A series from the LA weekly that they called “L.A. County’s War on Desert Rats”

Tough code enforcement has been ramped up in these unincorporated areas of L.A. County, leaving the iconoclasts who chose to live in distant sectors of the Antelope Valley frightened, confused and livid. They point the finger at the Board of Supervisors’ Nuisance Abatement Teams, known as NAT, instituted in 2006 by Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich in his sprawling Fifth District. The teams’ mission: ‘to abate the more difficult code violations and public nuisance conditions on private property.’

Reporting by Mars Melnicoff and photography by Kevin Scanlon for LA Weekly (source).

1. As seen on colorlines, Lakota students from Rosebud, South Dakota posted a powerful rebuttal to the ABC 20/20 special Children of the Plains. The students’ video challanges the portrayal of the Lakota Indian reservation and community.

“I know what you probably think of us… we saw the special too. Maybe you saw a picture, or read an article. But we want you to know, we’re more than that… We have so much more than poverty.”

Rob Schmidt wrote on the Indian Country blog that the Diane Sawyer special was poverty porn: “The stories are manipulative to the point of tears — literally.”

2. Sophie Johnson, an 8th grader and huffungton post journalist/blogger wrote this piece about 8 year old Maggie who lives with her family in a minivan.

“”I feel like my life keeps getting smaller and smaller,” Maggie told me, “and then one day I’m afraid we won’t have anything and we’ll be living in the street.” Maggie says she has nightmares about that happening. I wanted to promise her that I would never let that happen to her, but realized that that would be a promise I might not be able to keep.”

(more here)

Three things I learned from reading this article (1) No kid in the Pacific North West or anywhere else should ever have to live in a car (2) homeless people often can’t really use canned food donations, they need a hot meal (3) some teenagers are great journalists.

Here are some more easily accessible sources I find very useful:

• A 60-min version of documentary The Reckoning: The Battle for the ICC is now available for free streaming here (I posted the trailer here).

• The ICC is also investigating Lord Resistance Army (LRA) crimes in Uganda. It has issued arrest warrents for LRA leaders like Kony (though they are of course still at large).The Refugee Law Project at Makerere University has made this excellent video, They Slept With Me, about human rights abuses committed by Ugandan government forces (crimes that have received less attention from international institutions and the ICC). This video documents sexual violence against men (again, these crimes that have received shamefully little international attention, see here and here, though there is some progress here).

Note that this video shows victim testimony of horrific crimes.  As such, it is really, really hard to watch.  But really important.

A valuable resource is the documentary Gender Against Men, which won the Best Documentary prize at the Kenya International Film Festival in 2009. Here’s the short trailer and the full 50 minute version is here.

(source)

Violence broke out after Gbagbo refused to give up power after he lost an election in late 2010. Gbagbo is charged as an “indirect perpetrator” in the violence against supporters of Ouattara, who eventually came to power.  Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC Chief Prosecutor, emphasised that both sides of the conflict had committed crimes in the post-election chaos.  He emphasised that his investigation was on going.

To enable the arrests of war criminals, the ICC often uses “sealed warrants.” That means that very few people know about the arrest until they happen.  Several court officials told me that they didn’t know about it until they saw it on the news.  (Gbagbo’s lawyer challenged the legitimacy of Gbagbo’s detention on the basis that the former President was arrested while being held under house arrest in Côte d’Ivoire. And I think Gbagbo complained he did not know he was being sent to the Hague while he was in transit.)

This photo essay in the Atlantic Monthly tells some of the story of the violence in Côte d’Ivoire which will be at the center of the trial against Gbabo.  (In some cases the magazine has hidden violence images with a warning. But still, they are all difficult images are difficult to see.).

(source)

There was a quite large, peaceful protest against Gbagbo’s arrest this Saturday outside the Court, which is based in a rather sleepy part of The Hague. West Africans travelled from France and Belgium to voice their disapproval of the proceedings against Gbabo. Some claim that the French (and possibly Belgian) government(s) support Gbagbo’s opponent Ouattara. (Perhaps Saturday wasn’t a great day for the protest. I asked a few of my contacts at the court what they thought about the protest but they hadn’t heard about it at all). And today there were elections in Ivory Coast. Gbagbo’s party pulled out in protest.

Tomorrow there is a pre-trial conference for Gbagbo at the ICC.  I will try to get a seat…