Talk:Persecution of Amhara people

Requested move 13 January 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. No consensus to move in the very messy discussion below. There is a rough consensus to split and move some content to Massacres of Amharas. Since "split" is not one of the WP:THREEOUTCOMES, I am not sure what weight my assessment carries. In any case, I'd encourage editors to be WP:BOLD and go ahead with the split. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 19:25, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

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Amhara genocide → Massacres of Amharas – This article does not show well-sourced legal or academic consensus classifying these massacres and intent together as genocide (e.g. per the Rome statute; without genocidal intent there is no genocide). In the current version: the best source for the genocide claim appears to be Tesfaw, Muluken (19 April 2022). The Amhara Holocaust: Accounts of the Hidden Genocide of the Amhara People in Ethiopia: 1991- 2015. Talem Publishers. ASIN B09YCBX9W3, an offline source by a currently non-yet-Wikipedia-notable journalist, which appears currently in multi-reference [6]; the source from a not-yet-notable institute Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (also in [6]) says that TPLF (1991–2018) human rights violations could amount to the crime of genocide. That there have been several long-term patterns of massacres of Amharas, as for other patterns of massacres in Ethiopia, and as in the multiple pogroms of the Hazaras (see also Category:Massacres) is well-supported by the sources, so Massacres of Amharas should be uncontroversial to satisfy the WP:TITLE criteria. Boud (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support as proposer, with reasons given above, though depending on the quality and content of the sources given below, I would of course change to 'oppose' if that seemed justified. Boud (talk) 22:05, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Unclear. See Talk:Amhara genocide#Summary: examples/ sources that name Amhara genocide below for five sources listed by Petra0922 and my analysis. It's not clear that Amhara genocide is the WP:COMMONNAME, but these five sources (in case (2) Hearing: Democracy ... shifting from a list of sources to an actual source, and in case (4) ... Silent genocide: A Quest ... shifting from a bibliographic one-line item to the actual source) do provide some justification for the current title, especially given the difficulty in getting strong sources for the Ethiopian situation. Boud (talk) 09:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

  This discussion weighs more towards defending TPLF rather than Verifiability of sources. Due to another engagement at this time, I will respond more to your argument a bit later on. Petra0922 (talk) 15:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

  Split into Amhara genocide plus massacres of Amharas and revisit the viability of Amhara genocide after editing of the split pair of articles has more or less stabilised with more clarity on the best sources for "genocide", following the suggestion by Larataguera at 14:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC) (scroll down below). The current article would focus mostly on the debate (is it/was it a genocide or genocides (plural)?, including the critical element of genocidal intent), while the other article would focus on the massacres themselves. A possible rename or merge would be reconsidered in a month or few months or so after the split is sufficient clear and tidied up. Boud (talk) 19:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

  Practical implementation: It seems to me that the most practical implementation of a split would be (1) move the current article to massacres of Amharas (retaining the full edit history); (2) edit Amhara genocide from being a redirect (which would be the case after the technical move) to having an initial well-sourced beginning based on the best sources found in this discussion, and gradually see how much it can be built up.

  In other words, this would be different from "yes" as the result of the RM, since normally after a move, it would be unacceptable to recreate an article with the old name. Boud (talk) 22:09, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

  Oppose: Technically, I don't see much difference from the original RM proposal. Since then !vote shows the majority "Oppose" and Larataguera suggested a plausible proposal- to transfer contents that don't explicitly state genocide (i like to add genocidal massacres too) to a potential Ethnic violence in Ethiopia article while improving the current Amhara genocide article with sources that name the issues Genocide. Petra0922 (talk) 23:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

  The difference is that if the close of a requested move from NameA to NameB is "the article will be moved from NameA to NameB", then anyone who tried to recreate NameA would be seen as trying to override the decision. In the split as I see it, a small amount of content, starting with the best five sources so as to make it possible to have convergent editing, would be used to start re-creating the arguments for/against genocide article (the name Amhara genocide would be OK initially, at least, but the scope would be more about sourced arguments for/against) based on those sources, and this would be considered acceptable editing. Boud (talk) 19:51, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. The article does provide meaningful & well-sourced legal and academic journals to support the classification of "Amhara Genocide". The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II states that " Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a) killing members of the group; b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; C) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. These classification of Genocide are clearly supported by the article. For instance, the Lemkin Institute stated that " the Amhara have been persecuted for several decades. Recent mass atrocities targeting them are an amplification of longer-standing patterns. Mass crimes against the Amhara people began in the 1990s, (e.g. per the Lemkin Institute Statement on the Ongoing Violence Against the Amhara People. Lemkin reaffirmed that persecution of Amharas have been going on for several decades, and that it has been amplified in recent times. This statement is further supported by European Times on 21 June 2021, (e.g. per the Ethiopia:In the shadow of the elections,Amharas are massacred in silence The article stated that in early November 2020, at least 100 people from the Amhara ethnic group were killed in an attack by suspected members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) group. These frequent and amplified killings clearly indicate the "intent to kill". Scholars from the "Amhara Association of America" "Human Rights Watch" and "Amnesty International" have shown patterns of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Ethiopia. The killers/attackers use the code word "Nefetegna", meaning gun-bearer, and "Sefari" meaning settler to dehumanize and leave these Amhara civilians susceptible to an attack. It was the former-secretary general of United Nations - Kofi Annan that stated that "a genocide begins with the killing of one man - not for what he has done, but because of who he is." Amharas are killed not because of what they've done, but because of who they are. It's also important to note that in the intent of massacring Amharas, genocidal acts are performed, and all the sources that are provided in the article clearly indicate that Amharas have been systematically ethnically cleansed and genocide has been committed with the intent to kill. In addition,Boud intention of altering the title from "Amhara Genocide" to Massacres of Amharas" is a deliberate & organized intention to minimize and downgrade the genocide of Amharas, and insult the innocent Amhara women and children who were victims of genocide in various parts of Ethiopia. Instead of acknowledging and showing remorse for the thousand innocent Amhara civilians that are being persecuted in Ethiopia; users such as Boud are more interested in altering phrases to downgrade and minimize AmharaGenocide. Therefore, I wholeheartedly oppose the changing of this article title from Amhara Genocide to Massacres of Amharas. The title of the article "Amhara Genocide" should remain as the article's main title. BiniamAmbachew (talk) 01:50, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  @BiniamAmabchew: You wrote intention ... is a deliberate & organized intention to minimize and downgrade the genocide of Amharas, and insult .... This is a personal attack that is not acceptable, because it distracts from the arguments and is unpleasant for the person attacked. Boud (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose. The designation of the "Amhara Genocide" is supported by the article's thoughtful and carefully cited legal and scholarly publications.

According to Montreal Holocaust Museum genocide is a process that develops in ten stages, described here.The stages are not always sequential and may coexist. Classification, Symbolization, Discrimination, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, prosecution, Extermination and Denial https://museeholocauste.ca/en/resources-training/ten-stages-genocide/. The Amahara Genocide is currently in its latter stages, and the proposed amendment represents the final step of genocide, or denial. It's also critical to understand that genocidal acts are carried out with the intention of killing Amharas, and all the resources cited in the piece makes it abundantly apparent that Amharas have been subjected to systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide. Additionally, the title "Amhara Genocide" has been changed to "Massacres of Amharas" with the purposeful and coordinated intent to belittle and denigrate the Amhara genocide and belittle the vulnerable Amhara women and children who were victims of genocide in different regions of Ethiopia.As a result, I vehemently object to the title of this article being changed from Amhara Genocide to Massacres of Amharas.The main title of the article should continue to be "Amhara Genocide." One Amhara (talk) 05:00, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia with your first edit! Instead of vehemently object[ing], it would be more convincing if you could provide a small number of high quality sources that directly state that the massacres constitute a genocide. Boud (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

With all due respect, your suggestion will result in redundant sources, and from what I can tell, many people have provided you with various sources.

Why don't you give us your high-quality sources that led you to suggest the Change instead of classifying or discounting sources by using the phrase "high quality sources"? (Redacted) 19:23, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

There is no need (in this title discussion) for providing sources for the Massacres title, because that is not disputed. Boud (talk) 21:26, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

What do you consider to be a source of high quality? To respond to your suggestion, there is some critical information that is lacking.

Based on your requirement for "High Quality Sources," I will tailor my response. Can you tell us about your benchmark for high quality sources? One Amhara (talk) 19:49, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Please see WP:RS. What is needed are WP:RS that directly state that the massacres constitute a genocide, without needing original research. Boud (talk) 21:26, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose.

The article has enough evidence for a genocide that occured against Amhara people starting from Welkayit in early 1900s. The person proposing the name change is doing so as part of a coordinated effort to deny the fact that a genocide that fulfills all the stages has occurred this is part of the genocide denial. To change the title into massacre instead of genocide is simply incorrect considering all the evidences for genocide taking place against amhara people in this article. Menotmebaloni (talk) 02:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

You wrote The person proposing the name change is doing so as part of a coordinated effort to deny the fact. Please do not engage in personal attacks. If you present some good sources, then you will have a fair chance of convincing other editors who participate in this discussion and the uninvolved closing person (and myself – see where I wrote I would of course change to 'oppose' if that seemed justified). Boud (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose

The Amhara Genocide is clearly supported by the below articles.

The Lemkin Institute stated that " the Amharas have been persecuted for several decades”. Mass crimes against the Amhara people began in the 1990s, (e.g. per the Lemkin Institute Statement on the Ongoing Violence Against the Amhara People). Lemkin reaffirmed that persecution of Amharas have been going on for several decades, and that it has been amplified in recent times. This statement is further supported by European Times on 21 June 2021, (e.g. per the Ethiopia:In the shadow of the elections,Amharas are massacred in silence). The article stated that in early November 2020, at least 100 people from the Amhara ethnic group were killed in an attack by suspected members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) group. These frequent and amplified killings clearly indicate the "intent to kill".

Scholars from the "Amhara Association of America" ,”Human Rights Watch" and "Amnesty International" have also shown patterns of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Amhara people in Ethiopia. The attackers/killers use the code word "Nefetegna", meaning gun-bearer, "Sefari" meaning settler/ non-indigenous to dehumanize and leave these Amhara civilians vulnerable to an attack. As the Late former-secretary general of United Nations - Kofi Annan Stated "a genocide begins with the killing of one man - not for what he has done, but because of who he is." Amharas are also being killed not because of what they've done, but because of who they are ethnically. It's also important to note that in the intent of massacring Amharas, genocidal acts are performed. The sources that are provided in the article clearly indicate that Amharas have been systematically cleansed on ethnic lines and genocide has been committed with the intent to kill .

The intention of altering the title from "Amhara Genocide" to “Massacres of Amharas" is a deliberate & organized intent to minimize, downgrade the genocide of Amharas, and insult the innocent Amhara women and children who were/are victims of genocide in various parts of Ethiopia. Instead of acknowledging and showing contrition for the thousand innocent Amhara civilians that are being persecuted in Ethiopia; altering the Phrase Amhara Genocide to Amhara Massacre downgrades/minimizes the suffering of the innocent . Therefore, I completely oppose the changing of this article title from Amhara Genocide to Massacres of Amharas. The title of the article "Amhara Genocide" should remain as is.Lakomelza Bete-Amhara (talk) 03:29, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia with your first edit! However, you wrote users such as Boud are more interested in altering phrases to downgrade and minimize AmharaGenocide. This is called a personal attack and is unacceptable on Wikipedia. It is a logical fallacy, not an argument. Boud (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I wrote that comment based on a slightly older edit; your first edit on Wikipedia was cosigned BiniamAmbachew (talk) 01:50, 15 January 2023 (UTC) Lakomelza Bete-Amhara 03:29, 15 January 2023 (UTC), which was confusing; your second edit removed the BiniamAmbachew (blocked for 48 hours in March 2021) signature; and your third edit softened the personal attack, changing to users are trying to alter the Phrase Amhara Genocide to Amhara Massacre to downgrade/minimize the suffering of the innocent; this is no longer a personal attack on a specific person, but it's still a general attack on editors instead of an argument. Boud (talk) 10:51, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

@BoudI am new to Wikipedia and getting acclimated on the workings of the page. As you have stated I did rephrase what Binyam said because I agreed with his point in regards to why the article title Amhara Genocide shouldn’t be changed to Massacre of Amharas. If doing so is against Wikipedia rules I will take full responsibility as he has nothing to do with my mistakes. A genuine question for you and other editors/admins, do Non-western Journalists and organizations reports on genocide hold water as their western counterparts as evidence ? Lakomelza Bete-Amhara ( talk) 08:38, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: The long list of sources in the article reported intent, and support the title which is genocide per the UN guidelines and the Rome Statue. Deliberate or targeted killings of ethnic Amhara have been carried out since the 1990s if not earlier. The article not only provides sources such as the Lemkin Institute report, the “Holocaust of Amhara” book by Tesfaw, the Genocide of Amhara book by Moresh Wogene, and others, but also almost all the sources provide details of intent, with contents in the sources supporting or validating each other. Exhaustive examples can be provided but for the sake of keeping this discussion readable, here are some sources that demonstrated intent. As for visibility, among scholars and human rights groups, it is well known that genocide acknowledgment and efforts in the academic, legal and political spaces are highly politicized. If we look into most recent instances, un-lobbied or marginalized cases such as the Amhara, Yemen, Sudan, and the likes remain in the shadow. Lack of overwhelming visibility in the mentioned spaces, however, should not serve as the reason to dismiss, diminish or deny actual genocide occurring to people. I encourage editors to read sources but quotes are given to provide context. Please also look into these sections (Amhara genocide § I. Genocidal Acts (Article 6 of the Rome Statute), (Amhara genocide § II. Crimes Against Humanity (Article 7 of the Rome Statute)), and (Amhara genocide § III. War Crimes (Article 8 of the Rome Statute) in the article for the crimes of genocide listed, according to the UN Genocide Convention definitions.

1. "Killed like Chickens" “He said ethnic Amhara that moved to the area about 30 years ago in resettlement programmes were now being “killed like chickens”. Only Amhara are killed (Intent to destroy)
2. [1]".... men entered Amhara neighborhoods shouting 'This land is Oromo land,' burned Amhara homes and attacked Amharas with machetes"] (demonstrating intent)
3. "Targeting the Amhara" Details are given on how the Amhara ethnic group is targeted (demonstrating intent)
4. "750 civilians killed in Amhara in half of 2021: Rights body" Aljazeera reported the killing of ethnic Amhara by Tigray forces (another example of Intent)
5. "239 killed: the victims belonged to the Amhara ethnic group" (Genocide Watch specifying the ethnically targeted Amhara victims/Intent to destroy) Petra0922 (talk) 04:17, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Thank you for this list, since it helps focus the discussion. Your first source is this article in The National (Abu Dhabi); this is one source in regular media that reports a massacre of Amharas that is attributed to either OLA as an ethnic massacre, or to government-aligned forces by OLA. Your second source is by Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, and attributes a mass of Amharas to OLA after the ENDF left the area on 31 October 2020 (in the last few days of the Timeline of the Tigray War#Pre-war preparations). Your third source is an opinion by Girma Berhanu (education researcher) from the University of Gothenburg writing in Eurasia review (which was deleted for lack of notability), where he starts by referring to the baseless and fabricated reports of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, he does claim that there is an ongoing Amhara genocide. Source four by Al Jazeera English is mostly a summary of an Ethiopian Human Rights Commission report, and both AJE and EHRC qualify as WP:RS; it says that about 750 civilians in Amhara (not necessarily ethnic Amharas) were killed or executed in 2021; it does not claim genocide. Source five is by Gregory Stanton#Genocide Watch, which is a WP:RS; its summary statement is Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Warning for Ethiopia due to the government’s inaction to stop ethnically motivated violence between Oromo, Amhara, Tigrayan and Gedeo peoples, which is not a claim of a current status of genocide against any of the four groups.
  Your strongest source is the opinion of Girma Berhanu, who is currently un-notable, writes in a currently un-notable source, but does appear to be a faculty member of a well-known university. I don't see properly sourced support for Amhara genocide. Boud (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

* Comment: Concerns on bias and behavior of Tendentious editing WP:TE. It is important to capture the issue of bias reflected toward the Amhara content consistently. On the other hand, I couldn’t help noticing that the move requester is an avid editor of the Tigray materials with WP:POVPUSH even in remotely related articles. Please note that there is ongoing conflict between Tigray and Amhara. Such contentious move requests can only give meaning with unbiased and expertise-based editing more importantly on this specific topic. Please see the talk in Talk:Predictions of a genocide in Ethiopia § Requested move 29 November 2021 for previous instance in which the same editor participated in a discussion about another article and the push for the title to be named “Tigray genocide”, even if the content wasn’t solely on Tigray. Another editor had to justify for correcting the poor suggestion. In addition, instead of help improving this article, the requester has been demanding Tendentious editing with numerous unjustified tags while giving no response for the explanations provided. Here is an example Talk:Amhara genocide § Dubious Petra0922 (talk) 05:34, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• It's true that I have edited a lot on the Tigray War since early November 2020; my editing is based on the sources. I would suggest you look at my Ethiopia-related edits more broadly rather than attacking me, e.g. my creation of the Daniel Bekele page, helping to establish knowledge about the leader of the most important Ethiopian human rights body; my creation of the EHRCO page, about the best-known Ethiopian non-governmental human rights association (31 years old); and my insertion of the claim of OLA killing 700 civilians during 2018–2020, which currently remains undisputed. Boud (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  This doesn't justify bias especially when your recent edits are aggressively towards pushing the Tigray material (which i can share examples if necessary). I noticed you just responded today for Talk:Amhara genocide § Dubious, after a month, when questions of bias and conflict of interest, and Tendentious edits are raised against your Tigray vs. Amhara edits. Could you please justify that? Still, your dubious and other tags show Opinion and failed to provide direct sources for the argument on the current ruling in Ethiopia is dominated by ethnic Oromo. Another key question that you declined to respond to is your justification to name the Predicting genocide in Ethiopia article "Tigray genocide?" Your opinion on Genocide and the reasoning you provide for naming one and denying another is questionable and a series problem. Petra0922 (talk) 15:51, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Petra0922, I think it would be helpful if you stopped making personal attacks against Boud. Whatever their editing patterns may be, these attacks bog down the discussion and make it hard for other editors to read through everything. And incidentally, Boud's formal !vote in the move discussion Talk:Predictions of a genocide in Ethiopia § Requested move 29 November 2021 appears to oppose the move. Your position will be best served by concise statements directly related to the topic. Thanks! Larataguera (talk) 16:20, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

The back and forth certainly doesn’t help others to focus on the discussion. The intention was to provide context on the ethnic conflict in Ethiopia in which over 80 groups are sucked in, and the parallel systematic advocacy issue that is being reflected in the platform (my observation). Petra0922 (talk) 17:29, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose: The article support the classification of the "Amhara Genocide". The ongoing persecution and genocide of the Amhara people have continued unabated since the 1990s in Ethiopia. According to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II states that " Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a) killing members of the group; b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; C) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." This classification of genocide clearly shows that the purpose of killing the Amharas is an act of genocide and is supported by the article. Amharas are being killed because of their ethnicity. In addition, genocide is being committed with the intention of killing Amharas, and all the sources presented in the article indicate that they killed Amharas only because of their ethnicity and committed genocide. Changing the title of "Amhara Genocide" to "Massacre of the Amharas" is a deliberate denial of the Amhara genocide. Therefore, I strongly object to changing the title of this article from Amhara Genocide to "Massacres of Amharas". The title of the article should remain "Amhara Genocide". NigistA (talk) 08:04, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to your first edit of Wikipedia. Please read WP:NPA and do not make personal attacks such as deliberate denial of the Amhara genocide. Boud (talk) 10:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment: I am not going to weigh in, but I can provide some relevant journal articles that should probably be included in the article.

• Situating Ethiopa in Genocide Debates presents genocide claims from multiple groups, and suggests that the principal question is not “is it genocide?” but, “how can solutions be found to the crises of war, state collapse, starvation and mass atrocity?”
• I don't have access to the article Lived Experience of Amhara Genocide Survivors, but the title suggests that classification.
• The article Ethnic Politics and Violation of Basic Civil Rights of Amharas in Benishangul Gumuz Regional State contains the statement that researchers have uncovered the existence of acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against Amharas in BGRS.
• Transnational Advocacy: Genocide or Terrorism? says, questions around what is genocide are recognized by all parties to a conflict as a key arena of the larger contention...The Ethiopian government would have experienced significant hurdles in its efforts to retain strong relations with global partners if the international community had determined that it was engaging in genocide (suggesting perhaps that the international community did not come to this consensus?)

Larataguera (talk) 13:38, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

These are useful sources. It's a pity that reference 3, published by Brill Publishers, was not proofread - it has many ambiguous sentences and contains several sentences that literally say the opposite of what is the likely intended meaning (such as ... Amharas are claiming on how they have repeatedly killed ...); a publisher normally pays language editors/proofreaders to propose language fixes to a research article after peer reviewers have accepted the article. This is not the fault of the authors - non-native English speakers are not going to write perfect English - it's the publisher's fault. A key quote from reference 4 is The process through which Darfur was labelled as genocide was deeply contentious and raised deep issues about how the world should position itself with regard to violence, particularly in Africa and the Islamic world. As Irvin-Erickson argued, 'genocide discourses' are a type of strategic narrative that shapes the way that individuals and groups position themselves. This strengthens the motivation for the discussion of this RM to be based on good quality sources, keeping in mind the geographical bias in Wikipedia that will tend to undervalue African sources, and to avoid the risk of advocating in one direction or the other. Boud (talk) 15:17, 15 January 2023 (UTC) In reference 4, more specific to this current discussion is the paragraph on p18 starting The Amhara diaspora in particular followed the Ogadeni diaspora in its use of the genocide frame. Whether the Amhara diaspora are right or wrong is a matter for WP:RS to say - preferably peer-reviewed sources, and ideally, proofread peer-reviewed sources where the reader doesn't have to guess the intended meaning, but that's up to a matter of judgment for people participating in this discussion and the eventual uninvolved closer. Boud (talk) 15:36, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I does seem like there's probably enough literature about the genocide label to warrant an article with that word in the title (these sources were just a smattering of what's available), but the title might be more appropriately 'Amhara genocide debate' or something similar. Broadly, I think that the existing article Predictions of a genocide in Ethiopia should be developed to more completely discuss the situation as a whole and as it affects several ethnic groups. 'Amhara genocide' might be best conceived as a spin-off from a section of that broader article (if it can't just be merged?)

To be clear, I'm not especially familiar with existing Wikipedia content about these conflicts, but this is based on a brief survey of what we have so far. Larataguera (talk) 15:52, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm unconvinced about the idea of a merger. Predictions of a genocide in Ethiopia, as defined in its lead, has the restricted scope of predictions made in the 2020s, making editorial convergence not too difficult. The topic of massacres and human rights violations in Ethiopia overall and over decades/centuries is a huge topic; many would qualify as crimes against humanity and possibly genocides if Ethiopia ratified the Rome statute and if the International Criminal Court had the means (especially funding) to investigate (and if modern definitions were used to interpret older events), but whether they would count as war crimes seems less clear, since many have occurred in situations that were not recognised as "war". The current Ukrainian case, which is much more tightly limited in scope (time and associated armed conflict), currently has the long-winded consensus title Allegations of genocide of Ukrainians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A broad overview article such as Genocides in Ethiopia, with the plural "genocideS", where the lead clarifies that the scope includes the debates about which events are/were or aren't/weren't genocides, might be a very useful complementary article, and might have a good chance (in the long term) of becoming a high quality article, since people of different biases would have to come to consensus on describing the different events and providing sources for what terms accurately describe them. Editors would mainly first work on the body, with a brief neutral lead, and gradually build up the lead as the body develops. The lead would summarise the fact that the events have taken place and that scholarly debate (and diaspora and political debate) about which to classify as genocides is controversial. The cases where the sources converge in the body of the article on particular events constituting genocides, per stable editing consensus, would in the long-term be briefly summarised in the lead (best with labels to existing references). Boud (talk) 18:49, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion on capturing the complex issues in Ethiopia in one article certainly is interesting but would be challenging and requires serious thought especially when existing articles demonstrate Notability. The reasons I see:

1. The conflicts in Ethiopia are too polarized (eg. I struggle to imagine the merging of the articles on the Amhara, the Tigray war, the Gemballa, the Afar, the Agew, and many others, under Prediction of Genocide in Ethiopia or in another single article)
2. It will be challenging to come into consensus on sources. Most reports appeared unbalanced and seem to portray one group as the victim and others as perpetrators. Some embassy reports attempt to give coverage of all sides but noticed shadowed cases are buried somewhere while those politically important ones take their lead sections
3. Due to the depth of the conflict and grievances in Ethiopia, telling the issues for various groups in one article could be seen as telling violations on Palestine vs. Israel in the same article (is there any example existing on that?)
4. On the proposed future article on Genocides in Ethiopia, I thought there are already navigation boxes and tables that partially list articles with genocide and massacres. Don’t they serve the purpose that is being discussed here? My recommendation is to expand the boxes and tables, to make them more comprehensive
5. On the Amhara genocide article, the content attempts to capture the violations of 30+ years, with potential addition of specific issues such as the sexual violence against women and children

The way I see it, merging the issues in Ethiopia could bloat the final article due to the complex nature of the conflict and will be difficult to maintain. Petra0922 (talk) 20:09, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I tend to agree with a lot of that. My aim was that Genocides in Ethiopia was to be a complementary article, but probably it would be better to have a title that makes that complementarity more explicit, in a variation on what Larataguera proposed. So now my side suggestion (which doesn't answer the main question of this RM (requested move)) would be Debates about genocides in Ethiopia or something similar such as Scholarly debate on genocides in Ethiopia. This would be a bit like Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Legality of the Iraq War, in the sense that the events themselves are not the main topic of these two articles, but rather scholars' (legal or academic) ways of defining the events is the main topic. If you want to know the specific events that happened in the Iraq War, then you (probably) won't want to read these two articles; if you want to make legal/moral judgments, then you probably do want to read them. In the current case, readers who want to know "genocide or not genocide" would go to Debates about genocides in Ethiopia; while readers who want to focus on specific events would go to the more specific articles (such as the current one). Of course, there would be cross-links and cross-summaries. Boud (talk) 21:53, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

My concern here is that the topic in discussion is being sidetracked. For providing additional information, I think it is important to share primary and in my experience, helpful links for clarity on the fundamentals of genocide and its politics: [2] and Genocide recognition politics. Debates are important, especially for passive events. On active genocide in Ethiopia such as the topic of this discussion, the Amhara genocide, events are live. To find out what is happening on the ground one only needs to read the news out there, and do internet search, and make a deliberate effort to talk to the community in the diaspora and people from the ethnic group. There are civic groups abroad who can share information. I am not dismissing the questions about reliable sources. For those with the capacity to travel, unlimited field data exist on the ground. Considering the selected and concerted effort to embolden one event in Ethiopia versus keeping the others in the dark, I would say such debates may add value (assuming parties/participants from various groups are fairly engaged). One possible challenge that can be expected is that due to language-barrier, technical issues, and unfamiliarity with the Wikipedia tools, many people with great views can be limited from contributing, which I fear that the debate would remain within the same circle of editors who already formulated opinion or bias. Even with this gap, it makes sense to start the debate for the purpose of encouraging/ possibly initiating the scholarly-like conversation for all the groups in Ethiopia (not just Afar, Agew, Amhara, Gambela, Gamo, Guraghe, Oromo, Tigray, but also other minorities in the South who are being mass murdered in silence). Still, it is important to re-route this discussion back to the topic, Keeping versus Moving the articles title. Petra0922 (talk) 23:17, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support the issue is not whether the legal definition is met, even less whether editors here can prove or disprove genocide. Nor how badly the Amhara are being persecuted, all issues which occupy far too much space above, but which are ultimately irrelevant. Rather it is whether the WP:COMMONNAME for this series of events is 'Amhara genocide'. Even many of the sympathetic sources do not use the term 'genocide' unequivocally and certainly not 'Amhara genocide' as the name of the events. The closest that the Lemkin institute gets is saying : "During TPLF rule (1991-2018) Amhara people suffered numerous individual and collective human rights violations, some of which could amount to the crime of genocide and also "However, within this larger conflict between the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan forces, the Amhara have been targeted by all sides with violence that amounts to crimes against humanity, and, arguably, genocide. " That is very equivocal as to whether the violence is genocide and no suggestion that the common name is 'Amhara genocide'. This is not a case of how serious or 'bad' this campaign is. Genocide is not somehow more serious than non-genocidal mass murder, it is simply different in kind. Sometimes also it takes time for events to be generally recognised as genocide, but AFAI can see that has not happened. We follow sources, not lead campaigns for recognition and they don't seem to be there that the common name for this is 'Amhara genocide'. Pincrete (talk) 23:24, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  The cause of the Amhara is commonly named Amhara genocide by many sources. I am not sure if you looked through the sources thoroughly, but here are the references that explicitly mention the Amhara genocide, to justify the current title. However, the article needs to add some of these but part of the list is already added. These are examples and if needed more can be extracted from the article's source:

  • Reports and academic publications (randomly grouped for the purpose of easy access)

  1. [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]
  2. [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]
  3. [13], [14], [15],[16], [17]],
  4. [18], [19], [20], [21], [22],
  5. [23], [24], [25], [26], [27]
  6. [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]
  7. [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39]

  • Books (also cited by others)

  [40], [41], [42], and [43] and [44] for Moresh Wogene Amhara Organization. The Amhara Genocide Ignored by the World: A study of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Amhara ethnic group from 1991 – 2015, Moresh Wogene Amhara Organization Research and Study Department, Washington DC, 2016, and Muluken, A. (2015).

  • Video examples

  [45], [46]

  • Other mentions

  [47], [48], [49] Petra0922 (talk) 10:52, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are proving my point. I have not checked every source, but the first one is a partisan Amhara campaigning group and the second refers to 'mass massacres". Others appear to be similarly compromised, or equivocal. There are sources that say genocide is happening - or may be - and those claims need to be expressed clearly and neutrally, but that is completely different from saying that the Amhara genocide is the generally used name for this series of events. Maybe it should be, but it isn't AFAI can see. Arguing about whether genocide is happening is ultimately irrelevant to the title of the article. 'Massacres' may not be perfect, there may be a better description for such an extended campaign (Persecution of …?), but adopting a title because it somehow better expresses how badly these people are being treated is not how WP works. Pincrete (talk) 11:16, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

To correct/clarify, the second source does actually say, mass atrocities including systemic genocide and ethnic cleansing on Amharas in Wolqait, Tegede, and Telemt areas Larataguera (talk) 11:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the general statements that you are making. Could you please read through the sources? It seems this discussion needs to continue, probably with broader participants. I am now looking through all the articles named Genocide in Wikipedia to confirm international consensus in each, per your perspective. It is difficult to deny that genocide involves various parties and consensus by all is one of the main challenges. Related to that, what is your definition of neutral, and would you please perhaps touch on it from the political aspect of it? I think it is important to understand your point based on what exists on this platform, and may I ask if you could pick randomly a few sets of diverse articles from different timelines and continents from the two genocide Navbox? I want to genuinely understand examples of reliable and neutral sources for genocide topics. Petra0922 (talk) 11:52, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Looking through other articles on WP is fruitless, since WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but one of the most prominent cases is Srebrenica massacre. Several people have been tried, found guilty and imprisoned for 'genocide' iro the events at Srebrenica, but 'massacre' is the more common name for the event. We don't title articles according to the 'strongest' name, though we probably would do if we were a 'campaigning site'. The second source refers to genocide it does not call the series of events the 'Amhara genocide'. There probably are some other articles wrongly named 'ZXZXZX genocide' but that isn't a reason for wrongly naming this one.

There are many strong sources in the article, but they do not appear to be being used well sometimes and campaigning ones are almost worthless except as claims made - not as fact. My immediate impression is of something trying too hard to argue a case. For example, while the events documented in the "alleged crimes against the Amhara" section may well be properly sourced (I haven't checked), the overall effect is as though the article were trying to prove crimes, rather than documenting events, or even documenting what competent authorities have said about those events breaching international law. That is understandable as a wish, but isn't how WP works. I have to go now and apologise if this is a bit abrupt or direct. Pincrete (talk) 13:04, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose the original article is very high-quality and provides extensive reference material to support the "Amhara Genocide" designation with diverse sources from human rights organizations, mainstream media outlets, independent organizations and academics. In fact, the references are some of the most extensive I have seen and go far beyond citations used for other, similar articles. The Amhara Genocide is partly unique because there have been multiple perpetrators over an extended period of time. With this being said, it is possible it could grow even larger with more time. In my experience, the term "genocide" is not controversial among mainstream sources but rather among reviewers who have been unfamiliar with the body of evidence. It would be a gross misrepresentation of the evidence to move this article under the "massacres" title. I recommend the reviewers reexamine all of the evidence closely. TheGerazmach (talk) 02:46, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose There is in my opinion enough sources that support the current name as WP:COMMONNAME. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 18:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Split Since the nominator has changed his position to 'unclear' I propose that information and sources that don't explicitly describe the situation as genocide be moved to Ethnic violence in Ethiopia (preferred) or to Massacres of Amharas. Then when the sheer number of sources in this article is reduced, we can determine if there's enough left to keep the article and what the appropriate title would be. Hopefully in that process, the article can be reworked with a sound basis on best sources available. Larataguera (talk) 14:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

This looks like a viable proposal, with the difference that I think it would be more practical to focus on more specific articles first, and work up to overview articles later if editors are willing. Ethnic violence in Ethiopia is currently a subsection of Human rights in Ethiopia. It seems more likely that a split of the current content here between Amhara genocide, which would effectively take on the scope of debate for/against whether the massacres of Amharas and associated intent together constitute genocide, and Massacres of Amharas would allow realistic editing progress, rather than trying to split off the massacre events into the subsection Human rights in Ethiopia#Ethnic violence in Ethiopia. Trying to split the content while also converting Human rights in Ethiopia#Ethnic violence in Ethiopia into a standalone article would risk giving the impression that most of the massacres in Ethiopia (restricted in scope to the 1991–present period, TPLF federal rule + Abiy Ahmed/PP rule) are against just one of the two dominant ethnic groups. Having the scope cover e.g 1900–present would be too broad. Boud (talk) 19:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Summary: examples/ sources that name Amhara genocide

Summarizing per Boud's suggestion: for those who wish to weigh on !vote or change it after holding/reviewing the RM discussion here, I like to share a list of sources that support the current Amhara genocide title. Overall, the discussion seems to focus toward establishing WP:COMMONNAME, through sources that name the Amhara topic as genocide, and the list below is made to support that (ideally to provide information for whomever is closing the RM).

1. Looking Back and Reaching Forward: Prospects for Democracy in Ethiopia : Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives (1992)
2. Hearing: Democracy Under Threat in Ethiopia : Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations (2017) US House of Representatives or [50] (same testimony of Tewodrose G. Tirfe: Board Member, Amhara Association of America)
3. Ethnic Politics and Violation of Basic Civil Rights of Amharas in Benishangul Gumuz Regional State of the Post 1991 Ethiopia in International Journal on Minority and Group Rights (2022)
4. A Quest for Identity and Geographic Restoration of Wolkait-Tegede: Forceful Annexation, Violation of Human Rights and Silent Genocide Addis Ababa: Amhara Council (2016)
5. It only reopens old wounds: Lived experiences of Amhara genocide survivors in Families in Society: The journal of contemporary social services (2022)

For more examples:

• A case package presented to the Human Rights Council cited this report: https://www.europeantimes.news/2022/10/amharas-the-occulted-ongoing-genocide-in-ethiopia/
• Genocide Watch cited the Moresh Wogene book)
• [51].

Petra0922 (talk) 18:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Quick comments on source 51: (1) this is by Fana Broadcasting Corporate, a federally owned media organisation, and the ENDF (federal forces) and Amhara forces fought on the same side in the Tigray War, together with Eritrean forces; (2) extracting the sense of the text requires guessing the intended meanings, e.g. Gondar University has designated a team of 21 scholars and carried out the apocalyptic genocide against the people of Amhara literally says that Gondar University carried out a genocide against Amharas. Boud (talk) 23:36, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Fana’s link is now replaced by another source, having a total of 6 examples. I think we should continue discussing source selection criteria in the setting where independent bodies have no/limited access. You probably have noticed the challenge on the other side- Western reports that use TPLF and Co. as their sources seem to gain more traction than the other way around. Specific to Ethiopia, I think there is a lot under this topic. Petra0922 (talk) 00:48, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I have reformatted these sources to make it easier to refer to them. (Sorry Petra0922 for editing your text to do that. I hope it's helpful!) Of these five, I think #3 and #5 are the best, being articles published by independent peer-reviewed journals. It would make sense to me that this article should be built largely on these sources and others like them. As it is, these two sources (from what I can tell the best sources we have) are only cited a handful of times in an article with hundreds of citations. This makes it difficult to review the sources and determine whether the article accurately summarises them. I also think there are probably other sources not being used or proposed here that are of better quality than the testimonies before the US house (#1 & #2) and the article published by the Amhara Council (#4). Larataguera (talk) 02:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

(1) Looking Back ... the All-Amhara People's Organization (AAPO) states that it was created in reaction to acts of genocide in the provinces of ... genocidal activity that was perpetrated singularly on the Amhara people since the TPLF 1991 takeover of Ethiopia; the AAPO considers the TPLF to have carried out acts of genocide against Amharas while it ruled Ethiopia;

(2) Hearing: Democracy ... - this source itself does not directly establish "Amhara genocide", but instead lists multiple testimonies; choosing the one most likely to be favourable to Amharas, Mr. Tewodrose Tirfe, Co-Founder, Amhara Association of America, first witness statement, refers to ethnic cleansing and genocidal acts against Amharas and lists 8 events that would be the "event" part of genocide;

(3) Ethnic Politics ... (Getasew Endalew+2022, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights) – genocide against Amharas is executed in BGRS, referring to internal ref 26 = The Amhara Genocide Ignored by the World: A study of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Amhara ethnic group from 1991 – 2015 (Moresh Wogene Amhara Organization, 2015);

(4) ... Silent genocide: A Quest ... (Achamyeleh Tamiru 2016, Ethio Forum) - the title+author+publisher+year stated by Google Scholar are not usable as a source; but the actual source is archived here – p26: ... silent genocide on Amhara people in general and Wolkait in particular ..., p32: TPLF was not alone when it was conducting the genocide on the Wolkait-Tegede Amhara. ... to the genocide on the Wolkait-Tsege Amharas. ... ideological underpinning to the genocide on the Wolkait-Tegede Amharas ... genocide of Wolkait-Tsege Amharas that has been happening on a daily basis for the last 36 years ... all the genocides committed on their Amhara brothers; Ethio Forum is well-known, probably ethnically biased (I don't remember; in any case, there seem to be very few non-ethnically biased Ethiopian sources), not yet WP-notable; the author clearly would support the name Amhara genocide;

(5) It only reopens old wounds: ... Amhara genocide survivors ... (Adugna Abebe Bihonegn+2022, Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services) – abstract: ... Amhara survivors of the Maikadra massacre; while attribution of "who started" the 9–10 Mar 2020 Mai Kadra Massacre remains contested, with massacres of both Amharas and Tigrayans, the massacre of Amharas is uncontested, and the authors here consider the phrase Amhara genocide to be accurate.

It's not clear to me that these establish WP:COMMONNAME, but these five sources do show some usage of terms close enough to Amhara genocide. Whether this is a term widely recognised by scholars independent of Amhara groups is not clear, but research is not currently well-sourced in the more specific Wikipedia articles on the individual massacres; most of the sources are for the past few years, not the 30 years of TPLF federal-level rule. Boud (talk) 09:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

This discussion weighs more towards defending TPLF rather than Verifiability of sources. Due to another engagement at this time, I will respond more to your argument a bit later on. Petra0922 (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Clarification: by "most of the sources" I was referring to "most of the sources" in the "more specific Wikipedia articles on the individual massacres"; (1), (2), (3), (4) all cover the TPLF period of rule. Boud (talk) 16:47, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Types of massacres

To help differentiate the long list of massacres committed against the ethnically targeted Amhara, i thought it will be helpful to refer to the go-to and reliable source per WP:FACTS, the UN Genocide Convention and its definition: “targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people.”[52] Massacres can be categorized into two. The first type is “Intended mass killings of people regardless of any religion on ethnic group,” and the second one gives the equivalent definition of Genocide, which “involves the targeted mass killing of people of a specific race or ethnic group.”[53] “Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and (discussed in the articles with adequate sources)
2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively (also discussed in the articles with adequate sources):

• Killing members of the group
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

With WP:FACTS, for the above definitions, and also with the verifiable specific sources that state the crimes of genocide, the Amhara genocide article listed various types of genocidal massacres/ethnic-based and massacres involving intent- and this differs from the first type of massacre or killings of people regardless of ethnicity. For the latter, some of the examples are: the massacre of Amhara in the 2005 Addis Ababa mass killings by Federal forces, and other massacres such as historical massacres of the Amhara due to conflict within its group …..or massacres against a whole lot of people in Ethiopia but the Amhara are also killed in mass among other people. Since the early 1990s however, genocidal massacres occurred, per the above definition, and sources show that genocide occurred to this group as the Amhara have been separated based on their ethnic identity and killed in mass. That is why I present this argument to justify the current title is within its scope. However per Larataguera's suggestion other types of non-genocidal violence against the Amhara and the other ethnic groups warrant an independent article, and I see Ethnic violence in Ethiopia fits best since there is already an article exists with, List of massacres in_Ethiopia, with some list for the Amhara and thought redundancy can be avoided. With the Split, I can see that the violations listed under the Crimes against humanity and War Crime sections, the violations against the Afar people and various ethnic groups in the Southern and Eastern regions, including other sections that provide general background could move into the Ethnic violence in Ethiopia. I see the proposed title, massacres of Amhara by Boud could work with some modification, if the title specifies its scope to the non-genocidal Amhara massacres- examples are listed above. Perhaps, the alternative titles to the massacres of Amhara could be Non-genocidal massacres of the Amhara, or Massacres of the Amhara pre-ethnic conflict, or Pre-ethnic conflict massacres of Amhara...and so on. Petra0922 (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Petra0922. I'm afraid I don't understand exactly what you're saying, but I think you're saying that some massacres were of genocidal intent, and some were not; and also that you'd like to keep information about genocidal massacres in this article. That should be fine, but you can't just say it's WP:FACTS. It would be better to cite everything carefully, because making claims about genocide is bound to be a contentious topic. I think it would be helpful for you to use the 'quote' field in many of the references to ensure that whatever statements are made in the article are directly supported by equivalent statements in the sources. And then also ensure that you're using sources that explicitly discuss genocide (as I've mentioned several times before). I hope this makes sense. Larataguera (talk) 22:34, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I added this section to specify (genocidal massacres/ethnic or religion-based) versus (massacres that target groups of people/ not ethnically motivated). The WP:FACTS was added only to the UN Genocide Convention definitions since it is pretty much the sole international guideline for such issues. You brought up a good point about quoting. The earlier version used quotes to support statements in the article. Also added some specific descriptions to the references, mentioning where the crimes are reported. A Tag was added to avoid quoting and with a “re-write” suggestion so the article eliminated that style. Let me see if I can share the version with quoting approach. Petra0922 (talk) 22:53, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Here is the old version with "quotes": Old revision of Amhara genocide. Note that, the Draft was re-written per the Tag. Petra0922 (talk) 23:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

It looks like that tag was for excessive quotations in the body of the article. Quotations in the references are less intrusive. The main thing though is to make statements that are supported entirely by the sources. I don't think this article does that very well, (but the other issue is that there are too many sources so it's impossible to review them all). I hope my suggestion to split the article will create an opportunity to clean it up, get rid of unnecessary sources, and get the article a firm footing on a smaller number of the highest quality sources. Thanks Larataguera (talk) 23:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

To give a brief background on this article, the initial unfinished draft was added to the MainPage by mistake before sources were included. It was meant to go to my Sandbox so the content was Draftified. To avoid POV, the draft specified potentially controversial content using quotes from the sources. Following the Quote Tag I mentioned earlier, I applied this guideline on quotations to It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Consider paraphrasing quotations into plain and concise text when appropriate (while being aware that close paraphrasing can still violate copyright). Then submitted the draft to AfC and it was accepted as Class B. Another editor found issues in Citation style but re-rated it to "B" after satisfying the CS requirements. I bring this up to explain the process, the approach to paraphrasing, and how that seems to lead to WP:OR, based on the recent Tag. This is where I found content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words versus the WP:OR Tag, contradicting. I also like to add, the WP:OR § What is not original research and how the article was using this logic throughout when written: A, and B, therefore, C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument concerning the topic of the article. In this article the sources followed this principle: “A” & “B” provide the same context/argument and are captured as, therefore “C”. Could you please help me understand this? I found this to be pretty conflicting. Thank you. Petra0922 (talk) 18:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

RE quotes: I don't think you need to quote extensively within the article, and I was suggesting providing quotes in the references, because I find that a helpful way to ensure that statements in the article are directly supported by statements in the sources. It's optional, but I think it could be helpful.

RE original research, if you are using sources that describe massacres, but those sources do not mention genocide, then you are doing synthesis: A = massacre (or other event) not explicitly described as genocide; B = definitions of genocide (as you posted above); C = These massacres are genocide. Hope this helps. Larataguera (talk) 21:34, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Since this is key, we can probably discuss it on your talk page or I can move it to another section. Please note that as stated at the start of this sub-section, Genocide is the mass killing or massacre of a specific ethnic group/race/religion and involves the mental and bodily harms listed above (the UN Convention definition). It is important to clarify that the massacre of groups of people regardless of race/ religion is different from the massacres that occur to specific ethnic groups such as the Amhara, and other races or religious groups with the intent to destroy. The point is that sources that provide information on targeted ethnic/racial massacres and are backed by another source that names genocide, both provide the same argument, i.e. if the former lists the crime of genocide and the latter specifies the international crime (which is genocide). To be more specific: a source that lists the mental or physical harms to an ethnic group in the form of targeted massacre/or it lists the crimes of genocide (A) + source that mentions literally genocide (B), both provide and help to elaborate the type of crime under that specific genocide (C). This article seems to concentrate its genocide references in the lead section but the above approach was applied (lists the crimes of genocide) in its sections. It should, however, need to add the genocide sources more often, where appropriate. You will see this approach being used in other articles in Wikipedia, including the Holocaust or others such as the Rohingya genocide, just as randomly selected examples. If you have noticed, each and every statement doesn’t necessarily use sources that specifically name genocide but one can observe that the genocidal crimes are listed and events discussed. On the other hand, I would agree with your statement if the massacres listed here were not ethnic-based but the 30+ years of events and sources teach that they are ethnic- (in some instances, religion-) motivated. Hope this helps. Thank you. Petra0922 (talk) 16:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The separation into genocidal intent vs genocidal acts (I called these "events" above) is correct per the standard definitions of genocide (it seems to me). The difficult part is finding good sources for genocidal intent, and good sources for putting the two parts together and inferring genocide. The definition of intent itself appears to be a matter of evolving and fluctuating legal debate - see the current overcited last line of the lead at genocidal intent for a big number of scholarly/legal analyses (that should be integrated into that article properly, though many are non-open access). I don't see it being easy for Wikipedians to summarise genocidal intent, or the putting together of intent+acts, given the current best sources for the Amhara case, and deciding this for ourselves without sources saying that explicitly would risk being original research by Wikipedians. Trying to decide which massacres are genocidal, versus which are not, seems to me something that will only happen in the future – when courts and/or researchers analyse the specific massacres in terms of genocidal intent and state their conclusions in court documents and peer-reviewed journals. Boud (talk) 22:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I think I suggested this before. For Practicality purposes, I see the need to possibly bring up a couple of Wikipedia articles that are named Genocide and see the level of International consensus on those and mirror them against some of the requirements that are being suggested here as well as the Wikipedia guidelines. Petra0922 (talk) 23:16, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

OR template

I added an OR template, because many of the sources don't explicitly mention Amhara genocide. This would seem to support the move request above, but I will also say that there are plenty of sources that do discuss Amhara genocide (some of which are not included in this article yet) so it would be possible to have an article about this, (probably Amhara genocide debate) but if that were the title of the article, I think a large number of sources would need to be removed for WP:OR Larataguera (talk) 00:22, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Sources that explicitly mention, cover, discuss, make statements… with the common name, Amhara genocide, are given under @Pincrete's response. These are academic works, books, reports, and so on. Part of the list is already a portion of the article and the others will be added. Even if a significant number of them are already included in the article, I now see the importance of capturing them right in the lead section for accessibility, and clarity purposes. Petra0922 (talk) 11:04, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but to avoid OR, this article would have to be based ONLY on those sources that EXPLICITLY mention Amhara genocide. Nothing else. If you don't want to remove ALL the other sources that don't mention Amhara genocide (only mentioning massacres, etc) then you should support the above move. Larataguera (talk) 11:27, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I can't speak for Larataguera, but for myself the issue goes beyond whether the actual term used is 'Amhara Genocide'. Some of these sources don't support the point they are making. For example, how can the Ethiopian Constitution support the opening sentence about what happened AFTER the adoption of that constitution? Source 22 (a Reuters report about 4,000 people being arrested) is used to support about 5 claims - including that violence is ongoing, that violent ethnic attacks are happening. It supports neither of these, and may not support the other three. It may suggest that unjust ethnic based persecution/discrimination is happening, but even that is implied rather than stated by Reuters, who offer little explanation for the arrests. I'm not seeking to deny that Amhara may be being persecuted, I simply don't know, but the effect of poor sourcing is counter-productive to the very case that editors here seem to want to make. The quality and care of use of sources is more important than their number if the article is to be credible. Pincrete (talk) 11:47, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

LaratagueraThere are enough sources that explicitly state Amhara genocide. I want to understand your comment on the removing the other sources part? Are you referring to the sources that provide background information too? Petra0922 (talk) 12:02, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

A source need not refer to 'Amhara genocide', especially if it is supporting background info, but it MUST explicitly support the text it is attached to. That is not always the case at present AFAI can see. Pincrete (talk) 12:25, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I will work on it. Could you please share the link for AFAI cases (just curious)? Petra0922 (talk) 12:27, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Petra0922, yes. A quality source that describes the situation as genocide will provide sufficient background for the article, so you have to source the background from those articles that explicitly mentioned genocide. (So I apparently disagree with Pincrete here). Otherwise, you're doing a WP:SYNTH that some set of massacres or arrests constitute genocide, and we can't do that. Also, sources that don't mention Amhara would have to be removed.

@Pincrete yes, there are also statements not supported by their sources. These should be removed or rephrased. If Petra removes sources that don't mention genocide as I suggest above, many of those statements would disappear anyhow, so that's the first place to start in my opinion: broad removal of all sources that don't mention genocide (or move the article as proposed above). Larataguera (talk) 12:37, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Sourcing background from articles that don't mention genocide means that Wikipedia editors are deciding what background is relevant. That is for reliable sources to decide Larataguera (talk) 12:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Larataguera@Pincrete I need time to work through this- to strictly cite only that name the issue Amhara genocide. Is there a timeline to reach consensus? Petra0922 (talk) 12:46, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Some of what you remove could possibly be placed at Ethnic discrimination in Ethiopia or another article. And there could be better linking between these articles. Not sure about time frame, but your work would inform the ongoing move request, so I suppose there's some time constraint there. Larataguera (talk) 14:01, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. These are good sources. I will check if Ethnic discrimination in Ethiopia consists of the Amhara information or is incorporated as a new addition. The sources can also be added to other appropriate sections. I am not sure if you have noticed but the lead section is entirely backed with sources that mention the genocide, to help address the OR + CommonName recommendations. I will need to update the last paragraph in the lead. I am also looking through other genocide and human rights Wikipedia articles to refer to how the sources in those articles are combined to support statements even if each doesn’t necessarily state genocide. If the sources that don't mention Amhara are removed, I think the approach taken in sourcing this article isn't too far from the example that I just reviewed under the OR guideline as well (I will explain in the OR discussion). Petra0922 (talk) 15:54, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

There is also Ethnic violence in Ethiopia, presently a redirect to a section of Human rights in Ethiopia. Maybe build that section from some of the sources you are removing, eventually to a full article instead of the current redirect? "Ethnic discrimination" is a little bit of an understatement for what is actually taking place, unfortunately. Larataguera (talk) 16:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I will check it out. From the title, it looks like the redirect can make an independent article and also I see an alignment with the earlier discussion that you and @Boud brought up but that was in the context of the Genocide debate. I think I mentioned earlier that controversies on sources may be an issue for this proposed article but that may evolve into some kind of useful debate (?). Petra0922 (talk) 16:52, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

To give a brief background on this article, the initial unfinished draft was added to the MainPage by mistake before sources were included. It was meant to go to my Sandbox so the content was Draftified. To avoid POV, the draft specified potentially controversial content using quotes from the sources. Following the Quote Tag I mentioned earlier, I applied this guideline on quotations to It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Consider paraphrasing quotations into plain and concise text when appropriate (while being aware that close paraphrasing can still violate copyright). Then submitted the draft to AfC and it was accepted as Class B. Another editor found issues in Citation style but re-rated it to "B" after satisfying the CS requirements. I bring this up to explain the process, the approach to paraphrasing, and how that seems to lead to WP:OR, based on the recent Tag. This is where I found content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words versus the WP:OR Tag, contradicting. I also like to add, the WP:OR § What is not original research and how the article was using this logic throughout when written: A, and B, therefore, C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument concerning the topic of the article. In this article the sources followed this principle: “A” & “B” provide the same context/argument and are captured as, therefore “C”. Could you please help me understand this? I found this to be pretty conflicting. Thank you.

Since this is key, we can probably discuss it on your talk page or I can move it to another section. Please note that as stated at the start of this sub-section, Genocide is the mass killing or massacre of a specific ethnic group/race/religion and involves the mental and bodily harms listed above (the UN Convention definition). It is important to clarify that the massacre of groups of people regardless of race/ religion is different from the massacres that occur to specific ethnic groups such as the Amhara, and other races or religious groups with the intent to destroy. The point is that sources that provide information on targeted ethnic/racial massacres and are backed by another source that names genocide, both provide the same argument, i.e. if the former lists the crime of genocide and the latter specifies the international crime (which is genocide). To be more specific: a source that lists the mental or physical harms to an ethnic group in the form of targeted massacre/or it lists the crimes of genocide (A) + source that mentions literally genocide (B), both provide and help to elaborate the type of crime under that specific genocide (C). This article seems to concentrate its genocide references in the lead section but the above approach was applied (lists the crimes of genocide) in its sections. It should, however, need to add the genocide sources more often, where appropriate. You will see this approach being used in other articles in Wikipedia, including the Holocaust or others such as the Rohingya genocide, just as randomly selected examples. If you have noticed, each and every statement doesn’t necessarily use sources that specifically name genocide but one can observe that the genocidal crimes are listed and events discussed. On the other hand, I would agree with your statement if the massacres listed here were not ethnic-based but the 30+ years of events and sources teach that they are ethnic- (in some instances, religion-) motivated. Hope this helps. Thank you. (this is duplicate but fits to this section better). Petra0922 (talk) 23:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

A requested move (RM) does not require the article under discussion to be edited or updated with better sources before someone closes the discussion. Obviously, improving the article can influence the close, but that's not the main thing. If someone provides a list of a small number (for example five, but there's no formal rule on the number) of sources that are independent of each other and of advocacy organisations with a direct interest in the issue of naming, and if these clearly establish the WP:COMMONNAME in the interpretation of most of the people discussing, then that might be enough to convince the closer that rough consensus based on Wikipedia principles has been reached. (Obviously, making improvements is welcome, but there is no speed competition involved here.) @Petra0922: you've clearly done a huge amount of work on this article. I don't think you should feel pressured to instantly revise the article in a rush to meet a "deadline": the recommendations and discussion in this section of the talk page and the issue of original research do not have to be solved in order to close the RM.

In the RM, we now have quite a few different sources and discussion by several different people about the ones that appear the strongest and why some are relevant or not relevant for the title debate. If someone made a list of, say, the strongest five, and put it in the RM section (above), with brief comments to show why they are good sources for "Amhara genocide", together with his/her updated !vote if it has changed (you can use {{s}} to strike through your own old talk page text that you consider no longer valid), then that could help convince people for the oppose argument. Boud (talk) 00:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Boud Both the deadline clarification and the recommendation you put in sound reasonable, and they help. I will continue making improvements to the article as suggested. I can help with down-selecting some sources for WP:COMMONNAME but I am not sure if this is supposed to be assessed by others. Petra0922 (talk) 01:01, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Considering everyone is busy, how about I provide the 5 sources/candidates to help establish WP:COMMONNAME, per @Boud’s suggestion, and for closing the RM discussion. Petra0922 (talk) 16:31, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Graham Peebles piece in Counterpunch

Writer and charity worker Graham Peebles wrote a new piece this time for counterpunch.org. The magazine is listed in WP:RSP but could be considered reliable if it's discussed by a subject matter expert. The person has been engaged with Ethiopia for over two decades and wrote several pieces for different publishers about the political history and human rights abuses. I'm not certain whether Graham Peebles falls under the category of expert, but he seems neutral. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 18:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Attention needed

This article appears to be a mess of WP:ADVOCACY and WP:SYNTH as most of these sources do not explicitly mention genocide. It was discussed multiple times before, but nothing has been done. I'm not sure what must be done, so I'm calling for an admin to look into this. محرر البوق (talk) 04:26, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what administrator action you are requesting. Admins have no more authority than any other editor, just extra tools- any editor may help with an article content issue. If you feel that the subject is not accurately depicted, you are welcome to either fix the issues yourself(ideally with a consensus to support such changes) or do something like start an Articles for Deletion discussion. 331dot (talk) 08:48, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Posted on NPOV noticeboard: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Amhara_genocide. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:53, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

As some do it is not synthesis. Slatersteven (talk) 12:02, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I should of rephrased my words. What I meant was no neutral or reliable sources explicitly mention genocide. The only two that do call it a genocide is an opinion article and a youtube video by "borkena". We shouldn't come to conclusions based on fringe sources, you literally can find sources for anything nowadays, what should be discussed is whenever this is mainstream academic position or not. This article should be deleted or merged before it further damages Wikipedia's reputation. محرر البوق (talk) 18:53, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

@Slatersteven @Random person no 362478479 I propose that we should merge this article with Ethnic violence in Ethiopia or Predictions of a genocide in Ethiopia. محرر البوق (talk) 18:55, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with @Random person no 362478479 and the other editors that stated that the article had been discussed thoroughly by experienced wikipedians and rated as B first and now C with recommendationsn to improve some disputed and potential Original research contents. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing ethnic division in Ethiopia, articles that discuss ethnic violence are constantly nominated for either deletion or endless tags are added to them from opposing parties (ethnic groups). Bottom line is that the article has more than adequate sources that discuss "genocide" directly to meet the WP:COMMONNAME requirement to say the least. On top of that the nominator had been going after and nominating articles that discuss the violence against the Amhara and others in Ethiopia for deletion quite often. I will add to evidences for these. Petra0922 (talk) 22:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Don't make false accusations about the intention of my edits only discuss about the content of this article, WP:FOC. If you really have a problem with my edits feel free to file a report at the ANI, don't turn this into a WP:BATTLEGROUND. As for your sources, I don't believe their reliable but I will thoroughly look into this article later. محرر البوق (talk) 00:07, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@محرر البوق I can pull out more evidence if necessary. Besides the destructive edits you continue to make on the topics of Amhara and Ethiopia, the important question here is that you failed to provide clear examples what content and sources are WP:POV. Until you list the issues and provide adequate reasoning for adding three tags at the same time, your edits will be reverted. This issue had been discussed in detail here and addressed before. You cant just add a list of tags because you don’t like the existence of the article. Considering the contentious nature of the topic, thorough discussion on your tag is needed which is what myself and the other editors asking you about. Petra0922 (talk) 15:48, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Please stop with these accusations, I will interpret these as personal attacks. If you have a problem with my edits, please feel free to open an ANI, this is not the time and place for it right now. I will be able happy to discuss how this article violates WP:NPOV, albeit with other neutral editors. محرر البوق (talk) 19:54, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Adding evidence for that @محرر البوق persistently and unjustifiably go after Amhara and related articles that cover the ethnic violence in Ethiopia. Here is another example of deletion nomination added by the same editor but it was voted by majority to keep. I can add more of such destructive editing that he kept pushing for that are specific to Ethiopia.

Also see another conflict of interest that @محرر البوق consistently demonstrated when it comes to Amhara materials in this platform Petra0922 (talk) 23:10, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

• Content disputes are not resolved by administrators.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:41, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy tag: محرر البوق Petra0922 Hemiauchenia. Let's focus on content. Are there any articles or texts from genocide scholars or academics or other international institutions characterizing what's happening here as a "genocide"?

Likewise, are there any articles or texts from genocide scholars or academics or other international institutions denying what's happening here as a "genocide"?

Or is there a dearth of serious scholarship on this issue? I suggest that the way forward is to lay out all of the reliable sources on this issue, and see what they really say. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 04:51, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@HollerithPunchCard I have already addressed all the sources that were cited to support the genocide claim in a reply to Bonewah over here[54]. The reality is that there is no reliable sources or anything from academia stating that what is happening here is a genocide. I have sincerely looked on google books and everything, but was not able to find anything even remotely adequate. This article does not satisfies WP:V محرر البوق (talk) 05:45, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@HollerithPunchCard, my answer for your questions is Yes. Let me add link or list the sources that was discussed from previous discussions here. These are sources that directly name the violence Genocide or majority discussed the crimes of genocide and the intentional attack based on ethnicity. 14:39, 27 July 2023 (UTC) Petra0922 (talk) 14:39, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@HollerithPunchCard, these are some but i can add more. Sources that discuss intent can also be added to this list.

Publications (Scholarly):

• [55], [56], [57], [58], [59], A Quest for Identity and Geographic Restoration of Wolkait-Tegede: Forceful Annexation, Violation of Human Rights and Silent Genocide
• Washington post: [60]

• I understand this is only an abstract at this stage but the International Association of Genocide Scholars published it and also created a specific and separated "Genocide in Ethiopia" session to discuss just the topic. The author presented the full paper.

Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention:

• [61], [62]; for the latest waged war on Amhara by government (Red flag alert for a different region: occurring outside of the Oromo and the Benishangul-Gumuz regions): [63]

Other analyses

• [64], [65],[66], [67]

U.S. Congress hearing

• [68]

U.S. Congressional research, discussing the violence in Ethiopia in the context of genocide, [69]

UN Human Researches Council's hearing:

• [70]. The publication cited this report: [71]

House of Commons of Canada hearing:

• [72]
• [73]

Additional but more can be added:

• [74], [75], [76],[77], [78]], [79], [80],[81], [82], [83], [84]. Petra0922 (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@Petra0922 Once again these are not reliable sources,

• The first three "Pubilications" do not refer to these events as "Genocide". The next two are self-published sources. The last one was published by the "Amhara Council" in Addis Ababa.
• That Washington Post article is an opinion article by Tewodros Abebe. (The same article I have already stated was unreliable).
• Once again, that is not a Publication, it was a presentation by Fasika Yosef of the Amhara Women Association Against Genocide Incorporated at the IAGS. Not published by them at all.
• Lemkin Institute does not called these events a genocide. Here is a direct quote the Amhara have been targeted by all sides with violence that amounts to crimes against humanity, and, arguably, genocide.
• "Other analyses", those are just opinion articles by Graham Peebles from "CounterPunch.org"
• That Congress hearing is a statement by the "Amhara Association of Amhara"
• That U.S Congressional research does not describe these events as a genocide once again and it talks about the different ethnic violence towards various ethnic groups in Ethiopia.
• That HRC Session is talking about the massacres of Amharas at Gimbi, does not refer to that event as a genocide. The "publication" you cited is just another opinion article.
• That house of Commons hearing is another statement by the Amhara Association of America.
• The last 10 sources you cited are just various different opinion articles you've compiled together.

I'm really shocked at how this article managed to get approved in the first place. Its very clear that you do not have any reliable sources that establish that the events going on here are a genocide. Many of the sources you've used are the same ones I've already addressed in my comment towards Bonewah. محرر البوق (talk) 19:54, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

These are reliable sources and need to be discussed according to the guidelines, and not based on your opinion. Obviously, you had been applying the same argument for the Amhara people and other contents that you seem to destructively nominate for deletion although editors fairly discussed some of them and voted to keep. i.e. to keep. You already made your point clear with the multi-tags you added right after you knew the consensus didn’t go your way for your edits on Amhara people. This discussion is open for others as well; not just only you.Petra0922 (talk) 18:30, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Petra0922 محرر البوقMy apologies for my delayed response which is overdue - work commitments. Foremost, I applaud and appreciate Petra0922's thoroughness and devotion in putting together all of the literature on this topic of whether what's happening with the Amhara people in Ethiopia constitutes genocide. This kind of effort is what enriches wikipedia, and I applaud your efforts to bring awareness to this overlooked human rights issue, which commitment I share.

I have reviewed all of the 32 sources Petra0922, in terms of its content, author credentials, and the nature of the publication.

Here's my honest views on this matter - the literature and evidence presented in support of the proposition that there has been a genocide on the Amhara people is too voluminous to be ignored by Wikipedia. Clearly, this is a well substantiated, but overlooked human rights crisis outside the Amhara community, who is (IMO, quite justly) seeking attention and recognition of this atrocity as a genocide.

That said and in due regard to WP:RS, I feel that a number of qualifications deserve to the made. First, in my view, the vast majority of the sources in support of the finding of genocide bear the characteristics of primary research, and sometimes advocacy, presented by the victim community.

Second, of all of the scholarly works cited on these, only source [56] comes from a somewhat reputable journal that is peer-reviewed. Many of these authors and journals come from the field of social work. There appears to be no coverage on this issue in the recognized journals in genocide studies, or by recognized genocide studies scholars. It is also apparent that none of the discussions of genocide arising from these studies adopts or applies a rigorous definition of this term accepted in genocide scholarship.

Third, in regards to the sources from independent institutions such as the UN, Lemkin Institute, the congressional bodies of different countries, or the mainstream media, none appears to conclude that genocide has taken place. The Lemkin Institute comes very close, and declares serious red flags alert for genocide, but ultimately falls short of concluding that genocide has taken place. The US congressional research calls for further research, attention and investigation into the allegation of genocide, but similar falls short of making that conclusion.

Personally, I do not believe that a voice ought to be discredited simply because it comes from the victim community. However, in regards to WP:RS, such sources, individually speaking, lacks the independence, secondary research, and reliable scholarship, that are the hallmarks of a WP:Reliable Source.

That said, the materials in support of the presence of genocide is too voluminous and prominent, to simply not exclude them from Wikipedia, let alone concluding the converse. In my view, I think discussions of these sources may be presented with proper in-text attribution. In another words, the content of these sources supporting genocide should not be presented as fact.

The sources on this issue from the independent institutions should also be discussed. It will be inaccurate of course, to cite sources to support a factual claim that genocide has taken place, as none appears to really hit this conclusion. But these sources can be presented for the statement that various international institutions have urged increased attention and investigation for the possibility of genocide.

The article title might be a problem. But this post is long enough, and I will leave this issue to be addressed elsewhere. I welcome everyone's feedback on all of the above. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 05:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Article tags, factual accuracy

The article currently has 3 tags on it. OR, Neutrality and factual accuracy added by User:محرر البوق on the 25th. Can you please specify what exactly you feel is factually inaccurate in this article? Ideally, id like to deal with all three tags, but I think resolving this one first will make dealing with the rest easier. Bonewah (talk) 14:22, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

This is an important thread. Thank you for starting it. Although the POV issue thoroughly discussed and addressed before, here, any new tags other than the WP:OR, which was already added by another editor and in the process of being addressed, require discussion listing specific issues for the new tags. The new editor just added three tags when he/she already demonstrated conflict with Amhara and Ethiopia materials in the platform. Someone can not just add list of tags just because felt like it. Considering the contentious nature of genocide topics, clearly stated justifications as for the provided sources aren’t adequate to support the title WP:COMMONNAME and the genocide topic itself are needed here. Petra0922 (talk) 16:00, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Bonewah They are some statements that are blatantly factually incorrect in this article for example: The Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) among other groups were formed in the 1970s with a manifesto and plan, for Tigray to secede from Ethiopia. the TPLF has always supported self determination within a unitary Ethiopia, it has never aspired to secede from the country [85] (pg 86)

the Raya-Alamata and Welkait Amhara lands were annexed into the Tigray region. These lands have been ruled as southern and western parts of Tigray for three decades. Following the outbreak of the war in Tigray, the Amhara forces occupied the - with reported tension in these area. Metekel is also another strategic land from the point of view of accessing the Nile river and annexed to the Benishangul-Gumuz region from the Gojjam Province. Similarly, the Dera and surrounding lands in Shewa, Amhara region are also forcefully administered under the Oromia region following the Oromo-led ruling since 2018. on page 37 of The Ethiopians by Edward Ullendorff, he idenfites Wolkait as being primarly inhabited by Tigrayans[86] I'm not saying that the lands belong to Tigrayans it is obviously ethnically mixed, but to say that these lands are Amhara is very controversial and not entirely accurate.

In addition, the polarizing and open remarks made at a large Oromo public gathering by the Oromia President, Mr. Shimelis Abdissa heavily criticized. His speech, "We broke the Neftegna or Amhara" was broadcast on national television. Not true, he only said Neftenya while it can be interpreted as a ethnic slur for the Amhara, the use of the word is a lot more ambiguous.

The use of the word "Oromo-led Prosperity Party". While they are many Oromos who are involved in the PP government, to label PP as an "Oromo led government" is inaccurate, they are many ethnic groups that are involved in this government it does not appear to be dominated by any specific ethnic group nor are there any reliable sources cited that support such a claim, the vice PM for example is an ethnic Amhara even Abiy is half Amhara according to some sources.

Then there is the the use of the word "Amhara genocide", which was brought up multiple times before. The article does not show reliable academic sources that there is an ongoing genocide at the moment, as I said before we shouldn't come to conclusions based on fringe sources, what should be discussed is whenever this is mainstream academic position or not. I don't really feel like I have to go deep into this, but its pretty obvious for any reader that this article suffers from massive POV issues, the sources cited are questionable at best. Hence that article tag was justified. محرر البوق (talk) 19:44, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Bonewah

They are around 11 sources cited for the statement "Amhara Genocide":

[87] First one is a presentation by Fasika Yosef of the Amhara Women Association Against Genocide Incorporated.

[88] Second one is a statement by a congressman claiming that he was speaking on behalf of the All-Amhara People's Organization, their stamp even in included on the document.

[89] Third is an article done by the relatively unknown "Lemkin Institude" which states the Amhara have been targeted by all sides with violence that amounts to crimes against humanity, and, arguably, genocide

[90] 4th is an opinion article by "Tewodros Abebe"

[91] An article by "EuropeanTimes" that discuss ethnic violence of Amharas in Ethiopia but does not even use the word genocide in the article.

[92] The 5th is another opinion article written by "Girma Berhanu" on the Eurasiareview.

[93] The 6th is a youtube video by "borkena", which I myself am very familiar with. Its an Ethiopian website, that made very bizarre claims during the recent war, I believe its mostly made up of opinion articles aswell.

[94] The 7th is a "genocide report" by the "Moresh Wogenei Amhara Organization Research and Study Department"

[95] The 8th one only states The Amhara diaspora in particular followed the Ogadeni diaspora in its use of the genocide frame. [...] These reports circulated widely on diaspora media sites, radio stations, and served as the basis for petition drives on change.org. The transnational advocacy efforts by many political actors in the diaspora saw powerful leverage in the genocide framing.

[96] The 9th one is a link to a very sketchy and insecure website which seems to be a statement by the relatively unnotable "Ethiopian Information Service Network"

The 11th source is not accessible, but it seems to be another work of the Moresh Wegenie Amhara Organization.

None of these sources are reliable, but Petra0922 keeps insisting that the sources cited in this article are sufficient enough to justify the title. Hence those tags are completely justified until more reliable academic sources are found (and replaced) or this article is deleted or merged. محرر البوق (talk) 20:24, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@محرر البوق, Genocide denial is the last phase of its process. However, your response here takes us to a discussion, what sort of crimes are stated as genocide based on the most crucial, article 2 of the 1948 UN genocide convention definition which is exactly what this article and its sources discuss [97]. The article consists of selected sources to satisfy the WP:COMMONNAME and also provides sources that thoroughly explain the genocide crimes that caused the destruction of the Amhara people in-part, per the UN definition. My suggestion to those who want to weigh on this topic is to refer to UN definition and the other genocide articles in this platform including the Holocaust. You will find that the genocide crimes are discussed in a similar fashion as this same article.

Petra0922 (talk) 20:46, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Are you accusing me of Genocide Denial? Please don't engage in personal attacks, the reason why we are here is because you failed to provide adequate verifiable sources for this article. The latter half of your argument is just WP:SYNTH which further proves to me that this article violates WP:V, expect a AFD nomination soon. I'd also like to ask you to bring back those tags as you've removed them for no apparent reason. محرر البوق (talk) 21:49, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you two should request a WP:Third opinion, or make a WP:Request for comments, or take this to the WP:Dispute resolution noticeboard. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 22:46, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Random person no 362478479 That would be a good idea, might do that before opening up an AfD. But I'd also like to ask you, what do yo think about this article? You could possibly be the third opinion here. محرر البوق (talk) 01:14, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Id like to hold off on the question of the word 'genocide' for the moment as i think that is the most contentious issue. Factual accuracy is something we can deal with in a straightforward way so lets do that. Ill look at your commentary in the next few days if i get a chance, and Petra0922, if you can, would you look at the concerns above that are not related to the title or claims of genocide generally? Does that sound ok to everyone? Also, WP:Third opinion is not appropriate as there are already more than 2 editors participating. Bonewah (talk) 14:12, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

@Bonewah, I am catching up on the thread. Well, based on the previous and more meaningful discussion held related to adding quotes to sources to satisfy the WP:OR is a work in progress. Another thing that was considered is also to reduce the sources so we can reach to consensus quickly when such disputes arise. In the previous version of the article, quotes were added after major statements but that was abandoned to reduce copyright issues and those quotes were "re-phrased" cautiously to avoid, again copyright concerns (per recommendations of another editor and Wikipedia guidelines). About 3rd opinion, that was my take too. Too many people involved. Besides, the editor who wanted to add tags demonstrated solid conflict with Amhara and selected Ethiopian ethnic cases already. Although it is not as relevant here, due to the editor's persistent attack on materials of certain ethnic groups, it is almost expected to see what I call destructive responses, and sadly neutrality of his/her edits is seriously questioned when it comes to the ethnic topics in Ethiopia. He/she was involved in serious previous disputes with other editors that led to blockage. That is why, it is important to engage as many neutral editors as possible to help improve the article and also meet the question of WP:OR, which I believe will help meet the overall quality requirement (there is always room for that). As for whether the violence against the Amhara is genocide or not, we all should look back to the sole source (the UN Genocide Convention). It is the intentional and targeted killings of people “in-whole or in-part”, based on ethnicity, religion, or race. The given sources are supporting just that.Petra0922 (talk) 14:33, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

sadly neutrality of his/her edits is seriously questioned when it comes to the ethnic topics in Ethiopia. He/she was involved in serious previous disputes with other editors that led to blockage.

This is a complete lie, I was never blocked on Wikipedia. Lets focus on the content here محرر البوق (talk) 19:56, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@Bonewah, please see above. I added sources that explicitly discuss the Amhara genocide. I can add more for both the Name, Genocide and more sources that demonstrate intent to destroy the group based on its ethnicity, "in-part." Petra0922 (talk) 15:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

TPLF desires to secede from Ethiopia

OK, the first (non-genocide) issue is around this sentence in the lede "The Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) among other groups were formed in the 1970s with a manifesto and plan, for Tigray to secede from Ethiopia.". The issue being the claim that the TPLF was founded with the goal of Tigray secession. Its worth noting that the cite for that sentence, here, currently cite 28 supports this claim, stating "The manifesto called for transforming the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray in to an independent country through expansionist policies." Further, this link to globalsecurity.org backs this claim "Since the establishment of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in their 1976 Manifesto, they labeled their struggle as “anti-Amhara oppressors” … It is only through this struggle that they may be able to secede from Ethiopia and establish the Republic of Tigray." (ellipses mine) but also states "The TPLF prefered the federal system it took part in founding, in fact the current Ethiopian constitution which was the brainchild of the TPLF." and "According to a Tigrean spokesman, the front would like to see the government of Ethiopia established as a civilian-led federation, providing for the full and equal participation of the various nationalities in the country. Failing this, he stated that the TPLF would like to acquire either a strong measure of autonomy or full independence for the province". The [Tigray People's Liberation Front] page itself is a bit unclear on the matter. The cite offered by محرر البوق above [98] (pg 86) actually says that the TPLF's 1976 manifesto called for independence, but that they have since backed off that desire. So at first blush, it does seem as though the TPLF's initial manifesto called for independence, but im not too sure that fact is really that relevant any more. Maybe we could change the description of the TPLF to match what is on its own wikipedia page, something like "Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a leftist,[citation needed] ethnic nationalist,[2][8][9][5] paramilitary group,[10] and the former ruling party of Ethiopia.[11][12]" Any thoughts on that? Bonewah (talk) 14:51, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Genocide claim

Searching scholar finds only 18 sources that specifically use the term, "Amhara genocide" [99] a handful of which appears to be false positives, the vast majority of which are very recent and have few or no citations, some of which aren't even in academic journals, and some of which use clearly do not endorse the use of the term. e.g. Proxy Wars in the Horn of Africa, which describes it as a grievance narrative, while "The war in Tigray (2020–2021): Dictated truths, irredentism and déjà-vu" states that diaspora-based activists and the National Movement of the Amhara (NaMA, a political party founded in June 2018) crafted and imposed the narrative of the ‘Amhara genocide' The sources used to support this claim in the lead are unreliable, including WP:COUNTERPUNCH, https://europeantimes.news/ , which looks like a content farm, and a Candian parliament meeting (arguably a primary source). While massacres of ethnic Amhara have obviously taken place, I simply do not see enough evidence from reliable sources to describe it as a genocide in wikivoice. The Lemkin institute statement states nowhere explicitly that what is going on is a genocide, only that the Amhara are "very vulnerable to genocide". I would support moving the title to something like "Massacres of Amhara (1990-Present)", but also say that "some authors have characterised the massacres as a genocide". Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:13, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

See also "Transnational Advocacy: Genocide or Terrorism?" The Amhara diaspora in particular followed the Ogadeni diaspora in its use of the genocide frame. The Moresh Wegenie Amara Organization issued a report that characterized political violence in the Benishangul-Gumuz as “Genocide Committed against the Amhara.” A documentary film on the “Genocide of Amharas” was posted on YouTube in 2016. These reports circulated widely on diaspora media sites, radio stations, and served as the basis for petition drives on change.org. The transnational advocacy efforts by many political actors in the diaspora saw powerful leveragein the genocide framing. Activists used comparisons to Rwanda in their efforts to influence how the international community understood violence in Ethiopia and used Facebook to mobilizeagainst Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Barack Obama for their silence on the issue.33 Activists built upon the power of the genocide label in their strategies to lobby policy makers.. Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:35, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia I would also support a merging of this page with Predictions of a genocide in Ethiopia. How would you feel about that? محرر البوق (talk) 02:30, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I think that massacres of Amhara people (the actual topic of the article) is probably a separately notable topic in its own right, regardless as to whether it should be considered a genocide or not, so I would oppose a merger. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:35, 2 August 2023 (UTC)