A missed chance for compassion

Commentary

A missed chance for compassion

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20090914_A_missed_chance_for_compassion.html

An American Indian activist is denied parole. The sad fact: Nobody notices.

By David Biddle
Sep. 14, 2009

Saturday was Leonard Peltier's 65th birthday, and he has spent almost
half his life in jail.

Peltier, an American Indian Movement (AIM) activist, has been in
prison since 1977, found guilty of executing two FBI agents during a
shootout at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

His case is marred by allegations of witness coercion, judicial fiat,
FBI incompetence, and an anti-Indian vigilante mentality. Those of us
who followed the militant days of AIM waited hopefully on July 28 for
the parole commission to determine whether Peltier had finally paid
his dues to society.

Federal parole eligibility for life sentence offenders does not mean
freedom or exoneration; it means serving the remainder of a life
sentence under supervision of one's community. Eric Seitz, Peltier's
attorney, said that his client spoke for more than an hour with
"great eloquence . . . we thought it went very well."

Peltier represents one of America's most complex and controversial
face-offs between the law-and-order perspective and minority
community rights. June 26, 1975, was the culmination of a three-year
mini-war between traditionalist and assimilationist factions on the
reservation. The assimilationists were using vigilante enforcers to
terrorize the traditionalists. AIM, a nationally recognized Indian's
rights group that used civil disobedience - and, in those days,
weapons - was called in to protect the traditionalists.

The details of that day are twisted now in myth, legend, and
distortion - on both sides. We know that two young FBI agents, Jack
Coler and Ronald Williams, followed a truck in separate cars onto the
Jumping Bull compound and that the truck's occupants eventually
jumped out and opened fire on the agents from high ground. Both
agents were wounded in this first volley. The truck occupants were
joined by a number of AIM members staying in tents on the compound.
All were armed, many with high-powered rifles.

Some time after wounding the agents, Peltier and two other AIM
members went down to the cars. This is where the story gets twisted
up. The government prosecuted Peltier using circumstantial evidence
to prove he executed the agents at point-blank range. Peltier and
others who were there that day say the agents had already been shot.
An AIM member was also killed in the shootout. His death was never
investigated. There is no question that this was a senseless,
destructive scene arising out of a time of great frustration and fear.

On Aug. 21, we learned that Peltier had been denied parole. The
Associated Press offered a brief synopsis of the decision, but few
mainstream publications printed this. Most national broadcast outlets
posted the AP story online, but offered no TV or radio coverage.

How could Peltier's parole hearing not stir the national media into
at least a small frenzy? Forget which side is right. The outcome of
that hearing was real news. Peltier's case is the most poignant and
powerful reminder of what this society has done to Indian tribes for
nearly half a millennium - also what Indians have done to themselves.
And we choose, sadly, to ignore all of this.

To grant Peltier parole was an opportunity, albeit very small, for
the United States to begin to turn the page on its history with
Native America - to show mercy and compassion. Why was this
opportunity not news?

But even the denial of parole was a story: law and order trumps human
rights; punishment vs. rehabilitation; forgetting the FBI's dark
record; one man's political prisoner is another's thug.

What does virtually ignoring this case say about the media? About us
as a nation? Do we just not care? Is all that Indian stuff now just
water under the bridge?

Media companies are very concerned about profits these days. Maybe if
there were more concern about covering issues that no one knows
about, rather than issues where everyone thinks he knows everything,
people would buy more papers.

.