Talk:List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces/Archive 1

Edit request
I would like to edit this article. Am I allowed to... The situation has worsened by many folds since the last date in this article. Provide a brief summary of the guidel line to follow here. Please let me know. Thanks. --Natkeeran (talk) 16:22, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You dont need permission to edit, just edit with WP:RS sources. Taprobanus (talk) 17:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Pottuvil massacre and Madhu School bus bombing
The cited sources indicate that there is doubt about who committed these acts.

This source here indicates that the survivor of the Pottuvil incident positively identified the attackers as LTTE members.

On the Madhu bombing case, the cited article states that there is no consensus as to who was behind the act.

User:HumanFrailty 00:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Change title to "List of Attacks attributed to Sri Lankan Armed Forces"
This is in order to include attakcs attributed to the Special Task Force and the Sri Lankan Police...

There are quite a few attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan Police and I feel that changing the title may be the best way of including them in here. Any other ideas? Thanks.

Thusiyan (talk) 17:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Any responses anyone?

Thusiyan (talk) 19:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The Police/STF are under the control of the Ministry of Defence so there is no distinction between defence (sic) and law enforcement in Sri Lanka. But be warned that technically the police aren't one of the Armed Forces and those who want to hide the massacres carried out by the police will use this as an excuse to remove them. Renaming as "List of Attacks attributed to Sri Lankan Government Forces" might prevent this.-- obi2canibe talk contr 20:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, what a brutal massacre in 1974. It's amazing how the Sri Lankan police have the ability to electrocute people through wires that they are not controlling. The people who rushed around and broke the wires are not to blame though. BlueLotusLK (talk) 00:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

So how can we edit the title so as to include massacres by the STF & Police? 188.223.134.38 (talk) 22:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * ✅ Page has been renamed.-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:12, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

NO, this list is about the Sri Lankan military. The Sri Lankan police and paramilitary groups are separate. BlueLotusLK (talk) 08:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Note: it says [cit]Military of Sri Lanka Military of Sri Lanka · Attacks[/cit] Not Sri Lankan Government Forces. BlueLotusLK (talk) 08:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Please stop your disruptive edits. The title of the article was changed specifically to include attacks attributed to non-military organisations i.e. the police and paramilitary groups. Including attacks attributed to the police and paramilitary groups on List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan military would be wrong. So where do we include these attacks? We could start new articles called List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan police and List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan paramilitary groups, or we could rename List of attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan military as List of attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces, which is what I have done. Isn't this reasonable?-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * You might say I'm committing edit genocide, no? BlueLotusLK (talk) 18:26, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Disputed attacks
Don't include them. BlueLotusLK (talk) 22:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of the attacks are disputed i.e. the government hasn't accepted responsibility. That's why the title of the article has "attributed" in it. And I am sure you are aware that in most cases of civilians massacres both sides accuse each other of responsibility. Surely it's better to include disputed attacks in both this and the List of attacks attributed to the LTTE and mark them as disputed rather then exclude them from both lists? Also, the Vanni Van bombing article doesn't say it's disputed. And I calculate that 95 civilians were killed by the Police/Home Guards in the Polonnaruwa massacre, not 87.-- obi2canibe talk contr 18:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * But most of the attacks have evidence that point towards one party. Certain cases are disputed when there's no one person that the crimes can be attributed to. I think these should be left off. You may be right about the Polonnaruwa Massacre. BlueLotusLK (talk) 18:53, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Article title
I have moved the page back to the earlier title List of attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces to keep neutrality in the title and to keep consistency with related articles such as List of attacks attributed to the LTTE. Since most of these attacks were intended to kill LTTE terrorists who were hiding among the civilians, naming this list as a list of civilian massacres is totally inappropriate. --Shehanw (talk) 05:30, 11 October 2014 (UTC)


 * It is totally appropriate to name this list as a list of civilian massacres. This list - as mentioned in the lead - only includes attacks on civilians. Therefore it is not like List of attacks attributed to the LTTE which lists every lethal event involving the LTTE - battles, attacks on military etc.


 * The victims were civilians - you cannot excuse their killing by saying that terrorists were hiding amongst them. That is the difference between civilised people and uncivilised people. This why your motherland is being investigated for war crimes.-- obi2canibe talk contr 10:46, 11 October 2014 (UTC)


 * This list was originally created by user:Yucatann to include all the attacks attributed to the Sri Lankan Military, not only the attacks those have allegedly killed civilians in the process. There is no necessity to convert / restrict this list to a list of civilian massacres, while related article List of attacks attributed to the LTTE accommodates all the attacks carried out by the LTTE, including many civilian massacres such as village massacres (ethnic cleansing), time bombs (Car, Bus and train bombs), suicide bombings at populated places, massacres of Buddhist monks and Muslims etc.


 * Victims of the most of LTTE attacks that were carried out during the war, were also civilians. LTTE was a brutal terrorist organization that even killed the little infants who were left in their cradles by their parents/guardians while fleeing for their lives. Civility of the people who carried out these attacks is not a parameter that should be used to decide the title of an article in Wikipedia. -- Shehanw (talk) 09:22, 14 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Although this article has gone through various name changes it has always only included attacks on civilians. As I have stated before, this article is not meant to mirror List of attacks attributed to the LTTE which contains every lethal event involving the LTTE - battles, attacks on military etc. Therefore the majority of the victims in the List of attacks attributed to the LTTE were non civilians - it includes all events that killed 25,000 military personnel. It would be much better if List of attacks attributed to the LTTE were restricted to those where the victims were civilians and both articles can be re-named to include "civilian" in the title. As for your last comment, for everything heinous the LTTE did, your war heroes did even worse - they raped, tortured and murdered men, women and children. They are savages masquerading as human beings.-- obi2canibe talk contr 11:30, 19 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Moving back. Title is defined by the content of the list and not what other related lists or user's notion of neutrality. Events such as the 1974 Tamil conference incident took place a decade before the LTTE was even formed, and those such as Eastern University massacre or 2006 Trincomalee massacre of NGO workers were no combat-inflicted deaths. Every article under the list mentions of a perpetuated massacre of civilians, distinct from combatants, and hence there is no question of generalizing or neutralizing the title. As Obi2canibe suggests, you may choose to wager in the other article and split them based on the nature of the attack. Regards.-- CuCl2 (chat  spy acquaint) 12:09, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 18 June 2015
The result of the move request was: Moved. There seems to be general consensus in favour of the move and there has been no comment from the sole dissenter for two weeks.-- obi2canibe talk contr 16:35, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

List of civilian massacres attributed to Sri Lankan government forces → List of civilian attacks attributed to Sri Lankan government forces – This controversial article was previously moved unilaterally and without discussion which has caused much debate over its content. This new name should be all encompassing and account for those disputes. Arguments for the change can also be seen here Blackknight12 (talk) 12:31, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Request modified to: List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces, subject to less error in interpretation.--Blackknight12 (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: The phrase "civilian attacks" seems ambiguous. Is this about attacks on civilians or attacks by civilians? Perhaps List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces? —BarrelProof (talk) 04:01, 20 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: Thank you for that suggestion User:BarrelProof, I too think your modified title is more appropriate. I will modify the request.--Blackknight12 (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support BarrelProof's modified suggestion of List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces - In the past I had wanted to keep the term "massacre" in the title in order to keep the article getting out of hand like List of attacks attributed to the LTTE which includes everything but the kitchen sink. However, a number of editors (not the usual suspects) have expressed concern about the neutrality of using "massacre" title. I therefore support the re-name.-- obi2canibe talk contr 10:46, 20 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Reply This is a list. Each article mentioned in the list has got reliable sources which label the attacks as massacre. So can we get all the concerned editors to furnish alternative sources that replace massacre with attack, so as to reach a definitely neutral solution. When reliable sources call the events massacre, i don't suppose the stubbornness of a handful editors is a reason to whitewash the term into mere attacks. All those concerned had supported keeping the exact title for this article, and now that they have the lost case there, they are plain obsessed in extracting vengeance here. -- CuCl2 (chat  spy acquaint) 15:28, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Copperchloride, focus on the content, not the title. Changing the title in no way diminishes the list. In fact it enhances it. Although sources may have been provided to show that the events were massacres, the term may be perceived as POV by some. Therefore, using a more neutral term only helps the article. Most visitors know they need to read beyond the title. They are not going to mistake the events as anything other than massacres.-- obi2canibe talk contr 18:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support  to modified suggestion; List of attacks on civilians attributed to Sri Lankan government forces. More in line with NPOV than the current title. Thanks. Nishadhi (talk) 10:13, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Oppose and Comment A list's title is determined on the basis of the contents embedded in it. It is evident, while going through the contents of each article covered by the list, that a variety of attacks and tactics had been employed(terror attack, shelling, air craft raids etc). But it is the larger motives behind such brutal violence which qualifies all these attacks to be labelled massacres.


 * In almost all cases, the victims were exclusively Tamils while the perpetrators were members of Sri Lankan military all of them of Sinhalese ethnicity.
 * Such massacres were not military-related as in List of attacks attributed to the LTTE, but was a state sponsored tactic towards ethnic cleansing and annihilation of Tamils in their native lands in North and East paving way for Sinhalese colonization.

Mass murder of Tamils in the pretext of combating militancy has been deep-rooted in Sri lankan state machinery for decades. These murders cannot be termed plainly as 'attacks', as they were deliberately and summarily executed. Such dilution just to appease the POV of a few defensive wikipedians, amounts to disrespecting what the majority of the sources in the list suggest(Verifiability). Moreover, its easy to see through the intentions of the usual suspects who is packing a bunch of lies like "controversial article" and "unilaterally and without discussion" without debating on the content(rather than the author). I mean the person could only be paralyzed, because right above the section, lies an extensive debate and justification for the title. If he had any understanding of how to work here, he should have responded to our arguments up there rather than brush it up aside and play innocent(like what he's doing with 'massacre' to 'attacks').-- CuCl2 (chat  spy acquaint) 15:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: I will ignore the personal attack for now, and with the hopes of not entering into a debate with you as they only go around and spiral into nothing, I will only say that what you have said above are broad statements and big generalizations that you and many others make to support the narrative of the g word. Yet you have neither shown any evidence to back up these claims, you seem to know the policy and the intent of the Sri Lankan Government and its armed forces during the civil war. There is a lot of speculation and a lot of original work. And for you some how it is ok for the LTTE to practice these atrocities but when the Sri Lankan government does it you are outraged, do you not see your double standards. The war should be told from both side in a NPOV, hence the reason for name change here.--Blackknight12 (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Reply Your comment goes on to show exactly what you've been trying to prove all along (Revenge). There is no reference to genocide here whatsoever. Please DO keep up with the conversation. This is a list, and not an encyclopedic article, and this list is a collection of various individual articles(the majority) titled massacres all of them backed by Reliable sources. For example this source and this one label several incidents as massacres rather than arbitrary attacks. The term massacre may have no rigid definition, but if there are reliable sources calling these attacks in such a manner, I doubt your grouses hold water unless you can prove these incidents were not massacres. And your accusation of double standards is pathetic, I have already mentioned here a long time ago, that you are welcome to re-engineer the other article if you must, but otherwise refrain from doing the wrong thing here. That list title was reverted because of redundancy, and now that it is gone, you are just plain paranoid about doing the same thing here, unmindful of the differences which are numerous and significant.-- CuCl2 (chat  spy acquaint) 18:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support  Though I agree with User:Copperchloride some extent, we should maintain NPOV on Wikipedia.Lapmaster (talk) 07:32, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

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Changes to civilian casualties
I had made some changes to the civilian casualties that took in place in 2009, and I had sourced a U.S State department report that proved it. However, my edits were taken down saying that I did not source. Why is that?

Here is the source that used https://sydney.edu.au/arts/peace_conflict/docs/reports/congress_report.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.15.44 (talk) 19:42, 12 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I checked the source you provided but it did not match the changes you made. For the Vallipuram Hospital shelling on 22/01/09, you said 41 were killed but the source, on page 17, says that only five were killed. For the Valayanmadam makeshift hospital bombing on 24/04/09, you said 64 were killed but the source, on page 36, says that only four or five were killed. The source did not mention the Suthanthirapuram shelling on 24/01/09.--Obi2canibe (talk) 20:35, 12 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh I see what you mean. However in the document, it claims that casualties took place in various cities at the same time. For example, "A source in Mattalan reported to HRW that shelling in Thevipuram and Vallipuram killed 36 and injured 84.". How would I present this information on the wikipedia page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.15.44 (talk) 01:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I have added this as a separate entry, together with several others.--Obi2canibe (talk) 19:09, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Many attacks on civilians missing on this page
I checked out the source "Massacres of Tamils 1956 - 2001, and there are plenty of attacks that were documented that are not currently on this page. I added 2 additional incidents, and will try to add in more in my spare time, so I ask if anybody can go on this source and add in the missing information. You can access the source through this link https://www.slideshare.net/guestc07f460b/tamil-massacres-from-1952 Airjordan2k (talk) 21:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC) Airjordan2k

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