http://www.bornblackmag.com/Leonard-Peltier-Case.html
By Carolina Saldaña
June 2009, Issue 6, Born Black Magazine
The Message
Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity.
But silence is impossible.
Silence screams.
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act.
Let who you are ring out and resonate
in every word and deed.
Yes, become who you are.
There's no sidestepping your own being
or your own responsibility.
What you do is who you are.
You are your own comeuppance.
You become your own message.
You are the message.
In the spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier
34 years behind bars!
Native American artist, writer, and activist Leonard Peltierone of
the most widely recognized political prisoners in the worldhas
spent more than 32 years in some of the cruelest prisons in the
United States , unjustly condemned to a double life sentence for the
shooting death of two FBI agents in 1975. His situation is now
aggravated by health problems.
At the age of 63, he keeps right on struggling for the rights of
indigenous people from his cell in the federal prison at Lewisburg ,
Pennsylvania . He's contributed to the establishment of libraries,
schools, scholarships, and battered women's shelters among many other
projects. In February of 2008, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize for the fifth consecutive year.
"My crime's being an Indian. What's yours?"
In his autobiography My Life Is My Sun Dance, Leonard explains that
his bloodline is mainly Ojibway and Dakota Sioux and that he was
adopted by the Lakota Sioux and raised on their reservations "in the
land known to you as America....but I don't consider myself an American."
"I know what I am. I am an Indian--an Indian who dared to stand up to
defend his people. I am an innocent man who never murdered anyone nor
wanted to. And, yes, I am a Sun Dancer. That, too, is my identity. If
I am to suffer as a symbol of my people, then I suffer proudly. I
will never yield."
Leonard tells us that when he was nine years old a big black
government car drove up to his house to take him and the other kids
away to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding school in
Wahpeton, Dakota del Norte. When they got there, they cut off their
long hair, stripped them, and doused them with DDT powder.
"I thought I was going to die...that place...was more like a
reformatory than a school...I consider my years at Wahpenton my first
imprisonment, and it was for the same crime as all the others: being
an Indian."
He goes on to say that "We had to speak English. We were beaten if we
were caught speaking our own language. Still, we did....I guess
that's where I became a "hardened criminal," as the FBI calls me. And
you could say that the first infraction in my criminal career was
speaking my own language. There's an act of violence for you....The
second was practicing our traditional religion."
When Leonard Peltier was a teen-ager, President Eisenhower launched a
program to eliminate the reservations and move the people off, giving
them a small payment. Leonard remembers that the words "termination"
and "dislocation" became the most feared words in the people's
vocabulary. The process of fighting against dislocation was his first
experience as an activist.
During the 60s, Leonard worked as a farm worker and, later, in an
auto body shop in Seattle . At that time he got his first taste of
community organizing. At the beginning of the 70s, he joined up with
the American Indian Movement (AIM), initially inspired by the Black Panthers.
In 1972, he participated in the Trail of Broken Treaties, a march /
caravan from Alcatraz in California to Washington D.C. , and also in
the occupation of the BIA in the nation's capital. He became a target
of the FBI program to "neutralize" AIM leaders and was set up and
jailed at the end of the year.
1973: The Occupation of Wounded Knee
One of AIM's boldest actions was the occupation of the village of
Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation, the same place where the
United States Army carried out its cowardly, infamous massacre of 300
Lakota people in 1890.
At the beginning of the 70s, AIM was getting together with the Lakota
Indians who were true to their ancient traditions and wanted to hold
on to their culture and their lands.
The BIA, worried about AIM's growing influence in the area, imposed
Dick Wilson as tribal chairman on the reservation, running roughshod
over the will of the traditional elders and chiefs.
The puppet Wilson hated the AIM militants and allied himself with the
FBI to destroy the movement that the agency saw as a threat to the
American way of life. His paramilitary group known as the "GOONS"
(Guardians of the Oglala Nation) had committed a long chain of abuses
against the people.
On the night of February 27, around 300 Lakota and 25 AIM members
occupied the town of Wounded Knee, joined by several Chicanos, Black,
and white supporters. They opposed the murders of Native Americans on
the reservation, the extreme poverty that the people lived in, and
the corrupt tribal government. They demanded that the government
respect the ancient treaties signed with native peoples to protect
their territory and autonomy.
The next day, General Alexander Haig ordered an invasion. According
to Ward Churchill and Jim Vanderwall in their book Agents of
Repression, "In the first instance since the Civil War that the U.S.
Army had been dispatched in a domestic operation, the Pentagon
invaded Wounded Knee with 17 armored personnel carriers, 130,000
rounds of M-16 ammunition, 41,000 rounds of M-1 ammunition, 24,000
flares, 12 M-79 grenade launchers, 600 cases of C-S gas, 100 rounds
of M-40 explosives, helicopters, phantom jets, and personnel, all
under the direction of General Alexander Haig."
The operation also relied on 500 heavily armed policemen, federal
marshals, and BIA and FBI agents. They surrounded Wounded Knee and
set up barricades all along the road.
The occupation lasted 71 days and ended only after the government
promised to investigate the complaints, something that never happened.
The next three years were known as the "reign of terror" on Pine
Ridge. More than 300 people associated with AIM were violently
attacked and many of their homes were burned. During these years more
than 60 Native American people were killed by paramilitaries armed
and trained by the FBI. There was also an increase of FBI SWAT team
agents on the reservation.
It's now known, as a result of a suit based on the Freedom of
Information Act, that AIM activities on and off the reservation were
under FBI surveillance and that the FBI was preparing the
paramilitary operations on Pine Ridge a month before the shootout at Oglala.
Oglala: The fatal shootout
In a situation that was getting worse all the time, the Council of
Elders on the Jumping Bull ranch near the town of Oglala asked AIM to
come back to the reservation to protect them. Leonard Peltier, along
with many other AIM members and non-members responded to the call and
set up camp on the ranch.
On June 26, 1975, two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ron Williams,
followed a red pick-up truck onto the Jumping Bull ranch. They were
supposedly looking for young Jimmy Eagle, who was said to have stolen
a pair of cowboy boots.
A shootout began between the FBI agents and the people in the
pick-up, trapping a family in the crossfire. Several mothers fled the
area with their children while other people fired in self-defense.
More than150 FBI SWAT team members, BIA police, and GOONS surrounded
approximately 30 AIM men, women, and children and opened fire.
Leonard Peltier helped a group of young people to escape from the
rain of bullets.
When the shootout ended, AIM member Joseph Killsright Stuntz was
found dead, shot in the head. His death has never been investigated.
Coler and Williams were wounded during the shootout and then killed
at point blank range. The two agents had in their possession a map
with the Jumping Bull ranch marked on it.
According to FBI documents, more than forty Native Americans
participated in the shootout, but only four were charged with killing
the two agents: three AIM leadersDino Butler, Bob Robideau, and
Leonard Peltier and Jimmy Eagle.
Butler and Robideau were the first to be arrested, and at their trial
they stated that they had fired in self-defense. The jury believed
the act was justified due to the atmosphere of terror that prevailed
at Pine Ridge at the time. They were both found innocent.
The FBI was furious about the verdict and dropped the charges against
Jimmy Eagle, according to their memos, "...in order to direct the
full weight of
the prosecution on Peltier.
Meanwhile, Leonard Peltier went to Canada , believing that he would
never have a fair trial. On February 6, he was arrested and then
extradited to the United States due to the statement of a woman named
Myrtle Poor Bear, who said she had been his girlfriend and had seen
him fire at the agents. As a matter of fact, she had never known him
and was not present at the time of the shootout. In a later
statement, she said that she had been coerced into giving false
testimony as a result of being terrorized by FBI agents.
Two life sentences!?
The only evidence against Leonard Peltier was the fact that he was
present at the Jumping Bull ranch during the fatal shoot-out. These
are just a few examples of the injustice of the trial:
-The case wasn't brought before the judge who had presided over the
trial of Robideau and Butler , but instead before another judge with
a reputation for making decisions favorable to the prosecution.
-Myrtle Poor Bear and other important witnesses were forbidden to
testify about FBI misconduct.
-Testimony about the "reign of terror" on the Pine Ridge Reservation
was severely limited.
-Important evidence, such as conflicting ballistic reports, was
deemed inadmissible.
-The red pick-up that had been followed onto the ranch was suddenly
described as Peltier's "red and white van."
-The jury was isolated and surrounded by federal marshals, making
jurors believe that AIM was a security threat to them.
-Three young Native Americans were forced to give false testimony
against Peltier after having been arrested and terrorized by FBI agents.
-The prosecutor couldn't produce a single witness who could identify
Peltier as the shooter.
-The government said that a cartridge found near the bodies was fired
from the presumed murder weapon, and alleged that this was the only
pistol of its kind used during the shootout and that it belonged to Peltier.
As a result of the Freedom of Information Act suit, FBI documents
turned over to the defense showed that:
1. More than one weapon of the type attributed to Peltier had been
present at the scene. 2. The FBI intentionally hid the ballistics
report showing that the cartridge could not have come from the
presumed murder weapon.
3. There was no doubt whatsoever that the agents followed a red
pick-up onto the territory, and not the red and white van driven by Peltier.
4. Strong evidence against several other suspects existed and was withheld.
None of this evidence was presented to the jury that found Leonard
Peltier guilty. He was given two consecutive life sentences.
Two consecutive life sentences?! How do they plan to implement that?
Doesn't the sentence reflect a deep fear of the spirit of Crazy Horse?
Bill Clinton: at the service of the FBI
A new trial was sought after several of these abuses came to light.
During one hearing, the federal prosecutor admitted that "...we
can't prove who shot the agents". The court realized that Peltier
could have been found innocent if the evidence hadn't been unduly
withheld by the FBI, but a new trial was denied on the basis of
technical errors.
The former Leonard Peltier Defense Committee stated:
"In 1993, Peltier requested Executive Clemency from President Bill
Clinton. An intensive campaign was launched and supported by Native
and human rights organizations, members of Congress, community and
church groups, labor organizations, luminaries, and celebrities. Even
Judge Heaney, who authored the court decision [denying a new trial],
expressed firm support for Peltier's release. The Peltier case had
become a national issue.
On November 7, 2000, during a live radio interview, Clinton stated
that he would seriously consider Peltier's request for clemency and
make a decision before leaving office on January 20, 2001.
In response, the FBI launched a major disinformation campaign in both
the media and among key government officials. Over 500 FBI agents
marched in front of the White House to oppose clemency. On January
20, the list of clemencies granted by Clinton was released to the
media. Without explanation, Peltier's name had been excluded."
Current defence efforts
Mr. Peltier has recently applied for and been granted a parole
hearing. The hearing is scheduled for July 27, 2009.
The recent efforts of the defense team have been focused on obtaining
thousands of documents that are still being retained by the FBI,
around 142,579 pages according to Peltier's legal team which brought
a new suit against the FBI in Minnesota in March of this year. Of
particular interest are documents dealing with the extent to which
the Federal Bureau of Investigation paid informants to infiltrate
Leonard Peltier's defense team. Alleging that the information would
reveal confidential sources, harm national security and impede the
transnational "war on terrorism", the FBI has refused to release the
documents that would reveal their illegal activities on Pine Ridge
and the continued violations of Leonard Peltier's basic human rights.
Petitions are also being circulated urging George W. Bush to grant
clemency for Leonard Peltier and urging Congress to investigate FBI
misconduct on Pine Ridge and the "reign of terror" that existed
between 1973 and 1976.
Furthermore, preparations are now underway for an important Parole
Hearing scheduled for December of 2008, which should be a focus of an
international campaign in the coming months. There is absolutely no
legitimate reason to continue to hold Leonard Peltier in prison. If
he is not granted clemency or does not win parole this year, he will
not have another Parole Hearing until 1917.
On the cultural front, sponsors, donations, and spaces are being
sought for a series of stage productions of My Life is My
Sundance. Co-author Harvey Arden describes the play starring Lakota
actor and singer Doug Good Feather, as a "soul-transforming
theatrical experience that is a living expression of his own words,
his own pain, his own dreams --as well as the suffering and dreams of
his People." To help organize a performance, see
http://www.mylifeismysundance.com.
In a recent letter Leonard said: "If my case stands as it is, no
common person has real freedom. Only the illusion until you have
something the oppressors want....
In the spirit of Crazy Horse, who never gave up."
Let's don't let it stand as it is.
What will you do?
Write a letter to Leonard:
Leonard Peltier # 89637-132
USP Lewisburg
US Penitentiary
PO BOX 1000
Lewisburg , Pennsylvania 17837
.
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