltration - even her ICTR document was not a final report with definite conclusions, maybe you should mention that - so the counter claim in Hintjens and van Oijen is functional. Rever's claim about the incineration is refuted by four specialists who were consulted by Hintjens and van Oijen. Those specialists refute Rever's claims as not possible, and there is a credible eye-witness who refutes the story. It's not "an opinion" of the authors as you claim. But if the word "refuted" is a problem, then I'll replace it.

102 Department of Military Operations, “Ese ubundi hari habuze iki ngo ingabo z’igihugu zikosore bariya banyamakuru b’Inkotanyi?” (Why Could the National Army Not Teach These Inkotanyi Journalists a Lesson?), Kangura, No. 27 BIS, December 1991, 3–5. For a complete translation, see Jean-Pierre Chrétien, “Chrétien Report,” ICTR-99-52, record no. 7663-01, JRAD (30 June 2002), chapters 5–21 and conclusion, 32–7, https://jrad.irmct.org/view.htm?r=196499&s. The conspiracy theory suggested in this press release was aimed at raising suspicion about all the critics of the Habyarimana regime, as well as about ordinary Tutsi civilians. First, the independent newspapers in Rwanda would be infiltrated, then the political opposition parties. After that, the RPF would fuel ethnic and regional divisions and infiltrators would try to brainwash government soldiers. Finally, criminals would be incited to commit crimes and armed RPF fighters would spread throughout Rwanda as a fifth column.Saflieni (talk) 12:07, 12 November 2020 (UTC) Saflieni (talk) 12:07, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Other subject: I'm not sure if highlighting the statement of Luc Marchal is in order. Marchal didn't see much of the genocide because he and the other Belgian peacekeeprs left after a week and a half. There is no indication that he held this opinion during or shortly after the genocide. Apparently his attitude changed dramatically after he was charged with dereliction of duty (of which he was cleared).Saflieni (talk) 14:08, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

  • It's not highlighted, it's included in a footnote which shows that multiple Western observers had similar observations. Please do not continue to insert the "tracing" claim, this is a WP:BLP violation since there is no indication that it is Rever's source. Also, please do not modify direct quotes in violation of MOS:QUOTE. (t · c) buidhe 14:20, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I do not suggest it's Rever's direct source, but am referring to a thesis in a journal article. Stop making things up. It's clear that you're not interested in creating a balanced Wikipage at all, with all those tendentious soundbites and skewed use of sources.Saflieni (talk) 15:08, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

  • But even the Hintjens article does not claim that Rever traces the argument to that source. All it says is that a similar claim was made in 1991. Exact quote: "She repeats this term [infiltration] dozens of times, in order to drive home the idea, first suggested by the Rwandan ministry of defence in 1991..." (t · c) buidhe 15:15, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

You should read the article as a whole, not just tiny bits in it that explicitly mention Rever. On the other hand, that quote is pretty straight forward. Saflieni (talk) 15:58, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, this article is getting worse and worse. That quote attributed to Dallaire isn't in his book. If you don't clean up your act I'm going to request this Wikipage to be removed.Saflieni (talk) 21:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Google? I have the book. You have included a comment from a book reviewer in the quote. The first half of the quote is in the book and is part of a discussion of shared responsibility. It names everyone who could have done better, including Dallaire himself, but he leaves no doubt who has the ultimate responsibility: "those Rwandans who planned, ordered, supervised and eventually conducted it," meaning the extremist Hutu. Dallaire's remark referred to specific incidents, btw. Not the genocide as such. The way you put it suggests otherwise, like most of your article.Saflieni (talk) 07:02, 13 November 2020 (UTC) By the way: Have you read the book? I'm getting the impression you've only read reviews and have no idea how to distinguish between the accuracy of those reviews. I'm looking at that remark by Garrett about the book containing 33 pages of references and interview notes, for example, but if you look at those references most of them do not offer any useful information like the dates and places of interviews, or anything verifiable for that matter even in some cases where the note refers to an NGO or an official. You have uncritically copied too many remarks like this in your article and have added some of your own. Going by her own information in the book, Rever didn't start publishing critical articles on Rwanda until 2013. You make it look as though she has continuously worked on the case since her reporting in the DRC in 1997.Saflieni (talk) 09:19, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

  • BTW Rever noticed the article and tweeted that it is too critical of the book[1] If neither side likes it, then I guess I might be getting NPOV approximately right. As for the notes, Caplan did point out that many of them aren't verifiable, but the article already cites Caplan more than any other source. To maintain NPOV, it isn't our role to decide which reviews are more "accurate" in our opinion, the article should state the opinion of all reviewers where WP:DUE. (t · c) buidhe 11:34, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Sure, now we're entering the wonderful world of logical fallacies. You avoid the issues I raise by referring to a tweet from Judi Rever who is not completely happy with your article? The quote you attribute to Dallaire is not his. Remove it. The reference to Marchal is misleading. Remove it. Lemarchand's remark that falsely suggests what other scholar think you have found on a website and it has no reference. Remove it. The suggestive remarks by Garrett. Remove them. Etc. And you misrepresent the NPOV. You are giving undue weight to non-experts and their tendentious remarks. Their opinions are irrelevant when it comes to content. It's not your job to mention every opinion as if they're of equal importance. And it's certainly not your job to highlight nonsense. Like I said: clean up your act Buidhe. Wikipedia is a community project, not your personal toy!Saflieni (talk) 12:52, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

  • While I certainly don't own the page, you don't either. It's wrong to remove stuff because you don't agree or personally believe it's "misleading" or "nonsense", unless you can find a reliable source explicitly criticizing those reviews in which case that can be added to the article. As I showed above, the quote by Dallaire can be found in his book and you haven't come up with any reason to remove the Marchal quote (from a footnote, it's not being given undue prominence!) except WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Rever's book was marketed to a popular audience and discussed by both expert and non-expert reviewers. All are clearly identified with their credentials so the reader can judge their credibility, but the popular reaction to her book also needs to be covered for comprehensiveness. (t · c) buidhe 13:14, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Don't distort the discussion. I have already explained to you that you include a comment from a book reviewer into the quote that you attribute to Dallaire. Dallaire didn't say that. The rest of it he said in a different context. That's deliberately misleading. You are ignoring my other remarks as well. I agree the popular comments can be given a place in this article, but not in the way you do it. You are not conducting this discussing in good faith. About the nonsense remark: If non-experts (even experts) use fallacies to make a point, as an editor you should know better than to repeat them in a Wiki-article. If you can't, you should go find another hobby.Saflieni (talk) 13:55, 13 November 2020 (UTC) What I don't understand is why you don't read your own evidence. When I follow your link to google books I find exactly what I've been telling you. It seems you have copied an error in Caplan's 2018 article, where the actual quote and Caplan's remark were copied together from his 2003 review. Use this lesson to always check the original source.Saflieni (talk) 14:50, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

  • What error? It is common practice to add [words in brackets] to clarify the meaning of a quote. It's true that I duplicated the ones that Caplan used but this is not considered misleading or erroneous. (Such insertions are explicitly allowed by MOS:QUOTE). (t · c) buidhe 14:55, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Stop messing with me. You're presenting it as a quote from Dallaire's book. It is not. Only the first sentence is in his book. The rest is Caplan commenting on it. And the context is twisted. You keep forgetting that Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopaedia, not a school paper.Saflieni (talk) 18:08, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Wait, you've now adapted the quote without an apology? It's still the wrong context and basically a lie when you write: 'Western observers have stated that the RPF prioritized taking power over saving lives or stopping the genocide.' Your article has too many similar suggestive remarks, making it an opinion piece, not a Wikipedia article. And for the last time: Laurie Garrett is not a credible source. She's not an expert, not even in an amateur fashion, and The Lancet is a medical journal with no competence at all in the field of genocide studies. Yet you've based a large part of the article on her uncritical review without checking accuracy. Epstein and several of the other commenters you mention are in that category. You can't expect people who consult Wikipedia to know all that, so clean it up.Saflieni (talk) 08:57, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I have cleaned up the article. In the section Content I have removed sentences and remarks that are not in the book, either because they are mistakes in the reviews that were used as sources or because they are violations of "no original research" rules. In the other sections I have removed tendentious remarks, and suggestive remarks that have no reference in the original source (which is not a reliable source). Finally I have corrected a misrepresentation of Colette Braeckman's article, I have added a new source: Linda Melvern, and I have expanded a little the Hintjes and van Oijen summary as discussed before.Saflieni (talk) 21:12, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, since you're completely uncooperative and respond destructively to improvements, I am going to call it a dispute.Saflieni (talk) 21:32, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

  • I kept most of your additions. (BTW I do not subscribe to Le Soir, so will trust you on the full content of the article). The issues are that you are removing information that is relevant, for instance the information on RPF goals according to Marchal, Dallaire, and Caplan, as well as important background that no RPF leader was indicted by the ICTR. Also, please be wary of MOS:WTW. You can't insert "claimed" or "alleged" just because you disagree with some statement. (t · c) buidhe 22:56, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

You keep ignoring my comments. Your use of sources is not balanced, giving undue weight to non-experts over peer reviewed research. Your selection of quotes from the non-expert sources and one expert is largely tendentious, not adding useful information but leaving the impression that Wikipedia supports one side of the controversy. You copy mistakes from several reviews because apparently you are not in possession of the original sources and therefore you didn't check them, which creates a problem with accuracy. In the 'Content' section, you added an academic source from long before the book was published that appears to support a suggestion made by a source but by doing that you become part of the debate and the controversy yourself. You misrepresent sources to suggest they support the book's premises when in fact they do the opposite. You add an unreferenced remark with footnotes that quote remarks from people who at first glance look like eye witnesses but in one case that's not true, and in the other case the witness made the remark in more nuanced context. I've explained all this. And it goes on and on. I have tried to advice you and correct the flaws of the article, but you are completely uncooperative and unreasonable. After my repeated requests to clean up the article, I decided to do it myself. I left the structure and most of the article text as it was, but made it a more balanced presentation of the book and the controversy it caused. However, you reversed it again, without bothering to discuss it on the Talk page. This is not acceptable behaviour. And stop suggesting I'm removing relevant information. I've called a third opinion. In the meantime please revert to my last edits.Saflieni (talk) 07:38, 15 November 2020 (UTC) Btw: I added 'alleged' to a statement that in the source is ascribed to an anonymous witness. There's no way of verifying that controversial statement and therefore 'alleged' is appropriate to warn readers that it's not a given fact.Saflieni (talk) 07:49, 15 November 2020 (UTC) I have just re-read Caplan's article and see that you've been cherry picking from this source as well. Stop adding more controversial content. Show some respect for the subject.Saflieni (talk) 14:23, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  • You'll have to be more specific about the content that you think belongs in the article, keeping in mind that Caplan's article is 50 pages long and we have to summarize it in accordance with WP:DUE. (t · c) buidhe 14:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Caplan's article is 39 pages, 36 of them text, half of which deals with his own work and the gap between the books of Gourevitch and Rever, the other half analyses Rever's book. You have taken some soundbites from the part that is not about Rever, which is misleading. Caplan's analysis is quite damning but your description of it leaves a different impression. For example: In your reference to the questions raised by Samual Totten. you write that, regarding Rever's new allegations, the book raises those questions. This is not true. Totten questioned Rever's poor methodology and wonders, as does Caplan, why she did not raise those questions. Literally: "Rever’s book raises none of these questions, or other equally pertinent ones." So it's quite different: a demonstration of one of many aspects in which the book fails. In this case it's a relevant omission because the answers to those questions, according to Caplan, are not likely to lend a lot of support to Rever's theories. Another thing: Caplan spends a number of pages on the problem of the empty references which I brought up before. Literally: "It’s true that Rever scrupulously footnotes her information, as she did in this case, but the footnotes are too often entirely useless." He then provides a number of examples of empty references and after having established this fact he takes it a step further to show that even with a number of key witnesses essential information is lacking, such as with the anonymous UN investigator. Caplan writes: "“At least a half a million deaths” is a pretty enormous charge for an anonymous source to make without corroboration." (Hence my "alleged" suggestion). But the main question here is why you include the comments of a non-expert who makes one mistake after the other in her review (Garrett), who praises the book as great journalism based on non-arguments such as the mere fact that it contains 33 pages of references, when instead you could have quoted Caplan's elaborate critique on this aspect. If you would want to give a fair representation of Caplan's analysis, you could use this quote: "The main contribution of Rever’s book is that it presses all of us to give the uglier aspects of the RPF’s record the prominence they deserve," in combination with the essence of his criticism, summarized (by himself) as: "... there are too many unnamed informants; too many confidential, unavailable leaked documents; too much unexamined credulity about some of the accusations; too little corroboration from foreigners who were eyewitnesses to history." And since you're so keen on quoting another non-expert, Epstein, you should refer to Caplan's cautioning tale about her lack of expertise and the fact that, like Rever, she relies in part on the unreliable information of prominent genocide deniers. Better yet: get rid of Garrett and Epstein altogether and some of the others who represent the minority view. What's the point of having a dozen people who know nothing of the genocide repeat how wonderful the book? You can summarize that in a few sentences and give prominence to the scholars and journalists who are experts. Even then you should note that Lemarchand and Reyntjens represent a minority view in the academic world on this book and on the double genocide theory. The vast majority does not share their views. Your article doesn't make that clear either. And it lacks a point of view from the Rwandan side. Did you look for it? So all the praise from the non-experts combined with that of the only two scholars who carry her flag makes up a disproportionately large part of article, which is then amplified by the "awards" at the end, and the jury report. You can mention the awards, of course, but is anyone on those juries an expert so that you need to repeat the uninformed praise again? And why don't you get rid of the suggestive statements you have added that are not relevant to the subject of the book or the controversy it caused. Those statements refer to different discussions and should not be included here: "Western observers have stated that the RPF prioritized taking power over saving lives or stopping the genocide.[a]" This statement and the information in the footnotes that go with it you have inserted as an expression of opinion. It doesn't have a function otherwise and it's a controversial statement that lacks the 'other side'. The same can be said of your comment: "The ICTR never indicted a RPF leader, leading it to be labeled "victor's justice" by critics." In itself this statement may be true, but it's also a controversial topic and you don't connect it to the book. Final remark: I'm not quite sure why you keep removing the remarks from Hintjens and van Oijen about Rever's infiltration story, as if you are bent on hiding that information.Saflieni (talk) 22:07, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  1. regarding Rever's new allegations, the book raises those questions Yes, I meant that the book elicits these questions, not that explicitly states or answers them (which seems to be what Caplan means). If you know a better way to phrase that, be my guest.
  2. the answers to those questions, according to Caplan, are not likely to lend a lot of support to Rever's theories[verification needed]
  3. “At least a half a million deaths” is a pretty enormous charge for an anonymous source to make without corroboration I agree that raising the issues with sources may be WP:DUE, but is this particular claim? It's not out of the ballpark of other estimates, such as those published in the recent panel in Journal of Genocide Research.[2][3]
  4. a non-expert who makes one mistake after the other in her review[citation needed] Garrett actually won a Pulitzer for on the ground reporting in Zaire in the 1990s, so it's not like she knows nothing about Africa.
  5. The vast majority does not share their views. on the book[citation needed]
  6. I'm not quite sure why you keep removing the remarks from Hintjens and van Oijen about Rever's infiltration story, as if you are bent on hiding that information. Well, if it's raised at all it has to be raised in a manner compliant with WP:BLP and verifiable to what the source actually says. (t · c) buidhe 22:21, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Listen Buidhe, you have started this article without having read or understood many of the sources you cite and without comprehending the context and wider implications of the controversy, and when I tried to help out you just responded negatively and dismissive and you still maintain that attitude, even though you have little by little been adjusting details according to my suggestions. FGS drop the attitude and don't respond with fallacies and rationalizations or waving Wikipedia rules that are not relevant. Just correct your mistakes.

  1. If you want to mention those questions, tell the truth: Rever is criticized for not raising and exploring those questions.
  2. Read his comments that follow Totten's questions. If you don't understand it then don't discuss it in the Wiki-article.
  3. Both of your references are not research articles and are not about Rever's subject but about estimating the number of Tutsi killed during the 1994 genocide. One of the other papers in that issue is a research article by a credible scholar, Marijke Verpoorten, which reports a rough estimate of Hutu's that have disappeared from the record during the 1990s. That figure is close to Rever's estimate of Hutu's killed, but implies something very different. Verpoorten's estimate includes all excess deaths and the causes of those deaths during that decade. So it includes the Hutu's killed during the genocide by Hutu-militias and military, the victims of the cholera and dysentery outbreaks in the refugee camps, the victims of aids, malaria and other untreated diseases, malnutrition and exhaustion due to the circumstances, and of course also victims of violence inflicted by RPA troops. This last category is usually estimated to about 5 or 10 % of what Rever suggests and is also quite different from what you are suggesting.
  4. Your reference to Laurie Garrett's award is an 'appeal to authority' fallacy. She knows nothing of Rwanda and the genocide. She received her award for her reporting on the Ebola crisis in Zaire in the mid 1990s. It has no connection at all to the subject we're dealing with here. If you suggest otherwise you'd by lying.
  5. You are the creator and editor of this Wiki page. It's your job to establish the majority and minority views but you've failed to do that. Don't start demanding citations to prove your assumptions wrong. Have you found anyone besides those two elderly scholars who support their views? Most scholars ignore books and articles like Rever's because they have appeared on the market in a constant flow ever since the genocide. The difference is that this one was published by reputable publishing houses. I know the history of that process but this is not the right context to elaborate. But you can get an idea of the majority view by looking at the number of specialized scholars, journalists, activists and eye-witnesses who have signed petitions published by newspapers over the past several years. There was one in Le Soir last year, look it up.
  6. This is disingenuous. The infiltrations story is an important element in Rever's book and is commented on in a peer reviewed journal article (Hintjens and van Oijen) that reports research on several of Rever's claims, including this one. My edit which you've removed represented the comments in their paper well: "On Rever's "infiltrations"-theory, that the RPF was pulling the strings of every organization, they recall a comparable suggestion by the Rwandan ministry of defence published in 1991. Overall, they state that "Rever's book does little more than recycle... earlier denial narratives and sources"."
  7. You are avoiding the other issues again.Saflieni (talk) 09:11, 16 November 2020 (UTC) I can't keep wasting my time on this endless and pointless discussion, but urge you again to make sure you understand the information you use and avoid untrue and controversial statements. To illustrate this point, which I've already done with Marchal's remark about what he (didn't) see, below is the relevant part from Caplan's original review of Dallaire's book. Take my advice that reflective essays often contain inaccuracies because the author will be thinking out loud so to speak. In many cases they won't have checked or re-checked whether all the details are factually correct. On Wikipedia you can't treat a botched up quote in an article as if you know what it means. What you could do is look for the original source. You quote Caplan as: "Caplan is convinced that...", which is not a fair representation. You'll understand this better once you read Dallaire's book together with Caplan's original review in which he wrote:

"Instead of moving heaven and earth to end the killings, it was Rwanda's tragedy that just about everyone but Dallaire and his people had other agendas and interests. Shake Hands with the Devil explicitly spells out Dallaire's hierarchy of Rwanda's betrayers, and it's largely consistent with the findings of most students of the genocide. "The ultimate responsibility" lay with the power-hungry faction of Hutu extremists who surrounded the president and "planned, ordered, supervised and, eventually, carried out" the genocide. Second come both the United States and France. Before the genocide, the French gave unconditional advice, arms and international legitimation to the race-based Hutu dictatorship. During the genocide, they intervened militarily, allowing much of the unrepentant génocidaire leadership to escape into Zaire to fight another day, leading, in turn, to the subsequent appalling wars in central Africa. As for former U.S. president Bill Clinton, his sole priority, after 18 Rangers were killed in Somalia six months earlier, was to avoid any political backlash at home from having more American soldiers die in some obscure African country. At the expense of nearly one million Rwandans, he succeeded. Compared to these front-runners, Dallaire concludes, the failings of the UN Secretariat and of Belgium, while serious, "were not in the same league." But there is one unexpected addition to Dallaire's list, and it comes in the standings immediately after France and the United States. "The deaths of Rwandans can also be laid at the door of the military genius, Paul Kagame [the RPF commander] who did not speed up his [military]campaign when the scale of the genocide became clear, and even talked candidly with me at several points about the price his fellow Tutsi might have to pay for the cause." Dallaire believes Kagame made an immoral choice in refusing to deviate from his strategy of defeating the government in order to save lives. Since Kagame is now the president of Rwanda, the likely impact of this dramatic charge should not be minimized." [[4]] Your personal conclusion, which is a violation of NPOV, that "western observers have stated that the RPF prioritized taking power over saving lives or stopping the genocide is incorrect. Dallaire, according to Caplan, questioned Kagame's strategy in the context of saving more lives than they did (in the book Dallaire provides several examples of the RPF saving lives). Either way, it's relevant to Dallaire's book and Caplan's reflections, but not to a discussion of Rever's book on Wikipedia. Saflieni (talk) 11:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

  • First, your repeated WP:Assume bad faith is not very helpful here.
  • Rever does discuss the RPF objectives in her book, if Garrett's review and the Star excerpt are accurate.[5] I've added additional sources (not all directly related to the book) in footnotes to corroborate this observation on the RPF's priorities only because you keep challenging it.
  • I don't see how it's relevant what Caplan wrote in 2003. That review, obviously, does not discuss Rever's book. Also, Rever's book is not about the failings of France, US, etc., so it's clearly irrelevant here. Furthermore, Caplan explicitly states that he changed his position on the RPF between 2003 and 2018.
  • The text you added on infiltrations is clearly unacceptable: ""On Rever's "infiltrations"-theory, that the RPF was pulling the strings of every organization..." Unless you can quote a passage in Rever's book where she actually says that the RPF was indeed "pulling the strings of every organization", I am skeptical that she actually wrote that.
  • Your interpretation of what the article should look like clearly goes against WP:NPOV which "means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Your opinion is that a majority of scholars reject Rever's book. This may be accurate but if so you have to find a source that explicitly says so, otherwise it's original research. Also, leaving aside the unwarranted removal of Garret's review, published in a reliable source, you are removing the review by Bachman who has published multiple scholarly books on atrocities and mass crimes[6][7] and therefore can be considered a subject matter expert.
  • To be honest, if you want your POV to be represented on Wikipedia you would be better off publishing your own review on the book. You could explain in detail all the reasons why Rever's book is dead wrong. Which could then be included here with regard to WP:DUE. (t · c) buidhe 00:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Balance in the reception section

Latest comment: 4 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

Reception section (except the first and last paragraphs) breaks down as follows:

  • 8 sentences: Caplan
  • 3 sentences: Vidal, Lemarchand, Hintjens/van Oijen
  • 1 sentence: Reytjens, Straus, Epstein, Braeckman, Bachman, Garrett, multi-author Lancet letter, Totten

(t · c) buidhe 00:51, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

You clearly haven't read the book and several other sources and you are guessing whether reviewers are correct. You shouldn't be allowed on Wikipedia until you know your subject and can treat it in an unbiased manner. I don't know if you're a student or an amateur, but you lack expertise and understanding and are completely disrepectful. Now you want to start a debate about what you imagine is my point of view about the book. You don't know my opinions and they're not relevant here, neither are yours. What matters is that you have no intention of making this a good article. Btw: I have already answered the points you bring up. And your "balance" deception is irrelevant, since you cite them in a biased manner and you use non-expert reviewers (and their mistakes) in the content section, not to mention the fact that you add sources to support controversial ideas. Saflieni (talk) 06:04, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I have made the necessary adjustments and added a couple of sources on the experts/critics side. The article is now more balanced, so I suggest we do not make any significant changes without discussing it here first.Saflieni (talk) 14:36, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

  • The issue here is that you are repeatedly inserting BLP violations, as discussed above. In addition to what is discussed above, many of these changes make no sense to me:
    • Removing the Springer book by Justin Podur
    • Removing "The acknowledgements include several defense lawyers for ICTR indictees and writers such as Barrie Collins who are considered to be deniers of the genocide against the Tutsi." from the content section and attributing as Melvern's opinion. In reality, it is a verifiable fact that the book credits defence lawyers and so forth, not just Melvern's opinion.
    • Removing an entire paragraph on Caplan's response to the book, which is DUE in my opinion because he wrote a long article on it
  • I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works. It's not our role to judge "whether reviewers are correct". Reviews are to be given due weight regardless of one's personal opinion of whether they are "correct" or not. Otherwise, we are not following NPOV.
  • I left a posting on WP:NPOVN which will hopefully attract uninvolved editors. (t · c) buidhe 15:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
  1. I believe you've added Justin Podur as a source for the remark about Bisesero. But Rever doesn't mention Bisesero in her book. Podur is not really a credible source, btw.
  2. I agree with your point on Melvern's remark, so yes, move it to Content.
  3. I have not simply removed your paragraph of Caplan but have replaced it with two quotes that are more representative of his analysis and views. If you've read my comments you'll find that I suggested this change.
  4. You are confusing opinion and fact. I first check whether the claims in the reviews are in Rever's book. Second, if the claims are in the book I check if they accurately represent what's in the book. In the case of non-experts such as Garrett you may expect mistakes, and that's what I find. Third, If claims are not in the book but are relevant to the subject I check if they are at least representing the scholarly literature accurately. If these checks are not positive, the claims and suggestions cannot be included in an encyclopaedia entry. If the reviewers share their personal opinions about the book they shouldn't misinform.
  5. Remember that Wikipedia articles should be concise and represent the topic accurately. I spent a lot of time and words trying to explain this to you. I have removed the clutter and have included the different viewpoints: of the non-experts who take the book for granted. Of the (very) few experts who support it. And of the experts who criticize it. I believe they are represented in the right proportions now but if you or anyone else has ideas to improve details, by all means let's hear them.Saflieni (talk) 07:35, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Third party opinion

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  Response to third opinion request:
Hi, I am Springnuts, an uninvolved editor.

I would like to commend the two editors involved for refraining from editing whilst awaiting a third party opinion.

I would like to ask you for some more specific details of the problem, please, and I will do so in a moment. However, I have two or three general remarks.

Please be polite (WP:NPA). For example; "Stop making things up. It's clear that you're not interested in creating a balanced Wikipage at all ..." reads as an attack on the individual. That is unhelpful. Far better is to keep to the facts and the article: "You say that xyx, but the source you give does not make that claim. This unbalances the article because it undermines pqr which has a good source - the London Times article".

To my mind the article is far too long: for example, it would be helpful to cut the Content section by a half, and the Reception section by two thirds. At the moment, it begins to become (rather poor and directionless) original research. Furthermore, instead of being about the book, it begins to be about the issue. Something along the lines of "The book was highly controversial with some believing it bal bal bla and others, in contrast, saying that it yadda yadda yadda" - and a handful of representative references which people can follow in their own time - would be better.

It is easy for an editor to lose perspective and become unduly defensive when they are the creator and main author of an article. On reflection it might have been better for to publish it via WP:AFC. Both of you now appear to be emotionally invested in making it "right", so I would recommend, if a shortened article which is about the book and just summarises the main points of critical response, can be created that you both then leave off editing it, as you will, I think, find it hard to be neutral.

I would be interested in your comments. Thank you both for referring it for third party opinion. Springnuts (talk) 18:01, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Third opinion:

Latest comment: 3 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion

Third opinion

Springnuts (talk · contribs) wants to offer a third opinion. To assist with the process, editors are requested to summarize the dispute in a short sentence below.

Viewpoint by (Saflieni (talk) 22
30, 20 November 2020 (UTC)): Thank you. The problem is a knowledge gap. I have read the book and am familiar with the literature whereas Buidhe has not read the book or even some of the sources he cites. Still he's not very receptive to my explanations or suggestions for improvement. Your assessment of the article makes sense. Correcting the factual errors was my first concern. Because this proved to be such a struggle I didn't touch the main text yet. However, I wouldn't mind doing a rewrite if Buidhe agrees.
Viewpoint by Buidhe
  • I think the diagnosis here is incorrect. The article is not too long, it is pretty short in comparison to WP:Article size (only 11K characters of readable prose), and the book received significant international attention. In order to be comprehensive, it is necessary to go into depth on what the book claims and to cover all the varying POVs on it. Could it be better written and organized? Certainly. Springnuts also states that "it begins to become (rather poor and directionless) original research": Please be more specific about where you think this is happening. Furthermore, it is not necessary to read the book in order to write a good article about it (I did not read The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia before writing that article). In fact I would have difficulty writing a NPOV article after reading the book, because whether I find the argument convincing would influence how I presented the reception of the book. A big part of this dispute is that Saflieni wants to disregard some reliable sources that cover the book, in contrast to NPOV requirements.
Third opinion by Springnuts
....

Springnuts (talk) 18:08, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you both. I do not think having read the book is essential to writing an article, though it’s hard not to think it might help when judging what to include.

A number of people are said to be the originators of the saying “I am writing a long letter as I don’t have time to write a short one”. But it’s worth a thought. See WP:TMI. So I come back to the view that the article is too long.

Buidhe, assuming Saflieni would at least aim to make the article not only shorter but also balanced how would you feel about accepting Saflieni’s offer to rewrite the article? Then - if you are not happy that balance is achieved - please post a proposed revision of the relevant section(s) here, but not adding significantly to the overall length, and would you then trust me to incorporate some/all of your proposed changes to the article? Then both of you could move on and we can leave others to edit, and in time, if the topic deserves it, expand the article.

Anyway, thank you both for engaging so positively. Would you be willing to go the second mile now, as I have suggested above? Over to you :)

With friendly regards,

Springnuts (talk) 20:33, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Naturally I am not going to agree in advance that the size of the article should be reduced. It is an aspiration for all wikipedia articles to "neglect no major facts or details and place the subject in context" (WP:FA criteria). I am not convinced that it is possible to write a shorter version of the content section that would satisfy that criteria, although I will try to keep an open mind.
My primary concern if you read discussion above is that what Saflieni thinks is "balanced" is quite different from what I would consider NPOV. They have come up with some information that is useful to include in the article, but I have disagreed with their removal of information that they disagree with. (t · c) buidhe 20:44, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your effort, Springnuts. However, your compromise doesn't solve the problem of the knowledge gap. Look at Buidhe's belief that he can "go into depth on what the book claims" based on his guesses and hunches about the book, not the book itself and without a working knowledge of the relevant scholarship. That's the kind of self-deception that got us here in the first place. The balance and NPOV disagreements that Buidhe keeps bringing up are basically non-issues; misunderstandings that result from the same problem.Saflieni (talk) 00:15, 23 November 2020 (UTC) I took a look at some of the other articles Buidhe has been editing and they appear to be tainted by similar limitations. Saflieni (talk) 09:47, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you both for engaging with this process. I am sorry that the suggested way forward was not acceptable to you. I would recommend that both of you do not edit the article in future: you clearly have very different opinions and I don’t think either of you is able to edit this particular article in a neutral way. That is not a criticism of either of you! With all good wishes, Springnuts (talk) 17:33, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

You didn't address the issue I posted for a third opinion, Springnuts. Saflieni (talk) 20:43, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I did answer the question about whether it is critical that an editor should have read the book. Beyond that I was not clear if there was a specific issue you were asking for a third opinion on. If there is a specific question you wish to ask, please put it back into the third opinion queue. But if you insist on continuing to work on this article, then you will need to avoid edit warring and to discuss on this talk page in detail each issue where you feel the other editor has got it wrong. But I don’t believe the two of you are able to do it now, because you are emotionally too involved. So I come back to my previous statement: move on, leave this article to some of the other 40,360,575 editors on Wikipedia to deal with. With all good wishes, Springnuts (talk) 08:39, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

(Removed own duplicated post) Springnuts (talk) 08:41, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Springnuts, Next time you offer a third opinion please take time to read the discussion on the Talk page first. You'd have noticed that the discussion started and kept going because all of my edits were reverted as soon as I published them. Buidhe wasn't open to a dialogue. The discussion mentions the mistakes, misrepresentations and misinterpretations that are the result of not having read the book and several of the other sources. What we are dealing with here is a textbook 'unskilled and unaware of it' case. You didn't address this. And like I said, it's not just this article he is editing this way. But if this is the new Wikipedia way I'm not going to waste my time and energy here. Saflieni (talk) 14:30, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary split

Latest comment: 3 years ago12 comments2 people in discussion

I'm taking note of the fact that Buidhe has resumed the edit warring which he started immediately after my first edit two weeks ago. So once again I point out the alternative to this unyielding attitude: a dialogue about what's in the book and the other sources with someone who has actually read them and is knowledgeable about their context and backgrounds. Saflieni (talk) 22:44, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

  • There's no edit warring, and I actually incorporated many of your suggested changes. However, you haven't provided any reasons for the remaining changes that are in line with policies and guidelines. If your attitude is that basically any positive review, such as Jeff Bachman's, is not reliable, perhaps you would be best off asking about reliable sources at WP:RSN.
  • Furthermore, you still haven't provided any quote from Rever's book that supports that she indeed wrote something to the effect of "the RPF was pulling the strings of every organization". I continue to consider that a BLP violation unless it can be confirmed according to her book. And you continue to insert the word "allegedly" in violation of Wikipedia requirement for WP:IMPARTIAL language and no loaded language.
  • I am also concerned about a battleground mentality in which you reject any edits that I make. In reverting my edits wholesale, for example, you revert my change to include the association with defense lawyers in the content rather than reception section—which you agreed to above. (t · c) buidhe 07:21, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
  1. I have explained this already. Let me give you 3 reasons: Jeffrey Bachman is not an expert on this subject. His "review", as you call it, is an introduction of three sentences to his interview with Rever; he's just summarizing the promotional texts. And more importantly, you don't have to quote every individual non-expert saying the same thing because that's giving undue weight to this category of "reviewers" over the expert opinions.
  2. I have also explained several times that peer reviewed research in a specialized scholarly journal outweighs the other sources. The sentence you keep referring to is from the Hintjens article. It summarizes Rever's theory about the RPF infiltrating every organization in the earlt 1990s. You even cite Garrett on this: "According to Rever, the RPF's Directorate of Military Intelligence began to infiltrate both Hutu and Tutsi groups (...)." On this Talkpage I have copied the explanation in Hintjens and van Oijen about the propaganda message of the Rwandan ministry of Defence of 1991 which according to them is similar to Rever's story. You don't provide a reason to leave this out.
  3. If you have a problem with the word "alleged", why don't you suggest an alternative? You can't state for a fact that someone has told Rever something when there's no verifiable reference in the book.
  4. I have asked you to discuss further edits on the Talk Page. You didn't. Saflieni (talk) 07:36, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
    1. I disagree with this analysis. If you continue to argue this, please take it to the Reliable sources noticeboard as stated above.
    2. Not even Hinjens source states that Rever said that "all organizations" were infiltrated by the RPF. So unless you can provide a quote from Rever's book where she actually says that, it has to be left out as a damaging statement under WP:BLP.
    3. If a source states something, we use the word "states", not claimed or alleged, regardless of your personal opinion on whether it is true. I said above, see WP:WTW.
    4. You don't own the article. Anyone can edit without getting your permission beforehand. (t · c) buidhe 08:02, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
  1. In a dialogue you can't simply say "I disagree" and leave it there.
  2. This is in the Hintjens article: "[Rever] repeats this term dozens of times, in order to drive home the idea, first suggested by the Rwandan ministry of defence in 1991,[102] that the RPF was pulling the strings of every organization, even the Interahamwe militias." I have already copied endnote 102 above.
  3. You might suggest changing "alleged" to "states" in my edit, instead of repeatedly deleting the whole edit.
  4. Don't make it look like I'm doing what you've been doing from the start. I keep inviting you to a dialogue and explain everything I do on the Talk page. It looks like you have formed an opinion based on a few non-expert sources and are enforcing that view without seeing the bigger picture Saflieni (talk) 08:17, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
    1. I already cited evidence that he is an expert above; don't see the point of repeating myself. If you disagree, the Reliable sources noticeboard is the right place to discuss whether that is the case.
    2. Yes, but isn't "every organization" a bit of an exaggeration? Does Rever actually state that the RPF control NATO or the Seattle City Council? For such a strong claim with BLP issues, I do think you need to go back to the original source and determine that Rever actually says that. Her statements about RPF infiltration are already covered in the content section. Peer review is not some magic process that automatically eliminates any false or misleading statement.
    3. You are the one who blanket reverts my edit without bothering to determine if it is meritorious or not. I have integrated many of your suggested changes, including here.[8] (t · c) buidhe 08:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
  1. This is another example of the "Appeal to authority" fallacy. Bachman is indeed an expert and a good one at that, but not on this subject and this is what matters here. You're avoiding the fact that you were citing an introduction to an interview, not an actual review. You also do not explain why each and every non-expert opinion needs to be quoted when they can be summarized or referred to with a couple of examples.
  2. This is an example of the "Reductio ad absurdum" fallacy. It's clear that Hintjens and van Oijen, and Judi Rever in her book, and the minstry of Defence in 1991, are not referring to NATO or Seattle but to organizations in Rwanda. Again, read their explanation which I have copied above. Furthermore: It's because of that remark in the Content section that a response to it by experts in the Reception section is warranted, but it should be noted in any case.
  3. This is a "Tu Quoque" fallacy. You have reverted all my edits from the start and have not seriously engaged with my arguments on the Talk page. Don't turn this around. Saflieni (talk) 09:32, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
    1. I do not agree that Bachmann's opinion is non-expert or that it is undue weight for inclusion here. You seem to be removing opinions that you disagree with rather than seeking genuine balance.
    2. OK, you admit that the wording is misleading and false. Good. I think that the claims about infiltration are already covered under the accusation of "recycl[ing]... earlier denial narratives and sources". They don't provide any evidence that the claims of infiltration are true or false.
    3. Really? How come your additions about Bert Ingelaere and Marijke Verpoorten, Colette Braeckman, the 2019 letter in Le Soir, etc. are all in my version of the article? [9] But you resort to blanket reverting without compromising on anything I suggest? (t · c) buidhe 10:14, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
  1. It's not an opinion. You can check Bachman's work and you'll find that the focus of his research had been on different subjects than the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. On the podcast he acts as an interview host, and he doesn't offer an expert opinion in the introduction on the webpage so there's no need to include that.
  2. I keep inviting you to a constructive dialogue but you keep jumping from one false accusation to the next. Why don't you explain why you insist on hiding relevant information from a peer reviewed journal when at the same time you keep insisting on quoting irrelevant layman's views?
  3. See my earlier answers. I've removed controversial and objectively untrue statements that would need more information and as a result would become separate discussions not relevant to this Wiki page. I have provided reasons for each of those issues, which you ignore. Why don't we take it from where the article is right now and try to improve it without adding too much clutter? Saflieni (talk) 11:32, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
    1. I say he is reliable for what he is cited for. WP:NPOV says, "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." It does not say, "We only cite people who Saflieni thinks have relevant expertise".
    2. It's very simple: we can't misrepresent the contents of a book written by a living person.
    3. Are you referring to Luc Marshal's quote? I provided several other sources which say the same thing. But you keep reverting them all, based on your personal opinion that they're all mistaken. That's not how it works on wikipedia, you have to cite reliable sources. (t · c) buidhe 11:46, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
  1. It's like talking to a brick wall. Bachman is not a reliable source here, I've explained why.
  2. You haven't read the book, you have no expertise or understanding, but still you keep telling yourself that you know better than specialized peer reviewed research.
  3. I'm referring to a number of quotes and examples. Apparently you haven't read (or understood) the reasons I provided.
  4. I have enough of this. As I have noted before, you have neither the intention nor the ability to cooperate. If you want to prove something, do it elsewhere. Saflieni (talk) 12:44, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
    I've posted to WP:Reliable sources noticeboard to ask if the source is considered reliable. (t · c) buidhe 12:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:POV and WP:BLP

Latest comment: 3 years ago30 comments4 people in discussion

This article now relies far too heavily on one article by Caplan (at least 8 references to it.) The article needs to organize the "reception" material by topic, bearing in mind that this is an article about a book. The accusations that its author committed the thought crime of genocide denial can go into one paragraph, followed by her response that she is not denying genocide. This used to be an informative and balanced article about a book, it has been turned into an attack page against its author. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:28, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I mostly agree with it, bearing in mind that Caplan goes into more detail on relevant background information than other sources. His opinion of the book and its author are not 100% negative either. (t · c) buidhe 02:44, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I've already reduced the number of Caplan's comments. I don't see the "attack" element. Perhaps you can explain. Two references to denial by experts (the 60 experts and Hintjens) you've reduced to one. Why? According to the article on genocide denial by Hintjens and van Oijen, Rever's book fits Stanley Cohen's definition of implicatory genocide denial. They argue that Rever doesn't literally deny the genocide but shifts the responsibility for it from the Hutu-extremists to the RPF. So it appears that Rever and the genocide experts refer to different definitions of denial. Saflieni (talk) 16:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

HouseOfChange, discuss changes on Talk page first please. It looks like you try to remove anything critical of the book. Saflieni (talk) 00:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

My edits were clearly explained in edit summaries based on Wikipedia policies such as WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. You are free to revert them based on WP:BRD but there is no requirement for an editor to create talk page explanations before making an edit. I am busy at the moment but will explain them more fully. Your hypothesis that I am acting in bad faith rather than trying to improve the article is uncivil and you need to do better at WP:AGF. HouseOfChange (talk) 00:27, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
OK, I have had a go at making the reception more coherent. What do you think about this edit? (t · c) buidhe 02:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • You explain your edits but they don't make sense. Let me give an example: in the part about Samual Totten you changed "fails to answer" important questions to "raises" important questions. But the article states literally: "Rever’s book raises none of these questions, or other equally pertinent ones." You're probably confused by the remark on the previous page that Rever's methodology raises a whole host of questions, by which they criticize the quality of her book. So, "fails to answer" sums it up. Another example: You change "conspiracy theories and denial" to "double genocide theory" but the source speaks of conspiracy theories and denial in this context. And another one: you removed "... noting that Epstein had no great credentials as a Rwanda expert." which is what Caplan literally writes on p. 181. And you removed the reference to Linda Melvern's book about genocide denial which states a fact that was also noted by Caplan and by Hintjens, so is relevant. What these changes have in common is that you're removing critical comments. That's just an observation. Saflieni (talk) 01:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
First of all, this is a Wikipedia article about a controversial book. It will be a summary of important material about the book. It will not include every criticism any more than it will include every word of praise. To say that the book "fails to answer" some questions that Caplan considers important is not really a relevant criticism. Book reviews are based on what is in the book, not on what you wish was in the book but didn't find there.
Summarizing here the critical response to the book, people have praised it as extensively researched, dramatically presented, and expanding what others have written about the background of the Rwanda genocide. People have criticized it as relying too much on hearsay from anonymous sources, relying too credulously on claims made by anti-RPF informants, exaggerating the killings by the RPF, and presenting its points as a polemic rather than with scholarly restraint.
A Wikipedia article will show our readers only the most significant and informative responses of critics, including not only critics who have spent a professional career writing their own books about Rwanda but also other influential public critics such as, for example, Epstein, of whom Caplan says,

Epstein, the author of the two pieces, has been involved with Africa for many years, normally but not exclusively specializing in public health issues. But she has also been a vocal opponent of the “Big Men” of Africa who have long betrayed their people. She has written on Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and now Rwanda. Whether one can call her a Rwandan specialist is moot. In a real sense, the fact that NYR regarded her as a specialist is enough to make her one.

This evaluation of Epstein by Caplan is not at all summed up by the phrase Saflieni has repeatedly edit-warred to maintain in the article "noting that Epstein had no great credentials as a Rwanda expert." Furthermore, Salfieni's removals of positive reviews by "non-experts" is not based on Wikipedia policy. This is not a scholarly work, it is a book of investigative journalism, a work of polemic addressed to a general public.
Unless Saflieni stops edit-warring with reverts based on claims of bias rather than on relevant policy, against two other editors who dispute his repeated efforts to WP:OWN this article, we need to get wider input. Wikipedia editing is based on reaching consensus in a collegial manner, not on asserting expertise and demanding compliance. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:32, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
HouseOfChange, sorry, but "Book reviews are based on what is in the book, not on what you wish was in the book but didn't find there" is not correct. Certainly book reviews also talk about what is not in a book, when, according to the reviewer, it should be there. Drmies (talk) 15:53, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • The problem with "conspiracy theories and denial" is that the sentence structure attributes this opinion to Wikipedia rather than the letter-writers.
    If the guilt-by-association with defense lawyers and claimed genocide deniers it to be mentioned at all it should be in the content section because it is verifiable fact that such individuals are credited in her book, rather than someone's opinion about it. (t · c) buidhe 02:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • You should tone it down a little with your edit warring allegations and instead try to discuss the issues in a rational manner. My edits have been consistently reverted by Buidhe, ten times in a row, and now you are next in line apparently. I didn't write this article but offered to do a rewrite because I agree the structure is not perfect. But you two seem to be fans of the book, which is fine, but don't come here accusing others of bias for balancing the praise by (mainly) laymans that are sometimes not even factually accurate and form the minority view, with the comments of actual SMEs who are the majority view. If contenious statements are included in the Content section, there's no reason to exclude comments on those topics by subject matter experts. Wikipedia readers should also have a sense of who is an expert with decades of research experience and who is a newbie on the subject (Garrett, Epstein, Bachman, etc.). The conspiracy theories make up most of the book and the denial issue is central to the controversy. To pretend they're not and ignore these themes, suggesting that Rever is a credible investigative journalist is not legitimate because that's expressing your opinion, not the opinion of the experts. Note that all experts, aside from Reyntjens and Lemarchand, criticize Rever's book for being extremely one-sided, acting like a prosecutor rather than a journalist, not asking (or answering) pertinent questions, being inaccurate, and/or recycling earlier denial narratives. That's not my opinion but theirs. Those elements needed to get a more prominent place in the article which is why I included some. Saflieni (talk) 09:54, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
      I don't think the book is one-sided, any more than a book titled Stalin's War Crimes (but which acknowledges Nazi war crimes) is one sided, it's just what the topic of the book is.
      As for "suggesting that Rever is a credible investigative journalist", well actually many RS say that, which should be reflected in the article. Regardless of whether you think differently. (t · c) buidhe 11:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Don't pretend that the reviewers who praise the book are not represented. They still make up a large part of the article. Your attempts to give them undue weight and misrepresent the expert views is what I don't agree with. See lengthy discussions above. Saflieni (talk) 11:52, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Buidhe, you have now reverted some of my edits twelve times in a row if I'm not mistaken. The restructuring I can agree with but not your continuous attempts to give undue weight to a minority view and minimizing the majority (SMEs) view. Perhaps policeman HouseOfChange can explain undue weight.Saflieni (talk) 15:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
      HouseOfChange describes your preferred version as an "attack page", which is definitely not allowed on Wikipedia. You would be best off learning to respect consensus rather than insisting on getting your way on every particular. (t · c) buidhe 15:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
    • Yes, that was an uninformed insult by HouseofChange and not the way to start a constructive dialogue about how to improve the page. But there's still a possibility to start that dialogue rather than you two ganging up on me. Saflieni (talk) 15:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I am staying out of the edit warring case, since I think it's more important that I say a few things here, as an academic who has written books and book reviews. I think all of y'all are, at various points, mistaken. HouseOfChange, I have already pointed out what I think is one mistake in your comments here: of course reviewers can note what they think is missing--in fact, that's an essential part of reviewing, even of FA reviewing here on Wikipedia. Second, this edit, that summary is not correct. It's not a BLP violation, and second, the three authors do say that the author engages in victim blaming: "The book propagates inaccuracies about the catalysing event of the 100 days of genocide against the Tutsis, blames the victims, and does not accurately discuss the rebuilding and reconciliation that has since occurred in Rwanda." And it doesn't violate POV because the opinion is properly ascribed.

One of the reasons that I do not want to adjudicate in this ongoing edit war because I am saddened at the writing in this article. That Lancet letter is a good example: it comes out of nowhere. The article didn't mention that "journalist Laurie Garrett" (she's a bit more than "just" a journalist) actually published that book review in The Lancet (that is important too)--well, review, it's a four-page article in one of the most highly respected medical journals, so it carries some weight, and choosing "creative writing" to cite in our article is a bit unfair. But "The Lancet published a letter" doesn't do justice to the letter: it is a letter, sure, but it is written by three experts, including Agnes Binagwaho, and they ask serious questions of the editors at the journal: the journal would not have published it if it hadn't thought this was valid. In other words, that whole Lancet business warranted more than two sentences.

Again, I am not going to act as an administrator in this dispute: this was already too complex for the 3RR board. And I wouldn't know what to do here: I see HouseofChange making edits that I think are misguided, and I see Saflieni continuing to edit war--when they are removing edits that I think are misguided. What this article needs are some expert editors who can do justice to the book and to the reviews/criticism, editors who are not so eager to revert. Good luck. Drmies (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Drmies: Having come to this article only because I needed a QPQ at DYK, I am bothered that Saflieni turns criticisms of the book into attacks on its author. For example, the review you cite says that the book "blames victims" but Saflieni translated that into accusing author of victim blaming, a portmanteau with very negative connotations that the review did not use. Similarly, the article when I first saw it had a paragraph about accusations of genocide denial, but now those accusations are greatly expanded, for example "conspiracy theories and denial" and recycling "earlier denialist narratives and sources." The concluding paragraph of reception should give some balanced overview or summing up of reception but instead it invites WP:SYNTH and "guilt by association" by saying Rever thanked "several defence lawyers and known genocide deniers for their help." On this talk page, Salflieni has explained the "genocide denial" does not really mean denying the Tutsi genocide but instead means it "fits Stanley Cohen's definition of implicatory genocide denial." It seems to me that, due to WP:BLP. Wikipedia should not be promoting inflammatory and misleading wording of attacks on the book's author. Certainly, many of the people who strongly disliked the book have made strongly worded criticisms of the author for writing it. I am not a "fan" of Rever or of this book, but I am a fan of WP:BLP. I am very grateful to EdJohnston for protecting the article so that we can try to get consensus, preferably with help from a few more editors. HouseOfChange (talk) 17:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I think you're stretching the BLP a bit there, certainly in the "victim blaming" thing. I think it would have been better to rephrase the sentence if indeed you had that concern, also since (as you've seen) I think that those articles deserve a bit more weight. But I am glad to see more interested editors here--I do not believe that the moment the next editor steps in they're here because they're part of a tag team or something, so thanks. Drmies (talk) 17:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Not to mention that HouseOfChange accuses me of an edit that was already there when I started contributing. Buidhe inserted the victim blaming reference and it hasn't changed since [10] That's the dishonest attitude I get around here. And to Drmies: the status of The Lancet as a medical Journal is of no consequence in this case because the editors have no competence in the field of genocide studies and the article was not peer reviewed. The same goes for Laurie Garrett herself. She may have won a Pulitzer for reporting on the Ebola outbreak in western Zaire 25 years ago, but she has no knowledge of Rwanda and the genocide. This explains the many factual mistakes in her article and the need for reading the book (and a lot more) to be aware of those mistakes. Saflieni (talk) 19:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Final remark: Someone who hasn't got a clue about what is considered genocide denial by the scholarly community isn't fit to make judgments about what constitutes "inflammatory and misleading wording" and shouldn't work on this article. Genocide is not a subject you pick up in a few days, or even a few years. Saflieni (talk) 19:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
HouseOfChange is right. Besides, I'm sure you're aware that the expanded definitions of "Rwandan genocide denial" or "implicatory genocide denial" are hardly universally accepted among scholars. For instance, Caplan explicitly states that Rever's book is *not* denialist. And Melvern's book received very harsh reviews from experts.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ Reyntjens, Filip (2020). "Intent to deceive: Denying the genocide of the Tutsi". African Affairs. doi:10.1093/afraf/adaa014.
  2. ^ Susan Thomson. "How not to write about the Rwandan genocide". africasacountry.com. Retrieved 11 November 2020.

(t · c) buidhe 01:34, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  • Right about what? His lie that I changed "the book" into "the author" blaming victims? Is he going to apologize for his falsehoods? Let's wait and see. And please stop commenting on the genocide literature as if you know what you're talking about. Only a tiny minority of scholars still uses literal denial to define genocide denial. Your comments about Melvern's book are equally irrelevant and misleading. You are cherry picking from the reviews and forget to put them in the right perspective: Melvern criticizes Reyntjens' work in her book so he writes a negative review to get back at her. That's how it works, unfortunately. Besides, the two reviews you cite don't challenge the information from Melvern's book that's used in this Wikipedia article. That information has been noted by other authors and is verifiable in Rever's book. Saflieni (talk) 08:25, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Because Saflieni has consistently inserted negative material and removed positive material (diffdiffdiff) I mistakenly assumed that the "victim-blaming" comment originated with him. It will be good if this page can return to talk about improving the article and reaching consensus. HouseOfChange (talk) 13:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

HouseOfChange: The problem in my view is that you have been jumping to conclusions from the start - calling my edits "an attack" - and keep making other negative judgments and insulting remarks without trying to engage in a dialogue about the subject matter. I'll be happy to explain every edit to you, although I have already done that if you take a look at the previous discussions from the top of this page. In general, what you call negative materials are in fact relevant comments by reputable scholars and journalists who are experts on the subject and have been working in this field for decades. They are not attacking, as you suggest. And what you regard positive materials were problematic for various reasons: original research issues; contentious or even tendentious information (which would need lengthy explanations and the inclusion of contrasting views); a botched up quote that was referenced to a book but was actually an indirect quote taken from an article; a number of factual mistakes; misrepresented sources; and edits meant to solve the undue weight issue. Why don't you look up my explanations above and if you're not satisfied with them we'll discuss further. Saflieni (talk) 15:57, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  • Buidhe: Everything I bring up here you dismiss or ignore anyway. I will get to editing the Wikipedia page on genocide denial in due time. Saflieni (talk) 15:57, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
    "Everything I bring up here you dismiss or ignore anyway" This is not an accurate representation of how I have incorporated many of your suggestions, nor is it an attitude conducive to collaborative editing. (t · c) buidhe 16:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
You are still confused about Wikipedia policies and guidelines. In fact, WP:OR, WP:POV, etc. only apply to Wikipedia articles, not the sources cited in them. "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." WP:BIASED sources are allowed. (t · c) buidhe 16:02, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Edit request

Latest comment: 3 years ago37 comments5 people in discussion

I agree with Drmies that this article is a mess that needs major re-thinking. But there are a few embarrassing things that one could change easily.

I request that someone removes the gratuitous and misleading slap at NYRB reviewer Helen Epstein that appears as the final phrase in this sentence, "Caplan credits Helen Epstein's favorable two-part piece in The New York Review of Books for popularizing Rever's work, noting that Epstein had no great credentials as a Rwanda expert."

First, its tone is not encyclopedic.

Second, although this is a phrase used by Caplan, it does not fairly represent Caplan-on-Epstein, for Caplan goes on to say:

When NYR devotes substantial parts of two consecutive issues to a single book, attention must be paid... Epstein, the author of the two pieces, has been involved with Africa for many years, normally but not exclusively specializing in public health issues. But she has also been a vocal opponent of the “Big Men” of Africa who have long betrayed their people. She has written on Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and now Rwanda. Whether one can call her a Rwandan specialist is moot. In a real sense, the fact that NYR regarded her as a specialist is enough to make her one. And as her double-barreled review shows, she has a pretty impressive knowledge of the country.

Third, being not-a-Rwanda-expert does not fairly sum up Helen Epstein, a serious academic who has spent years in East Africa and written two well-received books based on her time there.[1]

Fourth, if we are to rate the authority of each reviewer, what do we say about the expertise, relative to Helen Epstein, of Helen Hintjens, an assistant professor at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, who "previously worked in the Centre for Development Studies at Swansea University in Wales" -- or the Rwanda-expertise of Jos van Oijen "an independent author and researcher"? [comment about van Oijen removed by HouseofChange in this edit--Drmies]

I previously removed the bolded phrase with edit summary "POV"[11] but was reverted with no edit summary by Saflieni.[12] HouseOfChange (talk) 04:49, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I second this request. (t · c) buidhe 05:02, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

So now you proceed from attacking me to attacking peer reviewed scholars and researchers, based on Twitter gossip? BLP rules are suddenly out the window? Let me correct you here:

  1. Dr. Hintjens is a notable scholar/researcher of Erasmus University and is a subject matter expert. She has published over a hundred relevant papers and book chapters. Her article "Explaining the 1994 genocide in Rwanda" has been cited 411 times in the academic literature, according to Google Scholar. You have no business belittling the relevance of her work or her standing in the scholarly community.
  2. I have looked at the twitter account you refer to, which you use to attack Hintjens' co-author. You're cherry picking to give a false impression. The first thing you should have noticed is that the tweet doesn't provide an example, so it's not verifiable. The second thing is that the tweet is contradicted by other tweets on the same account. About van Oijen's article on Rusesabagina he tweets: "Van Oijen's text is actually quite balanced and worth reading," so you're off the mark. [13]. In another tweet the same ex-professor uses Van Oijen's research to win a debate about the assassination of president Habyarimana. [14]. These examples should teach you to look beyond information that agrees with your belief (confirmation bias). An additional Google search shows that van Oijen has published a widely read review of Rever's book in a Dutch literary magazine with a focus on Africa. [15] That review is listed in Lagarde's "Rwanda Bibliography 2018", so it's relevant. Some of the sources we cite in this Wikipedia article refer to it (Melvern, Caplan). We should consider using it as a source.
  3. Epstein, like Garrett, may be an expert but you keep forgetting that what matters is relevant expertise. They are not subject matter experts. Having written extensively about AIDS in Uganda or Ebola in Zaire doesn't mean that they're experts on other subjects and other countries. You are trying to suggest something which is does not accurately represent Caplan's opinion of Epstein.
  4. Your remark that I didn't explain that edit is misleading, because even though I forgot to write an edit summary, I invited you to discuss on the Talk page and have explained it there diff[16] Saflieni (talk) 08:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
    1. As I said before, the book is not about the genocide, it is about RPF war crimes. You keep saying that but it's like claiming a book titled Stalin's War Crimes is actually about the Holocaust. Also, there's nothing in HouseOfChange's post that could be misinterpreted as "belittling".
  1. 2. "Widely read"? The magazine isn't even notable. Cannot find any reliable sources that discuss it in depth. I don't see how being included in someone's bibliography would grant due weight.
  • I have provided sources. And Lagarde's Rwanda Bibliography is not "someone's bibliography" (you can't stop guessing, can you?) but an annually published compendium of all relevant literature on Rwanda.Saflieni (talk) 12:53, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
  1. 3. I think that HouseOfChange and I are reading a different paper than you are. Their quote shows that *you* have misrepresented what Caplan wrote about Epstein. (t · c) buidhe 11:30, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Looking more closely at the Rusesabagina article I don't find any evidence for the motives and intentions suggested by HouseOfChange. It's a blatant violation of NPOV. Furthermore I find several relevant scholars who praise the article along with Reyntjens, like Phil Clark [17] and Nicki Hitchcott [18]. HouseOfChange should remove it and be cautioned for spreading vicious rumors on Wikipedia to get his way. Thank you. Saflieni (talk) 11:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
    • I guess we can add NPOV to the list of core policies and guidelines that you don't appear to understand. NPOV only applies to article space, not to talk page posts! (t · c) buidhe 11:15, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Have it your way. You could just choose to do the right thing for a change. Besides: "BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages, edit summaries, user pages, images, categories, lists, article titles and drafts." If the libelous accusations are not removed I will get someone who will do for you. Saflieni (talk) 12:53, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
  • It seems that when the information is favorable to the book, Saflieni is immediately looking to discredit the author's credentials and/or show that it does not accurately represent the original source, but when it is critical, then neither credentials nor misrepresentation matter. That is not a productive attitude towards improving the article or achieving NPOV. (t · c) buidhe 11:15, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I removed my off-topic remark about van Oijen, as requested by [[u|Saflieni}}. The point was not to "attack" people other than Epstein, it was to show that the article is inappropriate to throw shade at Epstein. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

  • There's no shading, just a reference to Caplan trying to put things in perspective. You give an example from the discussion which follows that remark, but I could similarly point at what comes after your quote: "But it’s not at all clear what Epstein knew about Rwanda before she read Rever’s book, and it’s not at all encouraging that, following Rever’s own example, the only literature she refers to in her review were produced by Kagame’s sworn enemies, including Edward Herman, Robin Philpot, and Barrie Collins, all of whom must be read with extreme suspicion." This is very critical again. Caplan goes on to call Epstein a fan of Rever and criticizes her for uncritically buying into the entire Rever indictment, not just the credible charges. So how would you fairly summarize that whole discussion? I felt that simply using the brief reference to Epstein not having great credentials on Rwanda would be a respectful solution without having to go into detail. Saflieni (talk) 14:58, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
    • No, what you did is the opposite of a "respectful solution"--you lifted one little negative detail which was only the prelude to a paragraph of praise. That is the essence of misquoting, and if we're going to call all kinds of things BLP violations, that surely is one, since it misrepresents both the writer (Caplan) and the topic (the subject of the article). (HouseOfChange, I do not agree with you that the tone is unencyclopedic, but that's by the by.) EdJohnston, I am loath to pull you in here since as the protecting admin you probably want to stay out of this content matter, but I think we have a consensus to at least remove the offending phrase, "noting that Epstein had no great credentials as a Rwanda expert". Thanks, Drmies (talk) 16:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
I suggest using the {{edit fully protected}} template and that could bring in a different admin to make the decision. If this change does have consensus, getting it made in a couple of days should be quick enough. EdJohnston (talk) 17:11, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
You should read that article with care. If you read the whole discussion Caplan is practically calling Epstein a dupe, so I do believe I handled it with respect. You're just being hostile and shouldn't be handling this case if you can't be neutral and fair. Saflieni (talk) 17:15, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Saflieni, I'm going to drop a warning on your talk page for a personal attack. Nothing EdJohnston has done here can be construed as hostile (I have nothing to do with "handling" this article, as I've mentioned before). Drmies (talk) 17:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
I was of course addresssing your comment, Drmies, not EdJonston's. Wasn't that obvious? I guess not, so I apologize to him for the misunderstanding. But again: Please read Caplan's discussion of Epstein carefully. It's the section titled "Rever has a fan" that starts on p. 181 and is three pages long. That's not too much to ask, is it? since you insist on falsely accusing me of misquoting and other stuff. Saflieni (talk) 18:48, 4 December 2020 (UTC) I see that it's open access now, so reading it shouldn't be a problem: [19] Saflieni (talk) 19:26, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Caplan says that Rever was too ready to believe untrustworthy sources, and strongly implies that Epstein was too ready to believe Rever. Here are a few quotes of material in his article I consider remarkable and relevant, very little of which you see reflected in this article.

I’m very much among those who were discombobulated by her book, having been only too aware of my failure for the past several years to highlight sufficiently the sins of the RPF. My chief rationale—and it was both plausible and serious—was a fear that the genocide would be forgotten, along with its foreign enablers...Rever’s credibility is significantly reinforced by her own explicit acceptance of the full reality of the genocide of the Tutsi. Rever offers no equivocation here. It happened, she declares, just as all but the most fanatical denier agrees it happened. This position greatly bolsters her plausibility…

It must be said firmly that there is no evidence whatever that Rever has faked any of her references. I make no such accusation. It is her credulousness, not her integrity that is in question here. It is surely legitimate to ask why she accepted the accusations of those she knew held bitter grudges against Kagame, and why we should take these wholly anonymous sources as gospel, given the damning nature of their testimony…

... there are other sources for some of her most terrible accusations. She is absolutely right to cite Oxfam66 as the source for saying that after the RPF destroyed the Hutu refugee camps in eastern Congo in October–November 1996, the world in effect lost track of some 400,000 of their inhabitants who did not return to Rwanda and who were being pursued relentlessly into the Congo forests by the RPF and its Congolese allies. In a real sense, they just disappeared forevermore. The evidence seems to suggest that the RPF must have disappeared them. Both Amnesty International and MSF reported mass murders.67 But the fact remains that no one ever knew how large a group they really were from the get-go—400,000 is just a rough if mind-boggling estimate.

... most genocide scholars are likely to have read some of the texts mentioned in this paper and would have been aware of the RPF’s bloody record. Yet that part of the Rwandan narrative has been habitually played down by many of those scholars for years. So they come upon Rever’s charges as if for the first time and are shocked and disgusted. Yet they are not Rever’s charges at all. She is merely here recapitulating the contents of a UN investigative team of 34 members, in a major report issued by the UN in 2010….

Deceitful denier sources such as this, some of whom Rever thanks in her acknowledgements, do nothing whatever to reinforce her credibility. …

Gourevitch draws a picture that helps to explain unpalatable deeds perpetrated by the side he so clearly has come to admire. Rever does the opposite, and Epstein on the whole finds Rever plausible in virtually every regard.

...it must not be concluded that the entire Rever book and Epstein’s entire review are nothing more than revisionist frauds being perpetrated by those who hate Paul Kagame. In fact, all future histories of Rwanda must include a significant emphasis on the RPF’s crimes…

Surely it is sufficient to say that the RPF has been guilty of war crimes, which we knew long before Rever slapped us in the face with them. A wake-up call was long overdue. This, I well understand, is deeply awkward for anyone who has gushed over the progress made in the country since the genocide…

I believe we should agree that Rever has reinforced the case against the RPF that had already been made and that left little doubt that the RPF under President Kagame is indeed guilty of war crimes, though not of genocide. The RPF record does not, in my view, meet the criteria of the Genocide Convention. But war crimes are surely serious and shocking enough.

It is a disservice to Wikipedia's readers to cherry-pick trivia from Caplan's long and thoughtful article, to minimize favorable and influential reviews by Epstein (NYRB) and Garrett (Lancet), while lovingly expanding on criticisms from Hintjens and van Oijen. Saflieni, if you have a WP:COI regarding these Dutch authors (or others whose work is cited in this article), you should disclose it. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I could ask you the same questions HouseOfChange. Why do you insist on giving undue prominence to these two non-experts and downplay scientific information? If you can't understand the difference between on the one hand specialized peer reviewed research and on the other hand book reviews by non-experts, I don't know what else to tell you. And although your repertoire of personal attacks is impressive, I have not lovingly expanded anything. More interesting is why Drmies condones every lie you and buidhe have been telling about me and about others. What's your agenda? Please note that whatever you seem to believe, nobody contests RPF crimes. They're acknowledged by all the commenters cited in this Wikipedia article, including those who are critical of Rever's work. But as Caplan tells us: Rever magnifies this death and destruction many times, and Epstein wholly accepts her sweeping account. To pretend otherwise is doing Wikipedia readers a disservice, so better to include a word of caution.Saflieni (talk) 20:54, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
If this were an article about RPF war crimes, or if this were an article about a scholarly book, then expert testimony would matter much more than book reviews. But this is an article about a mass market nonfiction book, therefore we include both book reviews and expert opinions.
I agree with Caplan that Rever was too uncritical of her sources, so that her book ended up mingling accurate information with overblown claims such as "death camps." I do not want this article to be a whitewash but I want it to be a fair and informative service to Wikipedia readers who are interested in learning about a book. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:29, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
I keep repeating myself. Have I removed the book reviews? No. Have I removed the positive comments? No. Have I altered the article's structure? No. Have I offered to explain my edits? Yes. Have I repeatedly invited you to a dialogue? Yes. Did I trim the non-experts views and expand a bit the critical expert's views? Yes, but not extremely. My edits were intended to create balance and accuracy and to address the contentious and erroneous statements. I have offered you to go over them together but you refused. What do you want then? Ah yes, a ban for a month so you won't have to cooperate. Nice. Saflieni (talk) 00:44, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

EdJohnston and Drmies: This: "I think we have a consensus to at least remove the offending phrase", is a mistake. You'll find it's not an offending phrase if you check Caplan's article as I requested, but in fact accurate and relevant information. Consensus is not a popular vote but about getting it right. My explanations on this page are usually swamped by endless discussions but ignoring them, in this case the one here [20] is not helpful. Please read the whole section "Rever has a fan" [21] to understand the context of the remark. If the article and my explanation are too complicated then please find a neutral other who understands the subject. A lack of knowledge and understanding has been at the core of this dispute from the beginning so let's not end it the same way. Saflieni (talk) 06:53, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

The phrase "noting that Epstein had no great credentials as a Rwanda expert" is misleading concerning both Epstein's credentials and Caplan's overall opinion of Epstein. Buidhe and Drmies agree that this phrase should be removed. Saflieni argues that the phrase should stay because of something related but different that Caplan says: Epstein should have been more critical of the book's claims. It is pretty funny that we must be warned by Caplan not to listen to Epstein when this Wikipedia article quotes only one phrase from Epstein and cites only the first of her two NYRB articles.[2][3] (Update: I added the word "Wikipedia" in italics, above, to avoid confusion about which article I meant.) HouseOfChange (talk) 23:14, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Funny how you go from "Caplan's long and thoughtful article" yesterday to "this crappy article" [22] today. Saflieni (talk) 22:47, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Saflieni, It is this Wikipedia article, not Caplan's article, that is in a deplorable state, "quotes only one phrase from Epstein and cites only the first of her two NYRB articles." HouseOfChange (talk) 23:07, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
Par for the course. Saflieni has serious problems with indenting correctly and making clear what the references and recipients of their comments are. Drmies (talk) 23:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
This is a first, so don't blow it out of proportions and use it for a personal attack. Put your energy in resolving the matter, that's your job. Why are we quarreling endlessly over what Caplan said about Epstein if nobody bothers to read that section of Caplan's article properly? There are seven references to Epstein's review and nine to Garrett's review in the current version. All I changed was to add a nuancing remark about Epstein's expertise on this subject and to remove a couple of factual errors and contentious remarks that buidhe copied from Garrett's article. Ever since I've been accused of attacking Epstein and of acting in bad faith. Get real, please. Saflieni (talk) 08:12, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Based on consensus above, I removed the phrase. Saflieni, people have read and considered your objection to the change but nobody agrees with your belief that this phrase improves the article. HouseOfChange (talk) 04:43, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

  • You have removed two verifiable facts that are relevant. This is like two or three people claiming the Eiffel Tower is in Madrid and one saying no it's actually in Paris, please go and check, and then the "consensus" is decided on by the ones who say it's Madrid. Who checked? Nobody. You've even convinced "people" that I've used a partial quote but you and I both know it isn't. And you keep missing the point of that section in Caplan's article, which is summed up here: "There is no reason for the average reader of NYR, unschooled in matters Rwandan, not to accept this conclusion from Epstein. More to the point of this piece, is there any reason that readers of a scholarly journal dedicated to genocide, but not versed in the literature of the Rwanda civil war or genocide, should come to a different conclusion? To be precise, how can any objective reader do anything but accept the Rever version of the 100 days and Epstein’s analysis of it? Unless Epstein herself fell far too easily for Rever’s indictment. Here is where the work of the European researcher mentioned above is so valuable, even though I am unable to identify him and his work yet. He questions, using serious experts, technical matters that are at the core of Rever’s indictment." Etcetera. Caplan is saying that people who lack knowledge on this subject, including Epstein, are being led astray. Saflieni (talk) 06:40, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Saflieni Check out this article: Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. HouseOfChange (talk) 17:10, 10 December 2020 (UTC) tEpst

Update Even experts can make mistakes, it seems. Caplan's remark in 2018 that "it’s not at all clear what Epstein knew about Rwanda before she read Rever’s book" shows he is not an expert on Helen Epstein. In 2017, Epstein published long articles about Rwanda in The Guardian[4][5] and in The Nation.[6] The Guardian article is based on a chapter from Epstein's own 2017 book Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda and the War on Terror, a book that recounts at length Kagame's rise to power, beginning with the c 1960 Rwandan Revolution that sent his Tutsi family into Uganda and proceeding into the 1990-1994 Rwandan Civil War. The Nation article discusses (in-depth) current Rwanda internal politics. Another Caplan mistake is his statement that "the only liter­ature she [Epstein] refers to in her review were produced by Kagame’s sworn enemies." In fact, Epstein quotes at length from Roméo Dallaire and mentions the others just in a list of names of people who criticized Kagame. Again, even experts can make mistakes. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:46, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "HELEN EPSTEIN:Visiting Professor of Human Rights and Global Public Health". Bard College. Retrieved December 4, 2020. B.A., University of California, Berkeley; Ph.D., Cambridge University; M.Sc., London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Professor Epstein is the author of Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda, and the War on Terror (Columbia Global Reports, 2017) and The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007; published in paperback as The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa, Picador, 2008). She has contributed articles to newspapers and journals including New York Review of Books, New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times Literary Supplement, and The Lancet, among others. She has also served as an adviser to numerous international organizations on HIV prevention and as a consultant on public health in developing countries to UNICEF, World Bank, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations.
  2. ^ Epstein, Helen (June 7, 2018). "The Mass Murder We Don't Talk About". New York Review of Books. Retrieved December 5, 2020. Rever's account will prove difficult to challenge. She has been writing about Central Africa for more than twenty years, and her book draws on the reports of UN experts and human rights investigators, leaked documents from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and hundreds of interviews with eyewitnesses, including victims, RPF defectors, priests, aid workers, and officials from the UN and Western governments. Her sources are too numerous and their observations too consistent for her findings to be a fabrication.
  3. ^ Epstein, Helen (June 28, 2018). "A Deathly Hush". New York Review of Books. Retrieved December 5, 2020. The claim that these killings constituted a 'parallel genocide' has long been dismissed by many academics and journalists, including myself, as overstatement, and even as Hutu propaganda. But Rever makes a plausible case for it. Even if these massacres didn't constitute genocide, it's worth asking why the fiction has persisted that Kagame's RPF rescued Rwanda from further genocide when much evidence suggests that it actually helped provoke it by needlessly invading the country in 1990, massacring Hutus, probably shooting down the plane of President Juvénal Habyarimana in 1994, and failing to move swiftly to stop the genocide of the Tutsis, as Roméo Dallaire—commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda at the time—suggested in his memoir Shake Hands with the Devil.
  4. ^ Epstein, Helen C (12 Sep 2017). "America's secret role in the Rwandan genocide". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 December 2020. When Rwanda's ethnic bonfires roared back to life in the days after the RPF invasion, Habyarimana and his circle seem to have sensed a political opportunity: now they could distract the disaffected Hutu masses from their own abuses by reawakening fears of the "demon Tutsis", who would soon become convenient scapegoats to divert attention from profound socioeconomic injustices.
  5. ^ Epstein, Helen C (12 Sep 2017). "Sources that link RPF to Rwanda plane plot". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 December 2020. ..the various investigations linking the RPF to the plot to down the aeroplane rely on former RPF officers who took enormous risks to share their stories. I do not rely on "convicted génocidaires", as Melvern claims. (See, for example, Kayumba Nyamwasa's interview in the BBC's Rwanda's Untold Story and UN investigator Michael Hourigan's affidavit in Uncovering Rwanda's Secrets at theage.com.au.)
  6. ^ Gatebuke, Claude; Epstein, Helen C (28 July 2017). "Rwanda's Elections and the Myth of Women's Empowerment". The Nation. Retrieved 11 December 2020. Victoire Ingabire, is serving a 15-year prison sentence for 'divisionism.' Her crime was daring to mention that there were Hutu and Twa victims of the Rwandan civil war, as well as Tutsis, and calling for reconciliation and recognition of all victims of Rwanda's past, regardless of ethnic background. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

And another question

Latest comment: 3 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion

Another, unrelated question for EdJohnston and Drmies: Yesterday HouseOfChange removed some libelous remarks about an author from the Talk page. Three hours later Drmies inserted a link on the Talk page that directs to those remarks in the edit history. By inserting that link the remarks were effectively not removed from the Talk page after all. This doesn't seem right. Please explain. Saflieni (talk) 11:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

  • HouseOfChange clearly stated that Caplan's article was worthwhile, but the Wikipedia article (the one that you have been blockading for weeks), is crappy. If you can't correctly understand talk page posts that then perhaps you should try editing Wikipedia in a different language. (t · c) buidhe 23:05, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I think you need to look up what the word "libelious" means. Questioning someone's credentials and quoting what has been written about them on Twitter is definitely not libelious, nor is it a violation of WP:BLP. (t · c) buidhe 20:14, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
    • The tweet doesn't provide an example to back up the allegation - apparently there isn't one - but HouseOfChange makes up one and ascribes intentions to the accused. Even the author of the gossip contradicts that suggestion. It's a false statement that unjustly harms someone's reputation. I hope you're not seriously supporting that. Saflieni (talk) 22:47, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
      • Oh please. "The tweet doesn't provide an example"--who the hell cares, it wasn't libelous. For clarity sake: this is the edit, yes; HouseOfChange should have struck it out, not removed it; I suspect they did so to appease you. The comment is not libelous, it is clearly ascribed to someone, etc. Saflieni, please stop pinging me: you are contributing nothing at all to this discussion or to this article. Except for bytes, of course: you're at 69 edits here, or about 47%, and at over 50% of the content. HouseOfChange, it's time for ANI to ask for a topic ban for this article and its talk page. Drmies (talk) 23:55, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
        • Because I've told you once that you were wrong on the Noticeboard, you've been extremely rude and unreasonable to me ever since. In this comment you are insulting me again. I came to you after my edits were reverted ten times in a row and several more times after that. Because you haven't done anything to resolve that we are still quarreling over details. Most of what I wrote on this page were explanations of my edits. Look at the disputed Helen Epstein remark [24]. Epstein has been mentioned more than 40 times since HouseOfChange challenged it [25] but all he did in support of her Rwanda credentials was refer to her book review and discredit bona fide scholars. Even you must have noticed that. Leave me alone and let someone who is neutral and fair handle this dispute if you can't be honest. Saflieni (talk) 07:48, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
        • Drmies Sorry, I didn't realize I should have struck it out rather than removed it. I was trying to appease Saflieni so we could get back to the topic of improving this article. I doubt that will happen so if you could please take this to ANI, I would be grateful. HouseOfChange (talk) 00:05, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and opened the ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Saflieni's_personal_attacks_and_other_disruption (t · c) buidhe 11:21, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Consider making a new version

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Please see the current state of the ANI discussion. Also User talk:EdJohnston#In Praise of Blood where I proposed that the ANI should be continued. Based on the ideas of User:HouseOfChange (as noted here it appears that it may be time for someone to create a new version of the article. I'll leave a note for User:HouseOfChange and see if he wants to propose here what to do. I am still acting as an admin so I don't have a position on what should be in the article; I just want to get an agreement among the rest of you. The best plan might be to start with a skeleton draft that doesn't say much about the truth of the author's claims but just says that she makes them. Then try to add to that with some edits that everyone can agree to. EdJohnston (talk) 16:33, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks EdJohnston for this generous effort on your part to get collaboration flowing. I agree we should separate facts from opinions, both in the book summary and elsewhere. Can we get some agreement on what to include in the way of opinion? What do others think? HouseOfChange (talk) 22:11, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Caplan's "little doubt that the RPF under President Kagame is indeed guilty of war crimes" is more relevant to this article than disputes about funerary arrangements

Latest comment: 3 years ago10 comments2 people in discussion

Here are some of the RS Caplan cites who confirm crimes that Rever alleges:

  • "the OAU report The Preventable Genocide: 'The RPF government and army have been guilty of major human rights violations, which this Panel unreservedly condemns. There are no excuses for such behavior. The genocide of the Tutsi does not for a moment justify the slaughter of innocent Hutu civilians.' That was by no means all. The report also included a 10-page chapter dedicated exclusively to the RPF's violations of human rights. Beyond that it pulled few punches of the blood-soaked war for Congo’s mineral riches to which the RPF was central."
  • Quoting the OAU report's chapter 17: "'Accusations against the RPF for human rights violations, often of massive proportions, have been heard since the invasion of 1990.' It continued: 'We have been persuaded by the evidence that at least some and perhaps most of these charges are true, that such violations took place before, during and after the genocide'"
  • Quoting the OAU report's chapter 17: "'Most human rights group . . . have determined that the RPF was responsible for a number of serious human rights violations beginning with the 1990 invasion. It was then that a recurring RPF pattern of behavior became unmistakably apparent: while professing a policy of openness and commitment to human rights, the RPF hindered the investigations' of neutral bodies trying to meet with potential witnesses."
  • OAU report' again: "Chapter 22, entitled and devoted in its entirety to 'The RPF and Human Rights.' Before the genocide halted in June 1994, it concluded, 'the RPF also killed many non-combatants. They killed civilians in numerous summary executions and in wholesale massacres.' The source here was Leave None to tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, written by Alison des Forges for Human Rights Watch."
  • Sourced to Des Forges:" Leave None calculated that the RPF may have slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians in the three months of combat. Moreover, it concluded, those abuses occurred so often and in such similar ways that they must have been directed by officers at high levels of responsibility—indeed, “by the highest levels of command of the RPF forces."
  • Des Forges again: "'In their drive for military victory and a halt to the genocide, the RPF killed thousands, including noncombatants as well as government troops and members of militia. As RPF soldiers sought to establish their control over the local population, they also killed civilians in numerous summary executions and in massacres.'" She also notes the RPF's hiding their actions from foreign observers.
  • Caplan quotes Dallaire's Shake Hands with the Devil: "The deaths of Rwandans can also be laid at the door of the military genius, Paul Kagame, who did not speed up his [military] campaign when the scale of the genocide became clear, and even talked candidly with me at several points about the price his fellow Tutsi might have to pay for the cause. The 'cause' was clear. It was not defeating the Government’s forces to stop the genocide as soon as possible. It was continuing the civil war until the RPF could take over the entire country."
  • "Gourevitch writes about the Kibeho tragedy. At first he seems deliberately understated, if not almost flippant: “The RPA operation to close the camp had gone awry,” he tells us, even though he himself believes at least 2,000 to 4,000 Hutu were killed. But a few pages later he indeed places the blame straight onto the shoulders of the RPA...'We finished up that day disgusted with the RPA.'"
  • OAU report: "RPF brutality in the DRC is just a particularly horrific example of a pattern that has been all too common on the [part of RPA’s forces] in the past decade. . . . Each year without exception until 1999–2000, almost all human rights organizations have documented such charges against the government, which the latter, without exception, dismisses as siding with the Interahamwe [a fierce Hutu militia], grossly exaggerated, or legitimate defence against ex-FAR marauding [ex-FAR—the army of the deposed Hutu government]"
  • "She [Rever] is absolutely right to cite Oxfam as the source for saying that after the RPF destroyed the Hutu refugee camps in eastern Congo in October–November 1996, the world in effect lost track of some 400,000 of their inhabitants who did not return to Rwanda and who were being pursued relentlessly into the Congo forests by the RPF and its Congolese allies. In a real sense, they just disappeared forevermore. The evidence seems to suggest that the RPF must have disappeared them. Both Amnesty International and MSF reported mass murders. But the fact remains that no one ever knew how large a group they really were from the get-go—400,000 is just a rough if mind-boggling estimate. ...This is the story told at the time by a series of UN expert panels, some chaired by Stearns, which had an intrinsic credibility. Yet the indefatigable RPF communications machine contemptuously repudiated all such accusations."
  • In 2010 .. the OHCHR, produced a 560-page mapping report covering the years 1993 to 2003. It 'found evidence that Kagame’s soldiers and their allies used hoes, bayonets and axes to butcher Rwandan and Congolese Hutu, often . . . killing them in groups. In many cases, the victims were raped, burned alive or shot.' Echoing far too many descriptions of the gruesome “work” performed by the genocidaires on the Tutsi, the report concluded that Kagame’s troops may have committed genocide in the Congo.
  • "the crimes most of us agree had been committed: the murder of Seth Sendashonga in 1998 in Nairobi, the 2014 murder of former RPF spy chief and one-time Kagame best friend Col. Patrick Karageya in Johannesburg, Kagame’s 'relentless war with his critics.' He has shut down newspapers and imprisoned, tortured, and killed his non-violent adversaries. 'His most charismatic political challengers, Victoire Ingabire and Diane Rwigara, languish behind bars.' (Both were finally pardoned by Kagame in September 2018; no explanation was proffered.)"
  • "In this review essay itself, I have included vile allegations of war crimes against the RPF by a whole host of sources, many of whom also have some regard for the positive achievements of Kagame and company. That includes the OAU Report, Dallaire, Des Forges, Prunier, Gersony, Gourevitch, various UN reports, Kinzer, Stearns, and numerous reports from NGOs. I’ve mentioned the individual cases of the Kibeho refugee camp and the murders of Sendashonga and Karegeya."

IPOB is a book about RPF crimes. Currently the article devotes much space to scholars disputing one particular claim: that the RPF disposed of hundreds of thousands of Hutu corpses in Akagera National Park. It seems only reasonable the article should give at least as much space to the claims in IPOB that are widely acknowledged to be true. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:58, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Again: It's not our job to prove which individuals or groups are guilty of which crimes. That's the job of courts of law. That doesn't mean that crimes did not take place. We just don't have enough information. We can say (as I did in my draft): "Most academics who publicly commented on In Praise of Blood acknowledged the reality of RPF war crimes, as well as the need to speak out about them, but noted there were no revelations in the book." Caplan also says: "Rever of course magnifies this death and destruction many times ..." So the question is which crimes does she exaggerate and by how much? We don't know the answer until the alleged crimes are investigated. All we can say is who investigated what, what their results were, and that the ICTR has not prosecuted the RPF.
The main topic of the book is double genocide. Rever uses her compilation of allegations as evidence for that theory. I've shown this by providing examples from throughout the book.
HoC is quoting several mistakes from Caplan's article. The botched up Dallaire quote was discussed earlier on this Talk page. Another error is the number of 400.000 missing refugees in the DRC. Rever correctly refers to 190.000 missing refugees reported by MSF in May 1997. Many refugees returned after that. And of course the number of missing refugees were estimated from pre-war camp population numbers, which were contested by that same MSF and they include non-refugees such as the ex-FAR/Interahamwe. Missing is not dead: the Mapping report speaks of "probably several tens of thousands [of victims], all nationalities combined," not of 400.000.
The Mapping report is a document that emphasizes the seriousness of crimes committed during the Congo wars by the involved armies. But it stresses that "... the Mapping Exercise was not to establish or to try to establish individual criminal responsibility of given actors..." It also says "... in light of the methodology adopted and the level of evidence used in this Exercise, it would have been imprudent, and unjust, to seek to ascribe personal criminal responsibility to any given individual, which is first and foremost a matter for legal proceedings based on the appropriate level of evidence."
claims in IPOB that are widely acknowledged to be true. - Which ones are "widely acknowledged"? We've been over this several times. Until that question is answered, we can only speak about it in general terms.
Keep in mind that Rever was in the DRC for one month in 1997 and a few days in Rwanda after that. She writes that she believed the stories she was told back then and that because of that belief she didn't interview anyone from the RPF. This is the main problem with her book and articles: it's one-sided and based on belief perseverance rather than a clinical examination of the facts. On Wikipedia we cannot follow in those footsteps and try to prove her right or wrong. See my comments on neutrality.
These discussions are not new, not on this page and not in the world of genocide studies. I'm not going to ask HoC to read the entire literature on the topics discussed here, because that would take years, but perhaps reading a few public comments from "the other side" (ICTR prosecutors in this case) will reveal the complex world behind every detail: [26][27] Saflieni (talk) 08:59, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Saflieni The main topic of the book is crimes of the RPF. Your repeated claim that The main topic of the book is double genocide is not accepted by any other editor, nor is it a claim I have seen made by any RS.

It is not Wikipedia's part to "prove" anything; Wikipedia's job is to report what RS say. The Caplan paper is WP:RS, a secondary source where an expert scholar extracts and judges work by many relevant "primary sources."

Caplan quotes Gourevitch ("That RPF elements had carried out reprisal killings against alleged genocidaires, and committed atrocities against Hutu civilian, was not in dispute"), quotes the OAU citing Alison Des Forges ("the RPF also killed many non-combatants. They killed civilians in numerous summary executions and in wholesale massacres."), and paraphrases Alison Des Forges (that slaughters of "tens of thousands of civilians in the three months of combat...occurred so often and in such similar ways that they must have been directed by officers at high levels of responsibility".) So what seems to be in dispute is just the number of civilians the RPF slaughtered during the early nineties. Assuming that Gourevitch and Des Forges are RS, (being cited approvingly by Caplan endorses them) those statements can be cited as coming from RS.

Wikipedia articles should have NPOV but also be accurate. If you look at the article Rwandan genocide, you can see that Wikipedia describes the behavior of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines quite harshly, based on what RS have said. The RPF, like RTLM, is an organization, not a living person. WP:BLP constrains what this article can say about Judi Rever or Paul Kagame, but we have no similar reason to conceal what RS have said about the RPF. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

  1. This discussion is another old one. Almost all the reviewers and commenters of the book, pro and con, especially the RS, discuss the double genocide. Why is that?
  2. HoC has been using Caplan when he comes in handy to support their POV, except when Caplan is "disrespecting Rever and Epstein" and HoC asks: "Does the article need to endorse his POV? Consensus says no."
  3. I'm not sure who HoC is trying to convert here. I have said continuously, and will keep repeating it, that all Rwanda scholars, and me as well, acknowledge RPF crimes, just not the exaggerated and unreliable/refuted information in Rever's book. The quotes HoC highlights are part of the story but like everything else they have a context. Interesting here, because of Rever's arguments that the RPF didn't stop the genocide, never saved anyone, and instead callously sacrificed the Tutsi, is that Des Forges on the same page as HoC's highlighted quote writes: "As RPF soldiers advanced south down the eastern side of the country and then swept west, they even stopped the killers in the act of attacking or preparing to attack Tutsi at several churches or camps for the displaced. More often they rescued Tutsi with no dramatic confrontation. They drove military, militia, and other assailants from the region and so made it possible for Tutsi to return from the swamps and bush and to emerge from their hiding places. The RPF soldiers saved tens of thousands from annihilation and relentlessly pursued those whom they thought guilty of genocide." And, also on that page, Des Forges writes, contrary to Rever's claims, that "In only a few cases, particularly in areas near the border with Burundi, civilian assailants reportedly joined soldiers in attacking other civilians." And about RPF killings Des Forges writes that "Although the subject of substantial speculation, the RPF slaughter of civilians has been poorly documented." And she writes that "certain kinds of RPF abuses" occurred so often and in such similar ways that they must have been directed by officers at a high level of responsibility." So there we are back at the point I've been making: We know that killings took place, but except for a few sufficiently researched cases, we can't present them as established facts, certainly not on the basis of Rever's book.
  4. Relevant is what the (real) RS say about Rever's book and about the alleged facts and theories in the book. NPOV does not include value judgments and contentious statements. And as far as accuracy is concerned: the article in the current state is full of errors and tendentious statements. I'm not the one who introduced them. Saflieni (talk) 22:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
@Saflieni::
1) "Double genocide" is scholarly jargon among people who study the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Understandably, they review the book through the lens of their own preoccupation and expertise. This does not mean that "double genocide" (a term IPOB never uses) is the book's main topic.
2) Caplan is an expert on the Rwandan genocide. He is not an expert on Judi Rever, and he is deplorably ignorant of Helen Epstein's previous writing on Rwanda, which included an article and a letter in the Guardian in 2017 on the topic of RPF involvement in the Habyarimana plane crash.[1][2]
3) and 4) My motivation is not to "convert" anyone. I created the list above in response to a previous statement by Saflieni: But what is it that we know with confidence? Right, Caplan does not include that information. It is not my intention to include that list in the article, merely to demonstrate Caplan does include information about the crimes "we know with confidence." HouseOfChange (talk) 04:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  1. HoC again recycles an argument already discussed several times before. Calling it "jargon" is just looking for an excuse to remove it from the article. Besides, the term double genocide is explained in several of the open sources we cite. Since HoC is in the habit of adding quotes to references, why not add this one (Ingelaere&Verpoorten): "This is the theory ... that there in fact were two genocides happening at the time: one against the Tutsi, and one committed by Tutsi fighters and civilians against the Hutu."
  2. Avoiding the argument. Besides, HoC's attempts to turn Helen C. Epstein into a Rwanda- or genocide expert for having written a not very good book (I'm being very polite here) and a letter to The Guardian (in which HCE refers to a controversial TV-documentary and a newspaper article about an equally controversial memo as her sources), are not convincing. Before judging a scholar as deplorably ignorant, it would be advisable to first scrutinize the content. Take HCE's book review for example: She refers in the same breath to three senior scholars and three notorious genocide deniers as critical authors - not really a sign of subject matter expertise.
  3. That list is not specific except on a few points which I've explained are errors or documents that according to the authors can't be used as evidence for guilty verdicts. So what is it exactly that we know with confidence? I've summed that up already.Saflieni (talk) 07:39, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@Saflieni::
  • 1 You specifically asked me why reviewers refer to "double genocide." I specifically answered your question.
  • 2 You contrasted my respect for Caplan's opinions about Rwandan genocide to the community's consensus rejection of Caplan's PA against Epstein. I will add that Caplan's saying "it’s not at all clear what Epstein knew about Rwanda before she read Rever’s book", when Google could given him his answer, seems to me emblematic of the narrowness that conflates knowing "about Rwanda" with worshipping a decades-old canon on genocide. IPOB is about RPF crimes, so having spent 20+ years hiding your eyes from RPF crimes is not really expertise for reviewing this book.
  • 3 I explained my reason for making the list, and you've explained your reasons for not caring, so perhaps we are done here. I intend to keep working to improve the article. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  1. No, my rhetorical question - why almost all reviewers and commenters, especially the RS, are discussing the double genocide theme of the book - was a response to HoC's suggestion that double genocide is not the main theme according to "any RS". HoC's reply that "it's their jargon" pretends that we were discussing a different, recycled topic, but it does in fact confirm the point I was making.
  2. More empty insults against senior scholars and me. I'm almost getting used to it. Btw: HoC and Buidhe are not "the community" and their POV cannot overrule Wikipedia guidelines, such as ... the opinion of a scholar whose expertise is in a different field should not be given undue weight. I'm sure "scholar" and "journalist" are interchangeable in this WP:FRINGE guideline.
  3. Another insult. HoC's ownership behaviour and uncivil approach may be supported and facilitated by admins but it's definitely not improving the article. WP:NPOV says: The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such. An explanation of how scientists have reacted to pseudoscientific theories should be prominently included. This helps us to describe differing views fairly. This also applies to other fringe subjects, for instance, forms of historical revisionism that are considered by more reliable sources to either lack evidence or actively ignore evidence ... To pretend that the fringe theories are just a minor issue when RS say the opposite, and using the same arguments as the author of the book to attack bona fide scholars and fellow editors, is not acting in the spirit of the guidelines. Saflieni (talk) 22:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@Saflieni: In the section below, you are invited to showcase the RS supporting your claim that The main topic of the book is double genocide. Also, per WP:REVTALK: "Avoid using edit summaries to carry on debates or negotiation over the content or to express opinions of the other users involved." HouseOfChange (talk) 23:45, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Baiting again. Give it a rest, HoC.Saflieni (talk) 00:34, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Epstein, Helen C (12 Sep 2017). "America's secret role in the Rwandan genocide". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 December 2020. Few subjects are more polarising than the modern history of Rwanda. Questions such as 'Has the RPF committed human rights abuses?' or 'Who shot down President Habyarimana's plane?' have been known to trigger riots at academic conferences. The Rwandan government bans and expels critical scholars from the country, labelling them 'enemies of Rwanda' and 'genocide deniers'
  2. ^ Epstein, Helen C (20 Sep 2017). "Sources that link RPF to Rwanda plane plot". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 December 2020. ..the various investigations linking the RPF to the plot to down the aeroplane rely on former RPF officers who took enormous risks to share their stories. I do not rely on "convicted génocidaires", as Melvern claims. (See, for example, Kayumba Nyamwasa's interview in the BBC's Rwanda's Untold Story and UN investigator Michael Hourigan's affidavit in Uncovering Rwanda's Secrets at theage.com.au.)

Discussion of what Caplan concludes

Latest comment: 3 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion
HouseOfChange: Don't edit-war, please. I used perfectly good quotes taken from these statements:
"The main contribution of Rever’s book is that it presses all of us to give the uglier aspects of the RPF’s record the prominence they deserve."(p. 159)
And: "... let me recapitulate the case for circumspection: there are too many unnamed informants; too many confidential, unavailable leaked documents; too much unexamined credulity about some of the accusations; too little corroboration from foreigners who were eyewitnesses to history."(184)
HoC on the other hand is quoting text that's not Caplan's conclusion about Rever's book. It is the conclusion of his paper which is a broader discussion that is not made clear or explained. Besides, I have already noted that Wikipedia is not a place for introducing criminal indictments or verdicts about alleged crimes, unless they're the result of a court trial. The way HoC's multi-quote is constructed suggests it is confirming Rever's book, which is certainly not what Caplan means. Saflieni (talk) 14:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Just to clarify the dispute: on the last page (p. 187) of "Rethinking the Rwandan Narrative for the 25th Anniversary," Caplan says the following:

Rever has reinforced the case against the RPF that had already been made and that left little doubt that the RPF under President Kagame is indeed guilty of war crimes, though not of genocide....I believe we all have an obligation to make this record better-known, and to demand that those now or once in high places..stop treating Kagame like an international superstar, a role model for our times.

Other things Caplan said (p 159 and p 184) may indeed be perfectly good quotes but they are not what Caplan "concludes" about Rever's book. What he "concludes" is that Rever's book has imposed obligations on his intended audience, genocide scholars, to "make this record [of RPF crimes] better known." HouseOfChange (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

This is not a response to my comment. Firstly, this: "The main contribution of Rever's book ..." is a clear conclusion. He couldn't have stated it more clearly. It's Caplan summing up what he elaborates on in the rest of his article. Secondly, in the final section he moves on from the book (he starts by repeating that he's not impressed by its quality) to what scholars and researchers should take away from it: doing proper research on alleged RPF crimes. But my point is that the quotes I chose are neutral, without the verdict and the value judgments. If you want to include "guilty" in an encyclopedia text, you'll have to make clear which specific crimes they're guilty of and which not. Besides, the dots in HoC's quote hide information which makes clear that Caplan is not discussing Rever's book anymore. It starts with: "The first scholarly obligation must be to re-cast the narrative, integrating as a major component the RPF record based on what we already know with confidence." So the second half of HoC's quote refers to that, not to Rever. But what is it that we know with confidence? Right, Caplan does not include that information. That's the dilemma which I've already addressed in earlier posts.Saflieni (talk) 23:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Since the topic right now is "what Caplan concludes" .... "The main contribution of Rever's book..." on p. 159 has exactly the same meaning as what Caplan "concludes" on page 197: "I believe we all have an obligation to make this record better-known, and to demand that those now or once in high places..stop treating Kagame like an international superstar, a role model for our times." So I am glad you agree with me that this is what Caplan "concludes." What he "concludes" should come at the end of the sentence, because it is more important to Caplan than the other half of the sentence, his criticism of the book's sources (recalling also that both Caplan and Totten were dubious about the ICTR material, which Rever has now made available.) HouseOfChange (talk) 01:51, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
HoC continues to ignore the point of writing a neutral article. Besides, by "we" Caplan means subject matter experts, not Wikipedia editors. Once those researchers have published their results we can write about it but we can't use the unknowns, the suggestions or the possibly contentious statements. Some researchers and journalists have actually examined the claims in the book, either directly (like H&vO) or indirectly (like the Court in Paris and scholars and journalists who were there during or shortly after the facts) who have found that the allegations don't stick. That's the main problem here. When allegations are investigated it can go two ways: the facts are either confirmed or not confirmed. You can't assume halfway what the result will be. Again: judging the guilt of individuals or groups for alleged crimes is the job of courts of law.Saflieni (talk) 08:59, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree, and I noted above, that Caplan's "us" and "we" refer to his intended audience, genocide scholars. Wikipedia is a place to report, fairly and in neutral language, what RS have said. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:52, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

No framing and no baiting please. Twisting arguments is not respectful and not helpful.Saflieni (talk) 15:52, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

"book describes the RPF crimes against Hutu civilians during the 1990s as a genocide comparable in scale and cruelty to the 1994 genocide"

Latest comment: 3 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion

The three sources (one 2018 interview, and two cites to IPOB) cited for this statement do not support it.

  • The first is an interview, where JR responds to a question about the number of Hutus killed with "C’est très difficile à estimer. Mais il y a beaucoup de soldats et officiers qui m’ont dit qu’au moins 500 000 Hutus civils ont été massacrés par les forces de l’APR durant le génocide et les deux années après. (It is very hard to estimate. But there are many soldiers and officers who told me that at least 500,000 Hutu civilians were massacred by RPA forces during the genocide and the two years after.)" Rever does not mention "cruelty" nor does she compare the scale of her sources' estimates to the genocide against Tutsis.
  • IPOB page 106 says that some Tutsi civilians committed crimes as cruel as those committed by some Hutu civilians. This is comparing crimes by two groups of civilians, not comparing RPF crimes to the 1994 genocide. Further, it makes no claim that the scale was similar.
  • IPOB pp 228-230 describe allegations of RPF slaughtering Hutus during the Rwandan Civil War, but they do not say that this was "equal in scale and cruelty" to the 1994 genocide.

None of these three sources support the claim being made about the book in that sentence. HouseOfChange (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

This discussion is an old one that we keep revisiting. When summarizing a major theme in a few words, it's not productive to ask if and where Rever uses those exact words. Rever uses a variety of expressions, including "similar" or "rival" or "the same way" or she simply states comparable numbers or methods. Acts of killings she describes are quite similar to those of the Tutsi-genocide and can be reasonably summarized as "cruel". For example, in the RFI interview Rever claims that the alleged RPF crimes against Hutus are also genocide and she gives a rough estimate of its scale: half a million. This is more or less comparable to the scale of the Tutsi genocide, whether she uses the word "comparable" or not. In the same article Rever mentions details of cruelty: RPF death squads and civilian members massacring babies and children with their parents.
In the book it's the same story. On p. 3 Rever writes: "In areas seized by the RPF or already under its control, its soldiers and intelligence agents worked with similar ethnic zeal ..." The details of this "similar zeal" are acts of cruelty which are summed up on the next page. On p. 71 Rever describes a cruel method of killing and proceeds to writes about "... war crimes to rival those of the Hutu genocidaires." On p. 106 she writes: "But a growing body of evidence now shows that Tutsi civilians betrayed and killed their Hutu neighbors in the same way that Hutus turned on Tutsis. The dynamic at work was chillingly similar." On p. 114 she writes about Tutsi civilians being more zealous than the RPA, and the RPA's objective was to eliminate as many Hutus as possible - the genocidaires' objective regarding Tutsis. On pp. 228-230 Rever again sums up cruel acts used by RPF soldiers and civilians to carry out the alleged Hutu genocide, writing that "Hutus in RPF-controlled areas faced similar risks of annihilation as Tutsis did in Hutu-controlled areas." On p. 229 she also compares the RPF crimes to SS crimes during the Holocaust. She writes that Hutu- and Tutsi extremists had similar ideologies, and used the same phrases to describe the exterminations, such as "work". All these examples and others in the book are represented fairly by the phrase "comparable in scale and cruelty".Saflieni (talk) 23:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
The sentence in question was cited to three specific sources. Not one of them supports the claim being made, nor do all three together. WP:SYNTH: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source."
Rever gives many examples of cruel behavior by the RPF. She reports multiple different estimates from different sources of the number of people killed by the RPF. She never uses those very uncertain numbers to minimize the importance of the 1994 genocide. To quote Caplan p 169, "Rever’s credibility is significantly reinforced by her own explicit acceptance of the full reality of the genocide of the Tutsi." WP:Wikivoice shouldn't use SYNTH to imply the book says what it doesn't. HouseOfChange (talk) 00:48, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
This is classic original research. You actually have to find something that explicitly and directly supports the content. (t · c) buidhe 01:24, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
The appeals to WP:SYNTH and original research are not relevant here. As I've just explained: I've summarized a main theme of the book in a few words. The job of an editor, according to WP:NPOV is to "convey to the reader the information contained in them [the sources] fairly". That's what I did and I've just explained how I did it. In my draft I referred to examples of that theme, provided in the RFI interview and on the five pages of the book. I've explained this with quotes.
And please stop confusing what experts say about the book. It's just recycling earlier discussions and leading nowhere. Saflieni (talk) 09:30, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Saflieni Wikipedia has a policy against "original research" because "All material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves." One kind of OR that is explicitly forbidden is synthesis: "If no reliable source has combined the material in this way, it is original research." Combining "scale" and "cruelty" in a way that IPOB never does is SYNTH, and forbidden by policy. It is also hard to see how something IPOB never says should be described as a major theme of the book. HouseOfChange (talk) 15:10, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
I have already answered this. Repeating the same argument ad nauseam while ignoring mine is not respectful, nor helpful.Saflieni (talk) 16:06, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@Saflieni:Your "answer" was that appeals to Wikipedia policy are not relevant here. I can't accept that. Wikipedia policy governs our articles. You cite WP:NPOV, which says you must summarize sources "fairly." Your suggestive combination of two concepts IPOB does not combine doesn't summarize the sources "fairly," so the sentence violates NPOV as well as SYNTH. Perhaps an uninvolved editor or the WP:DRN can convince you if Buidhe and I both explaining the same policy issue cannot. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:29, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

No framing and no baiting please. I have explained several times that I fairly summarized what is in the book. Repeating a false OR accusation many times while ignoring my answer each time is not respectful and not helpful. Saflieni (talk) 15:52, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
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