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Martin Plaut gives the impression that his info is mostly, if not all, from EEPA; and David Alton refers to Martin Plaut (mistyping "Plant" instead of "Plaut"). Clearly Alton is taking the info seriously enough to raise the question officially, but that still only tells us that international pressure might be raised from the UK to allow journalists and human rights investigators into the Tigray Region. It's not a real source of info. So I think that keeping the one-source-only tag makes sense for the moment. Boud ( talk) 00:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
"International pressure" is invariably a bad thing in history (and a euphemism for something else) and I hope you realize it is not wikipedia's purview to play any role in accommodating this behavior while so scrupulously pretending yourself to be "neutral"... KZebegna ( talk) 11:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
to allow journalists and human rights investigators into the Tigray Region, without stating any constraints on their nationalities. Neither the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission nor the Ethiopian Human Rights Council can investigate properly if they're blocked by soldiers or too afraid for their personal security. The same applies to Ethiopian journalists. Wikipedia does not do investigations itself, but it is definitely not neutral in its aim of promoting encyclopedic knowledge. Wikipedia strongly advocates open distribution of knowledge that has been obtained by independent sources. Wikipedia has many specific guidelines, and is not neutral about those. Boud ( talk) 02:08, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
L'organisation belge Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA) fait état d'un massacre dans l'église Sainte-Marie-de-Sion, à Aksoum, qui aurait coûté la vie à environ 750 personnes, ce qu’un témoin a confirmé au Monde Afrique.which is
The Belgian organisation EEPA reported a massacre in the Mary-of-Zion church in Aksum, in which apparently 750 people died, which is confirmed by a witness to Le Monde Afrique. "Le Monde Afrique" means the Africa section of Le Monde. So Le Monde claims to have an independent witness, but didn't choose to give any new information. Boud ( talk) 02:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I do not know why the "alleged" tag is being re-added, because I do not see in the sources where doubt has been cast on the veracity of reports. All news sources are reporting this as the truth. A citation is needed for the "alleged" nature of the incident. Elizium23 ( talk) 21:13, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
I advised you to educate yourself with a dictionary on the meaning of "alleged". The purpose of "alleged" is not even to mean that doubt has or has not been cast. It means these are allegations, which they undeniably are. Unconfirmed hearsay allegations. Your whole crusade here is flawed because you don't seem to understand the meaning of "alleged". KZebegna ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 22:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Words such as supposed, apparent, alleged and purported can imply that a given point is inaccurate, although alleged and accused are appropriate when wrongdoing is asserted but undetermined, such as with people awaiting or undergoing a criminal trial; when these are used, ensure that the source of the accusation is clear.It's better to NPOV information that unfairly represents the sources rather than tell the reader "this is probably inaccurate", which doesn't give the reader any useful information. The exception is when individuals are on trial for a crime.
The Maryam Ts'iyon massacre is an alleged[citation needed] mass murder eventwe could put "The Maryam Ts'iyon massacre was, according to [[Europe External Programme with Africa]] (EEPA),<ref name="EEPA_No53_12Jan2021" /> [[Jan Nyssen]]<ref name="Nyssen_Tigray_situation_begin_2021" /> and ''[[Le Monde]]''<ref name="LeMonde_dying_hunger" /> a [[mass murder event]] that took place ..."
Regina Lynch is not a fourth source; and in Sit Rep 68, EEPA made two significant sourcing errors.
In
Sit Rep 68 - 27 Jan 2021, EEPA states, Regina Lynch, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), reports on the massacre in Maryam Zion church in Aksum: "those who have been able to visit the area are reporting the possible murder of 750 people in an assault on the Orthodox Church of St Mary of Zion in Aksum last November." She states that "ACN has received confirmation of a series of killings and attacks on innocent people in many parts of Tigray, including in the Aksum area, and she said the population is terrified."
This is a nearly correct quote of
this Vatican report "Aid to the ...". However, there are two significant errors:
This ACN article "Standing with ..." says that Regina Lynch is an ACN project manager, and uses quotation marks very differently from EEPA's reconstruction: News that has spread in recent days in many media outlets about the possible murder of 750 people in an assault on the Orthodox Church of St Mary of Zion (Maryam Tsiyon) in Aksum last November, where according to the local tradition the Ark of the Covenant is kept,
is unquoted. Lynch only states "we have not been able to verify the exact details of what would be a real massacre. Travel in the region is not currently possible and communications are very restricted, but we have received confirmation of a series of killings and attacks on innocent people in many parts of the region and also in the Aksum area. The population is terrified."
So, according to ACN, Lynch does not confirm 750 killed or the place or date; she only confirms the general pattern of killings and terror. The Vatican misleadingly dropped the quotes and gave the impression that Lynch confirms the scale, place and date ("November", which disagrees with EEPA 53: 15 Dec, and Nyssen: 17-20 Dec). EEPA 68 misleadingly inserted quotes, and misleadingly (whether by error or deliberately is irrelevant to us) dropped "we have not been able to verify the exact details of what would be a real massacre", which is, according to ACN itself, the only thing that Lynch stated specifically about the massacre.
The practical conclusion is that if someone wishes to include a quote by Lynch in this article (or related ones), then it should be, it seems to me, from the ACN article, not from the Vatican or from EEPA 68 or from other sites that misquote Lynch. It's clear that Lynch (unfortunate name) does not confirm the key details. She does not count as a fourth source. At best, she counts as a "source seeking information who hasn't found confirmation for the scale, place or date". (Lynch seems like a well-identified, possibly Wikipedia-notable person, e.g. profile, Syria involvement.) Boud ( talk) 23:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
This is trying to get an overview of the sources in the current version of 01:30, 14 February 2021:
Missing so far:
My rewrite is based on the conservative assumption that there was only one massacre in Axum on the scale of about 750 or so victims in one day. It remains possible that there were two separate massacres: the 28 November one and the mid December one. Boud ( talk) 01:51, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Source list - we have another source:
Whatever details finally emerge, it looks unlikely that the final execution count will be less than many hundreds. High time for an independent investigation and visit by journalists. Boud ( talk) 16:36, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Now we also have:
Boud ( talk) 14:28, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
And we have:
giving details mostly compatible, with some minor differences, to the EDF on 28 November as main massacre + continued daily executions versions. An interesting comment by Plaut, with decades of experience as a war reporter, "Civilians are frequently killed during wars, but a massacre of this scale is relatively rare." Boud ( talk) 04:00, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
The:
This confirms most of the earlier reports, but it seems safe to downgrade the "mid-December" dates from EEPA/Nyssen's early reports to a brief note on the slow emergence of the reports getting out to the world, which I've done. Boud ( talk) 02:17, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Proposed new title: Aksum massacre or Aksum massacres. Justification: With the deluge of new, mainstream media and more detailed witness reports, there seems to be a convergence on 28-29 Nov as the main massacre, with small daily executions before (one witness) and daily afterwards (several), and more importantly for the title, a part of the main massacre was in the church, but much of it was in the streets, in revenge for the Tigray militia killing some of the smallish EDF group prior to reinforcements arriving. A side advantage of the name change is that it would bypass the issue of various spellings of Maryam Ts'iyon/Mary of Zion. I suggest comments starting with an asterisk and then an overall opinion Support (singular) or Support (plural) or Support (both) or Oppose or Wait, and then the reasons. I'd like to see reactions before I add my opinion on this !vote. Boud ( talk) 04:16, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
Martin has been repeating from website called Eritreahub which rumored to be operated by himself. On Twitter he has been questioned by readers who make the observation that Plauts news post end becoming discredited. He has a following amongst Diaspora TPLF posters and Tplf paid Eritrean opposition. Plaut is not a reliable source Clownshking ( talk) 08:35, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Ayone that has actually visited Axum in the last 20 years (whether they flew into Axum Airport or travelled overland - I've done both) will know that it is overwhelmingly "AXUM" (with that exact shortened and intuitive spelling that is used - as derived from both the Greek and Roman names [1] that is seen locally as the name of the town in Latin script. That's the spelling that appears on (very rare) roadside direction signs in Latin script and (very common) tourist oriented signage (such as on the the Axum Ghion hotel with 76 beds - before it was pillaged by the Eritrean Army).
Since this is the English language Wikipedia we should not be using a transliteration of either the Tigrinya ኣኽሱም; Ge'ez አኵስም Ak̠ʷsəm or Amharic አክሱም Ak̠sum for our article title ! BushelCandle ( talk) 01:03, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
References
@ BushelCandle: Why isn't the article factual accurate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wowzers122 ( talk • contribs) 02:53, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Unfortunately the tag has now been restored by an editor that has abused multiple accounts and told lies in edit summaries... BushelCandle ( talk) 22:33, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks are due to Rastakwere for sourcing this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349824181_Tigray_Atlas_of_the_humanitarian_situation BushelCandle ( talk) 09:12, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Have you forgotten the famous saying about "the first causalty of war is the truth"???
Without claiming to know the definitive answer to what happened in Axum, I have mapped out the massive disinformation effort surrounding the initial version of the Axum Massacre, which was initiated by Martin Plaut, holding that about 750-800 church-goers were gunned down in the central square and, later claimed by Cara Anna in Associated Press, their corpses were eaten by hyena.
There was a complete lack of accountability when this was revealed to be false, which tells us, at the very least, to be skeptical of more accounts based on anonymous witnesses.
Read this section if you want to know what we do know for sure:
https://rsonderriis.substack.com/p/getting-ethiopia-dead-wrong#:~:text=Do%20we%20know,in%20the%20way.
I also point out serious problems regarding the Amnesty report. Finally, if you read the entire piece, which is the product of years of research and insight into Ethiopian affairs, you will also understand that Lord Alton and especially Martin Plaut and Jan Nyssen have acted, very successfully, I must say, as dishonest atrocity propagandists with a political agenda throughout the war.
Rasmus Sonderriis 102.218.51.85 ( talk) 07:14, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
This is the
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Martin Plaut gives the impression that his info is mostly, if not all, from EEPA; and David Alton refers to Martin Plaut (mistyping "Plant" instead of "Plaut"). Clearly Alton is taking the info seriously enough to raise the question officially, but that still only tells us that international pressure might be raised from the UK to allow journalists and human rights investigators into the Tigray Region. It's not a real source of info. So I think that keeping the one-source-only tag makes sense for the moment. Boud ( talk) 00:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
"International pressure" is invariably a bad thing in history (and a euphemism for something else) and I hope you realize it is not wikipedia's purview to play any role in accommodating this behavior while so scrupulously pretending yourself to be "neutral"... KZebegna ( talk) 11:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
to allow journalists and human rights investigators into the Tigray Region, without stating any constraints on their nationalities. Neither the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission nor the Ethiopian Human Rights Council can investigate properly if they're blocked by soldiers or too afraid for their personal security. The same applies to Ethiopian journalists. Wikipedia does not do investigations itself, but it is definitely not neutral in its aim of promoting encyclopedic knowledge. Wikipedia strongly advocates open distribution of knowledge that has been obtained by independent sources. Wikipedia has many specific guidelines, and is not neutral about those. Boud ( talk) 02:08, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
L'organisation belge Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA) fait état d'un massacre dans l'église Sainte-Marie-de-Sion, à Aksoum, qui aurait coûté la vie à environ 750 personnes, ce qu’un témoin a confirmé au Monde Afrique.which is
The Belgian organisation EEPA reported a massacre in the Mary-of-Zion church in Aksum, in which apparently 750 people died, which is confirmed by a witness to Le Monde Afrique. "Le Monde Afrique" means the Africa section of Le Monde. So Le Monde claims to have an independent witness, but didn't choose to give any new information. Boud ( talk) 02:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I do not know why the "alleged" tag is being re-added, because I do not see in the sources where doubt has been cast on the veracity of reports. All news sources are reporting this as the truth. A citation is needed for the "alleged" nature of the incident. Elizium23 ( talk) 21:13, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
I advised you to educate yourself with a dictionary on the meaning of "alleged". The purpose of "alleged" is not even to mean that doubt has or has not been cast. It means these are allegations, which they undeniably are. Unconfirmed hearsay allegations. Your whole crusade here is flawed because you don't seem to understand the meaning of "alleged". KZebegna ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 22:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Words such as supposed, apparent, alleged and purported can imply that a given point is inaccurate, although alleged and accused are appropriate when wrongdoing is asserted but undetermined, such as with people awaiting or undergoing a criminal trial; when these are used, ensure that the source of the accusation is clear.It's better to NPOV information that unfairly represents the sources rather than tell the reader "this is probably inaccurate", which doesn't give the reader any useful information. The exception is when individuals are on trial for a crime.
The Maryam Ts'iyon massacre is an alleged[citation needed] mass murder eventwe could put "The Maryam Ts'iyon massacre was, according to [[Europe External Programme with Africa]] (EEPA),<ref name="EEPA_No53_12Jan2021" /> [[Jan Nyssen]]<ref name="Nyssen_Tigray_situation_begin_2021" /> and ''[[Le Monde]]''<ref name="LeMonde_dying_hunger" /> a [[mass murder event]] that took place ..."
Regina Lynch is not a fourth source; and in Sit Rep 68, EEPA made two significant sourcing errors.
In
Sit Rep 68 - 27 Jan 2021, EEPA states, Regina Lynch, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), reports on the massacre in Maryam Zion church in Aksum: "those who have been able to visit the area are reporting the possible murder of 750 people in an assault on the Orthodox Church of St Mary of Zion in Aksum last November." She states that "ACN has received confirmation of a series of killings and attacks on innocent people in many parts of Tigray, including in the Aksum area, and she said the population is terrified."
This is a nearly correct quote of
this Vatican report "Aid to the ...". However, there are two significant errors:
This ACN article "Standing with ..." says that Regina Lynch is an ACN project manager, and uses quotation marks very differently from EEPA's reconstruction: News that has spread in recent days in many media outlets about the possible murder of 750 people in an assault on the Orthodox Church of St Mary of Zion (Maryam Tsiyon) in Aksum last November, where according to the local tradition the Ark of the Covenant is kept,
is unquoted. Lynch only states "we have not been able to verify the exact details of what would be a real massacre. Travel in the region is not currently possible and communications are very restricted, but we have received confirmation of a series of killings and attacks on innocent people in many parts of the region and also in the Aksum area. The population is terrified."
So, according to ACN, Lynch does not confirm 750 killed or the place or date; she only confirms the general pattern of killings and terror. The Vatican misleadingly dropped the quotes and gave the impression that Lynch confirms the scale, place and date ("November", which disagrees with EEPA 53: 15 Dec, and Nyssen: 17-20 Dec). EEPA 68 misleadingly inserted quotes, and misleadingly (whether by error or deliberately is irrelevant to us) dropped "we have not been able to verify the exact details of what would be a real massacre", which is, according to ACN itself, the only thing that Lynch stated specifically about the massacre.
The practical conclusion is that if someone wishes to include a quote by Lynch in this article (or related ones), then it should be, it seems to me, from the ACN article, not from the Vatican or from EEPA 68 or from other sites that misquote Lynch. It's clear that Lynch (unfortunate name) does not confirm the key details. She does not count as a fourth source. At best, she counts as a "source seeking information who hasn't found confirmation for the scale, place or date". (Lynch seems like a well-identified, possibly Wikipedia-notable person, e.g. profile, Syria involvement.) Boud ( talk) 23:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
This is trying to get an overview of the sources in the current version of 01:30, 14 February 2021:
Missing so far:
My rewrite is based on the conservative assumption that there was only one massacre in Axum on the scale of about 750 or so victims in one day. It remains possible that there were two separate massacres: the 28 November one and the mid December one. Boud ( talk) 01:51, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Source list - we have another source:
Whatever details finally emerge, it looks unlikely that the final execution count will be less than many hundreds. High time for an independent investigation and visit by journalists. Boud ( talk) 16:36, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Now we also have:
Boud ( talk) 14:28, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
And we have:
giving details mostly compatible, with some minor differences, to the EDF on 28 November as main massacre + continued daily executions versions. An interesting comment by Plaut, with decades of experience as a war reporter, "Civilians are frequently killed during wars, but a massacre of this scale is relatively rare." Boud ( talk) 04:00, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
The:
This confirms most of the earlier reports, but it seems safe to downgrade the "mid-December" dates from EEPA/Nyssen's early reports to a brief note on the slow emergence of the reports getting out to the world, which I've done. Boud ( talk) 02:17, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Proposed new title: Aksum massacre or Aksum massacres. Justification: With the deluge of new, mainstream media and more detailed witness reports, there seems to be a convergence on 28-29 Nov as the main massacre, with small daily executions before (one witness) and daily afterwards (several), and more importantly for the title, a part of the main massacre was in the church, but much of it was in the streets, in revenge for the Tigray militia killing some of the smallish EDF group prior to reinforcements arriving. A side advantage of the name change is that it would bypass the issue of various spellings of Maryam Ts'iyon/Mary of Zion. I suggest comments starting with an asterisk and then an overall opinion Support (singular) or Support (plural) or Support (both) or Oppose or Wait, and then the reasons. I'd like to see reactions before I add my opinion on this !vote. Boud ( talk) 04:16, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
Martin has been repeating from website called Eritreahub which rumored to be operated by himself. On Twitter he has been questioned by readers who make the observation that Plauts news post end becoming discredited. He has a following amongst Diaspora TPLF posters and Tplf paid Eritrean opposition. Plaut is not a reliable source Clownshking ( talk) 08:35, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
Ayone that has actually visited Axum in the last 20 years (whether they flew into Axum Airport or travelled overland - I've done both) will know that it is overwhelmingly "AXUM" (with that exact shortened and intuitive spelling that is used - as derived from both the Greek and Roman names [1] that is seen locally as the name of the town in Latin script. That's the spelling that appears on (very rare) roadside direction signs in Latin script and (very common) tourist oriented signage (such as on the the Axum Ghion hotel with 76 beds - before it was pillaged by the Eritrean Army).
Since this is the English language Wikipedia we should not be using a transliteration of either the Tigrinya ኣኽሱም; Ge'ez አኵስም Ak̠ʷsəm or Amharic አክሱም Ak̠sum for our article title ! BushelCandle ( talk) 01:03, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
References
@ BushelCandle: Why isn't the article factual accurate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wowzers122 ( talk • contribs) 02:53, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Unfortunately the tag has now been restored by an editor that has abused multiple accounts and told lies in edit summaries... BushelCandle ( talk) 22:33, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks are due to Rastakwere for sourcing this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349824181_Tigray_Atlas_of_the_humanitarian_situation BushelCandle ( talk) 09:12, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Have you forgotten the famous saying about "the first causalty of war is the truth"???
Without claiming to know the definitive answer to what happened in Axum, I have mapped out the massive disinformation effort surrounding the initial version of the Axum Massacre, which was initiated by Martin Plaut, holding that about 750-800 church-goers were gunned down in the central square and, later claimed by Cara Anna in Associated Press, their corpses were eaten by hyena.
There was a complete lack of accountability when this was revealed to be false, which tells us, at the very least, to be skeptical of more accounts based on anonymous witnesses.
Read this section if you want to know what we do know for sure:
https://rsonderriis.substack.com/p/getting-ethiopia-dead-wrong#:~:text=Do%20we%20know,in%20the%20way.
I also point out serious problems regarding the Amnesty report. Finally, if you read the entire piece, which is the product of years of research and insight into Ethiopian affairs, you will also understand that Lord Alton and especially Martin Plaut and Jan Nyssen have acted, very successfully, I must say, as dishonest atrocity propagandists with a political agenda throughout the war.
Rasmus Sonderriis 102.218.51.85 ( talk) 07:14, 6 November 2023 (UTC)