All We Are Saying is Give Peace a Chance

Newly Released Files Reveal FBI Spied on PA Peace Group Because of Antiwar Views
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/15/1735258

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Newly released files show the FBI has been monitoring and possibly infiltrating a Pittsburgh peace group because of its opposition to the war in Iraq.
On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union released a series of once secret FBI files that show the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted a secret investigation into the activities of the Thomas Merton Center beginning as early as November 2002, and continuing up until at least last March.

According to the ACLU these documents are the first to show conclusively that the rationale for FBI targeting is the group's opposition to the war.

One memo describes the Merton Center as a "left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, pacifism." It notes that the center hands out leaflets on a daily basis opposing the war in Iraq.

The FBI files also notes that one of the peace activists monitored handling out fliers "appeared to be of Middle Easter descent."

Another file on the peace center is titled "International Terrorism Matters" and it includes information on a series of anti-war rallies taking place in Pittsburgh and around the country.

The documents raise new questions about the extent of the government's domestic surveillance operations. On Monday Democratic Senator Russell Feingold introduced a resolution to censure President Bush for illegally ordering the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance.

The White House has insisted the NSA surveillance is targeted solely at members of Al Qaeda and affiliates. But civil liberties groups fears that the government is also spying on political activists and critics of the government.

In December, NBC News revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon database to track intelligence gathered inside the United States including information on anti-war protests and rallies particularly actions targeting military recruiting.

Here in New York, the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed Freedom of Information requests on Tuesday on behalf of itself and fourteen of New York's most prominent political and religious groups to determine whether the FBI is spying on them as well.




AMY GOODMAN: In a minute, we'll be joined by Donna Lieberman in our studio, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, but first, to Pittsburgh, where we'll speak with Tim Vining, the former head of the Thomas Merton Center, personally named in the F.B.I. spy files on the group. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Tim.

TIM VINING: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what you understand these files say, exactly?

TIM VINING: Well, the activity that we were cited for was simply leafleting in Market Square. We went out -- it was Buy Nothing Day, the day after Thanksgiving on November of 2002 -- and we went out just simply to hand out leaflets about a variety of issues -- transit advocacy, antiwar, global justice -- and for that, we were targeted. Also, what's really distressing to me, Amy, is that the Thomas Merton Center has worked very hard to build relationships with members of the local Muslim community, especially after 9/11, as they were targeted and scapegoated. And because of that, because we tried to build relationships that cross the lines of religion that are used to divide people, because of that, we were spied on by our government. Now, at a time when religious misunderstandings and differences lead to so much terrorism and violence in the world today, you would think our government would applaud us for seeking peace and trying to understand one another. Instead, they spied on us.

AMY GOODMAN: Tim Vining, who was Thomas Merton?

TIM VINING: Thomas Merton was a monk, a Trappist monk who spoke out during the Vietnam War in favor of peace, and he was a man who was extremely consistent. He thought that if we had the value of peace and we were truly peacekeepers and peacemakers, that we had to put our money where our mouth is. So he dedicated his life and his writing, from the monastery, speaking for peace.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what are your plans? And do you know, for example, who they were referring to when they say that someone was handing out fliers who was of Mid-Eastern decent.

TIM VINING: Well, one thing we're not going to allow the F.B.I. to do is to have us spy on one another and not trust one another. You know, so we're not even trying to guess. The fact is the person they identified simply, quote, “looked Middle Eastern.” There was no evidence that any of us, that person or any of us, were advocating any sort of violence. So I'm not quite sure. I know we have many members of the Thomas Merton Center who are Muslim, and we’re proud to have them as members and to stand with them.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you been able to identify people who work with the F.B.I. who are coming to your meetings?

TIM VINING: Yeah. We know, of course, that we're constantly having photographs taken of us. We’ve always suspected people at our meetings and at our large events. You know, this government has a history of spying on its citizens. We're not naive. But I think what's important is that we not allow this to get us to not trust one another or to live in fear and paranoia. You know, for years, since the Thomas Merton Center was formed in 1972, we have always stood with people who have been targeted or have been scapegoated, whether that be African Americans, gays and lesbians, immigrants, workers, youth, and we're not about to stop now. And if that makes us a threat to this government, then so be it. But we're not going be deterred. In fact, this Saturday, we're going back out into the streets of Pittsburgh, and we're going to have another huge protest in the thousands to defend our rights and to speak out against this war.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Tim Vining, former executive director of the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh; in our studio, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Donna, can you talk about the Freedom of Information Act request you have filed?

DONNA LIEBERMAN: Yes, the New York Civil Liberties Union has filed requests on behalf of a wide range of peace, civil rights, immigrant groups, as well as the New York Civil Liberties Union itself, to ascertain what kind of domestic surveillance is going on of us. We’ve filed these requests on behalf of groups that are committed to advocacy through lawful means, who haven't got a hint of illegal activity about them. And the purpose of the request is to find out what's going on and to publicize that, so that the American people can hold our government accountable for this reign of spying on what's really as American as apple pie: political protest and dissent. And we’re hopeful that we’ll get information, and that with this information, we will be able to not just unearth what's going on, but to build a movement to just put an end to this ridiculous policy by our government that doesn't bother to or can't or doesn't want to differentiate between lawful political protest and terrorism.

AMY GOODMAN: And this issue of infiltration, Tim Vining, it’s one thing for an F.B.I. agent to come to a meeting, the question of if they are actively participating, if they are taking notes, have you ever asked people to identify themselves at a meeting, and has anyone ever done that?

TIM VINING: Yes, but of course, if someone is with the F.B.I., they’re not going to identify themselves. They have the right to lie, and they will lie. So we know that, you know, they've been at our meetings and they're taking notes. And sometimes we get asked this, Amy, like the NBC reporter was asking, “Well, you know, it's a public event, what's the big deal where you're just being watched?” What's different is this is our government, undisclosed agents of our government. The group that has the power to arrest us, to detain us, and God knows what else, if we think of Guantanamo Bay, and so then we're concerned with this, that an undisclosed agent of our government with actually the power to execute in this country would be observing us. And so, that puts a chill throughout the activist community. So we need to really stand strong, stand together, and say we're not going to give in to fear, to paranoia, and we're going to go out there and, you know, exercise our rights.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you also on Pentagon lists?

TIM VINING: Well, there was a Pentagon report, a list, and, yes, we’re on that list. I’m sure we’re on a whole bunch of lists that we’re not even aware of. But the Pentagon list that came out -- I think it’s MSNBC had released it -- identified some counter-recruitment. And here, they’re targeting our youth. They’re targeting -- a lot of the strength of the Thomas Merton Center has been the youth, and they’re targeting them, because of their counter-recruitment activities.

AMY GOODMAN: Donna Lieberman, this issue of infiltration and the legality of it?

DONNA LIEBERMAN: Well, there’s a case pending in New York, the Handschu case, which has been pending for twenty years. And it started after the – well, it was resolved temporarily after the revelation that the New York City Police Department had infiltrated the Panther 21, and the highly publicized, highly touted trial of 21 members of the Panther Party back in the 1980s for allegedly plotting to blow up department stores, turned out to be a total hype, entire harassment -- entrapment by the F.B.I., where it was revealed that F.B.I. agents had infiltrated the Panthers and the people behind any ideas of a plot to blow up anything were all government agents.

When government agents infiltrate lawful political organizations, they're under pressure to come back with information, and what government hearings have revealed time and time again is that they come back initially with no information, with information about lawful activities, and then they're under pressure to generate some business. And they try to entrap people into and foment illegal activity. They often fail, because these are organizations that are committed to peaceful protest, not terrorism. So, we're deeply concerned that when government infiltrates organization, they end up trying to destroy those organizations and get them to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do. Do we have any doubt that if Martin Luther King were alive today, that he would be bugged by the Bush administration? Not a doubt in our minds. Not the slightest doubt. And I think that the American people have to understand that the American Friends Service Committee, the Council of Peoples Organizations, the 9/11Families for Peaceful Tomorrows are all under the government's microscope because they dare to criticize this administration.

AMY GOODMAN: The 9/11 Families are those who lost loved ones on 9/11.

DONNA LIEBERMAN: Yes, these are people who lost family members in those terrible attacks.

AMY GOODMAN: Donna Lieberman, last question, we just broadcast from Britain all last week, and a man who is there now, a prominent professor, Muslim professor, Tariq Ramadan, is not allowed to come into this country. You are filing a suit on his behalf? Is it a suit?

DONNA LIEBERMAN: We filed a suit. It’s a suit. Today, we're filing a motion for preliminary injunction against the government to stop the exclusion of Tariq Ramadan from this country. He's being excluded from this country. He's the most prominent European scholar on Islam, and he was supposed to be teaching at Notre Dame. Instead, he's teaching at Oxford, a revolutionary hotbed of terrorism, as I understand, according to the government, and he's being excluded pursuant to a provision in government manuals that prohibits people or allows them to exclude people who engage in irresponsible expressions of opinion. In other words, our immigration policy, our policy on foreign visas for scholars is that we don't want any critics or the government can bar any critics of the Bush administration. That's not what a democracy, the voice of the free world is or ought to be about.

AMY GOODMAN: And what would a preliminary injunction mean?

DONNA LIEBERMAN: It would prohibit the government from continuing to exclude him based on his politics, not based on any illegal activity.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us. We will continue to follow the case and encourage people to go to our website at DemocracyNow.org to hear our conversation with Tariq Ramadan. Donna Lieberman, head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Tim Vining the former head of the Thomas Merton Center, joining us from Pittsburgh. The Merton Center has turned up in F.B.I. documents. The F.B.I. is surveilling that peace group.


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Why Doesn't Our Government Support Democracy?

Photo by Steve Appleford
Let it rain: John Brown, 11, helps farmer Lucino Cardozo and his son, Enrique, 11




Trouble in the Garden

The 350 families who banded together as the South Central Farmers transformed an industrial dump into a jungle paradise. But now they’re being evicted

~ By DEAN KUIPERS ~ from Los Angeles City Beat


Aqui estamos y no nos vamos! (We’re here and we’re not leaving!)
–sign hanging on the fence at South Central Farm



Hear the birds? Where else in L.A. do you hear that many birds?” says Tezozomoc – pronounced “tesomoke,” or “teso” for short – an energetic, well-spoken Latino man with an ancient-sounding name. He halts a discussion with a class visiting from the Pacific Oaks School in Pasadena, a “seminar in bicultural development,” to point into the thick, jungle-like foliage behind him.

“We create like this biosphere bubble here, with all of this vegetation,” he adds. “We have 500 trees. We have lizards –”

“Snakes?” asks one of the students, eyes wide open.

“Only politicians,” he laughs. “But what we call our other relations depend on this space, too.”

The space is the South Central Community Farm, a 14-acre community garden just south of downtown smack on Alameda Street, right up alongside the industrial warehouses of the City of Vernon. The contrast with community gardens elsewhere in the city is shocking. These aren’t tiny weekend projects with a few tomatoes and California poppies. The 330 spaces here are large, 20 X 30 feet, many of them doubled- and tripled-up into larger plots, crammed with a tropical density of native Mesoamerican plants – full-grown guava trees, avocados, tamarinds, and palms draped in vines bearing huge pumpkins and chayotes, leaf vegetables, corn, seeds like chipilin grown for spice, and rank upon rank of cactus cut for nopales. The families who work these plots are all chosen to receive one because they are impoverished by USDA standards, and use them to augment their household food supply. These are survival gardens.

The thick chains, padlocks, and security on the entry gates are evidence that these gardens are something more, too. Since Los Angeles developer Ralph Horowitz took control of the property in late 2003, they have become a symbol of resistance. The farmers, who have now been working these plots since 1992, were given eviction notices in 2004 and are suing everyone involved – Horowitz, the city, and original permit-holder the L.A. Regional Food Bank, whose massive building sits next door just across 41st Street – in an effort to turn the block into a new city park that would include continued gardening.

And if that was all it was about, this would just be another squatter land dispute. But the reason teacher Roberto Flores and his students from Pacific Oaks are here, and why activists and academics from Bolivia and Venezuela and Palestine and a land-holding corporation from Colorado and the Italy-based International Alliance of Inhabitants have descended on the place is because it has become a model for community land-use. Its formal decision-making structure, park planning, political outreach, and indefatigable presence at City Hall – they’ve spoken at every City Council meeting this year – have transformed the place into a democracy workshop.

Tezozomoc, one of two elected leaders who represent the farmers to the city, insists that the political and educational battle is now the point. An academic himself, working toward a masters in Linguistics at California State University, Northridge, he addresses the students in their own language.

“In human development, we talk about a heuristic, right? A tool or strategy that leads you toward a solution. If you have tools, then tools lead to new theories. Look what’s happening here. So, giving people this tool – the land – leads to new solutions.”

The gardens, he emphasizes, are a safety net program. First and foremost, they feed needy people.

“But, within the democratic process here, part of the work that we do is to develop people with the ability to be leaders in their communities. We had some people here who have come out and become part of the neighborhood councils, and others who advocate on behalf of people. That is actually what is more important: It’s not only about saving this project, but to develop people with a conscience so that they can stand up for what they believe.”


A Sweet Deal

Fernando Flores, a young architect who is working on future plans for South Central Farm, points out that this food safety net program is an extraordinarily cheap one – the city provides nothing to the farmers and they foot all the bills DIY for water, trash service, security, and farming supplies. In fact, it is expensive for only one guy: Ralph Horowitz.

Horowitz is less than impressed by all the empowerment overlay on the political occupation of the Farm. If the farmers have all been getting a crash political education for the last two years, he has been paying for it. The mortgage on the property is roughly $30,000 a month, he says, plus there’s insurance, property taxes, and the legal costs he’s accrued trying to defend against the farmers’ lawsuit.

“They’ve had the use of it going on 14 years!” Horowitz exclaims. “Even welfare recipients are asked, after so many years, to start to fend for yourself and stop asking your fellow taxpayers to carry you. These particular individuals should be thanking the city of Los Angeles – and suing the city isn’t the way to thank ’em.”

Still, one figures that Horowitz knows what he’s doing. Maybe it’s cost him a million bucks to own the plot at Alameda and 41st for the last two years, but he got a very sweet deal on the property. Even if he decides in the end to sell it back to the city, he might make eight or ten million in profit. And there are some real questions as to why the deal happened that way.

Horowitz owned this same property once before, when the garden’s saga really began, in the late-1980s. These two city blocks – 40th Street runs down the middle of the garden, but has been choked off on either end by fences – were seized by eminent domain to make way for the city’s Lancer Project, a waste-to-energy incinerator that would have generated electricity by burning trash. Horowitz’s Alameda-Barbara Investment Company was the largest of nine co-owners and received $4.7 million in compensation after a lawsuit was settled.

But there was some fine print. Since Horowitz’s company owned about 80 percent of the original property, he claimed he had right of first refusal on the property if the city decided to sell it.

And in fact, that’s exactly what happened. A group called Concerned Citizens of South Central got up in arms about the incinerator plan, and the city backed away from it, letting the property become an ad hoc dump, full of discarded couches and refrigerators. In 1992, after the Rodney King riots brought some City Hall attention to bear (albeit briefly) on what was then called South Central L.A., the L.A. Regional Food Bank approached the city and secured a revocable permit to use the property as a community garden.

“When we first started out trying to get low-income residents to come to the property, we actually had a tough time, because nobody would believe that somebody would let you come and garden for free,” says Darren Hoffman, communications manager at the Food Bank. “But once we got a couple people on there, word spread like wildfire.”

The 14 acres were split into 330 plots, and the Food Bank tested the soil for safety and set up the trash, toilet, and water arrangements that still cost each family only $13 a month. Considering that most plots were worked by a family of four or more, they were directly affecting anywhere from 1,300-to-2,000 people. But the paperwork with the city was explicit: It could pull the plug at any time.

“Originally, we were thinking temporary – we thought this would be like a two-year project. But two years turns into 13-14 years, and nobody sees it as a temporary project anymore,” says Hoffman.

In 1994, the city’s Department of Public Works, which was going to build the incinerator, sold the property to the Harbor Department for over $13 million. That sale was later ruled illegal and reversed.

In 1995, the city began negotiations with Horowitz, who wanted to buy the land back, this time as the Libaw-Horowitz Investment Company. An agreement finally went before the City Council, which refused to adopt the sale. In 2002, Horowitz sued for failure to execute the sale agreement, his second suit with the city over this property.

In August 2003, the City Council finally approved the terms of a sale in a closed session, awarding it to Horowitz for $5.05 million. In essence, selling it back to him for as much as it was worth during the eminent domain process in the late-’80s. Eviction notices were sent out the next month to the farmers working the land.

Since the 1980s, however, big changes would have greatly increased the value of that land. City, state, and federal governments had spent $2 billion building the Alameda Corridor, a modern rail and big-truck super-pipeline from the Port of Los Angeles straight through the warehouses of South L.A. and Vernon. This was now hot property.

“All the goods that are for Wal-Mart are going out to the Southwest from here, from Long Beach and from the L.A. Port,” notes Tezozomoc, pointing at Alameda Street. “About 70 percent of the product that comes into the Long Beach ´´ port is destined for Wal-Mart.”

The land, the farmers argue, was clearly worth a lot more than $5 million. Nine years earlier, the city had paid $13 million just to transfer the land from one department to another, so even using that as lowball number, Horowitz had received an eight-million-dollar break.

And then there was this matter of the right of first refusal. Judge Lawrence W. Crispo ruled several times against Horowitz, saying that a landlord could not negotiate a right of refusal on a condemned property – which is what an eminent domain seizure is, a court condemnation. But the City Attorney’s office, which offered e-mailed responses from attorneys via spokesman Frank Mateljan to questions submitted about this situation, said the “Libaw-Horowitz’ right of refusal was negotiated and became part of the stipulated judgment in condemnation.” City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo urged the City Council to concede and sell the property to Horowitz.

“That just doesn’t hold, though,” says Tezozomoc. “Go back to the original case of Chavez Ravine, right?”

Chavez Ravine was an impoverished Mexican neighborhood of hundreds of households overlooking downtown L.A. that was condemned to make way for low-income housing to be built by Richard Neutra. “If that was the case, if the city changed its mind about building low-income housing there, then they would have had to give the land back to each one of those families, the original owners – which they didn’t,” adds Tezozomoc. “Who did they give it to? The Dodgers.”

Still, the farm deal was sealed in early 2004, and Libaw-Horowitz sent out notices that the gardens would be closed as of February 29, 2004. The Food Bank agreed to begin tearing out the plants and interior fences.

“We were supposed to return the property in the way we received it,” said Hoffman. “So all of the interior fencing would have to go … and, basically, all of the foliage.”

“The Food Bank became our enemy,” says Tezozomoc. “We have gained a lot of enemies.”

Before these notices had even hit the fences, the farmers formed a political committee, South Central Farmers Feeding Families. Elected representatives met with Horowitz.

“Well, I own it, so I’ve been by numerous times just to see what goes on,” Horowitz says. “They called me, and acknowledged that I’d just bought the property, and they asked me if they could stay on it another 60 days rent-free. And I said yes.”

That gave the farmers just enough time to file a lawsuit against Horowitz et al., and get an injunction, allowing them to stay on the property until the suit was resolved. And to buy chains and padlocks.


~ Direct Democracy ~

Alberto and Maribel Tlatoa grew up on their plot at South Central Farm. The Tlatoa family has been growing food there for eight years, and now Alberto, 19, has become one of the elected captains of the occupation. He and his sister Maribel, 21, are sleeping on the property at least one night a week, standing guard, while still going to college – a perfect example of the new level of sophistication enlivening the farm community. Most of the farmers are impoverished immigrants, many still speaking the indigenous languages of the Guatemalan highlands or growing treasured 5,000-year-old heirloom corn seeds brought from Puebla, the heartland of Mexican culture. Many of them can’t afford to be involved, politically. But the kids learn to speak English, and learn to make themselves heard. Alberto goes to East Los Angeles College and has been to City Council meetings every week for a year solid.

“They know who I am,” he says softly. Every week he has his name on the list to speak. He’s glad that new City Council President Eric Garcetti has moved the public comment to the start of the weekly meeting, because now he only spends a half-day there instead of getting out late. (City Councilmember Jan Perry, whose district includes the farm, declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing lawsuit.)

Tezozomoc is proud of Alberto, saying, “He wants to be mayor of L.A. one day.”

Alberto and Maribel turn up to give a tour to the Pacific Oaks class and answer their questions. It’s a day of hard winter sun, and a light breeze flaps a row of 20 flimsy-looking tents that stretch along 40th Street. Alberto is on duty every Monday night, standing around a burn barrel for warmth. “I play the radio real loud at night,” he smiles.

Their duties are now pretty well defined. There’s a General Assembly meeting every week, where all 350 or so families can vote on farm matters like marches or buying a generator. The captains hear concerns and are in charge of security and logistics. Tezozomoc and Rufina Juarez are the elected representatives interacting with lawyers and city officials. And then there is a massive outreach campaign in which everyone does his or her part, bringing in supporters, money, and outside organizing expertise.

“We used to just like work on a little parcel, do our little gardening thing, then just go home,” says Maribel. “We would interact, but mainly just like neighbors. But now, since the whole movement, sometimes we vote and we gather and tell stories.”

She means the farm community, of course, but also the Latino and indigenous Mesoamerican community. “Especially being in South Central, with all the gang violence and everything – we don’t go out much in the community due to that. But now the whole movement has brought the community together.”

Alberto says that Mesoamerican community was one of the reasons why their parents remained committed to the place. The farming was necessary for their family of six to survive, but it quickly took on another function. “Our parents always wanted us to learn these farms were not just about putting something in our mouths, but to learn to grow our culture,” he adds.

Strangely, other demographics are barely represented. There are few blacks, fewer anglos or Asians. Perhaps that represents some kind of accurate picture of who would garden for food these days, but the gardens show a shocking cultural homogeneity.

“This 200 or 300 people wanted to get this property for themselves,” explains Horowitz. “That’s the purpose of their lawsuit.

“It’s not like a park, where you and your wife and your child can go into a park and use any of its facilities, at any time. These farmers are gardening these plots exclusively. As long as they’re standing on there, you can’t use the property. This is not a public function.”

In fact, the park is not even open now, except on Sundays for a farmer’s market. The farmers, it seems, are acutely aware of this perception, and if they can save the gardens as a city park, they are prepared to make big changes. Fernando Flores has already mapped them out.

Flores, 25, was not, like Tezo and the others, someone who grew up on South Central Farm. Last year, he was living in Ontario and going to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona for architecture when one of his mentors there brought him over to see the farm. He saw the potential to give his work a political perspective, and made it his architecture thesis project to redesign the place as a public park.

“You want to check it out? It’s in the back of my truck,” he says, opening the back of a big black SUV.

His model represents about a quarter of the actual land now occupied by the farm, and represents a clear answer to those who say it’s not a public place. A central plaza, surrounded by farm plots, would feature a square of low buildings with a stage area.

“We just finished this this past summer: A hybrid park,” he says. “This is a community center. We have offices, in case we want to have doctors. We have health fairs, here. If you want to have social services, as well.”

“One of the things that is lacking in South Central is, people don’t have access to like a community center where they can have theater or they can have a public event like a concert, right?” says Tezozomoc. The farm already has a stage set up, where bands like Ozomatli and former Rage Against the Machine singer Zach de la Rocha have played, and has a $5 punk show going on the 27th called Disfest. “So it’s a way to help our talent, and our youth, and our community. And that’s really what the basis of this project has been.”

Flores is now co-chair of the Support Committee, networking with community activists outside the farm. “This is the stuff that you read about and watch films about in school,” says Flores, walking through the plots, chatting with people working here and there. “I never imagined this would become my focus. But this is a movement that’s growing out of a seed right now.”


~ Far from over ~

Late on a Sunday afternoon, the farmer’s market is just closing up. They don’t sell produce on South Central Farm – although individual farmers might sell you a pumpkin or slice off some cactus for you, if you ask – but Sunday vendors do make hot food to whip up a little cash. There are quesadillas calabasitas (squash), tacos, fried plantains with sweetened cream and shaved cheese, and super-sweet tamarindo and hibiscus drinks. Only a few dozen people mill about, but there’s still time to have a huarache – “like the shoe,” a vendor explains – a folded pastry filled with squash and smothered in sticky nopales, white cheese, beans, and hot chili sauce. A lot of this prepared food comes from outside the gardens, including the chicken or pork; they don’t raise any livestock there.

The place is tranquil, smelling gorgeously of cilantro and hoja santo, a leaf used to wrap tamales which gives off a perfume like licorice when you rub it. If it weren’t for the frequent passage of Metro trains bombing past on their way to Long Beach, you could almost forget these gardens were in the middle of a heavy industrial district.

On June 30, 2005, a state appeals court overturned the Superior Court injunction on the property, giving Horowitz the right to remove the farmers. That was immediately appealed to the California Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case in October. Some elements of the farmers’ case, however, are still alive in the courts. Part of their suit claimed the city violated municipal code by selling the land cheap to Horowitz and partners Jacob Libaw and Timothy Ison. And Judge Helen Bendix had refused to allow the farmers to depose Libaw and Ison – but was recently reversed by a higher court. So, that part of the case moves forward.

“We are going to write another Temporary Restraining Order, because now, we’re saying you cannot destroy this because we need access to these other people, and then we have a good chance to win this,” said Tezozomoc. It’s not clear what information the other partners would have that might swing the case in favor of the farmers. But on the day Tezozomoc was meeting with the class from Pacific Oaks, he said he was “spending the night with the lawyers” to get that next TRO ready to file.

If it’s not already too late. On January 13, Tezozomoc and the captains among the South Central Farmers were gearing up for what they thought might be an imminent raid by L.A. County Sheriff deputies. According to the e-mailed responses from the City Attorney’s Office, Horowitz’s company has sued the L.A. Regional Food Bank for unlawful detainer, since they were the group administering the gardens, and once that’s settled, the eviction might begin. “A judgment is anticipated this week in the unlawful detainer case,” said the Monday e-mail from city attorneys. “That case is between Libaw-Horowitz and the L.A. Regional Food Bank, which administers the garden. The Food Bank is not resisting. A judgment for possession can be enforced using the County Sheriff.”

So the Food Bank, which Tezozomoc considers the farmers’ “enemy,” is all that is standing between them and eviction. The Food Bank’s Darren Hoffman says they’re not sure that, if the city were to take possession of the land again, their permit would still be in place or not. He says they have to wait for the “quagmire” in the courts to be settled.

“From my window here, I can see this beautiful urban garden,” says Hoffman. “We’d be sad to see it go. It would definitely be a loss to the community.”

Horowitz, for his part, says he would consider a buyout offer from the city.

“I wouldn’t agree with their rationale for doing it, but if they wanted to pay fair market value for the property to solve what they foresee is a problem, I wouldn’t stand in the way,” he says.

Meanwhile, the South Central Farmers are appealing to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has visited the site with his family, and to members of City Council, while they gear up for civil disobedience when and if the eviction comes.

“I’ve been so busy organizing I haven’t had time to eat my own produce,” says Tezozomoc, snatching sweet guavas off a tree planted by his dad. “I just want this place saved so I can get back to farming, get back to school, pay some bills. But this fight’s a long way from over.”


1-26-05

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I Ain't No Millionaire's Son

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Former Bush Aide Charged in Felony Theft
Claude Allen had recently resigned as White House domestic-policy adviser.
By Rachel Shteir
Updated Friday, March 10, 2006, at 5:44 PM ET



When Claude Allen, President Bush's longtime domestic-policy adviser, resigned suddenly on Feb. 9, it baffled administration critics and fans. The White House claimed that Allen was leaving to spend more time with his family, while the Washington Times speculated that the 45-year-old aide, a noted social conservative, might have quit to protest a new Pentagon policy about military chaplains. Allen himself never publicly explained the reason for his departure.

News today may shed light on the mystery of Allen's resignation. According to the Montgomery County Police Department, Allen was arrested yesterday and charged in a felony theft and a felony theft scheme. According to a department press release, Allen conducted approximately 25 fraudulent "refunds" in Target and Hecht's stores in Maryland. On Jan. 2, a Target employee apprehended Allen after observing him receive a refund for merchandise he had not purchased. Target then contacted the Montgomery County Police. According to a source familiar with the case, Target and the police had been observing Allen since October 2005.

Allen is charged with practicing a form of shoplifting called "refund fraud."

In general, a refund-fraud scam goes like this: You purchase an item—a CD player, let's say—and leave the store with it. Then you come back to the store and pick up exactly the same CD player; you take the CD player and receipt from the original purchase to the returns desk, claiming that this is the item you bought, and get a refund for it. You keep the original CD player, and pay nothing. Professional shoplifters like refund fraud because it's relatively safe. Since you never actually steal an object from the store, no one can chase you out to the parking lot. According to Richard Hollinger, a professor at the University of Florida-Gainesville and the author of the only yearly survey on retail theft, figures vary but "some say that figures lost to refund fraud reach $16 billion a year."

According to the department, Allen sought refunds for more than $5,000 in the past year. Allen allegedly stole items as expensive as a Bose theater system and a photo printer. Theft of more than $500 is a felony in Maryland.

Allen was released on his own recognizance. A message left at his home was not returned by the time of publication.

Rachel Shteir is working on a book about shoplifting in America.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2137895/
Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC