Talk:Omarska camp

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Uhm, hasn't Omarska been proven a hoax already?

Maybe someone could do the same to Auschwitz for example, but then you'd have proof of that already

Jewish organizations tout their suffering, try not to belittle it. Doesn't anyone else find this crap VERY offensive?

Yes, I in fact do find your belitteling of Omarska Camp VERY offensive. Thanks for asking --Dado 18:43, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Why is the picture of the Tuberculosis infected inmate being used as the image descriptor for this article? There is clearly a POV motivation behind this (i.e. depicting it as an Extermination Camp). Asterion 12:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

It is an image from the camp. Interpret it any way you want it but that is your POV.--Dado 14:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Omarska perhaps wasn't an extermination camp as such but it was certainly a death camp. The claim that Omarska was a hoax is extremely offensive. I don't suppose anyone who writes that sort of stuff is going to be bothered to read Peter Maass on Trnopolje and Omarska but anyway here's a link: http://www.petermaass.com/core.cfm?p=2&book=3 --Opbeith 00:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The "Controversy Regarding the Camp" section should have a sentence appended to it to the effect that "Efforts to challenge the well-documented reality of the crimes committed at Omarska parallel the campaign by supporters of indicted and convicted war criminals to deny, minimise or excuse the genocide perpetrated at Srebrenica and elsewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina." --Opbeith 12:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I think what he means by "hoax" is that the famous picture of the emaciated Muslim prisoner (Fikret Alic) behind barbed wire has allegedly been found to be that of a refugee in Trnopolje who was photographed from behind barbed wire (i.e., the British journalists, Penny Marshall and Ian Williams, were supposedly fenced in). The German reporter Thomas Deichmann broke the story in February 1997 with the headline "The picture that fooled the world". Deichmann's article is cited in Ramsey Clark's book "NATO in the Balkans: Voices of Opposition".

ITN, the British production company, Williams and Marshall pressed defamation charges against Deichmann, a freelance journalist, and his publisher Informing (LM) Ltd. I couldn't finde any press coverage of the trial (beginning on February 28, 1999) other than this one: Court sentences magazine for exposing the Bosnian war (in German), World Socialist website, March 2000. (Update: Here is an English version of roughly the same article: Britain: libel verdict vs. exposé of Bosnia War propaganda bankrupts independent journal, wsws.org, March 25, 2000) It maintains that Deichmann and LM were ultimately found guilty for their political agenda, not because their allegation of fabrication was wrong. Quote from the judge: '"The defendants claim that Ian Williams and Penny Marshall must have known as a fact that the men [the prisoners] were not locked up behind barbed wire, rather they themselves were standing behind it.... Ian Williams and Penny Marshall were obviously wrong if they thought otherwise - but is it important?" - "They [the Bosnian Muslims] were prisoners, that is the issue, not the barbed wire," said Nina Bialoguski, ITN press officer.'

Deichmann's article has been removed from most websites accordingly. 88.217.86.46 (talk) 17:49, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Contents 1 Koricani Cliffs massacre 2 Ljubija 3 About “Controversy Regarding the Camp” section 4 "Simplification" removing the description "death camp" 5 Foca rape camp

[edit] Koricani Cliffs massacre

I'll make a stub (minimum). --HanzoHattori 11:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added a link to your Koricani Cliffs massacre article at the Mt Vlasic article. --Opbeith 12:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ljubija

"Bosnia-Hercegovina Federation Missing Persons Commission" [[1]] This is hardly a neutral Missing Persons Commission. Stop The Lies 22:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)Stop_The_Lies

If you want to dispute the Commission's authority you need to do more than make throwaway comments. --Opbeith 12:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About “Controversy Regarding the Camp” section

The findings of 'mass grave sites' were conducted by Bosnian officials, and not by international organizations. In the past, incidents such as Srebrenica have occurred, where Bosnian officials included Serbian bodies in their 'Bosniak body count', inflated numbers, and used soldiers in their 'civilian body count'. Also, there is controversy regarding the events that took place in Omarska in 1992, due to claims of false reporting and "journalistic crimes".[3][4][5][6]

This entire section is terribly bad-written and POV-pushing. And only the first [3] link to a paleoconservative news site works. It deserves entire deletion.--MaGioZal 12:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

There's a point at which controversy finally becomes simple denial. --Opbeith 18:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

All citations have been restored. Please do not remove this as it is cited. Let encyclopedia readers review the sources themselves and decide what to think instead of you making the decision for them. By removing sources you do not agree with, you are the one POV pushing. Thank you. // Laughing Man 16:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Laughing Man, the way the paragraph was written induces the reader to believe that these allegations are spread and common, when everybody knows that just a tiny part of the World mass media, generally vinculated to religious-ethinc interests, contests the atrocities of the Omarska camp.--MaGioZal 17:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[2] - This is absurd -- references should not be prefaced "Pro-Bosniak" or "Pro-Serb" // Laughing Man 17:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

MaGioZal, this Laughing Man seems to have decided to have an entertaining time for himself meddling with this article and pretending that he has some sort of authoritative role as a Wikipedia administrator. He's just been doing doing his best to cause the same sort of confusion at the Srebrenica Massacre article. He fell silent for a short while following the charge that he was one of the people put on "revert parole" after meddling with Kosovo issues, then obviously decided to move elsewhere.

Quoted from the Srebrenica Massacre Discussion page:

"Relevant decision by the Kosovo arbitration committee: 7) Ilir pz, Hipi Zhdripi, Vezaso, Dardanv, Ferick, Laughing Man, Osli73, and Tonycdp are placed on standard revert parole for one year. Each is limited to one revert per article per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, each is required to discuss any content reversions on the article's talk page."

I don't see much discussion of content here.

This man pretends to authority he neither has nor deserves. Another classic example of apologism. It's like bird-spotting - at first it's hard to be certain the behaviour you're watching is characteristic of the species but the more you see of it the more readily recognisable it becomes. This agenda is a shameful one. --Opbeith 18:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Still with the personal attacks? Please comment on the content of the articles instead of your ridiculous comments about me. As I have already stated and explained on your talk page, I'm not wasting time on your blatant disrespect for Wikipedia policy and I suggest you focus on the content of article here and how to improve them instead of your opinions and biases about fellow Wikipedians. // Laughing Man 18:30, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Laughing Man, what informs my comments is your attempt to bully me into withdrawing my account of a situation that arose at Srebrenica Massacre. You issued instructions as if you had some authority. But you've been seen through. I have attempted to contribute to this article like other contributors whose efforts you have sought to interfere with and changed without discussion. I have contributed my account of events elsewhere so that they know the nature of the "authority" challenging them. --Opbeith 18:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

You, and I have the same "authority" as editors of Wikipedia. The authority and duty as an editor is to inform other editors of policy and violations of that policy. In fact, I did the only thing I did is remove what I felt was a direct violation of WP:NPA in the talk page of the Srebenica article, and I reminded you on your talk page what the policy is -- commenting on the content of the article, not another fellow Wikipedian you had a problem with. Unfortunately you are not trying to understand and respect these policies of Wikipedia and instead come up with accusations and conspiracy theories. I am not going to respond to anything further attacks or accusations as you are not helping us edit the content of this article with this nonsense. // Laughing Man 19:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

In the light of the following excerpt from a recent report from IWPR there is no justification for the first paragraph to continue as part of the content of the article. The International Commission for Missing Persons is an international agency.

...

Many of these people are thought to have died in the concentration camps that surrounded Prijedor in 1992: Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm. The camps were closed in August 1992 when journalists released photos of Omarska’s gaunt inhabitants, but an unknown number of detainees had already been executed.

The International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, has been active in advocating the exhumation and identification of their bodies from mass graves around the area. With their help, a number of victims have been identified through DNA testing.

But a decade later, the atrocities committed still haunt the friends and relatives of the missing and confirmed dead as well as the survivors of the camps. And many Bosniak residents of Prijedor claim that the Serbs refuse to acknowledge what happened.

“The crimes need to be discussed openly,” said Karabasic. “Serb local people don’t want to hear about it.”

But for others, such as Lejla Arifagic, it is something that cannot be forgotten. Her father’s body was exhumed from a mass grave near Omarksa camp last year. “The last time I saw my father was May 25, 1992,” said Arifagic, who is now a 23-year-old journalism student in Sarajevo. Later, after they were separated, she heard he was in Omarska.

No word came until a decade later, when her mother received a phone call requesting that they both give DNA because a mass grave with 200 men in it had been unearthed near Omarska.

After his body was identified, a funeral was held in July, which she said has provided her with some sense of closure.

...

Bosnia - A House Divided by Katherine Boyle (IWPR / TU No 484, 12-Jan-07) --Opbeith 21:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Laughing Man, the paragraph that you insist on retaining has been shown to be inaccurate. Could you explain why you want inaccurate information to be kept in the article? --Opbeith 07:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Because it sourced information. // Laughing Man 12:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Laughing Man, perhaps you'd explain how you reconcile the statement in the first sentence with the sourced information I have posted above? --Opbeith 14:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The statement was not coming from the source you supplied above, they were supported by other sources given directly following the statements ([3][4][5]) so I don't understand what you mean by "reconcile the statement" with another source, that would be original research. // Laughing Man 15:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I need to go back to Lewis Carroll. --Opbeith 16:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that Laughing Man and other pro-Serb-nationalist editor uses the tools and policies in Wikipedia to justify their ends and make articles related to Yugoslav Wars and Serbian history to reflect their beliefs, sometimes trough harsh tatics of editing-reverting and (non) discussing.--MaGioZal 21:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

More ad hominem arguments? Bravo. // Laughing Man 21:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Simplification" removing the description "death camp"

MaGioZal, the inhumane conditions in the Omarska have been adequately described. Even if there had been no active killing those deliberately-imposed conditions would have been enough for it to be described as a death camp.

I don't have the UNHCR reference itself but in "Witness to Genocide" Roy Gutman refers to a UN High Commissioner for Refugees report quoting a guard at Omarska telling a UN monitor "We won't waste our bullets on them. They have no roof. There is sun and rain, cold nights and beatings two times a day. We give them no food and water. They will starve like animals." A survivor Gutman interviewed described the ore loader where other prisoners were held in cages stacked four high with no toilets, so they were living in their own filth, which dripped through the grates. The prisoners were infested with lice.

But of course Omarska was not just a place where prisoners lived in conditions which would result in death. It was a place where murderous beatings and executions took place as well. So removing the reference to Omarska being a "death camp" is not a simplification, it's a misrepresentation. --Opbeith 12:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Opbeith,

Sorry if I’ve been misunderstood relating to the edition of the first paragraph. It was because English is not my first language, and in Portuguese the terms “death camp” and “concentration camp” are synonyms with equal weight, and the latter is more used, for example in “campo de concentração de Auschwitz”.--MaGioZal 17:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry MaGioZal, I thought you were using a lesser term in order to minimise the the significance of what happened at Omarska. A concentration camp isn't necessarily a killing camp though quite often deaths are the result of concentrating a population or ethnic group in camps. The term originated in the Boer War when the British tried to defeat the Boer guerrillas by depriving them of their rural support. They set up camps to which the Boer families, mainly women and children, were removed from their farms and confined in dire conditions that resulted in a number of deaths. However there was no deliberate policy of killing the people who had been concentrated in the camps.

Concentration camps may be part of the process of ethnic cleansing and they may lead to or be an aspect of extermination camps like Auschwitz but they are not necessarily death camps.

Because Auschwitz was a concentration camp as well as an extermination camp the terms are confused in English as well, so don't worry it's not your understanding of English that's a problem. In fact I reacted so precipitously to your change because an element of the LM accusations that the British media had misrepresented the situation at Trnopolje by portraying it as a concentration camp and so associating it in the public mind with Auschwitz. That was what an LM supporter tried to convince me. In fact a concentration camp was exactly what Trnopolje was.

It was used as a place where Bosnian Muslims were concentrated before being exchanged across the front line, in many cases after they had been sent from Omarska. Deaths occurred at Trnopolje because of the inhumane conditions and brutality, but it wasn't a death camp like Omarska, one of whose functions was the killing of the local Bosnian Muslim politicians and professionals as an important step towards the permanent ethnic cleansing of the Prijedor area.

I have met Ed Vulliamy, one of the three British reporters along with Penny Marshall and Ian Williams who brought back the first reports from Omarska and Trnopolje. He is an honourable and dedicated journalist and he gets very angry when people deny the truth of what he saw with his own eyes. His article about the LM trial Poison in the Well of History conveys some of his indignation.

I'm very sorry to have mistaken your intent.

--Opbeith 19:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Just an additional comment going back to Asterion's reference at the head of this page about the use of the photograph. Ron Havib took a number of photographs at Trnopolje of people in a similar condition to Fikret Alic, the emaciated man whom Penny Marshall interviewed in her report. Even the people who were not considered important enough to kill and who survived to be sent to Trnopolje and were then if lucky used as currency in the business of population exchange endured terrible suffering at Omarska where they were subjected to a starvation regime. Alic, who was amazed at the complete misrepresentation of his situation by the LM group says that he believed Marshall, Williams and Vulliamy's reporting saved his life. --Opbeith 19:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Foca rape camp

This guy deleted the article. Just sayin'. --HanzoHattori 00:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)