Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ethnic cleansing in Croatia

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

The result was delete. Original research (Synthesis of published material). This has been pointed several times in the discussion and never contested (it was claimed that the individual events are notable but that is not the point as articles about them exist). I also note that as much as I can get from the title and date of *all* of the references and bibliography cited, they are about each individual event not about the whole set of events. - Nabla (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnic cleansing in Croatia

Ethnic cleansing in Croatia (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Anti-Croat sentiment

• Delete-Article is full of POV statements against Croatia and Croats which are writen without any sources. Even few sources which are given we can't trust. For example I will use census numbers given in this articles how Croats has created with Ethnic cleansing enhnicly pure Croatia in which 95 % of population are Croats. Only problem with this data is that in Croatia there is 89.9 % of Croats which can be seen in article Croatia and CIA country page. Difference between numbers in this article and older history is much greater. It is possible that article has been edited by puppet of banned user:Velebit which can be see from history of his edits IP 217.57.46.126 and user Velebit other puppet user:NovaNova or his suspected banned puppet user:Stagalj. Creation of this article has not been noticed earlier because if has been created with only edit of SPA account.--Rjecina (talk) 10:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment The nom made an edit to this before nominating it; looks pretty interesting: [1] Particularly, toward the bottom, content was removed, and more than one reference. That is way, way too many {{fact}} and {{dubious}} tags BTW; when there are that many concerns, use an article-wide tag. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 13:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep: There are numerous articles based around ethnic cleansing and atrocities on Wikipedia. Despite nom's assertions, the article gives numerous sources (although lacking inline citations). That the nom - a native Croatian, I note, according to the talk page - does not like the sources is plain, but that does not constitutes a valid deletion ground, and few editors, for example, would deny that an official United Nations report meets reliable source standards. Finally, nom fails to give any valid deletion ground; being "anti-Croat" is not found in Wikipedia policy or guidelines.  RGTraynor  13:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• Weak Keep - have reverted to version prior to noms changes. The article does seem to be very POV and needs work towards neutrality. I'll have a go in a minute but, am in no way an expert. In the meantime I think it meets the notability requirements and probably has more than suffient 3rd party sources.Jasynnash2 (talk) 14:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I give up. I've tried to compare a number of earlier versions and tried making it more neutral. I've compared with Ethnic Cleansing and with Yugoslav wars. I'd like to change my weak keep above to Merge relevant factual information can be placed in the above two articles. Jasynnash2 (talk) 15:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Comment 1 thing is to not like sources other thing is if sources are real and NPOV. Nobody will question ethnic cleansing in WWII but number of milion is typical Serbian fundamentalism because only Serbian right extremist accept this number. On other side USHMM is claiming between 330,000 and 390,000 victims Jasenovac in today Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.
  • Then there is claim about ethnic cleansing in 1991-95 and how all Serbs are expelled. Creator of this article know very good that this is false because rebel government of Croatian Serbs has given order to all population to leave Croatia and go to Bosnian or Serbian exile ( [2] and Human Right Watch)
  • In article is writen how Dalmatia there has been 400,000 Italians and half of the rest are Serbs and the rest were Catholic Dalmatians. Small check with reality ! In article Kingdom of Dalmatia we are having Austrian census from 1880 and data are:Croats 371,655 ,Serbs 78,714 and Italians 27,305 so number of 400,000 Italians then in past or future of this data is not possible. I can write few pages about false data in this article but there is no point. Because of this false data article need to be deleted. For all my tags there has been reasons (false data or POV statements)--Rjecina (talk) 07:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Ok, we have here an article of very bad quality used primarily as a vent for the nationalism of radical Serb and Italian users. The article mentions 3 instances of "ethnic cleansing" while using the term extremely loosely. These are: the foibe massacres, Operation Storm, and WW2 Nazi genocide that took place in occupied Yugoslavia. What's the problem?

1) The foibe massacres were simply not ethnic cleansing. They were retribution against fascists, not Italians or people of any other particular ethnicity. To say they were organized by anyone for the removal of Italians from Istria is pure speculation on the part of the more interested users. Also, one may argue that Croatia did not exist at the time at all, being still an integral part of occupied Yugoslavia.

One would also do well to remember that a LOT more fascist Croats were massacred not far away (see Bleiburg massacre), which says something about the "ethnic criteria" the Partisans used. Also, the majority of the Italians left Istria 5 years (or later) after the foibe massacres, while the numbers here are too small to constitute ethnic cleaning on their own.

2) Operation Storm. There is currently a careful discussion taking place on Talk:Serbs of Croatia that will determine first the reliability of sources on this matter, and then the matter itself (using mostly UN sources). One can read about this complicated and controversial matter there. The unfortunate flight of the Serbs took place without any explicite coercion by the Croat forces, and that fear itself was enough to start evacuation. Croats were unable to cross the line due to the NATO assistance they received, no matter what they may or may not have desired. In short, there is no consensus in the international community that this was ethnic cleansing, certainly no corroboration can be found in reliable, UN sources.

3) WW2. Another mess in the Balkans. Yugoslavia was under Nazi occupation at the time and the Germans, Italians, and their local collaborators killed a large number of Jews, Serbs, Roma, and communist or anti-fascist Croats on its territory (Croatia did not exist at the time). The article, however, asserts that the Nazi massacres here, and, by extension, everywhere else in Europe, were ethnic cleansing.

All in all, far from trying to downplay the truly horrific tragedies of this area, it is highly controversial and over-simplifying to simply label them all "ethnic cleansing" and write an article about it. Especially when the article appears to try and depict them all as somehow "linked" to Croatia as a nation. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 07:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure that historians would be interested to hear your assertion that Croatia did not exist in WWII.  RGTraynor  11:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll point out that the nom asked for the above user's participation, which isn't a problem necessarily, but I think the comment shows that this is an IDONTLIKEIT nomination: [3] JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 11:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

And decidedly a WP:CANVASS violation to boot, and the nom admitted as much; the "gosh, we need a native Dalmatian who can speak English well in on this" notion is choice. This skirts closely to a bad faith nomination.  RGTraynor  13:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes I have called DIREKTOR but on other side I am not happy why my tags has been deleted. This tags has showed problems with article. Right question is if this problem can be solved. During March 2008 there has been discussion if POV problems in other article can be solved. Decision has been that problem will never been solved and article is deleted Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Serb propaganda in the Yugoslav wars (2nd nomination). I do not understand why this article is different and can somebody please restore my tags so that everybody see what are problems with this article ?--Rjecina (talk) 13:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The "so-called" (as it is referred to officially in Croatia) Independent State of Croatia is not "Croatia", despite its name. It is an unrecognized Nazi puppet state, created during wartime on occupied Yugoslav territory and did not de jure exist. Ethnic cleansing is a legal violation, all ISC war criminals were tried by Yugoslavia for (high) treason.

As for the canvassing, please don't discuss it here. Let's talk about the article instead, and let's stay civil. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 16:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. Just another one of those loads of dumpy flaming articles dedicated and made in the sole purpose of attack on one ethnic group or nation, instead of rather to the suffering one. --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 11:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, there are a lot more articles like this trying to concentrate in one place all POV material about one dispute or another. The fact that it will >zero< traffic is besides the point, however. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 17:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Possibly I missed the part where the article was really called Ethnic cleansing by Croats. I see nothing wrong with sourced additions of other incidents. As far as anything else goes, the proper handling of an article in which reliable sources are themselves disputed is by neutrality tags, which are on. Inline disputes of every fact, however properly sourced, that some POV-pushers doesn't like are improper.  RGTraynor  18:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

This isn't dedicated to assault on Croats as an ethnic group (though indirectly is, since the Republic of Croatian is the Croats' nation-state), but an attack-page on Croatia.

I might be willing to reconsider if any such similar page is presented, so that I can assume, based on precedent law, that this is not an exception. --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 20:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep and cleanup as necessary. This is a notable subject and reliable sources have written about it. Therefore, there should be a Wikipedia article of this title. The actions of indivudual editors, and the un/suitability of various sections of the article as it stands now, do not change that. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 18:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Now I'm not some Croat nationalist freak (I'm not trying to "preserve the honor of my state"), but objectively speaking all three "ethnic cleansing" topics of this article are seriously disputed and controversial (and I don't mean the perpetrators). The foibe massacres, Operation Storm, and the holocaust in Yugoslavia are clearly not proven or widely accepted to fit the definition of ethnic cleansing. We all know that "polling is not a substitute for discussion", and I move that these ethnic cleansing claims be first reliably confirmed before this article can be allowed to pass.
  • The most obvious example, of course, are the foibes. These events are so unclear today, that Partisan uniforms have also been found on the bodies in there. The most important problems with implying that this was ethnic cleansing are: 1) the fact that the killings of that period were ideologically, not ethnically motivated, with Croats getting massacred as well. 2) the fact that the majority of Italians actually left the area years later. 3) the fact that there is no proof that the foibe massacres and the Italian exodus from the area are linked at all.
  • As for Operation 'Storm', the UN was on the ground there. The minute someone gets me a UN source that clearly states "Operation 'Storm' was ethnic cleansing", I'll concede this point. Otherwise, I suggest we do not lightly brand it as anything without real proof.
  • WW2. We all know about the holocaust, was the holocaust ethnic cleansing? A large number of Croats suffered alongside Jews, Serbs, and Roma in Jasenovac and elsewhere. We're talking about German eugenics here, that applied in this case to the Serbs as well as "inferior" Slavs (Croats were, quite stupidly, not considered Slavs by the Axis).--DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Croatia-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 01:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Each of the (widely divergent) events treated here is already treated better elsewhere. Weaving them into a common story, implying that ethnic cleansing has been a consistent pattern in Croatia, is just the kind of POV-driven OR we don't need. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Even if every sentence in this article was properly sourced and referenced, it is still an assortment of very loosely associated events, hand picked by the authors of the article and grouped together to misrepresent some sort of a non-existent common bond. If an article like this is allowed to stay, retaliatory articles (possibly titled Ethnic cleansing by Serbs, Ethnic cleansing by Bosniaks, Ethnic cleansing by Albanians) are sure to appear. The article contributes little new information but none of it valuable to Wikipedia. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 13:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Article based on stereotypes (of a certain group of people), uncomplete, based on false and wrong data. Lack of knowledge in matter. Bad intention ("Croatia, as it is today, consisted of several regions with very different history...Dalmatia had a distinct population"). Typical anti-Croat writing. Dismembering of Croatia, and then naming the population (in dismembered parts) with various names (all but Croat name), in order to make Croatia smaller, and to deny the existence of Croats. Bad intention could also be seen in the fact, that intention of the author of this article was to throw the mud on Croats: how come that the author hasn't wrote a single word about ethnical cleansing (directly by state or mercenaries to do the dirty work; also, ethnical cleansing was committed in a rough and in a "fine" way), in which Croat population was eliminated (killed or forced to leave)? Not a single word about eliminations of Croats because of greaterserbianism, Italian irredentism, Ottoman occupation? Not a single word about that how the Croat population was eliminated from the areas in Croatia that were later used (by greaterserbian forces) as a jumpboard for the attempt of conquering of whole Croatia? Obviously, author has filtered the information. And the data, that remained, he based on mythological claims. Serious topic and article that deal with that cannot be based on propagandist sources. Kubura (talk) 13:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Important. The starter of this article is user Special:Contributions/MikioIo. The starting edit [4] is a scholar example of POV writing and propagandism. Obsessive anti-Croat writing. Now, compare his edits with this author Special:Contributions/Mikiolo (there was Mikio-capital I-o, and here is Mikio-small letter l-o). Accidental similarity? If we have the case of same user (I believe we do, because he had the same area of interest - "Ethnical cleansing in Croatia", same anti-Croat attitude and lack of knowledge [5]), we have to know that that author ignored the voting results on the talkpage, as well as the sources from the article (and redirected according to his wish). See the comments on his contributions, while he was redirecting. Also, article with similar name existed and was deleted [6] . "Defender" was - Mikiolo. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ethnical cleansing in Croatia. I don't know (I can't see that) who started the article, but we have obvious content forking. Kubura (talk) 14:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I'll point out that the deleted article above was done so because of the horrible misspelling of the title. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 21:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete as a synthesis of published material serving to advance a position; namely to present the different instances of population displacement & ethnic cleansing in Croatia as a consistent pattern by means of which the Croatian state was created. Most content is already present in more suitable articles. And I too dread the appearance of an Ethnic cleansing in [country] series. - Ev (talk) 15:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and must contain all the truth, not only that of the Croats who obviously want to erase all the memory of the ethnic cleansing in their country. But I believe the article will be deleted because only a few wikipedians dare to fight (for the real truth and impartiality) a large group of Croats who vote for deletion.Unfortunately this is one of the limits of Wikipedia.--Pannonicus (talk) 04:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, we must Fight For The Truth! mustn't we? or the eevil Croat conspiracy will get us all! I suggest you use arguments, not nationalist "catchphrases", all the while keeping in mind who actually invented ethnic cleansing. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 06:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Pannonicus, please read the very first sentence of Wikipedia:Verifiability, an official Wikipedia policy: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 14:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

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