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"The British colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, primarily a soldier and a globe trotter, also tried to be an ornithologist, and in the last role he was fraudulent. In words of Rasmussen (as quoted by Barbara, 2005) “There are hundreds and probably thousands of fraudulently catalogued specimens. This was going on for the better part of his (Meinertzhagen’s) life”.
In "Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (January 2006)" http://www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/shs/EJAIB/EJAIB12006.pdf. there is a reference to Nature to proove this.
Barbara, Santa, 2005. Ornithologists stunned by collector’s deceit. Nature, 437 (September 15, 2005): 302 – 303.
I THINK THAT THE LAST EDIT BY 68.225.254.171 IS BIASED TOWARDS RICHARD MEINERTZHAGEN, CHANGING 'WELL KNOWN FOR KILLING PEOPLE' TO 'WELL KNOWN FOR KILLING ENEMIES'
There is mention of his having suppressed a tribal rebellion in East Africa in 1905 by shooting the "witch doctor" (a curiously dated term). This obviously refers to his role in what came to be known as 'the Nandi Incident', the Nandi being Hamitic pastoralists in northern Kenya. According to Meinertzhagen - and I heard him claim this in 1957 - he had arranged to meet a prominent Nandi laibon to discuss his people's acceding to the establishing of British authority; but Meinertzhagen had only a few askaris (African troops) with him, and in his version the laibon, with a band of tribesmen, launched an assault which led to shooting, the laibon's death, and subsequent difficult relations with the Nandi. The nascent British administration held Meinertzhagen to be at fault, and he was dismissed and deported in 1906. In view of his later involvement in other instances of illegal or precipitate behaviour, it would seem that the administration was justified.
Some comments on above paragraph. "Witch doctor" is not a curiously dated term as suggested by writer of above paragraph commenting on the article. Witchdoctor is exactly what a Laibon (the person killed by Meinertzhagen) is! A Laibon is not a chief, but a soothsayer who's job is to supposedly predict the future (by reading the runes, animal entrails etc.) and put curses on someone unfortunate to fall out of favour with him or other influential people in the tribe (such "curses" are mumbo-jumbo of course, but just the mere fact that the victim sometimes believes they have been cursed, is enough for them to give up, go into a stupor and effectively die of terror).
Then, as now, the Laibon's status as "witchdoctor" comes from the very fact he was seen as a supposed "prophet" (which is what he is becoming to his increasing number of worshippers) amongst believers for his supposed "psychic" predictions, such as that of of the coming of the "iron snake" (the railway) in a dream. I think the fact that he (a master propagandist, like many a sangoma and court crones) and his followers believe in such superstitious twaddle confirms that he was a "witchdoctor". So describing Koitalel as a witchdoctor is not an archaic term from a detractor, but semantically accurate - and the very reason his admirers then and now hold him in high status. A Laibon IS a witchdoctor.
Sirikwa (22 Mar 2006)
The New Yorker mentions the "Haversack Ruse", which supposedly misdirected the Turks and enabled England to win the war, as Meinertzhagen's most famous deed. So why no mention here? Can someone fill in the blanks? — Adam Conover † 14:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Somebody removed the earlier reference to "witchdoctor" and replaced it with "tribal leader". This is incorrect. The Laibon was not a tribal leader, but literally a witchdoctor (as my earlier comment, 22 Mar 2006, points out). The user (IP 137.198.244.199) who had removed the term witchdoctor had earlier added the misleading comment "he crushed a major tribal revolt by murdering, in cold blood, the general who led it after inviting him to his home for peace talks" - which had been removed by another user, quite correctly. For a start, one questions why this user would use the term "general" to describe a tribal Laibon?
Sirikwa (4 June 2006)
Also, "The incident and attack are depicted in the 1987 film The Lighthorsemen.", yet the plot synopsis at the linked wikipedia page makes no mention whatsoever of any sort of diversionary ruse, let alone a haversack. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.147.122.14 ( talk) 17:30, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
While most of the charges against Meinertzhagen are apparently true, the language of this article is unacceptable. The introduction is especially awful. It is not supposed to read like the prosecutor's summary to the jury. -- Zero talk 09:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
the only way I have heard about Meinerthagen is the cracked article http://www.cracked.com/article_18811_5-real-macgyvers-who-won-battles-with-improvised-weapons.html that links to this book, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=QzbW2vDJOMwC&pg=PA229&dq=turn+around+run+like+hell+sheria&hl=en&ei=LIOnTI70FIvFnAfIrtGvDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false claiming that Meinertzhagen dropped opium laced cigarettes on the Turkish defenders of Sheria on 5 Nov 1917 - given this will probably send many people to this article, could someone double check it and add something about the story to this article?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Whitelaughter ( talk • contribs) 19:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi folks,
As an OTRS volunteer, I have been tasked with assisting a family member related to the subject of this article--Richard Meinhertzhagen--to share the family members' concerns about this article. My role here is to listen to the family member's concerns, summarize them in relevant detail for our editing community, and to present the level of evidence the family member has provided so that you can assess it. Whether you make changes related to the family member's requests is up to your determination of them as reasonable and neutral. This request comes with no extra authority and I encourage you to evaluate the evidence with neither added persuasion nor resistance, as if it was simply a concerned reader making a case for some changes.
Feel free to share questions with me for more information. The family member has shared copies of documents with me and given me permission to share them with other editors. If you have questions for the family member I am happy to relay them. I have notified the family member that a discussion may take place on this page and they may comment on it. Thanks for your time and consideration. --Jake Ocaasi t | c 15:06, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi innotata, Shyamal, and Zero. I have been asked again by the family member to have the section on Garfield addressed (and similarly in the article on his deceased wife). There was recent talk about a) reworking it into the article and/or b) addressing whether its claims are 'speculation'. I know we don't work on deadlines, but to be honest, I could really use someone to take a look at this next week or next.
I am very much getting the sense that this is not legal pressure, just a family member looking for dignity and closure. I know and have made clear that we can't change history (or historical scholarship) and given Garfield's work's positive reviews that it is unlikely to warrant removal. However, if we can at all handle this more professionally and encyclopedically it would go a long way. So, please ping me if you can commit to working on this by early February.
Thank you, sincerely, Jake Ocaasi t | c 19:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
I doubt very much that the Meinhertzhagen were second only to the Rothschild as a banking family. They are frankly obscure. This entire article reads like an attempt to promote Richard Meinhertzhagen and his family. Royalcourtier ( talk) 06:53, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
That was claimed in the introduction to a biography book. I've added an explanatory note. BellicoseSouthernBelle ( talk) 14:08, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
Could an editor try to find the source for this paragraph and quotation from the Character section? The Family has requested the excerpt from the diary be removed as a copyright violation. I leave the copyright question up to you folks, but we at least need it to be cited properly if it remains. Cheers, Jake
Even now I feel the pain of that moment, when something seemed to leave me, something good; and something evil entered into my soul. Was it God who foresook me, and the devil took his place. But whatever left me has never returned, neither have I been able to entirely cast out the evil which entered me at that moment.... The undeserved beatings and sadistic treatment which were my lot in childhood so upset my mind that much of my present character can be traced to Fonthill.
Thanks, Ocaasi t | c 03:12, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Because there was consensus that this article needed general improvements for encyclopedic structure, in particular around Garfield's book, I have made an attempt to integrate that section as well as to align the lead with the body of the text. As an OTRS member, I am generally averse to making such changes myself because of my close communications with the family member. Despite my strong effort at capturing your concerns evenly and professionally in my revisions, I would appreciate a close reading of the article from top-to bottom, particularly the lead and the character section, to see if it is an improvement. If you disagree in any way, please revert it and/or make an attempt at a better version.
While I kept all of Garfield's views intact (while presenting them more in line with the flow of the article), I could not verify this claim:
I appreciate the consultation you have already taken and ask you to go through one more time to check the work. Going forward, changes that would continue to improve the article would involve integrating the entire "Character" section (which is more like a litany of 'criticism' or 'controversy') throughout the article. Thanks and cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 20:31, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
Hello, Zero0000, about this diff, I added the cite from The Economist to the Richard Meinertzhagen article to try to give a reference within the article for the term "bumf," which is defined in Wiktionary and, of course, the OED. I thought of The Economist, as a publication, to be a reliable source, not original research and that the explanation within the article might be helpful to others. "Bumf" as a definition doesn't deserve its own article, so wikilinking was not an option. Linking to Wiktionary is contra to the Manual of Style and the OED is a paysite. Still and all, is there a better way to include an explanation of the term in the Meinertzhagen article? It could be helpful to those for whom the term is not at the top of their everyday parlance. Geoff | Who, me? 22:47, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
@ Glane23:. Hi, it isn't clear to me why the word "bumf" is in the article at all, since it appears in Wikipedia's voice. Even more so regarding "Australian bumf" (what is that?). If it was a quotation then we could discuss how to deal with the word, but in our text we should just replace it by something readers will understand. Unfortunately that paragraph has very unclear sourcing and I can't tell if the word "bumf" originated in one of the sources given or whether it was introduced there by some Wikipedia editor. The word does not appear in the Official History cited; I don't have "Army Diary" handy to check. Actually I believe it is a paraphrase of the book of Grainger (cited next), which has "This, of course, relied on the enemy’s understanding of the peculiar Australian attitude to discipline and ‘bumf’."(p107). That makes sense, but our phrase "comprehension of Australian bumf" doesn't make sense, which suggests that whoever put it into the article didn't understand it. The following sentence "The main consequence was a swap in the German High Command, and Mustafa Kemal's resignation." is also clearly derived from Grainger, but Grainger does not attribute any of that to the haversack ruse. I'd like to remove the whole paragraph; objections? (Also, this should be on the article talk page.) Zero talk 00:03, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
RM is supposed to have killed some Germans with one, according to Lawrence. When? Where? 86.176.83.11 ( talk) 20:58, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
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The description here is in contrast to Meinertzhagen's "Kenya diary, 1902-1906" (published 1957), available online at https://archive.org/details/kenyadiary1902190000mein . His official report is on pp 234ff; pages from 220 describe his posting to Nandi country, his dislike for Koilatel about whom he hears that he wants to kill Meinertzhagen and whom he wants to either arrest or kill. The incident itself is described as a planned meeting with 6 persons on each side, both sides arriving with larger numbers in the back but the meeting itself being with 5 directly by Meinertzhagen and 22 with Koilatel, and hostilities being started by an arrow shot at Meinertzhagen (who was prepared to arrest or kill Koilatel). The description of the ensuing fight does not support the claim that Meinertzhagen just shot when his opposite stretched out his hand. I am now not in a position to judge whether there is gound to dispute Meinertzhagen's version of the story, but at least it should be given some space. Kipala ( talk) 13:33, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
It sounds like he's more well-known for his military career than his scientific career so shouldn't this article instead have a military person infobox with a scientist infobox imbedded into into it? Charles Essie ( talk) 03:33, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
The introduction of him doesn't mention any siblings at first (but later mentions a brother - Daniel). I was wondering if any information on his siblings could be added. I'm not asking for any in-depth information on them, just something along the lines of "Meinerzhagen was born as the second child of x and y" or "Meinerzhagen was the 2nd of 3 children". (The numbers I picked here are random, as there's no information on this in the article and I'm not familiar with the subject.) Nakonana ( talk) 15:56, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
On the killing of Koitalel, the article says "Initially, he had been able to orchestrate a cover-up and was commended for the incident." but it doesn't say what the cover-up looked like or how it was discovered that it was a cover-up and not a factual report. Nakonana ( talk) 16:16, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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"The British colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, primarily a soldier and a globe trotter, also tried to be an ornithologist, and in the last role he was fraudulent. In words of Rasmussen (as quoted by Barbara, 2005) “There are hundreds and probably thousands of fraudulently catalogued specimens. This was going on for the better part of his (Meinertzhagen’s) life”.
In "Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 16 (January 2006)" http://www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/shs/EJAIB/EJAIB12006.pdf. there is a reference to Nature to proove this.
Barbara, Santa, 2005. Ornithologists stunned by collector’s deceit. Nature, 437 (September 15, 2005): 302 – 303.
I THINK THAT THE LAST EDIT BY 68.225.254.171 IS BIASED TOWARDS RICHARD MEINERTZHAGEN, CHANGING 'WELL KNOWN FOR KILLING PEOPLE' TO 'WELL KNOWN FOR KILLING ENEMIES'
There is mention of his having suppressed a tribal rebellion in East Africa in 1905 by shooting the "witch doctor" (a curiously dated term). This obviously refers to his role in what came to be known as 'the Nandi Incident', the Nandi being Hamitic pastoralists in northern Kenya. According to Meinertzhagen - and I heard him claim this in 1957 - he had arranged to meet a prominent Nandi laibon to discuss his people's acceding to the establishing of British authority; but Meinertzhagen had only a few askaris (African troops) with him, and in his version the laibon, with a band of tribesmen, launched an assault which led to shooting, the laibon's death, and subsequent difficult relations with the Nandi. The nascent British administration held Meinertzhagen to be at fault, and he was dismissed and deported in 1906. In view of his later involvement in other instances of illegal or precipitate behaviour, it would seem that the administration was justified.
Some comments on above paragraph. "Witch doctor" is not a curiously dated term as suggested by writer of above paragraph commenting on the article. Witchdoctor is exactly what a Laibon (the person killed by Meinertzhagen) is! A Laibon is not a chief, but a soothsayer who's job is to supposedly predict the future (by reading the runes, animal entrails etc.) and put curses on someone unfortunate to fall out of favour with him or other influential people in the tribe (such "curses" are mumbo-jumbo of course, but just the mere fact that the victim sometimes believes they have been cursed, is enough for them to give up, go into a stupor and effectively die of terror).
Then, as now, the Laibon's status as "witchdoctor" comes from the very fact he was seen as a supposed "prophet" (which is what he is becoming to his increasing number of worshippers) amongst believers for his supposed "psychic" predictions, such as that of of the coming of the "iron snake" (the railway) in a dream. I think the fact that he (a master propagandist, like many a sangoma and court crones) and his followers believe in such superstitious twaddle confirms that he was a "witchdoctor". So describing Koitalel as a witchdoctor is not an archaic term from a detractor, but semantically accurate - and the very reason his admirers then and now hold him in high status. A Laibon IS a witchdoctor.
Sirikwa (22 Mar 2006)
The New Yorker mentions the "Haversack Ruse", which supposedly misdirected the Turks and enabled England to win the war, as Meinertzhagen's most famous deed. So why no mention here? Can someone fill in the blanks? — Adam Conover † 14:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Somebody removed the earlier reference to "witchdoctor" and replaced it with "tribal leader". This is incorrect. The Laibon was not a tribal leader, but literally a witchdoctor (as my earlier comment, 22 Mar 2006, points out). The user (IP 137.198.244.199) who had removed the term witchdoctor had earlier added the misleading comment "he crushed a major tribal revolt by murdering, in cold blood, the general who led it after inviting him to his home for peace talks" - which had been removed by another user, quite correctly. For a start, one questions why this user would use the term "general" to describe a tribal Laibon?
Sirikwa (4 June 2006)
Also, "The incident and attack are depicted in the 1987 film The Lighthorsemen.", yet the plot synopsis at the linked wikipedia page makes no mention whatsoever of any sort of diversionary ruse, let alone a haversack. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.147.122.14 ( talk) 17:30, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
While most of the charges against Meinertzhagen are apparently true, the language of this article is unacceptable. The introduction is especially awful. It is not supposed to read like the prosecutor's summary to the jury. -- Zero talk 09:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
the only way I have heard about Meinerthagen is the cracked article http://www.cracked.com/article_18811_5-real-macgyvers-who-won-battles-with-improvised-weapons.html that links to this book, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=QzbW2vDJOMwC&pg=PA229&dq=turn+around+run+like+hell+sheria&hl=en&ei=LIOnTI70FIvFnAfIrtGvDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false claiming that Meinertzhagen dropped opium laced cigarettes on the Turkish defenders of Sheria on 5 Nov 1917 - given this will probably send many people to this article, could someone double check it and add something about the story to this article?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Whitelaughter ( talk • contribs) 19:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi folks,
As an OTRS volunteer, I have been tasked with assisting a family member related to the subject of this article--Richard Meinhertzhagen--to share the family members' concerns about this article. My role here is to listen to the family member's concerns, summarize them in relevant detail for our editing community, and to present the level of evidence the family member has provided so that you can assess it. Whether you make changes related to the family member's requests is up to your determination of them as reasonable and neutral. This request comes with no extra authority and I encourage you to evaluate the evidence with neither added persuasion nor resistance, as if it was simply a concerned reader making a case for some changes.
Feel free to share questions with me for more information. The family member has shared copies of documents with me and given me permission to share them with other editors. If you have questions for the family member I am happy to relay them. I have notified the family member that a discussion may take place on this page and they may comment on it. Thanks for your time and consideration. --Jake Ocaasi t | c 15:06, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi innotata, Shyamal, and Zero. I have been asked again by the family member to have the section on Garfield addressed (and similarly in the article on his deceased wife). There was recent talk about a) reworking it into the article and/or b) addressing whether its claims are 'speculation'. I know we don't work on deadlines, but to be honest, I could really use someone to take a look at this next week or next.
I am very much getting the sense that this is not legal pressure, just a family member looking for dignity and closure. I know and have made clear that we can't change history (or historical scholarship) and given Garfield's work's positive reviews that it is unlikely to warrant removal. However, if we can at all handle this more professionally and encyclopedically it would go a long way. So, please ping me if you can commit to working on this by early February.
Thank you, sincerely, Jake Ocaasi t | c 19:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
I doubt very much that the Meinhertzhagen were second only to the Rothschild as a banking family. They are frankly obscure. This entire article reads like an attempt to promote Richard Meinhertzhagen and his family. Royalcourtier ( talk) 06:53, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
That was claimed in the introduction to a biography book. I've added an explanatory note. BellicoseSouthernBelle ( talk) 14:08, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
Could an editor try to find the source for this paragraph and quotation from the Character section? The Family has requested the excerpt from the diary be removed as a copyright violation. I leave the copyright question up to you folks, but we at least need it to be cited properly if it remains. Cheers, Jake
Even now I feel the pain of that moment, when something seemed to leave me, something good; and something evil entered into my soul. Was it God who foresook me, and the devil took his place. But whatever left me has never returned, neither have I been able to entirely cast out the evil which entered me at that moment.... The undeserved beatings and sadistic treatment which were my lot in childhood so upset my mind that much of my present character can be traced to Fonthill.
Thanks, Ocaasi t | c 03:12, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Because there was consensus that this article needed general improvements for encyclopedic structure, in particular around Garfield's book, I have made an attempt to integrate that section as well as to align the lead with the body of the text. As an OTRS member, I am generally averse to making such changes myself because of my close communications with the family member. Despite my strong effort at capturing your concerns evenly and professionally in my revisions, I would appreciate a close reading of the article from top-to bottom, particularly the lead and the character section, to see if it is an improvement. If you disagree in any way, please revert it and/or make an attempt at a better version.
While I kept all of Garfield's views intact (while presenting them more in line with the flow of the article), I could not verify this claim:
I appreciate the consultation you have already taken and ask you to go through one more time to check the work. Going forward, changes that would continue to improve the article would involve integrating the entire "Character" section (which is more like a litany of 'criticism' or 'controversy') throughout the article. Thanks and cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 20:31, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
Hello, Zero0000, about this diff, I added the cite from The Economist to the Richard Meinertzhagen article to try to give a reference within the article for the term "bumf," which is defined in Wiktionary and, of course, the OED. I thought of The Economist, as a publication, to be a reliable source, not original research and that the explanation within the article might be helpful to others. "Bumf" as a definition doesn't deserve its own article, so wikilinking was not an option. Linking to Wiktionary is contra to the Manual of Style and the OED is a paysite. Still and all, is there a better way to include an explanation of the term in the Meinertzhagen article? It could be helpful to those for whom the term is not at the top of their everyday parlance. Geoff | Who, me? 22:47, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
@ Glane23:. Hi, it isn't clear to me why the word "bumf" is in the article at all, since it appears in Wikipedia's voice. Even more so regarding "Australian bumf" (what is that?). If it was a quotation then we could discuss how to deal with the word, but in our text we should just replace it by something readers will understand. Unfortunately that paragraph has very unclear sourcing and I can't tell if the word "bumf" originated in one of the sources given or whether it was introduced there by some Wikipedia editor. The word does not appear in the Official History cited; I don't have "Army Diary" handy to check. Actually I believe it is a paraphrase of the book of Grainger (cited next), which has "This, of course, relied on the enemy’s understanding of the peculiar Australian attitude to discipline and ‘bumf’."(p107). That makes sense, but our phrase "comprehension of Australian bumf" doesn't make sense, which suggests that whoever put it into the article didn't understand it. The following sentence "The main consequence was a swap in the German High Command, and Mustafa Kemal's resignation." is also clearly derived from Grainger, but Grainger does not attribute any of that to the haversack ruse. I'd like to remove the whole paragraph; objections? (Also, this should be on the article talk page.) Zero talk 00:03, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
RM is supposed to have killed some Germans with one, according to Lawrence. When? Where? 86.176.83.11 ( talk) 20:58, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Richard Meinertzhagen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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The description here is in contrast to Meinertzhagen's "Kenya diary, 1902-1906" (published 1957), available online at https://archive.org/details/kenyadiary1902190000mein . His official report is on pp 234ff; pages from 220 describe his posting to Nandi country, his dislike for Koilatel about whom he hears that he wants to kill Meinertzhagen and whom he wants to either arrest or kill. The incident itself is described as a planned meeting with 6 persons on each side, both sides arriving with larger numbers in the back but the meeting itself being with 5 directly by Meinertzhagen and 22 with Koilatel, and hostilities being started by an arrow shot at Meinertzhagen (who was prepared to arrest or kill Koilatel). The description of the ensuing fight does not support the claim that Meinertzhagen just shot when his opposite stretched out his hand. I am now not in a position to judge whether there is gound to dispute Meinertzhagen's version of the story, but at least it should be given some space. Kipala ( talk) 13:33, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
It sounds like he's more well-known for his military career than his scientific career so shouldn't this article instead have a military person infobox with a scientist infobox imbedded into into it? Charles Essie ( talk) 03:33, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
The introduction of him doesn't mention any siblings at first (but later mentions a brother - Daniel). I was wondering if any information on his siblings could be added. I'm not asking for any in-depth information on them, just something along the lines of "Meinerzhagen was born as the second child of x and y" or "Meinerzhagen was the 2nd of 3 children". (The numbers I picked here are random, as there's no information on this in the article and I'm not familiar with the subject.) Nakonana ( talk) 15:56, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
On the killing of Koitalel, the article says "Initially, he had been able to orchestrate a cover-up and was commended for the incident." but it doesn't say what the cover-up looked like or how it was discovered that it was a cover-up and not a factual report. Nakonana ( talk) 16:16, 7 November 2023 (UTC)