Talk:Special Task Force

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[edit] LTTE members vs. civilians

Snowolfd4, in regard to our recent edits, here's the actual text from the source:

In many cases, the security forces claimed that the victims were members of the LTTE. However, human rights monitors determined that these victims were civilians.[1]

The quote draws a clear distinction between persons referred to as "members of the LTTE" and "civilians". The distinction here is between people affiliated with the LTTE and those unaffiliated with the LTTE. I do not think whether the LTTE includes civilians as part of its organisation is relevant in this case and believe the clear distinction between "members" and "civilians" present in the source should be preserved. If you disagree (as is apparent from your edit summaries), would you please explain your reasoning?

Also, in your initial edit summary, you write "citation does not claim they were LTTE "fighters". Merely a POV addition by a biased user." I originally introduced the word "fighter" here and you are right to point out that it is not used in the source and thus may be replaced. However, I assure you that I did not introduce the distinction between "fighter" and "civilian" with any biased intention; my goal was merely to make the statement clear. If you look through my contributions history, you will see that I have no particular bias regarding topics related to the Sri Lankan Civil War. The only articles related to the conflict which I have significantly edited are:

  1. this one, which I became involved in after encountering a forked section of it at AFD;
  2. Notable assassinations of the Sri Lankan Civil War, where I have tried to address concerns raised by you and User:Iwazaki elsewhere;
  3. 2006 Digampathana truck bombing, which I created; and
  4. Sri Lankan Civil War, which I edited to include mention of the Digamapathana attack.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Black Falcon (talk • contribs)

OK, if you added it I apologize for the referral as "biased". I though it was added by someone who actually new about what's going on and tried to deceive the reader of the article, as often happens. As you showed that isn't the case here, and thanks for providing those links, but I never did say I though you were POV or biased. It also does serve to reinforces my point that you should know the actual situation and background of the conflict well before making any edits.
About the significance of the word "fighter", do you think the women who blew herself up in the attempted assassination of the Army Commander was a "fighter"? Did she ever face the army in a actual military conflict? Nope. She was merely picked from a group of civilians, brainwashed and and told to strap a bomb onto herself and blow herself up. That does not make her a fighter per se. It is such people that the STF arrest and are accused of killing, to prevent incidents like the spate of bus bombings the LTTE carried out this week. They can't be brought in front of a civilian court (as is the case in Guantanamo), without exposing the sources of the information.
And the distinction between civilians and members of the LTTE? I'll give you an example to clear that up. Look at say the 9/11 hijackers or the 7/7 London bombers. On the outside, they were just ordinary civilians going about their business, when actually they were trained by (probably) Al-Queda and tasked to carry out the attacks. Same case here. The statement in the report is really weasel anyway (human rights monitors? [who?]), and if they had looked at the 9/11 or 7/7 terrorists before the attacks, they would have called them civilians too. --snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 21:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
You should not assume that whenever someone disagrees with you it is because he or she is biased or uninformed. I do "know the actual situation and background of the conflict" well enough to disagree with you. To address your points:
  • The suicide bomber who has received little or no tactical military training is a fighter (or, to be more accurate, a combatant) as s/he serves a military function (the execution of an armed attack). That is distinct from a civilian (i.e., non-combatant) who works for the LTTE as a nurse or accountant or who is entirely unaffiliated with the LTTE.
  • You write "It is such people that the STF arrest and are accused of killing". Really? Are you aware of the details of the STF's every arrest? Also, the source is quite clear that HR monitors accused the STF of killing other types of people (i.e., civilians).
  • Regarding the source: the U.S. State Department is (despite its history) considered a reliable source. In this particulra case, the report is quite clear that human rights monitors determined that the 17 victims in question were civilians–a finding that is contrasted with security forces' claims that they were LTTE members. The fact that the LTTE employs civilians is irrelevant as the distinction made by the source is clear: LTTE members (i.e., combatants) vs. civilians (i.e., noncombatants).
  • The fact that the 9/11 or 7/7 terrorists would, prior to the attacks, have been identified as civilians is irrelevant. Neither we nor human rights groups can assume that everyone is an al-Qaida terrorist or LTTE member until proven otherwise; it's the opposite: everyone is a civilian unless proven to be a combatant.
  • Lastly, you wrote that the "report is really weasel anyway". Well, that's what you get when dealing with any country's foreign ministry. However, avoiding weasel words is a requirement for Wikipedia articles, not their sources. In any case, the exact identity of the monitors is not needed; it is sufficient that a reliable source states that human rights monitors determined the victims to be civilians. -- Black Falcon 06:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
One other point. The version I just reverted, "Human rights monitors determined that these victims were civilians", who the security forces stated were members of the LTTE", is an inaccurate summary of the source. Nowhere does it state that security forces claimed that the dead were civilian members of the LTTE. The source merely states that security forces claimed they were LTTE members and HR monitors that they were civilians. -- Black Falcon 06:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, it has often happened before where users twist citations to benefit their POV. There is nothing wrong with suspecting that happened again here. If editors didn't suspect anything as such, they wouldn't suspect that someone who vandalized one article may have done it again, and they won't go through his contributions and revert all their other acts of vandalism. Suspecting similar editing patterns plays a big part in preventing bias on Wikipedia. And you do realize what WP:TRUTH really is don't you?
  • OK so wait, you call all people who carry out suicide attacks "fighters"? Thats a new one. Does than mean you also call the 9/11 hijackers "fighters"? Timothy McVeigh is a fighter (he carried out an armed attack)? Do you have any citations for that? Anyone else call them "fighters"? Or is it simply your POV to call them that, which you should know is not allowed on Wikipedia. You might want to read WP:NPOV on that.
  • And how do the HR monitors know that the people the STF arrested were civilians who were not covertly working for the LTTE? I'd like to remind you that if we had a way to know exactly who is engaged in terrorist / criminal acts, there won't be any crime in the world. Everyone known to be a criminal would be immediately arrested,à la Minority Report. But that is really beside the point.
  • So this report is a completely reliable source? As is anything released by the State Department? In that case, since this report says the LTTE carried out "terrorist attacks", and many other reports say the LTTE are a terrorist organization, shall I call the LTTE a "terrorist organization" everywhere on Wikipedia and cite it from here? Is that OK with you?
  • The fact that the 9/11 or 7/7 terrorists would, prior to the attacks, have been identified as civilians is irrelevant. Why? LTTE suicide bombers, prior to their attacks will be referred to as "civilians". They didn't carry out any attacks yet so they are referred to as civilians. That does not mean they didn't intend to carry out or support some sort of attack before they were stopped.
So the point is, the report doesn't have to say that the people were "civilian members of the LTTE", because the LTTE routinely uses people who may be termed "civilians" to carry out various activities for the group, such as suicide bombings, forced fund raising, recon of military targets etc etc, and the STF says the "civilians" were actually working for the LTTE. --snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 07:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Couldn't this issue be resolved by simply stating that the Independent Human Right's groups, whomever they maybe, have stated that those involves are civilians, whilst the government has stated or refuted that they were civilians, as long as both have satisfactory reliable sources?...--Sharz 12:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Snowolfd4, in reply to your points:
  • LTTE suicide bombers are not comparable to McVeigh and the 9/11 hijackers. I call all people who carry out suicide attacks as part of a military conflict "combatants" (a more accurate term than "fighters"). McVeigh and the 9/11 hijackers were not part of a military conflict. I readily recognise that not all share my definition and am willing to defer to the source, which in this case makes a distinction between "LTTE member" and "civilian". I thank you for directing me to NPOV, but also recommend that you consider statements such as "It is such people that the STF arrest and are accused of killing, to prevent incidents like the spate of bus bombings the LTTE carried out this week." in light of that policy.
  • How do the HR monitors know? I do not know, nor do I much care. Per WP:V, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." However, I do find it strange that you would rather assume that those people are guilty (i.e., "covertly working for the LTTE") until proven innocent rather than innocent until shown to be guilty.
  • Despite personal opinions on the State Department, yes, it is considered a reliable source (but not a disputable one). In response to your question, no, you should not call the LTTE a "terrorist organisation" everywhere on Wikipedia. Call it a terrorist organisation where it is relevant, such as the LTTE article. Or, to be more in line with WP:NPOV and also more descriptive, attribute the labeling of the LTTE as a terrorist organisation to the State Department (and to dozens of others).
  • Regarding your comparison with the 9/11 or 7/7 terrorists, I would again like to point you to my comment above: HR monitors usually (hopefully) assume innocence in the absence of evidence of guilt, not vice versa.
  • So what if the LTTE uses civilians (and again, a suicide bomber in a military conflict is, by almost any standard, a combatant rather than a civilian)? The source neither states nor implies that the 17 individuals in question were "civilian members of the LTTE". Instead, it draws a distinction between "LTTE members" and "civilians".
  • For the sake of moving forward from this lengthy discussion, I will try to modify the wording to avoid the terms "civilians", "fighters", and so on altogether. -- Black Falcon 17:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I have changed the sentence in question to: Human rights monitors "determined" the deceased to be "civilians", but security forces maintained that they were LTTE members. I believe this to be a reasonable compromise: it does not state that security forces claimed the dead were "civilian members of the LTTE" (an assertion unsupported by the source), but also does not deny the possibility that they indeed were civilian members of the LTTE. What do you think? -- Black Falcon 18:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)