Talk:Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka/Archives/2023/July

"moderate to low but persistent"
In case my edits becomes the subject of an edit dispute - let it be known that a reliable source, already cited on this page, that specializes in sexual violence, that the pro-LTTE crowd loves to cite as their source of vindication for the LTTE re: sexual violence, gave a relatively vindicating statement on the state forces' sexual violence. We can't selectively choose which vindications to put on Wikipedia without reason. SinhalaLion (talk) 01:57, 22 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Should avoid personal attacks against other editors on this page and shouldn't assume their motives.
 * We CAN be selective, but only to the extent the individual claims are corroborated or contradicted by other reliable sources. Many other reliable sources describe the sexual violence by the Sri Lankan security forces as widespread and on a massive scale, definitely not "moderate to low" which seems to be a fringe view that I'm hearing for the first time and therefore would require a quantitative analysis than a simple passing reference. The author herself admits, "The evolving prevalence of this pattern of sexual violence by state forces is extremely difficult to evaluate." Looks like she based her conclusion on the numbers of published cases but it's well-known rape is severely underreported in Sri Lanka due to fear and stigma. Also, as "The Search for Justice: The Sri Lanka Papers" (2016) notes on PT50, Wood's early 2009 analysis based on reported cases of the late 1990s seems to be contradicted by postwar reports of widespread sexual violence by the Sri Lankan armed forces.


 * "Elisabeth Jean Wood, an American political scientist who studies sexual violence in armed conflict, noted that "neither side appears to engage in sexual violence as a strategy of war"
 * This gives an undue weight to the views of one individual, which are contradicted by other reliable sources, therefore should be removed. As per WP:FALSEBALANCE, "Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view, fringe theory, or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity." -- Petextrodon (talk) 16:44, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes I would agree, I don't think it is necessary to include that claim, when it is contradicted by multiple sources. Calling something as low or moderate is very subjective in the first place. It would require a quantitative analysis to be more objective. The initial 'more frequently' was in relation to the pre war period, when it was much more sporadic. Now that has been removed. I don't think anyone can read through this entire list and come to the reasonable conclusion that the frequency was anywhere near low. Oz346 (talk) 18:07, 22 June 2023 (UTC)


 * No attacks on any user here intended; I was referring to people I've seen on the internet. Anyways, most of the sources that describe widespread sexual violence by the Sri Lankan army refer to closer to the end of war. From the book cited: "it must be conceded, however, that the character of the Sri Lankan conflict changed tremendously in later decades...". Please bear in mind that the statement to which I originally added Wood's comment was "following the outbreak of the war." As for the argument that Tamil society's conservativeness caused underreporting... Bosnia and Sudan are also conservative societies where women face stigma for rape. The reason Wood would make such bold statements like those is obvious to me —— the Sri Lankan forces committed sexual violence at rates lower than conflicts renown for sexual violence. SinhalaLion (talk) 00:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Accusing editors of having added some content to "vindicate" the LTTE is personal attack. Also when you add content by saying it "vindicates" the Sri Lankan armed forces, that’s not WP:NPOV but can be considered as WP:NATIONALIST editing. You keep giving moral colouring to facts reported by reliable sources which I once again ask you to avoid on Wikipedia. Let’s not dwell on this any further.
 * "most of the sources that describe widespread sexual violence by the Sri Lankan army refer to closer to the end of war."
 * There are earlier ones too:
 * In a submission to the UN on 12 August 1998, the World Organization against Torture stated:
 * "Sri Lankan soldiers have raped both women and young girls on a massive scale, and often with impunity, since reporting often leads to reprisals against the victims and their families.."
 * "Please bear in mind that the statement to which I originally added Wood's comment was "following the outbreak of the war."
 * But the introduction is supposed to be about the phenomenon as a whole, not about a cherry-picked timeframe.
 * "As for the argument that Tamil society's conservativeness caused underreporting... Bosnia and Sudan are also conservative societies where women face stigma for rape."
 * Keep in mind conflicts in Bosnia and Sudan had extensive international coverage and Sri Lanka by contrast is noted for lack of similar attention. Bosnian conflict lasted only few years in the 1990s and subsequently it had been subjected to international investigation and war crimes tribunal, so, much evidence had come out by the time Wood was writing her paper sometime in 2008 (?). The Sri Lankan civil war ended months after the paper had been published but a lot more reports have since come out. It’s not our job to evaluate the respective conservatism of each society but, as a side note, Bosnia was known for its liberal attitudes relative to other Muslim countries.
 * Since overwhelming evidence from multiple reliable sources contradict the picture painted by Wood, it's unsuitable for the introduction to the topic meant to give a general overview. --- Petextrodon (talk) 00:48, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * "Accusing editors of having added some content to "vindicate" the LTTE is personal attack. Also when you add content by saying it "vindicates" the Sri Lankan armed forces, that’s not WP:NPOV but can be considered as WP:NATIONALIST editing.""
 * Vindication is an objective term that accurately describes what's going on here (whether the edits I made or the ones re: LTTE sexual violence) regardless of intent. Even if a mindless robot made those edits, they'd still be vindicatory as it'd be writing that a certain party to the conflict is not guilty of certain crimes, or at least not to the extent alleged. This isn't "moral coloring," nor was the previous discussion me trying to accuse anyone of "moral coloring." That was about whether the actions taken by the LTTE actually amounted to human rights violations - a more objective concept - based on the context given.
 * "But the introduction is supposed to be about the phenomenon as a whole, not about a cherry-picked timeframe."
 * Well I can say that people have cherry-picked the timeframe to be the end of the war. Anyways, I even added "for much of the war" - what could have instead been done is add "near to the end of the war..." Of course, in response to this, you'd say:
 * "There are earlier ones too:"
 * But don't you think Wood would have seen reports like these? Do you think she was oblivious to the accusations against the Sri Lankan forces? She did painstaking research to conclude that the LTTE rarely used sexual violence; don't you think she'd have done similar due diligence to the army? SinhalaLion (talk) 02:25, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * "But don't you think Wood would have seen reports like these? Do you think she was oblivious to the accusations against the Sri Lankan forces? She did painstaking research to conclude that the LTTE rarely used sexual violence; don't you think she'd have done similar due diligence to the army?"
 * Since her methodology isn't transparent, no point in speculating on that. She did however acknowledge that "the evolving prevalence of this pattern of sexual violence by state forces is extremely difficult to evaluate," and that "it can be very difficult—and indeed, mistaken—to infer the frequency of sexual violence from reports of human rights and women’s organizations. The frequency and type of incidents reported are shaped by oft-noted factors such as the willingness of victims to talk, the resources available, whether forensic authorities record signs of sexual violence, and the regional and partisan bias of the organization".
 * Also you don't need to interpret the phrase "Following the outbreak of war" so narrowly to only mean the period immediately after the war began. It could more reasonably be taken to mean the entirety of the war since its beginning. --- Petextrodon (talk) 02:51, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @SinhalaLion Now you have added a note stating:
 * "Wood notes that "members of the state military and police engage in some rape of Tamil girls and women during military checkpoints, but to a far less degree than occurs in some other ethnic conflicts, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Sudan.""
 * but I could also qualify that she only referred to a certain phase of the war based on the reporting of newspapers (anyone's guess whether state-censored national ones or international ones) in 1998 and that she also admitted that "the evolving prevalence of this pattern of sexual violence by state forces is extremely difficult to evaluate."...all of which would only nullify any confidence in its veracity.
 * This relative comparison to other conflicts based on questionable methodology and not even covering the worst phases of the 26 year long war is both selective and unnecessary. --- Petextrodon (talk) 03:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It does matter that the levels of violence changed dramatically throughout the war. I've already stated my compromise regarding this. You're also deeply underestimating Wood's methodology. I found this from a 2006 paper of hers: "I could not find estimates of the prevalence of sexual violence in this case, but it does not appear to be either widespread or systematic." She cites Amnesty International for this statement. So it doesn't look like she's just depending on newspapers. SinhalaLion (talk) 16:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
 * You've cited another paper by the author but we aren't allowed to synthesize different sources to draw a conclusion as that would be original research. Her 2009 paper mentions newspapers and one Tamil nationalist website. Regardless, her citation states: "Amnesty International documented sexual violence by government forces against eleven women between 1999 and 2001."
 * But that was also the period of LTTE's military ascendency, soon followed by the Ceasefire Agreement in December 2001. At this point, once again I'd like to reiterate the caution the author herself made: "it can be very difficult—and indeed, mistaken—to infer the frequency of sexual violence from reports of human rights and women’s organizations. The frequency and type of incidents reported are shaped by oft-noted factors such as the willingness of victims to talk, the resources available, whether forensic authorities record signs of sexual violence, and the regional and partisan bias of the organization".
 * "It does matter that the levels of violence changed dramatically throughout the war."
 * But your note doesn't do that. It compares the relative prevalence of sexual violence in the Bosnian conflict as a whole which lasted 3 years and subsequently went through a well-funded international criminal tribunal where victims felt safe to give testimonies to the newspapers reports on a select phase (or more like a select year?) of the Sri Lankan civil war which lasted 26 years. That's a comparison of apples and oranges and it's anyone's guess what purpose it's supposed to serve. --- Petextrodon (talk) 22:23, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
 * "we aren't allowed to synthesize different sources to draw a conclusion"
 * I'm not drawing an original conclusion; my preferred way to go about this is to say "Elisabeth Wood, who studies sexual violence..." and then put her two cents in.
 * "At this point, once again I'd like to reiterate the caution the author herself made"
 * Well I've found yet another article of hers, from 2013, where she reiterates, "It is difficult to evaluate the frequency of such assaults, but it is clear that they occurred less often than in some other ethnic conflicts, such as Bosnia Herzegovina and Darfur." Sure there are error bars, but by how much? Why did reporting of sexual violence increase nearer to the end of the war?
 * "But your note doesn't do that."
 * It would have, had I been allowed to keep my whole paragraph on Wood's comments.
 * "anyone's guess what purpose it's supposed to serve"
 * What makes an estimate of wartime casualties (sexual violence or otherwise) "high" or "low"? It's all relative, isn't it? I could say that the LTTE killing 4,100 civilians sounds high intuitively, but then it's low compared to tens of thousands of Tamils killed by the Sri Lankan forces. I could say that tens of thousands of Tamils killed by the Sri Lankan forces (over 26 years) sounds high intuitively, but then sounds low compared to 500K Tutsis killed off within the span of a year. SinhalaLion (talk) 15:17, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * She's just reiterating her earlier points in that 2013 article, not really building upon it with additional sources:
 * "A classic setting for widespread rape during war is ethnic conflict driven by an armed secessionist campaign. However, Sri Lanka’s civil war was a case of a secessionist ethnic conflict, and neither side appears to have engaged in sexual violence as a strategy of war.."
 * Once again contradicting other reports from organizations with more resources to investigate the issue than to simply go by newspapers reports.
 * Throughout the war the scale of sexual violence was described as widespread. Here are other reports from the earlier phases:
 * Speaking of newspapers: “By January 1985, the rape of Tamil women by army forces in northern Sri Lanka had become so widespread that appeals for public support of these women appeared in a Jaffna newspaper.” -- ‘Development & Diaspora: Gender and the Refugee Experience’ (1996), p.146
 * A UNHCR report from 1993: “A review of European asylum case law indicates that a deplorably high number of Tamil refugee women had been raped in Sri Lanka.” -- ‘The State of the World's Refugees, 1993’, p.70
 * One academic with outlier views shouldn't deserve equal weight to established human rights organizations.
 * As for the LTTE killing figure, that refers to the "terrorist acts", easily verifiable and quantifiable, and not confounded by significant factor of underreporting common to sexual violence.
 * The issue isn't really with comparing the prevalence of sexual violence in different conflicts per se but with the methodology: comparing newspaper reports of sexual violence from a select year of the Sri Lankan civil war to the Bosnian war as a whole is a false equivalence. Adding this questionable detail is unnecessary and serves no useful purpose. -- Petextrodon (talk) 19:54, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * To add to this, describing it as "some rapes" is a gross underestimate of the degree of rape that occurred, and what can be clearly seen by a cursory glance at the amount of rapes documented on this wiki page itself (which I highly doubt Wood was fully aware of). It clearly was not just "some rapes". So I think it is a fringe statement and should not be given prominence in the intro. Unless a proper quantitative study is done on the magnitude of rape during the war, sweeping definite statements such as Wood's should be avoided. So I am reverting back to the status quo. Oz346 (talk) 23:37, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Back from hiatus - in light of the quotes you've cited, I'll rest my case for now. That being said, I doubt that Wood limited herself to newspapers from select years. Rather, she only chose to cite those. I've seen similar shorthand in academic writing where it would be onerous to cite a preponderance of sources.
 * Should I find other evidence to support my case, I will re-open this discussion. SinhalaLion (talk) 19:26, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, Wood's comments ARE mainstream as I've seen even the ICJ use them. SinhalaLion (talk) 00:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Her paper is from a RS is not in dispute and it being referred to by other sources is not the same as it being a mainstream view among organizations or scholars who have covered this particular topic. -- Petextrodon (talk) 00:50, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, meant ICG. SinhalaLion (talk) 00:45, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * As far as I know ICG is a RS but leans too close to U.S. foreign policy agenda which is pro-government for my liking. It has called on Tamils to renounce separatism for example. That’s not the duty of neutral human rights NGOs, but I digress. -- Petextrodon (talk) 01:08, 23 June 2023 (UTC)