aballah

July 15, 2012

The gunmen emerged from pickup trucks at dawn, their faces hidden in balaclavas, and stormed into an encampment surrounded by a field of soybean plants near this town on Brazil’s porous frontier with Paraguay.

Witnesses said the men then shot Nísio Gomes, 59, a leader of the indigenous Guarani people; loaded his corpse onto a truck; and drove away.

“We want the bones of my father,” said Valmir Gomes, 33, one of Nísio’s sons, who witnessed the November attack. “He’s not an animal to drag away like that.”

Whether the bodies are hauled away or left as testaments to battles for ancestral land, killings and disappearances of indigenous leaders continue to climb, leaving a stain on Brazil’s rise as an economic powerhouse.

From a little while ago now; more here.

8:53am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZBXRbyPOeLm8

June 13, 2012

picturedept:

Tim Hetherington, Diary, 2010.

The year since the tragic death of Tim Hetherington has been a mix of mourning and celebration, for the loss of a young artist with incredible potential, yet one who made a great deal of powerful work within his lifetime. Though the exhibition of his work at Yossi Milo Gallery ended a month ago, one of the most remarkable works from the show is continually available online.

Diary is Hetherington’s stream of consciousness—a nonlinear sequence blurring the boundaries between foreign battlegrounds and the bucolic pastures of home. Yet the terms of war and peace are superseded by the internal struggle for meaning in the face of alienation—a battle fought both in times of conflict and comfort. Altogether this composition of cross-fading associations dramatically presents the way Hetherington sensed space, movement, and emotion.

His description of the work, as quoted from the Vimeo host page:

‘Diary’ is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.

Camera + Directed by Tim Hetherington
Edit + Sound design by Magali Charrier
19’ 08 / 2010

5:10pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZBXRbyNKmO-8

(Notes: 66)

Filed under: video war war photographer journalist journalism Tim Hetherington Diary peace battle conflict movement experimental film

May 22, 2012

theatlantic:

Why Israeli Settlers Shot an Unarmed Palestinian

When West Bank settlers shoot at unarmed Palestinians while Israeli soldiers look on without intervening, that’s a story—especially when one of the Palestinians suffers a head wound. So it’s natural that this weekend’s conflict near the Palestinian village of Asira al-Qibliya has been covered widely—in 972, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Haaretz, the Daily Dish, and elsewhere. Still, it’s important to appreciate how unsurprising this story really is, and how unexceptional its fundamentals are.

Read more.