Bill is playing the role of worried parent ; and Bob has regressed to his days as a trial lawyer :

from Bill
Mating squabble? ...
Mike, you worry me sometimes

from Bob
So, I think about that as the keynote guy is talking (sharp guy, tough job, impressive), and on the break I ask him "so, how do you know what evidence is material if you have not defined the elements of what you are trying to prove?" "What do you mean", he wanted to know (and this gets to Bill's point that all insurgencies are different as well); "well, 'evidence' is kind of broad. First you have information, and then you determine what of that information is 'fact', and then just some of those 'facts' make it through a strict analysis that allows them to be considered as 'evidence.' But this is just the start, much 'evidence' is irrelevant to what you are trying to prove, then of that that is relevant, much is immaterial. Material evidence is the gold nugget, as it goes straight to proving or disproving the elements of charge."
Good advice in a search for gold nuggets, silver nuggets, or even lumps of hardened coal. I suppose one could take it to its logical extreme and search for the alchemist's stone. However, my own goals are more basic and I would be satisfied if I could identify the elements of a much smaller set of conflicts.

The concept of confronting several hundred "insurgencies" - and fully understanding them to the point of determiniing in each of them what is "material" and what is not (where so much of that understanding depends on knowing population groups of which I know little or nothing) - boogles my mind. Sorry, I'm not that intelligent.

My thoughts re: Sri Lanka is to consider the basic situation where a minority population was promoted by a colonial power to a position where the majority population perceived the minority as being advantaged to the minority's benefit and the majority's disadvantage.

Does that basic situation have one solution, one result ? The answer is clearly negative looking at four cases (adds to the dataset are welcome):

Rwanda

Sri Lanka

Iraq

Finland (Svecomen minority; Finnomen majority)

So, why did Rwanda evolve as it did, as opposed to Finland ? In both countries, a population geneticist would have a hard time distinguishing between the minority and majority groups.

Regards

Mike