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The Kmher Rouge can not be compared to great people like Mao Tse Tung because they are not communists nor socialists.They are an example of when Capitalism or Communism goes too far.In many cases it has been communism, ergo communism now has a bad name.But in other cases it has been Capitalism.Dick Cheney, CIA, FBI etc.... are all examples of this.The Kmher Rouge were an oppressive regime brought on by visions of greatness.The executed many people for no apparent reason.Pol Pot was sentenced to life house arrest.Is this really what a man who ordered the execution of more than 5 milllion deserves.No.He deserves much more than this.He should be allowed to experience what he has caused.While I admit that capitalism is a flawed system and that the previous mentioned organizations (CIA, FBI) are responsible for alot of things they did not cause the genocide iin Cambodia.That was the Kmher Rouge.How does it feel to have some one who's 14 put one over you, eh?and I'm Canadian too!
It's been weeks and weeks and weeks. Time to edit. --Tony SidawayTalk 09:07, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
Time to protect the article again, obviously. Adam 03:55, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Sorry but I see no constructive purpose that is served by preventing people from editing this page. Let us block anyone (and there seem to be a few, a very small few) who is editing abusively, but let this page be edited. I'm unprotecting the page and I dare the edit warriors to risk a pretty hefty block if they edit war. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:12, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
I want everyone who had reverted this article in the past to read this and realise that it may apply to them.
This is a declaration of war on edit warriors.
I have unprotected this article. The next revert you or Adam Carr or Ruy Lopez or any other long-term edit warrior perform on this article, you may be blocked if I believe you have contributed to this article's long history of disruption. Please try to edit in a more creative manner than just removing the material someone else has material or replacing material that someone else has removed. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:27, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
At Ruy Lopez' request I've inserted a NPOV notice--please don't remove it until there is substantive consensus that the article is neutral. I can't help you with dispute resolution, but if you think only arbcom can help you then I suggest that you petition them. I won't let this article be blocked unnecessarily because of disruptive behavior by some editors. --Tony SidawayTalk 00:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I find it neutrally worded but somehow I doubt Ruy will accept it. CJK 21:27, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. There were places in each version that I felt were clearly better worded than the other. How about if I remove " (although no evidence of this exists)" , OK? "believed by some" is of course fine with me and indisputably correct. The parenthesized comment is a bit argumentative ( perhaps unencyclopedic or even OR too).John Z 21:41, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Hope weakening organized --> aided helps a little, and hope will be acceptable to Ruy too. It is clear that each side's ideal version would be different :-). I'm curious as to his reaction, as again, I tried to use some of his stuff in this version. Some of each side's deletions were well founded too, as they deleted (essentially) repetitive or prolix material. I'm very glad that this is basically OK with you, and I am still optimistic about it being acceptable, or at least a substantial narrowing of the differences, to him.John Z 22:01, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Ok, no more changes from me for now, just looking for something that each side might accept, albeit with gritted teeth perhaps. In its present form it is nothing but a statement that an accusation exists, and we shouldn't underestimate readers' intelligence or ability to take accusations with a grain of salt. Someone, probably Ruy could eventually add a source to the most respectable accuser they can find. Especially, confirmed by your comment on his prior statements, my feeling was that "may have" might not be acceptable to him, and as it is not too consistent with the previous "made Lon Nol's government unpopular" stated as fact, which practically speaking implies that the level of relative support for the KR increased, I left it out. Are there sources who disagree with the contention, which always seemed unremarkable to me? Certainly there are sources ( e.g. antiwar) who claim it. "Probably" might be an acceptable compromise, which is not stating much more than the previous clause. Although Ruy may have said that in discussion, he at least did not put it in the article, at least the recent versions I looked at, so my hope is that he may not allow his beliefs to interfere too much now either. Going for now, maybe till tomorrow. Ciao,John Z 22:28, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
"Believed by some" and stuff like this is weaseling, and should be avoided except when summarising in the intro and the detailed citations are given in the interior of the article. Other weasel phrases to avoid: "It should be pointed out that." "X pointed out that". If something is a fact it can be stated as a fact, if it's someone's opinion it should be stated as a fact that X asserted the opinion. "No evidence of this exists" cannot be stated as a fact. If unsupported accusations are made just state the fact that the accusation has been made and don't name any support; this will stand out against the rest of the reported opinions--which of course must be correctly sourced. --Tony SidawayTalk 22:16, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I have left the entire thing out pending decent sources. Also, I do not believe Wikipedia should insert every crackpot conspiracy theory on the grounds one person says it. Rather, we should stick to facts. CJK 22:41, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Cetainly you can site this "ton of evidence" if it exists. You are going to have to do a little better than a proposal to assassinate Sihanouk which did not come into effect. CJK 19:52, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
And I do believe that some in the U.S. knew about the coup beforehand and said they would aid an anti-communist government. However, I do not believe it was actively assisted by the U.S. CJK 20:26, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Ruy Lopez has placed an NPOV tag on this article, and an administrator had threatened me with blocking if I remove it. Ok, so what is the basis for this tag? In what ways is the existing article not NPOV? We are entitled to a clear statement on this from Lopez (or anyone else) over the next day or so. If none is forthcoming, I will remove the tag regardless. Adam 06:40, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Take it out when you have a version that all agree is reasonably neutral. Not before. Warring over a NPOV tag is pathetic and, moreover, disruptive. --Tony SidawayTalk 10:16, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
You don't get it, do you Tony? There cannot be "a version that all agree is reasonably neutral" while Lopez is active here, because that is not his objective. His sole objective is to turn this article into an apologia for the Khmer Rouge. Unless and until Lopez either desists or is banned, there will be a continuous edit war at this article. The simplest thing to do is to leave it permanently protected with a note saying that you will unlock it for genuine editors who want to add to it, but not otherwise. Adam 10:33, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I've check with WP:ANI and there is substantial opposition to my proposal to block editors in this protracted edit war for disruption, so I won't be doing that. There is substantial support for the dispute resolution path and I suggest that all involved take notice of that. For instance I see no sign of a RFC on this article, nor (surprising given the frequent allegations of user misconduct) do I see any evidence that there has ever been a user conduct RfC on the principal involved parties.
The NPOV tag should remain; it's clear to me that there is substantial POV content in the article (see this item in my talk archive for my points on this). --Tony SidawayTalk 12:51, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I didn't write the section you quote there, and it wasn't there the last time I read the article right through - the article isn't all my work, you know. There is a Cambodian editor working on it as well, and while he knows a lot and is well-intentioned, his English isn't perfect and he does tend to editorialise. If Lopez was a legitimate editor, small matters like that could be fixed without any trouble. But as anyone familiar with his works can tell you, he is not a legitimate editor. Of course I can't prove this to you, I can only enjoin you to undertake the weary task of reading the whole edit history of the article, and then you will see quite clearly what is going on. He trades on the fact that almost no-one has the patience to do this. Adam 13:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Tony, you are extremely naive if you think the reason Lopez put an NPOV tag on the article was because of passages like the one you quoted. Also, if you are not prepared to do the necessary research to know what is going on here, you cannot expect me to acknowledge your right to make determinations about the matter. As Chairman Mao says "No research, no right to speak." I will go through the article (again) tonight, and do a thorough edit on it to remove accumulated bad editing. Adam 00:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
The boot is on the other foot. Back up your accusations about Ruy Lopez in a RfC or stop making them. --Tony SidawayTalk 02:03, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
In my mind, the best way to fix this page would be to go from one issue to the next, one at a time. The issue I am concerned with is the GRUNK/FUNK one. That was an edit war between me and Adam Carr from May to July when CJK came in and with that still unresolved, made some changes of his own. So then two issues went forward from there. Now a third issue, the question of the CIA and the 1970 coup is going on. I think we should try to limit the number of issues under dispute, although Carr's threat to do a "thorough" rewrite of the article will throw this course into even more of a shambles. It seems logical to me that the easiest thing to do is take issues one at a time, and resolve them. There are three issues right now, and I think we should try to resolve at least one of them before adding a new one. If we keep piling on issue after issue, then it seems obvious to me that the chance of a resolution disappears. This is not a strongly held opinion, I just think it obvious to me that it would be simpler to solve one, or a few issues at a time, then to have revert wars between radically different versions with dozens of differences (which was the situation we had a year ago). If Carr wants to radically revise the article, then I will do so as well, and we can go back to an unsolvable edit war instead of a method where a compromise can be reached, i.e. finding a compromise on issues, one (or a few) at a time. Ruy Lopez 04:29, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not clear on what these "three issues" are. One is the GRUNK/FUNK issue. My position is that they were KR fronts and should be described as such. I certainly won't be budging on that, since it is a simple matter of fact. Second is the 1970 coup. I have never disputed that the US was behind the coup - although someone else (I forget who now) made an edit saying that it wasn't. I'm quite happy to have the article say that some say it was and some say it wasn't, which seems to be the fact of the matter. What is the third issue? Adam 05:14, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
And are you for against CJK's edits? Adam 05:41, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
So, am I to understand, that if an agreement can be reached on (a) the 1970 coup (where I don't have any disagreement with you), (b) the GRUNK/FUNK question, and (c) the US bombing casualty figures, then there will be no further dispute? That you will no longer make edits like this one, in which you deleted the statement that the KR regime killed more than a million people, with the comment "How come American pages don't start out like this?", or this one, in which you deleted the entire "torture and killings" section (written by a Cambodian, by the way, not by me)? (These are just two picked at random from your long, long history of deleting anything which holds the KR responsible for mass murder in Cambodia, but they are fairly typical). If that is the case, if are willing to state that you will no longer pursue this campaign, then a form of words on those two questions can probably be found. Adam 06:47, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
So the answer to my question is "no," which means that combat will resume. As you wish. Adam 09:05, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
On the numbers, just to choose one issue at random, is there a serious problem with Ruy Lopez' point: that "Three sources, United States Department of State, Amnesty International and the Yale Cambodian Genocide Project, give estimates of the total death toll as 1.2 million, 1.4 million and 1.7 million respectively" is a better formulation than a bare statement of the form "the Khmer Rouge killed 1.5 million people." It seems pretty reasonable to me. If we look at The Holocaust, we see that the figure for people exterminated by the Nazis' racial policies is dealt with in a pretty circumspect manner, and I think we could learn a lot from this. --Tony SidawayTalk 13:50, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
The issue is not the numbers, it is the placing of this fact in the opening paragraph. I and most other editors who have been involved with this article consider the fact that the KR regime murdered around 1.5 people in four years - proportionate to the population of the country the worst democide in modern history - to be the single most important thing to say about the KR: indeed virtually the only thing, since the regime did nothing else of any lasting consequence. This fact must therefore be placed in the opening paragraph. Lopez's initial position was to deny the KR democide outright, then to quibble about numbers, then to argue that the US Republican Party had killed more people so it was unfair to single out the KR etc etc etc (since you don't want read the edit history, Tony, you'll have to take my word for this). Now he appears to concede the numbers, but still wants to bury these facts in the article somewhere. I suspect in fact that he is only appearing to make this concession because he knows that Mr Administrator (you) is watching. As soon as you go away, he will revert to type and go back into democide-denial and start telling us that it was all Reagans's fault etc etc. Adam 14:01, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Well the precise numbers should be in the article somewhere. If Ruy is arguing to keep all mention of the estimates out of the intro, I agree that this is wrong. "...remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people" looks fine to me, though unless there's special reason to favor the higher number I'd rather see it rounded to 1.5 million since other estimates are in the lower direction. Of course it's also appropriate to mention the destabilization of the country through cross-border military activity in the war, the deposing of Sihanouk, and massive US bombardment of Cambodian settlements. I think that's reasonably well covered in the text at present but it should be summarised briefly in the introduction: "came to power as a result of political instability cause by the Vietnam War" or something. --Tony SidawayTalk 15:07, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Adam Carr says: Now he appears to concede the numbers, but still wants to bury these facts in the article somewhere. I suspect in fact that he is only appearing to make this concession because he knows that Mr Administrator (you) is watching. As soon as you go away, he will revert to type and go back into democide-denial and start telling us that it was all Reagans's fault etc etc.. Let us see what I had to say in October (Talk:Khmer_Rouge/Archive_4#article) - The only anti-Khmer Rouge thing in this article which is not just an opinion but a sourced fact is what various organizations said the death toll in the country was under the Khmer Rouge. This I left in because it is a fact - according to the poster, Amnesty International said 1.4 million people died. This is a fact, of course, Amnesty International may be right or wrong, they may or may not attribute it to the American or Vietnamese government instead of the Cambodian government, but at least it's a source, a citation that can be argued over. In other words, despite Adam Carr's assertion that I am just leaving this in because I know someone is "watching", actually I am doing the same thing and stating the same opinion I did 11 months ago, that the Amnesty International number should stay because it is a fact, and that the omniscient statement of how many died should go.
I should also point out that I said before the easiest thing to do would be to go through issues one-at-a-time and resolve them. I pointed out at least three issues. Adam Carr is going back to February, and introducing a fourth issue, which is really the "big" issue on this page. While introducing yet another issue not yet resolved in this case is fine in light of it probably being the big issue of the page, I think we should refrain from adding any more, a fifth, sixth, seventh issue. Perhaps we should concentrate on resolving issues before finding new ones or digging up old ones? But again, since this is the main issue on the page, in this case it is fine.
Adam Carr says that in this article, like other articles, we should wrap up the discussion about the section discussing death toll at the top in a short one sentence summary. I don't have a problem with a summary on top or where it is, I have a problem with what it says. Actually there are several sentences on top, let's look at them.
"The Khmer Rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, through execution, starvation and forced labor. It was one of the most violent regimes of the 20th century often compared with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population of the country it ruled and time in power, it was probably the most lethal regime of the 20th century."
Yes, I have a problem with this. I think it's fairly clear that whoever wrote this is not writing in a calm, dispassionate, rational, factual, neutral tone, but has an axe to grind with the Khmer Rouge. "It was one of the most violent regimes of the 20th century often compared with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong." Does this type of subjective sentence belong in an encyclopedia, in the introduction? It is part of Carr's omniscient telling-us-what-to-think narrative on this page. Please - just the facts. Give me the sources and let me make my own judgement.
The number of deaths has been brought up as a subject of discussion by both it you. Since this sub-section is called "three issues", with the three issues being the 1970 coup, deaths by US bombing and FUNK/GRUNK, and since this is a fourth issue, I will start a new section after this one to discuss deaths. Ruy Lopez 17:07, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Depopulation is the best and broadest name I can think of for a sub-section talking about depopulation in Cambodia. Some depopulation was caused by emigration, some by death. Some death was caused by US Air Force bombs, some through execution by members of the Khmer Rouge, some by just normal old age.
If we look on the Khmer Rouge page, further down it says "The CIA estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge, but executions represented only a minority of the death toll, which mostly came from starvation. The United States Department of State and the State Department funded Yale Cambodian Genocide Project give estimates of the total death toll as 1.2 million and 1.7 million respectively." Now let's look up top.
"The Khmer Rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, through execution, starvation and forced labor." Let us go over this sentence. First, the "Khmer Rouge regime" is mentioned, meaning that the Khmer Rouge was in power when this happened. But when was the Khmer Rouge in power? Was the Khmer Rouge the sole group in power in 1975? Adam Carr says absolutely yes, which I question, since Sihanouk, FUNK and GRUNK were in power in 1975 after Lon Nol's regime collapsed. This is significant since most deaths in Cambodia happened right around the time of power transitions - 1975 and then 1979. If the Khmer Rouge was not in power in 1975, then are they responsible for deaths in 1975? Even if they were in power, are they responsible for people who starved to death in April 1975? May 1975? June 1975? If there was no food available, and international food aid was cut off as soon as they took over, are deaths due to starvation due to their fault alone? Weren't people in Phnom Penh starving to death prior to April 1975, even with international food aid? Plenty of Westerners, including Americans (including the New York Times), talked about the lack of food at that time, and said that refugees in Phnom Penh being sent back to their farms to grow food, which is what happened, was the most sensible course action, although in this article it is portrayed as an act of ideological madness - "forcibly evacuating the cities to the countryside so that people could become self-sufficient. In fact the motive for the evacuations was ideologically reflected in the Maoist doctrine which the Khmer Rouge followed, which praised the rural peasants and detested urban city dwellers."
We move on in the sentence from Khmer Rouge to deaths. This article gets terribly conflated, I think purposefully so, so that natural deaths, emigration, deaths caused by others and so forth all wind up in a big jumble. Being that the sentence talks about execution, starvation and forced labor, one would think that the 1.7 million deaths means that above and beyond natural death due to old age and such, that all of the 1.7 million were due to execution, starvation and forced labor. Cleverly conflating all these different things in an attempt to deceive the reader is something done a lot, which is especially attempted at these summaries on the top.
Then we get to 1.7 million people. Well, this number is disputed. Most of the numbers on the page are not from me - any estimates I have put up have been removed by Adam Carr. Mr. Sidaway is probably unaware that most of what I have put up has been removed by Mr. Carr. I will dig up my numbers and post them again. And as I said before, what does this number mean? Refugees? People killed by US bombings in 1972? People who died of old age? Executions by Khmer Rouge members? People who starved to death in April or May 1975 - and whose fault is that, and was the Khmer Rouge even in power in May 1975?
Then there are executions. Here is conflating again - lower down it says the CIA estimated the KR executed 50,000 to 100,000 people, but here, the words 1.7 million and executions are thrown together in an attempt to confuse people into thinking the KR may have executed 1.7 million people.
Then there is starvation. When did it happen? Was the KR in power in April 1975? May 1975? Even if they were, are deaths caused by starvation in the days, weeks and months after April 17, 1975 entirely the fault of KR, or FUNK?
Then there is "forced labor". Where is the reference to this?
To be continued... Ruy Lopez 17:54, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Regarding sources - Professor Michael Vickery, author of Cambodia 1975-1982 (ISBN 9747100819) says that there were 750,000 deaths above the norm in Cambodia from 1975 until 1979. Unlike most other scholars, Vickery had travelled in Cambodia prior to 1975, and was the only Khmer-speaking scholar to interview Cambodian refugees on the Thai border in the 1970s. Vickery makes a careful case for this in his book (and in academic articles), using the same sources most other scholars refer to - the 1962 census (the last census done in Cambodia before 1975, an estimate of Cambodian population in 1975 is just guesswork from this census, factoring in differences in births, refugees, deaths due to US bombardment etc.) and so forth. Ruy Lopez 18:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
So now where do I start? While I have decided to answer a specific thing, I was dragged in the « game. »
International & Comparative Law Quarterly, in its Jan 2004; 53, cover in its introduction on a section titled « The Cambodian Extraordinary Chambers—A Dangerous Precedent for International Justice? » p. 227
« Historians estimate that the Khmer Rouge killed between 1.5 and 1.7 million people during this period... »
They attribute the killings to the Khmer Rouge. I will remind the user that called me kibbitzer, that Wikipedia is not here to « prove » anything, but present positions. The fact of the matter is that most attribute the killings, to the Khmer Rouge, and it doesn't matter if you can prove that they should not have been attributed to them. « Cambodia, Pol Pot, and the United States: The Faustian Pact » by Michael Haas; Praeger, 1991 At page 26, the author presents a table, in which, he provide 1.5 million as number of victims.
« Propaganda, Politics, and Violence in Cambodia: Democratic Transition under United Nations Peace-Keeping » by Steve Heder, Judy Ledgerwood; M. E. Sharpe, 1996
p. 3
« The recent chapters of this history have included a period during which more than a million Cambodians died from execution, starvation, and disease as a result of the policies and practices of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), commonly known as the Khmer Rouge,... »
Consulting works after works, I get the SAME results. Another « A History of Cambodia » by David Chandler; Westview Press, 2000 p. 223 « Although Vietnamese anti-DK propaganda was often heavy-handed and inaccurate, even cautious estimates of DK-related deaths caused by overwork, starvation, mistreated diseases, purges, and executions came close to two million Cambodians, or one in five. »
Now, comming to the book, Ruy refer to, I just happen to have it here(revisionists often like to quote him by selective quoting). Lets see what the book says as well.
p. 28
« Although adequate statistics are unavailable, no one of any faction involved in the war has tried to deny that there were from half a million to a million war deaths, figures which compare with the more serious estimates--several hundred thousand to over a million --of abnormal deaths between 1975 and 1979. »
The book itself does not give any precise figure of 750,000... this figure comes from a middle value between 500,000 to a million. What the authors say, is that no one deny that there could be losses from 500,000 to a million, he also adds it compares to more serious estimates, and in the most serious, the figure of over a million is included.
On page 37
« The first compilations giving currency to such views were the books of Ponchaud and Barron/ Paul; and journalistic accounts during the two years following their publication repeated that "all intellectuals," or "all doctors," or "all former military" had been killed, or that 1 million Khmer died in the first year, or that Cambodian women had become infertile and the birthrate was not sufficient to replenish the population. »
The book itself present also testimonies, but the author interprate them, in some cases comparing the numbers provided with recorded statistics. And to this adds bogus statistics from the author which dump absolute figures for the population increases and allegedly basing himself on the CIA(Ruy, himself repeat probably the CIA repeatdly, since it's included in the book). But yet, given that the population of Cambodia recorded a very considerable increase of population previously, one wonder how without background one can add an absolute figure as he has done to cover entire years. This is actualy a wrong thing to do « statistically, » (I will maybe present statistics of population myself, but I can't garanty I will have the time to do that)he finish with this:
« Moreover, some of the 500,000 war victims are buried in mass graves, and without forensic tests it is probably impossible to determine whether death occurred before or after 1975. A decline of 400,000 does, I would say, indicate failure of the DK system, but some of the more extreme estimates of deaths from execution and hunger must be relegated to the realm of black propaganda. It is simply impossible to take the generally accepted population figure for April 1975, the population alive today, demographically acceptable birth rates, and project an extermination figure of 1-2,000,000. »
BTW, I won't even cover here, his « leaving 740,800 deaths in excess of normal. » Which methodologically is flowed, what he did, is not statistics, it's simply a « throwing » of numbers. Besides, while it is true he has interviewed, I wonder how this could be considered, when he claimed those interviews being exagerated. Would his theses still be considered as being based on interviews, when he dismisses those that are contrary to his own thesis?
But still, it is irrelevant, we have here one author, against the large majority of historians..., and it would ve accurate to say that he is in the fringe of those that believe that less than a million have died.
I apologize now, if I do not cover the other points, as I was engaged in another project. I will participate, everytime I find the time. Regards. Fadix 21:57, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
One thing that Wikipedia shouldn't do is interpret primary (or secondary, or tertiary) sources. We should provide factual summaries of all significant interpretations of source data. If there is little agreement between them we should note the fact, and we should also note the published margin of error on estimates. --Tony SidawayTalk 16:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
"One thing that Wikipedia shouldn't do is interpret primary (or secondary, or tertiary) sources. We should provide factual summaries of all significant interpretations of source data. If there is little agreement between them we should note the fact, and we should also note the published margin of error on estimates. --Tony SidawayTalk 16:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC)"
This is the most sensible way to break this thing down from what I can see. Many of the things posted here are secondary sources making various estimates off of the primary sources that no one question (and sometimes sources that are questioned). So we should list the two types of primary sources (questioned and unquestioned), and then the secondary sources, e.g. conclusions people drew off of these primary sources, and how and why they did so. Do not sign edits in anything other than the comments section. The other sections should be short summaries, and not a confusing blob, and I will be editing outside of the comments sub-section for brevity and clarity. If you do not want to use bullet-points or want to be verbose, do it in the comments sub-section, I will not be editing other people's edits there. I will be editing for brevity and clarity, and if a primary source is disputed, I will make sure it's in that section, and perhaps note why.
I am somewhat reluctant to edit the actual page, since today is the first time that I have ever been to wikipedia. I came across the article by accident as I was looking for something else. However, I immediately noticed some things that could be called "mistakes" in the section on Recovery and Trials:
1. There are not 300 people on the Khmer Rouge Trials Task Force. The Task Force itself is 9 people. They are listed on the website of the Secretariat of the Task Force. Moreover, the number of members on the Task Force itself is somewhat misleading since all of the members of the Task Force have many other positions and probably spend something between none and very little time on issues relating to the KRT (Khmer Rouge Trials). The more relevant number is the number of people who work for the Secretariat of the Task Force. These are the people who do the day to day work preparing for the KRT. There are 5 people who work at the Task Force more or less full time (the Executive Secretary of the Secretariat - Sean Visoth - holds other positions and AFAIK does not work full time on the KRT).
2. I think some mention should be made of the fact that the early stages of the creation of the KRT are now underway. The UN has nominated Michelle Lee to be the Deputy Director of the Administration, and her full appointment will probably be confirmed by the RGC soon. In addition, the UN has already advertised five or six position on its Galaxy jobs website.
3. My own account of how much has been contributed indicates that the total is now $44.4 million. I think the problem is that the $43 million number does not include the recent Indian contribution that is mentioned later in the paragraph.
4. The sentence about the Cambodian share of the KRT's budget is a matter of some debate. Many newspaper articles suggest that Cambodia is now trying to back out of its commitment to fund one third of the tribunal by seeking bilateral contributions. However, the Cambodian position is that it had always stated that the Cambodian share would be raised through bilateral contributions. At least one person who has knowledge of the negotiations of the budget has confirmed to me that this is true. Thus, I think the tone of the sentence in the article is a little misleading.
5. Some mention should perhaps be made of the Cambodian governments rejection of raising money through private sources in Cambodia.
6. I think that the formation of the KRT should be watched very closely in the next month or two. Things are beginning to move rather quickly and I expect that there will be lots more news to report soon. Unfortunately, little other than Michelle Lee's nomination is public right now, but I expect this to change soon.
7. It might be useful to have some discussion of the nature and structure of the tribunal. There are several novel aspects that have not appeared at any other internationalized criminal tribunal - including: the use of the civil law system of investigating judges; the use of co-prosecutors and co-investigating judges; having a majority of the judges be local rather than international; a supermajority voting system; and the use of a pre-trial chamber to resolve disputes between the co-prosecutors and the co-investigating judges.
You should definitely do that. Many Users dislike debating with anonymous people and anonymous edits often get reverted without much consideration. Adam 09:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)