Talk:Forced disappearance

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Contents

[edit] Metaphorical use?

Upper mid-level government officials who are unpopular, or who have spoken publicly against their superiors are frequently disappeared (e.g., former FEMA Director Michael D. Brown or former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill).

Are Brown or O'Neill considered "disappeared" by anyone other than the person who wrote that? I think there is a difference between forced disappearance and leaving a government position. Peoplesyak 00:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be nice if whoever wrote that could point to an actual usage example. Sounds kinda weak to me. Nicolasdz 08:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I recommend this part be deleted under (WP:VERIFY) unless someone can show an example of it being commonly used. Even then, it's relevance to the article is probably debatable. Mosz0r 20:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I just finished editing it to improve clarity, but I agree that it doesn't seem to fit with the subject, is unsourced, and is a much lighter subject than the extremely serious article topic, forced disappearance. I'm going to go ahead and remove it as unsourced, POV, and irrelevant. Lawikitejana 22:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

No están ni vivos ni muertos, están desaparecidos (they are not alive nor dead, they are disappeared), is a often quoted phrase, attributed to Jorge Rafael Videla. Unfortunately the closest thing to a source is

TRONCOSO, O. (1985) El Proceso de Reorganización Nacional. Cronología y documentación. Volúmenes 1 y 2. Biblioteca política argentina, Centro Editor de América Latina, Buenos Aires.

as cited in

LÁPIDAS EN LA PRENSA. UN DUELO INTERDICTO LEÍDO DESDE LOS AVISOS NECROLÓGICOS DEL DIARIO PÁGINA 12.

by Gabriela Alvarez. (dead link).

If someone finds a stronger reference, methinks is worth mentioning here. User:Ejrrjs says What? 22:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yet more war on terror stuff

The stuff about US soldiers and civilians being held in "black sites" really, really needs a (reputable) source. As it is, that's the realm of conspiracy theory. Heck, Jose Padilla is accused of terrorism, and his imprisionment is publicly known; the details of his treatment are just starting to come out, but one would think that he'd be a prime candidate for "dissapearing" a US citizen. 67.160.28.212 17:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] war on terror

I have been warned of vandalism by deleting the US segment of this article, so let me explain why I continued to do so. This segment of the article is extremely biased. "the so-called "War on terror" ? Give me a break, whoever wrote this has a clear bias against the United States' decision to go to war, and this bias shows in this segment of the article. Secondly, the source that this was written by was a speech given by the Secretary General of Amnesty International to her supporters, hardly an unbiased source to quote from. The speech is full of generalizations and opinions, none of which belong as an official source on an encyclopedia page. Lastly, the quote at the end of the article is AN OPINION of the speaker, and this is not proof that forced disappearances have been found in the US War on Terror. The detainees as Guantanamo have been repeatedly justified as being enemy combatants, many of which have already been released, and the notion that their detention is considered a "forced disappearance" is ridiculous and only shows the bias of the person that wrote this. I request that this segment be reviewed and edited accordingly. Erik 21:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


i didn't write this, and i agree that some changes could be made, but i strongly object to deleting it because of the political implications.
content: "ghost detainees" is precisely what this article is about: the method of snatching a suspect from a street without due process and holding him captive in a black, or secret, location is the very definition of a "disappearance". however, that part needs to be sourced properly. i'm not sure the reference to guantanamo is very well placed, since those prisoners aren't really "disappeared" (although there are other irregularities in how they are treated legally). on the other hand, the quote - from an important source in relation to the subject - explicitly connects the WoT to "disappearances", and is thus relevant to the article.
neutrality: a quote is a quote, it is supposed to represent the point of view of the speaker. in this case, amnesty international, who are obviously among the most expert sources you could find on this kind of "disappearances" - whether you agree with this particular quote or not. you also say that the guantanmo prisoners "have been justified as being enemy combatants" - by whom?
anyway, yes, i'd be happy to see this paragraph rewritten somehow, but not deleted.Arre 02:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


I agree with the above comment. It makes sense to include alleged "extraordinary renditions" carried out by US operatives in this section (cf. the Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr case for an example of what I am referring to), although I believe that the people being held in Guantanamo fall into a slightly different category than "desaparecidos." Nicolasdz 08:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I have re-written the War on Terrorism paragraph. I agree that it makes sense to talk about the US practice of rendition in this context, as it clearly fits the bill of a "forced disappearance." I removed the reference to the War on Terrorism in the main article section, since it's only vaguely related. I chose to keep the Amnesty International quote, since it's relevant commentary, but I think there might be better, more relevant quotes that are better suited for this article. Mosz0r 20:34, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] US section: Facts

User User:The Epopt added a number of {{fact}} tags into the opening paragraph of the "United States' "war on terror"" section, asking for citations. Those citations are currently available at the main articles, whose references are at the beggining of the section ( extraordinary rendition, ghost detainee, and war on terror ). If the user continues to doubt of having valid citations regarding those topics, I suggest him/her to take the matter to the corresponding articles, in order to keep things centralized. Thanks for your understanding. Mariano(t/c) 07:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United States' "war on terror"

Wouldn't it make more sense for this section to be named "Extraordinary rendition" instead? Extraordinary rendition predates the war on terror and was conceived and first used during the Clinton administration, but this section might easily mislead the reader into thinking that the practice only started after the 9/11/2001 attacks. This fact should be clarified in the section. It would be valid to point out, however, that extraordinary rendition reportedly become much more common after 9/11 as part of the war on terror. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Reastlack (talk • contribs) 21:40, 11 May 2006.

The US section makes no sense because it doesn't even qualify with the definition of forced dissapearce in the introduction, of which a primary factor is its extra judiciality which leads to murder and disavowal of knowledge that this act happened. The detainment of terrorist suspects is done through judicial channels. Guy Montag 17:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Extrajudiciality is not a requisite. Maybe the intro needs to be changed. In Argentina, many people were first arrested under the guise of a legal anti-terrorism operation, and then disappeared. Relatives went to the police and sometimes managed to locate them before they vanished. In the case of the U.S., there's a whole Guantanamo devoted to people who are in a legal limbo (they're neither common criminals nor prisoners of war), who cannot communicate with their relatives, and who are detained during an indefinite time, without recourse to the laws of the U.S. or their own countries. That this is more or less similar to e. g. the Dirty War's practice of disappearing people is debatable, but the reader who is concerned about the possible "disappeared" status of these War on Terror prisoners needs to see this issue addressed here, with as much objectivity as possible. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 03:30, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origins - Catch-22

I could be wrong but it is my belief that the origins of the term come from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. The book was released in 1955, well before Operation Condor. From Chapter 34:

"They're going to disappear him," She said.
Yossarian squinted at her uncomprehendingly. "They're what?" he asked in surprise... :"What does that mean?"...
"I don't know.... I just heard them say they were going to disappear Dunbar."...
"It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar."

The character, Dunbar, of course is never heard from again. BobFalconi 19 May 2006.

[edit] War on Terror

I removed POV quotation marks on the War on Terror section. The War on Terror (Global War on Terrorism) is an actual term, of an actual conflict/operation. It is not a slang term, nor an opinion. It is a stated fact. Awards are being given to service men and women for their actions and accomplishments in the War on Terror. Quotation marks, just show POV bias. Like Neo-Nazis talking about the "holocaust".

user:jerry.mills

[edit] Soviet Union

I placed a {{disputed-section}} tag on the section on the Soviet Union.

The text now claims the all, or a major part, of Gulag prisoners were victims of forced disappearance. The article on the Great Purges does not mention forced disappearances, nor do any other sources I am aware of. In all its activities, the Soviet Union tried to maintain a legalistic face on even its most criminal activities. The victims of the Gulag where in most cases convicted in trial, sometimes show trials. Disappearances without trial, if they happened, were an exception. (The most notable is the case of Raoul Wallenberg.)

The thing most resembling forced disappearance was conviction without the right to correspondence. Even in this case the state did not deny its responsibility in the "disappearance" of the convict.

Damnatio memoriae or "airbrushing" did happen, but this is something very different from the forced disappearance covered in this article. -- Petri Krohn 08:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

If this is so, then ought the reference to Guantanamo Bay be removed? I personally dislike the camps, but the deciding factor given here is the denial of the government of the practice - we all know the camp is there and at least the British captives' names were given to their families. Wee Jimmy 22:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
The US governmet does not deny the existence of Gizmo. It has until recently however kept secret the identities of the prisoners, and thus denied its involvement in the disappearance of any individual captive. -- Petri Krohn 00:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Soviet fixed. `'mikka (t) 03:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Northern Ireland

This section is cited as lacking in sources. However, it has a link to a Wikipedia article about Jean McConville, an individual who is known to have been disappeared in NI. That article does identify its sources. The "no sources" tab should be removed and perhaps replaced with a "see main article Jean McConville" one. -- User:A_Lizard

[edit] DPRK

What about North Korean abductions of Japanese? 70.16.178.78 23:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Central America

I'm wanting to create a section on forced disappearance in Central America, but I feel overwhelmed. There's a lot of material for Guatemala (see below for just a few examples) and there surely are many for El Salvador as well; certainly there are many articles on the related issue of the children of the Salvadoran conflict who were stolen or commandeered, then adopted domestically or abroad. Can someone else help? I will also post requests for assistance at the related WikiProject(s)'s pages.

Section: United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS)
"In November 2000, the Committee against Torture expressed concern about a 'deterioration' of the human-rights situation in Guatemala, and recommended, among other things, that independent commissions be established to monitor the performance of the police and to investigate cases of kidnapping and 'disappearances.' "
"...The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued four case reports on Guatemala. In one, it urged the government to reform provisions of the civil code that imposed unequal spousal and familial obligations on women and men. In the other three, it called for the government to investigate and punish extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and other serious human rights violations committed by the security forces during the 1980s and 1990s, and to compensate victims' families."
States in introduction:
"In 1966 at the University of San Carlos, the University Student Association (AEU) presented writs of habeas corpus seeking release of detained members of the political opposition. The government never produced the prisoners, but it did attack the AEU leadership, which suffered a series of killings over the next few years. In the early 1970s, the AEU formed the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared. After years of providing a lone voice in criticizing the practices of the government of Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio, the group was forced to disband after non-uniformed men walked into its office on March 10, 1974, and murdered its director, Edmundo Guerra Theilheimer. In the late 1970s the level of violence increased anew and activists formed the National Human Rights Commission. This group also ceased operations due to government threats against its leadership and the forced disappearance of its founder, Irma Flaquer (Cáceres 1980: 201; Americas Watch 1989a: 44)."
The Bibliography of sources lists, among other references:
Asociación Centroamericana de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos (ACAFADE). 1988. La práctica de la desaparición forzada de personas en Guatemala. San José, Costa Rica: ACAFADE. [The practice of forced disappearance of persons in Guatemala - report by the Central American Association of Family Members of the Detained-Disappeared] Lawikitejana 23:03, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree that there needs to be a section on Central America. The number of disappeared in Guatemala and El Salvador in particular but also other countries, often with CIA support, needs to be documented. Hopefully you, I and others can start this ASAP!--Mezaco 01:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restructure / clean up introductory section

The introduction is awkwardly written and in places reads like an essay rather than an encyclopedia:

A forced disappearance occurs when an organization forces a person to vanish from public view, either by murder or by simple sequestration. The victim is first kidnapped, then illegally detained in concentration camps, often tortured, and finally executed and their corpse hidden. In Spanish and Portuguese, "disappeared people" are called desaparecidos, a term which specifically refers to the mostly South American victims of state terrorism during the 1970s and the 1980s, in particular concerning Operation Condor.

"First kidnapped, then illegally detained, ..." is inaccurate. Someone who is "disappeared" is publicly or secretly abducted, never to be seen again. It isn't for the title paragraph to speculate on what happens after the abduction. Later sections should describe what has happened historically. The mention of a particular type of disappearance (Operation Condor) is also inappropriately specific for an introductory section.

I think it's a good and fairly well balanced article, but the introduction needs a fairly thorough rewrite and would likely be much shorter afterward. Any specifics should be pushed down into later sections of the article. Joseph N Hall 19:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

"Illegally detained?" Illegal according to which laws? The laws of the kidnapping party? The laws of the place from which the detainee was kidnapped? Unenforceable human rights law? "Illegally detained" just seems contrived. Why not make sure to mention "illegally kidnapped," "illegally tortured," "illegally executed," and the corpse "illegally hidden"? The author obviously alludes to the War on Terror with superfluous, labored language. Regardless of the absurdity of the War on Terror, I'm deleting "illegal." The word makes the sentence smack of poor authorship.

[edit] Shouldn't China be on this list?

hi everyone how are you??????i'm fine.i wanna know about you.write me soon!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.33.163.89 (talk) 20:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)